Smith’s “luxury hypothesis” seems to assert that the endless violence of the feudal era ended with the appearance of luxury goods. This view holds that feudal lords had nothing to do with their wealth but to wage war—no other markets were available to them. As luxury goods became available, the lords dropped their weapons and disbanded their armies so that they could buy more luxury goods. The traditional account has causality going from the appearance of luxury goods to the lords disbanding their armies. On my approach, ubiquitous violence under feudalism implies that the causal logic in this account goes from the logic of violence to the gradual and sequential appearance of luxury goods to ending violence near the towns and cities, but not in the agrarian hinterland.
