Feudalism is an entirely different beast and either didn't exist or had minor global presence throughout the whole period you listed. Even listing the ancient Achaemenid Empire for example would make more sense in this context.
How would you describe the post-Carolingian economic organization of Europe?
What I was casting about for was the earliest example of innovation-suppressing economic subordination by force, over a wide area.
The Achaemenid (or later Abbasid) seem have featured more individual freedom, with regards to innovation, and less maximally-taxing policy to redirect economic output to ostensible land owners.
If your contention is that feudalism is an inaccurate lense through which to view medieval Europe, then okay.
But the taxing and redirection of excess economic output, accomplished through ownership and lending of land, leading to an underperforming history of innovation, seems borne out by the history of Europe, regardless of the intricacies or framework through which it's viewed.
And that seems pretty on point for exactly what everyone is decrying with regards to consolidation into conglomerates in the tech sector.
