Breaking down the question

The command word is describe, but the pivot of the question is the phrase differing principles. The examiner wants a comparative account of how work is organised — how labour is recruited, bound, coordinated and rewarded — under two distinct modes of production: feudalism and capitalism.

The task is therefore not to narrate the history of either system but to isolate the principles that govern work in each: the basis of the labour relationship, the way surplus is extracted, the form of the division of labour, and the source of discipline over the worker.

Threads to develop:

  • The organising principle of feudal work — personal bondage, obligation and custom.
  • The organising principle of capitalist work — the free wage contract and the market.
  • The contrast in surplus extraction, discipline and the division of labour.

How to approach it

Open by stating that the organization of work reflects the wider mode of production, so the shift from feudalism to capitalism is a shift in the very principles that bind worker to producer. Frame the comparison around a few clear axes rather than listing features at random.

Draw on Marx for the contrast between extra-economic coercion in feudalism and the economic compulsion of the wage in capitalism, and on Weber for the rational, disciplined organisation of capitalist labour. Anchor the discussion in the note on the social organization of work.

Conclude that the two systems differ most fundamentally in the basis of the labour relationship — status and obligation in the one, contract and market in the other.

Model answer

The way a society organises work expresses its wider mode of production. Feudal and capitalist societies rest on sharply different principles, and the transition between them transformed how labour is recruited, bound, coordinated and rewarded.

In feudal society work is organised on the principle of personal bondage and customary obligation. The serf is tied to the land and to the lord by a hereditary status relationship, not a contract freely entered. Labour is compelled through extra-economic coercion — legal and customary obligation backed by the lord's authority — rather than through the market. Surplus is extracted directly and visibly, as labour service on the lord's demesne or as dues in kind, so the distinction between necessary and surplus labour is transparent. Production is largely for use within a self-sufficient manorial economy, the division of labour is simple, and the pace and rhythm of work follow the agricultural season and long-settled custom. The serf typically owns his tools and controls the labour process, however heavy his obligations.

In capitalist society work is organised on the principle of the free wage contract mediated by the market. The worker is legally free — free of feudal bondage but also free of the means of production — and therefore sells labour power for a wage. Compulsion is economic rather than personal: no lord commands the worker, but the need to earn a livelihood in a market where the means of production are privately owned drives one to seek employment. Surplus is extracted in a concealed form, as surplus value produced during hours for which the worker is not paid, so exploitation is masked by the apparent fairness of the wage bargain. Production is for exchange and profit, the division of labour is elaborate and detailed, and the labour process is subjected to rational, systematic discipline — the factory clock, supervision and the pursuit of efficiency that Weber saw as characteristic of rational capitalism. The worker, dispossessed of tools and product alike, experiences what Marx called alienation.

The principles thus differ along several axes. The basis of the relationship shifts from ascribed status and obligation to voluntary contract. The form of compulsion shifts from extra-economic coercion to the economic pressure of the market. Surplus extraction shifts from open labour rent to hidden surplus value. The division of labour deepens from simple to detailed, and the control of the labour process passes from the worker to the capitalist and the machine. Custom and season give way to rational calculation and the discipline of time.

In sum, feudal work is governed by personal bondage, custom and obligation, capitalist work by free contract, market compulsion and rational discipline. The change is not merely economic but a wholesale reorganisation of the social relations through which human labour is set to work.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners reward a genuinely comparative structure. A script that describes feudalism in one block and capitalism in another, without drawing the axes of contrast together, reads as two half-answers rather than one.

The analytically strong move is to name the organising principles explicitly — status versus contract, extra-economic versus economic compulsion, open versus concealed surplus extraction — and to support them with Marx and, on discipline, Weber. Candidates who introduce alienation and rationalisation with precision, rather than as slogans, signal command of the theory.

A common weakness is to slide into a moral contrast of "oppression then, freedom now"; the sharper point is that capitalist freedom is itself a form of compulsion. Kept concise and tightly comparative, such an answer secures the top band for a ten-marker.