The worst argument in the world: http://squid314.livejournal.com/323694.html

"Feudalism is bad, so anything that can be vaguely compared to it must also be bad."

Well, depending on whether you consider the fief or the fealty pledge as the defining characteristic of feudalism, it's not a bad analogy. I get more annoyed when people conflate manorialism with feudalism. One is how the people survive, the other is how the lords of the manor (or city) are beholden to a higher power.

Feudalism, noun: A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.

The state has a right to a fixed share of its subjects' income due to the contractually agreed-upon system of taxation. This is what that whole "no taxation without representation" slogan was about.

Your connection of representative government to feudalism is puzzling. Are you a libertarian?

I don't think representative government was the issue, I think it was the nature of the state's power and influence. It is possible to have a majority opinion that is wrong, and a majority decided policy that is unjust. Surely arguing against the majority that has a policy of punishing dissent is a bad thing if you want to survive, but fortunately the majority still sort of values civil discourse, so we can talk like people solving problems instead of being partisans.

>And without the production of the individuals and businesses that exist in a society, the state would have no ability to skim off the top and spend that money.

Yes, because organizations are just collections of individuals. So of course an organization can't do anything without the action of individuals. Is anyone arguing otherwise?

> Believing in a higher entity with more rights than any individual is verging on something akin to feudalism.

There are many examples where groups of individuals have rights that are greater than the rights of individuals without bringing up feudalism.

No individual has the right to imprison another (for long periods at least). No individual has the right to use violence to enforce a contract. Do you imagine a society where individuals have those rights, or one where the state does not?

>which isn't "society", it is the governing body of a region of land)

No the state isn't society. In a democratically controlled system, the state is the proxy designated to act on behalf of society (the extent to which states actually fulfill this duty is highly variable).