Breaking down the question
The command word is "distinguish", so the answer must be built as a comparison, drawing out the contrasts between how work is organised under feudalism and under capitalism. A descriptive account of each in isolation, without explicit points of difference, will not satisfy the question.
"Social organisation of work" is the key phrase: it directs you beyond the mere technical process to the social relationships within which work is performed — who controls it, on what terms labour is given, how it is rewarded, and how it is bound to status and obligation. The social organization of work shifts fundamentally between the two orders.
At 10 marks, a crisp comparison along a few clear axes — property, the labour relation, motivation, mobility and the division of labour — is the efficient structure.
How to approach it
Begin with a one-line statement that the transition from feudal to capitalist work marks a shift from personal bonds of obligation to impersonal contractual exchange.
Then compare the two systems along consistent axes: the basis of the labour relationship, control over the means of production, the form of reward, the binding of work to social status, and the character of the division of labour. Keeping the same axes for both sides makes the distinction sharp.
Close with a brief note on what the transition meant sociologically — the commodification of labour and the freeing of the worker in Marx's double sense — to add analytical weight.
Model answer
The organisation of work in feudal and capitalist societies differs so fundamentally that the transition between them is often taken as the hinge of modern social history. The contrast can be drawn along several connected dimensions.
The first difference lies in the basis of the labour relationship. In feudal society work was organised through personal bonds of obligation and status. The serf was tied to the land and to a lord, owing labour services, rent in kind or a share of produce as part of a hereditary, customary relationship sanctioned by tradition and often by religion. The bond was diffuse and lifelong, embracing the whole person rather than a defined task. Under capitalism, by contrast, work rests on an impersonal, contractual relationship. The worker is legally free and sells labour power to an employer for a wage under a specific, terminable contract. The tie is narrow, calculative and temporary, confined to the terms of employment.
The second difference concerns control over the means of production. In feudalism the direct producer, the peasant, typically had access to land and tools and produced largely for subsistence and for the lord's demands, retaining possession of the means of his labour even while owing dues. Capitalism separates the worker from the means of production: the capitalist owns the factory, machinery and materials, and the propertyless worker owns only labour power. This separation is decisive, for it compels the worker to sell that labour power in order to live.
The third difference is the form of reward and the purpose of production. Feudal production was oriented to use — subsistence for the household and provision for the lord — with surplus extracted openly as labour service or rent. Capitalist production is oriented to exchange and profit; labour is remunerated by a money wage, and the surplus takes the form of surplus value appropriated through the market rather than through overt personal domination.
The fourth difference lies in the relation between work and social status. Feudal work was embedded in a fixed hierarchy of estates: occupation was largely ascribed and hereditary, mobility was minimal, and one's place in the division of labour coincided with one's rank in a religiously legitimated order. Capitalism, at least in principle, detaches work from ascribed status. Labour becomes mobile, occupation is formally a matter of the market rather than birth, and class position rests on the ownership or non-ownership of capital rather than on feudal rank.
The fifth difference is the character of the division of labour itself. Feudal work, largely agrarian and craft-based, involved whole tasks performed with traditional skills at a rhythm set by season and custom. Capitalism brings an intensified, detailed division of labour, factory discipline, mechanisation and the fragmentation of work into repetitive operations timed by the clock and coordinated by the employer.
Sociologically, the transition amounts to the commodification of labour. As Marx observed, capitalism made the worker "free" in a double sense: free from feudal bondage to lord and land, but also free from ownership of the means of production, and therefore obliged to enter the labour market. Where feudal work was governed by custom, obligation and personal dependence, capitalist work is governed by contract, the market and impersonal money exchange — a shift Weber linked more broadly to the rationalisation of economic life.
Examiner's perspective
Because the command word is "distinguish", examiners reward an explicitly comparative structure. Answers that describe feudal work in one block and capitalist work in another, leaving the reader to infer the contrasts, score below those that compare the two along shared axes such as the labour relation, property and reward.
The strongest 10-mark scripts foreground the shift from status and obligation to contract and market, and use Marx's point about the doubly free labourer to give the comparison analytical depth. Precise vocabulary — serfdom, labour service, wage labour, commodification of labour power — signals command of the topic, and a closing sociological reflection on the meaning of the transition lifts the answer into the higher band within a tight word budget.