lxii According to Giovanni Levi, "(…) such uniformity of behaviour, as a rule of social imitation, is not absolutely a pacific point. Actors need a reason to imitate. Medieval and modern societies were not stratified simply in function of their fortune or the legal barriers that defined statutes. Its segmentation was also based on the existence of cultures, survival strategies, and different forms of consumption. We should not imagine the bourgeoisie in search of an aristocratic model, workers in search of the bourgeois model, beggars in search of the paid employment model, etc. – at the risk of preventing ourselves from understanding the phenomenon of social mobility (...). In a society segmented into bodies, conflicts and solidarity frequently occurred between equals, these competed within a given segment, characterised by the existence of organised forms of consumption, that were hierarchical and intensely invested with symbolic values (...) To use an image, a beggar aspires first of all to be the king of the beggars rather than a poor trader". LEVI, Giovanni. "Comportamentos, recursos, processos: antes da ‘revolu?' do consumo". In REVEL, Jacques (Org.) Jogos de Escala. Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 1998, pp. 211-212.
