The History of Western Economies - Research Paper

The Definition Of Feudalism According To Strayer And The Criticism It Received In Light Of The Work Of Hintz

The feudal life in Europe was a defining moment in medieval Europe that has broadly been discussed and explained through an extensive range of feudalism literature. The feudal society came into rise following the fall of the Roman Empire, giving Europeans the power to fight against the foreign invaders who looted the various kingdoms of Europe. The European feudalism was primarily a mode of a political, economic system that flourished between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, which was characterized by the practices of structuring the society according to relationships established from land holdings in exchange for labor or specific services (Brenner, 2006). Essentially, feudalism in Europe was mainly as a result of power decentralization of the Empires which led to massive land holdings by the kings who ultimately became nobility splitting the land into fiefs and vassals. For instance, the citizens or the peasants who stayed in the lands belonging to the landowners were ranked the lowest within the social strata. As a result, certain classes of people, for example, the nobles, royalty, and kings hugely advocated for and like feudalism way of life while others such as the slaves and serfs were against and did not support feudalism.

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However, the literature of feudalism, though it has provided a detailed explanation of the term feudalism, the way of life it describes and its significant characteristics such as the demense, manor, castles, and the knight, it does not give a convincing description of the feudalism system. The lack of ability to adequately define feudalism can largely be attributed to the attempt of encapsulating too much into only a single term. A classic or broader definition is provided by the economic historian namely Joseph Strayer, who wrote an entire work concerning Feudalism, where he describes Feudalism as a type of government or a political dominion (Strayer, 1965). In particular, it is a form of rule whereby the political supremacy is substantially distributed geographically such that the monopoly of legislative authority, as well as privately holding power by the political leaders, is strongly prohibited even within the smallest governmental units. Therefore, the power efficiency is inherited and in turn be subdivided amongst the heirs as a mortgage or a marriage portion. Strayer further emphasizes that in a feudal society, a well-armed cavalry that is more secured via private contracts is a central element of the armed forces in which the military services can be exchanged for substantive benefits (Strayer, 1965). This definition, therefore, puts a large amount of emphasis on splintering of the public and political power primarily because Strayer had a firm believe that the systematized feudal institutions along with their customs were well-suited the creation of great governmental units, which he considered to be noticeable antecedents of the modern nation-states.

Additionally, Strayer's definition of Feudalism has received a lot of criticism from various scholars in history. For instance, in his work "Nature of Feudalism," Hintze defines the term feudalism in a way that it disapproves the earlier description of feudalism By Strayer. Hintze presents feudalism as an ideal phase of a social formation but not limited to the medieval west. According to his definition, feudalism is significantly associated with four significant attributes which include, the fragmentation of the political authority, ties of dependence, subject peasantry, and feudal military organization. In a complete definition, he assumes feudalism as a form of society that is a subject to people with the widespread service tenement application rather than a salary, ties of obedience that binds man together within the specialized warrior in a distinctive form known as vassalage and the disintegration of political power that led to inevitable disorder even in other types of association like state and families during the feudal age. However, in a middle of all this debate regarding the definition of the terms feudalism, my stand is on feudalism as a form of political system where the entire society was ruled by set legal and military obligations whereby the social hierarchy was determined according to the land holdings. More specifically, and from an extensive range of scholars research the feudal structure consisted of kings whose primary role was to issue land grants to the nobles who then handed over the land to the lords. The peasants were then given work to cultivate on the lands whereas both the nobles and lords assisted in wars and assured their allegiance to the king. The social status of the various classes in the society was therefore based on the pieces of land that one had (Brenner, 2006).

Smith's And Ricardo's Theories of Values

The term theory of value is commonly used in economics to profoundly explain the exchange value or the prices of goods and services. The theories of values are therefore founded on the fundamental question of what typically constitutes the value or price of a product or rather what renders the value of a product (Caravale & Tosato, 2013). In the view of this, there was two renowned and classical political economics who offered a critical explanation of theories of value in their attempt to investigate the origin of profit as well as the major forces that determine the economic development of a nation. In essence, Smith's theory of value served as a substantial basis of Ricardo's theory of value. Theory of value was indeed a significant result of Smith's effort to theorize and describe the concept of capital accumulation. Ideally, Smith's primary interest was in defining the nature and the wealth determinants of a nation putting more emphasis on the factors that determined economic development and the practical policies in enhancing economic growth. Ricardo's primary principle of economics, on the other hand, was to identify the laws that control the income distribution among the laborers, landlords, and capitalists (Caravale & Tosato, 2013). However, both scholars emphasized on profit as the only valuable source of capital accumulation, and thus the economy of a nation continues to develop concerning the capital accumulation.

Throughout his work, Smith mainly focused his studies on political economy by evaluating simple concepts like demand, the division of labor and supply. In analyzing the society, Smith concluded that each laborer in a civilized society depends on the work of others, implying that social-economic relations are controlled and regulated by the division of labor. It is from this implicit assumption that Smith discovered that many commodities revolve around a particular average value as a result of the prevalent division of labor (Foley, 2016). Adding upon the theory of value, Smith used an explicit assumption that the profit component associated with the price of a commodity does not have a proportional relationship with the amount of labor embodied in a product. To expand on this assumption, he provides an example of the land and capital that are no longer free goods such that the final price of a commodity should constitute of a return to the entrepreneur inform of profits and to the landowner as a rent.

According to Ricardo's theory of value is that products must have utility although their usefulness does not determine their value. In other words, the value of reproducible products is efficiently determined by the amount of labor used to produce them. Therefore an increase in the quantity of labor must increase the value of a product as every reduction should lower it (Caravale & Tosato, 2013). Ricardo argument concerning the relationship between labor and value of a commodity is different from that of Smith as he argues that the value of a product is not only determined by the labor expended on their production but also by the indirect labor bestowed on the tools and implements. He also argues that wages obtained from labor are substantial sources of economic value. The explicit assumption in this conclusion is that workers who use their salaries are the major contributors to the product value but not the owners of capital. However, a significant problem with Ricardo's perspective of the theory of value is that no changes in the wages of labor that would produce similar changes in the relative amounts of the commodities.

The Role Of Towns In Feudal Europe And The Institutional Arrangements That Embraced Such Role

In the early medieval ages, the economies and societies in Europe were mainly based on land ownership and agriculture. The nations were hugely subdivided into manors and feudal country estates dominated by the nobles and cultivated by peasants. However, in the next few centuries, several factors led to the fall of feudalism which in turn led to the growth of many towns. The crusades, for instance, played a prominent role whereby the lords before going to the war gave out some of their estates, and for those who didn't invent new ideas and products to trade and the trade increased, a considerable number of towns also emerged. With time, these towns developed into cities, and by 1200CE the number of towns within Europe was approximately six hundred. Besides, most of the towns had cathedrals that enormously attracted the Christian pilgrims and also the merchants.

The principal role of these towns was thus to facilitate the growth of trade and commerce that had hugely increased flowing the fall of a regime that mainly emphasized on land ownership and power authority. The most noteworthy activities that were carried out in these towns include businesses that sold products such as perfumes, spices, and oils that were brought in from other countries. Craftwork, millers, bakery, and carpentry workshops were also practiced whereby some of the institutional arrangements that embraced such roles in feudal Europe where the grouping of people within similar interest into organizations referred to as guilds including craft guild, merchants guilds, millers guilds, churches and chapels where people went to worship after their business. The growth of population, as well as the increase in the number of companies, was the essential preconditions that caused the rice of urban centers in England during the 18th and 19th centuries that also significantly led to the movement in the industrial revolution (Law, 1967). As a result of these preconditions, most people were forced to migrate from rural areas to the urban centers where they would best practice their business activities.

References

Brenner, R. (2006). Feudalism. In Marxian Economics (pp. 170-185). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Smith, L. S. (2017). The Expert's Historian: Otto Hintze and the Nature of Modern Historical Thought. Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Strayer, J. R. (1965). Feudalism (Vol. 86). D. Van Nostrand Cy.

Law, C. M. (1967). The growth of urban population in England and Wales, 1801-1911. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 125-143.

Caravale, G. A., & Tosato, D. A. (2013). Ricardo and the theory of value distribution and growth. Routledge.

Foley, D. K. (2016). Recent developments in the labor theory of value. Review of Radical Political Economics, 32(1), 1-39.