The English Poor

A Victorian social Darwinist's explanation for poverty in England, arguing that state aid is counter-productive.

Thomas Mackay (Author)

9781108003704, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

320 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.41 kg

In 1889, British wine merchant Thomas Mackay published The English Poor, which espoused the ideas of Darwin and applied them to British social and economic history. An acolyte of social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, Mackay writes that human history has been a struggle between individualism and socialism, and argues that only through individual competition (not state social support) will poverty be eradicated. The opening chapters discuss the human instinct for property accumulation, primitive forms of society, elite control of workers during the plague years, and the growth of the proletariat. Later chapters discuss social legislation, the evolution of England's poor laws, and the Industrial Revolution. Finally, Mackay debates the scholarship of socialist Ernest Belfort Bax, bemoans the misguided ideas of Christian charity, and argues that the lives of 'lower types' of people have been prolonged by the poor laws. This is a fascinating document of late-Victorian economic thought.

1. Property the main condition of survival
2. The same considered historically
3. English villeinage
4. The Black Death
5. The increase of sheep-farming
6. Town life and the trade guilds
7. Social legislation and the poor law
8. The industrial revolution
9. The theory of wages
10. Private property and population
11. The modern aspect of the poor law
12. The poor law (continued)
13. Insurance a substitute for the poor law
14. Some forms of socialistic legislation
15. The ethical aspect of the question.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]