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# Retainers and Dependents System

## Definition

The pre-commercial social structure where great landowners maintained large
numbers of followers and dependents who received subsistence directly from the
landowner's bounty, creating a system of obligation and power based on the
landowner's ability to consume surplus agricultural produce locally.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 4

## Context

Smith describes this as the feudal system where landowners had nothing to
exchange their surplus produce for, so they consumed it through maintaining
retainers, creating a power structure based on direct subsistence provision
rather than market exchange.

## Economic Domain

Distribution

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