R.F. Tawney’s The Acquisitive Society is a hallmark of thinking about the moral economy, and this is not the first time that I have expressed any measure of sympathy and agreement for the criticism he makes of the present system, without necessarily approving of its consequential form of organisation.[1] In my last post, I covered some of the key aspects of Tawney’s thought; this post is dedicated to his definition of hierarchy’s role in property. At the outset, it must be noted that Tawney’s aristocratic politics have a remarkable salience with Alexis de Tocqueville’s, but there is a marked difference insofar as while both recognise the aristocracy to be functional, to be with an end, a purpose, Tocqueville is far more enraptured by it while Tawney’s praise is strongly qualified and is present as a conditional preference, not as a good in itself. I will first examine Tawney’s thoughts on aristocratic governance before comparing them with Tocqueville’s in The Ancien Régime.[2]