The big distinction I'm familiar with is the direction of money flow. In hacienda systems the powerful ranch owners pay employees, who are free to move from place to place, whereas with feudal systems, serfs pay taxes to the nobles and have limited mobility. Still otherwise the Spanish hacienda systems seem really similar to European models of feudalism in terms of concentration of effective power. My preliminary research wasn't really able to turn up a good look into the similarities and differences but I would really like to understand both better. * [asked on DSL](https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,10247.new.html#new) 2023-10-20