EVERYTHING HELPS THE OVERCLASS

NOBLES' SUPERIORITY IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED BECAUSE ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE REINFORCE IT  

Rising commoners often use their revenues to purchase a title, acquire land to which a title is attached or marry their daughters to lords seeking dowries. Such practices siphon off investible profits, slowing capitalism's rise.

As well: nobles...

• Lead a hierarchy thought willed by God. 

• Hold the main positions in the State, the Church and especially the army. 

 

• Are exempted from most taxes.

• Control sales taxes and tolls, often gifts from the king. 

 

• Monopolize hunting, fight duels only between themselves, may alone purchase the most luxurious wares (which explains the location of the modern garment center).

• Have identifying liveries for servants, a coat of arms, a reserved pew at church and often a name whose prefix "de" indicates nobility (it is still considered a joli nom, "pretty name").

• Are ceremoniously decapitated and buried if condemned of crime, while bodies of ignominiously hanged commoners remain on the gallows until they decompose.

  Executions of a noble (zoom) and a commoner (zoom)

• Own gibbets. The gibbets themselves show rank by the number of beams from which to hang the condemned (two to eight, the king having nine). The corpse of the highest-born (commoner) victim hangs from the top.

• Might lead popular revolts because of their prestige and because they are trained to fight. Royals legitimize rebellions by heading them.

• The French word for "bad" — villain — originally meant "peasant," and we still say "noble" and "ignoble."

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The valet Figaro's famous question to his noble master, "What have you done for all that wealth? You took the trouble to be born! Whereas I..." shows that at the end of the 18th century that belief was changing.

-- Figaro's question, The Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais, 1778

So was the economy.   

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In our society of advanced capitalism, everything is monetized. Competition rather than solidarity is at the heart of our culture, "success" usually means financial success, we are consumers rather than citizens and may even see ourselves as "brands." 

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Next,

II.6.3.

 Allegory as weapon