From Feudal Honour to Bourgeois Reputation. Ideology,Law and the Rise of Industrial Capitalism

Abstract

IN a recent paper, Berger et al argue that traditional concepts of honour and reputation have been eroded as a consequence of subjective adaptations to modern industrial society. However, historical analysis of English libel laws suggests that honour and reputation are ideological elements whose contents are broadly specified by distinct modes of production. Thus feudal honour was an aristocratic class ideology which was necessarily transformed by the rise of commodity relations. Moreover, subsequent commodification of honour in English law derives from and reflects the emergence of capitalist forces rather than more general forces of modernization. The corollary of this observation is that in modern socialist laws, honour and reputation differ substantially from the parallel concepts in English and United States law, strongly reflecting a specifically socialist ideology.

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