Labour, leisure and economic thought before the nineteenth century. When manual labour was overwhelmingly the most important factor in the generation of wealth, the labourers, artisans, servants and peasants who performed it were recognized as `the most valuable treasure of a country'.(1) The efficient running of the economy, social stability and the maintenance of civilized life were all dependent upon the masses performing assiduously, in the words of an anonymous writer in 1763, `those drudgeries for which they were born'.(2) Or, as Thomas Wimbledon more eloquently expressed it in a sermon written in 1388, `if laboreris wer[k]en not, bothe prestis and knytis mosten bicome acremen and heerdis, and ellis they sholde for defaute of bodily sustenaunce dele'.(3) Since those who laboured were the vast bulk of the population, the diligence with which they performed their tasks and the share which they retained of the product of their work were the main determinants of the wealth and incomes of the fortunate few. But it was inconceivable that their indispensable contribution could be recompensed by other than meagre financial rewards and low social status. In the eighteenth century, just as in the fourteenth, the prevailing level of economic and social development made it the natural state of things: `To be born for no other purpose but to consume the fruits of the earth is the privilege ... of very few. The greater part of mankind must sweat hard to produce them, or society will no longer answer the purposes for which it was ordained'.(4)The greater part of mankind, however, will not be prepared to sweat hard to produce the fruits of the earth for a minority to consume unless either coerced or enticed into doing so. This simple truth was recognized in all ages, and the dilemma faced by the privileged few was how to devise and operate effective means of ensuring that the poor did labour assiduously. Accordingly, such cardinal concerns were...
