reflected not only in the laws of each era, but in a succession of social theories, ideologies and philosophies, from the three estates of the Middle Ages to the highly selective doctrine of national interest in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which stressed the benefits for the whole of society that flowed from the diligent performance by all members, high and low, of the tasks which had been allotted to them, and the rewards which the faithful would enjoy in the next world if not in this. Labour was far too valuable a commodity to be left merely to the forces of supply and demand, but neither could it be isolated from them. When labour was plentiful and cheap the market exercised its own harsh discipline on those who struggled for subsistence, urging them to industry and subservience. However, when labour became scarce the very fabric of society could be threatened, not just by rising wages and costs, but by a swelling independence among the working masses, which commonly manifested itself in a refusal to engage wholeheartedly in unremitting toil.Continued from page 1When times were especially harsh for the lower orders, the pressures created by adverse market forces might be cushioned by direct or indirect actions from those above. In the populous thirteenth century, for example, custom restrained the demands which landlords made of their unfree tenants and consequently their rents did not fully reflect the rising scarcity of land; and in the years of food shortage and immiseration which peppered the closing decades of the sixteenth century and opening decades of the seventeenth, poor relief was extended from the `impotent poor' -- widows and orphans, the sick and the old -- to `labouring persons not able to live off their labour'.(5) Yet, when market forces turned in favour of those who worked the land and sold their labour, and against those who owned the land, controlled capital and employed labour, it became nece...
