# 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 ---