I am considering a story where a group of human colonists looking to colonize an alien world come across another human society on an alien world on the other side of a wormhole. The colonists crash land on this world after an incident and discover this society. As it turns out, the humans on this world are actually descendants of many people abducted from earth by alien "overlords" over the course of several millennia seeking to use them for a social experiment.

The purpose of said experiential was to see how these people, from various regions of earth and time, would interact with each other over the course of these millennia. Fast forward in time and these humans and their descendants have populated this world, known as Rhye, and have become rather technologically advanced, say beginning of twentieth century Earth, but with some near future technology. Keep in mind this tech is at least one-two hundred years behind the tech the colonists have. The colonists, however, despite their shock to see this human society on this world, discover that these people basically recreated Earth. There are nations, borders, wars and even a UN often referred to as the "Planetary Council".

But what really catches their attention is the fact that these humans, given the different eras of human history they came from, have developed a medieval democratic feudal society where social class and upbringing determines your status but extensive capitalism and representative governments are still a thing. The governments are typically run by the more wealthy and superior classes. Social rank is predetermined by birth but one can work their way out of or into another class if they choose. But they get one opportunity. There are Templars, military orders that protect the nation's and kingdoms; but at the same time there are republics, modern government branches, air forces, armies, navies, and even space agencies.

So my question is as follows: Is a Democratic-Feudal society a stable society? Please let me know if I need to add anything detail wise if you need clarification.

Define feudalism

When you say "feudal," what do you actually mean?

Feudalism is defined by Brittanica as

the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe
during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th
and 12th centuries.

There were basically no democratic systems that existed during that time period, and limited republican systems, so by a strict definition of feudalism, the answer is a clear "No". Since there were no democratic polities that existed in Western Europe in the 5th to 12th centuries, democratic-feudalism is an oxymoron.

Do you want "feudalism" or a class stratified society with voting?

If you want the latter, then there are plenty of examples to go around.

• In the strict medieval period of Western Europe, though mostly later than the 12th century, the Venetian Republic operated with limited male suffrage, as did several other city-states of Italy, such as Florence.


• A less republican Late Medieval variant was the Golden Liberty of Poland, where only the nobles got to vote. This process proceeded somewhat slowly, but a landmark was the 1505 Nihil Novi an act forbidding the King from passing laws without the consent of the Sejm.


• The paragon of a democratic yet class-based society would be England. Democracy developed slowly from the Magna Carta. By the time of the English Civil War (1640s) and Glorious Revolution (1688), the authority of Parliament, even over the King, was well established. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 established free elections to the House of Commons. The electorate was reasonably open for most of the later Middle Ages. But, an 1432 law established eligibility as landowners who held more property worth 40 shillings of rent. While this did not de jure restrict women from voting, in practice custom forbade it.

But, note, universal male suffrage did not appear until the French revolution in 1792. The first country with permanent universal male suffrage was Greece in 1844; universal suffrage was first in New Zealand in 1893 (though some territories and states, like Wyoming, had it as far back as 1869). Without a revolutionary era as happened at the end of the 18th century on actual Earth, it is unlikely that suffrage would be universal, or ever extended to all men without property.

One important aspect of Feudalism, and why it came about in the first place, that is often overlooked from a modern viewpoint is that Feudalism is a two way social structure:

Those who are at the top and supported by those below them aren't originally up there looking out for purely their own self interest, but rather their role in society was to be that of protector and manager.

Lower classes swear loyalty to an upper class not because they were lowly dirt dwelling scum who got nothing out of it, but rather they swear loyalty in exchange for protection, peace, and organization.

"I work this land, give you part of my yearly labour, and otherwise support you, and you and all your buddies promise to help me live in peace and good health, and keep those far off foreigners from killing all the men and running off with the gold and women..." ["And maybe I'll help you go to those foreign lands to take their stuff..."]

(Consider this social construct to the modern "I promise to work for your company, and you promise to lay me off whenever you think that might help you buy a bigger house/yacht/jet/whatever." - Humanity is weird.)

So you have multiple ways to structure things:

• Do the lords and protectors get elected?


• Are there multiple layers of government, based on social class, with elected elements? [In human history we have any number of examples advisers elected to government representing various class levels.]


• A mix and match of elected/hereditary/religious titles?

At its heart, a democratic-feudal structure is no less stable than a democratic "Vote for me so I can plunder the nation for my four year term for my own/my friend's/family's benefit" politics we see today.

You can't have a feudal society and capitalism. Capitalism creates a plutocratic class that will fight against the feudal elite. If they fail the capitalism is crushed and feudalism remains. If they win, the feudal system is gone.

This happens because the social link in a capitalist society is money while in a feudal society are the oaths of fealty between the people. These two links can't coexist for long.

About democratic feudalism (but without capitalism): it can exist - the warlords may form noble republics where they elect their overlord and can veto decisions, something like the government of old Poland.

A feudal system can have an "electoral system": for instance, usually the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was elected by a council of the most important feudal lord

Usually, a feudal system (but it happens for every system featuring a ruling oligarchy by birth) goes into crisis when a bourgeoisie (commoners who are able to accumulate a considerable wealth) rises. These new riches basically want to have the right to join the administration of the power. It happened for instance in the ancient Rome, in Italy and North Europe during the rise of the communes, in the 18th century France

In the Middle Age, usually the people in the countryside were under the rule of the feudal lords, while the people living in the cities were free from feudal rules, and could become "owners of themselves" and start a work as artisans or merchants, creating an embryo of bourgeoisie and this way triggering the rise of communes in late Middle Age.

So, in my idea a possibility would be a partial feudal-democratic system: the society is divided into free cities (under democratic rule) and rural countries (under feudal rule). Feudal lords should of course follow the laws and treat well their subjects, in order not to lose their peasants. At the same time, people who don't like democracy or feel that they would live better under the protection of a ruler could leave the cities and become subjects of the feudal lords.

Every time the emperor dies or resigns, the feudal lords and the representatives of the cities would elect a new emperor.

The problem is that at some point, the industrial revolution will happen (it seems unavoidable, in order to reach a present-day-like development), which would create an unbalance in the equilibrium between country and city (basically, cities will start to exponentially accumulate wealth and population).

To keep the feudal system, we can speculate that a kind of subdivision would spontaneously be established (feudal lords could found their own factories, more efficient thanks to the feudal labor, but less innovative with respect to urban factories), that could live up to present day.

I could see all three of these factors dovetailing quite nicely (if you can use dovetail for 3 things...).

Feudalism

This gives us classes: lords, vassals, peasants, royalty, etc. At each level you receive different rights, privileges and responsibilities. Perhaps only lords can vote or maybe all classes can vote but only lords and royalty can own land. These distinctions are up to you and don't greatly impact the other two aspects.

Democracy

You don't vote for king! And maybe even prince, financial adviser or some number of lords. Again, there is a large amount of sway you can exert here depending on just how democratic you want your world to be.

Capitalism

Instead of marriage, knighthood or other methods of moving from class to class, you move up in rank with money. This isn't to say that you can become king this way as that still requires a vote (but money does tend to help with that). As you accumulate money you gain rights thanks to moving up in class. Poor peasant Bill Gates makes himself a lord of a minor or major kingdom (depending on where you draw the voting line).

All together you have what might look shockingly like our modern society except that we have King Trump and he doesn't just pretend to wield absolute power, he does and he's king for life. Instead of money allowing you to influence political decisions, it allows you to make them. Like all political systems, the flaws will become apparent the longer it's around and this system would by no means be perfect.

Feudalism has three main parts, lords, lands, and vassals. The lords own the lands and lords owe their loyalty to other lords supplying mutual military and economic support. The peasantry are tied to the land. Nothing says the lords can't be elected by the peasants they rule. Involving complex capitalism would make things a little more complex. A corporation might fit in with the lords, owning land and the workers on it while pledging loyalty to a lord or other corporation.

A strict social hierarchy is not necessarily a requirement of feudalism though.