Corporations and Managers

Abstract

The most outstanding feature of the economic enterprise in the pre-industrial era is the close interdependency between the family on the one hand and economic activities on the other. This interdependency is most apparent in the case of the peasant farm which produces for its own consumption and is organised around the patriarchal family. That is to say, family members work under the direction of the patriarchal head and the principles of kinship, backed by tradition and custom, determine who does what and how, as well as what each is entitled to receive in return. Family members under this system are not paid in the modern sense of receiving wages but get back in kind — food, a place to live, access to land and to the labour of others — some customarily laid-down equivalent for their efforts. In fact not only are family and economic roles closely interlinked but more generally one’s position in a given kinship group tends to determine the character of social relationships in all areas of social life: not only whom you work with and how labour is performed, but whom you associate closely with, befriend, spend your leisure with, marry, worship with and can look to for support of various kinds. The process of development and modernisation is essentially one in which family roles become separated or differentiated from other social and economic roles.