Labour's disdain has its antecedents in Victorian, Elizabethan and even medieval strategies for controlling the 'worthless poor' It is astonishing how much contemporary political debate is rooted in historical precedent. Efforts to control the poor, as well as the movement and rewards of labour, are intertwined, and of considerable antiquity in Britain. Disapproval of "demands" for higher wages and prohibitions upon "economic migrants" long pre-date the industrial era. Who would have thought that current efforts by a Labour government to get people off invalidity benefit and into work were yet another re-working of the first law enacted in Britain to distinguish between those who chose to "beg in idleness rather than earn their bread in labour"? This was the Statute of Labourers of 1351. Leaving aside the advisability of government taking inspiration from the medieval world, the statute followed severe reductions in population as a result of the black death. It was designed to curb wage-inflation induced by a shortage of labourers, who had deserted the fair fields of the land for the sweeter pastures of the afterlife.
It is astonishing how much contemporary political debate is rooted in historical precedent. Efforts to control the poor, as well as the movement and rewards of labour, are intertwined, and of considerable antiquity in Britain. Disapproval of "demands" for higher wages and prohibitions upon "economic migrants" long pre-date the industrial era.
Who would have thought that current efforts by a Labour government to get people off invalidity benefit and into work were yet another re-working of the first law enacted in Britain to distinguish between those who chose to "beg in idleness rather than earn their bread in labour"? This was the Statute of Labourers of 1351. Leaving aside the advisability of government taking inspiration from the medieval world, the statute followed severe reductions in population as a result of the black death. It was designed to curb wage-inflation induced by a shortage of labourers, who had deserted the fair fields of the land for the sweeter pastures of the afterlife.
Interesting historical view of attitudes to the poor in England and how the language of then gives us the demagoguery of now.
The path of greed is a great way to increase personal wealth in the short-term but demonstrably poor in the longer term. The Henry Ford position (pay your workers enough to buy your product and the money will come back to you exponentially) is decidedly more appropriate for a capitalist system.
We must work to detach the concept of greed from the concept of "capitalism" which is a term in desperate need of re-branding. How ironic that the commie bastards on the left will enjoy the privilege of that re-branding.
