Wealth Perception in the Preindustrial Era: Social and Value Aspects

Анотація

The article deals with the value system of wealth perception in the pre-industrial period of society development. It is proved that the basis of each formation model is presented by the idea of "social prestige", the meaning of which lies in labour and wealth. The change in the perception of wealth directly determines the specifics of public recognition and requital. The study proved that in the pre-industrial period of society development the equivalent of wealth was the number of cattle and, to a lesser extent, the amount of gold and property privately owned. At the same time, in the ancient Roman society wealth was understood as monetary, and land wealth or the person possessing capital, first of all, land was considered to be "rich man". The wealth of the Roman society was largely determined by the exploitation and depletion of the provinces’ economic life. Based on the analysis of the medieval social relations, it is shown that in the feudal society, wealth became a kind of indicator of generosity, greatheartedness, hospitality and valour of a feudal lord. The prestige and influence of a feudal lord was commensurate with his ability to bestow lands on vassals, arrange feasts, give alms and donate to the church, which resulted in an increased honour of chivalry as the main value in the moral code of medieval society. To our mind, in the urbanized space of the Middle Ages, the indicator of wealth was not landed property, but property obtained as a result of the development of commodity-monetary relations and embodied in coins. In this sense, money acted as a measure of different values and at the same time as an instrument of values transformation into other forms of social reality. Actually, money became a "softer" form of power, which was not associated with "feudal" dependence, virtually eliminated all explicit forms of slavery and created conditions for the development of qualitatively new historical types of society.

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