> Feudalism is a term often used to describe the social, economic and political conditions that existed in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. At its core, it was a system in which a landowner, or lord, granted a piece of land called a fief to a subordinate known as a vassal. In return, the vassal pledged loyalty to the lord, providing labor, military service, payments—or a mix of these.

And then the next paragraph goes on to say that historians think this is way too simple to describe what real people were actually doing.

Either way, unless every single piece of property in the kingdom (including, like, plows and mill stones and spinning wheels) was granted by the king (or someone he had granted to) it seems like there's still a lot of room for buying/selling/investing.

I mean, it's an interesting answer but my basic point is that the "real world" is far too complex for a term like capitalism to be at all useful.

Even stuff like "free market", can a market be "free" if a government exists? What about monopolies? Etc etc.

I just want people to be more specific when they criticize systems!