The Covenant and the patriarchal economy

Abstract

All human activity and its social relationship are incorporated in the economy. The economy of one social group are related with means of production, circulation and consuming of goods (K. Polanyi). The circulation of goods is a process of transference of products (trade). The transference depend upon the value determined to each good. According to some economic theories, the value of a product is associated to its utility and capacity of purchase: “use value” and “exchange value” (Adam Smith); and also is related to the work spended, then “the work is the first price of a good” (K. Marx). It not must be ignored the “value of meaning” of a object (Vautsaki). In the study of the economy of ancient societies, in general, are applied the two first theories. But in patriarchal society, rules a economy based in the “value of meaning” of goods. That meaning has its principle in the “covenant” beetwen God and the patriarch Abraham. In the patriarchal period, the meaning of the “covenant” is the principle in which the economy is based because this gives the value to the goods. The relationship beetwen the “covenant” and the patriarchal economy, is manifested in the distribution of goods that occur into three spheres: The sphere of the right, of the prestige and of the subsistence. In the sphere of the right the circulation of goods occur in the marriage. In the sphere of prestige, occur in the primogeniture and the transference of the land. In the sphere of subsistence, goods are transfered in the hospitality, social engagement, protection to the needy (laws of protection), Sabbathical year, family institutions such as the Jubilee, the levirate and the rule of the ransomer. Based in the “covenant”, the economy of the patriarchal period, set up a kind of society unique in the history (the patriarchal society) where a circulation of goods is not accomplished by means of purchase and sale. That means that in this society, nobody purchase and nobody sale.