"The Making of Homo Faber: John Locke between Ideology and History"

by Hundert, E J (1972)

Abstract

The modern inquiry into the idea and value of work has its roots in the seventeenth-century English debate over "the employment of the poor"; a debate punctuated by a long series of state papers and Acts of Parliament proclaiming that labor problems were plaguing the nation.1 Workers appeared to be slothful, unreliable, and attached to irregular and dangerous habits.2 Their undisciplined behavior was found most alarming by those men interested in commercial expansion, since they discovered that "we cannot make our English cloth so cheap as they do in other countries because of the sharpe idleness and stubborness of our poor."3 Economists, merchants, and ministers encountered a population steadily being driven from its landed, feudal status into the untried conditions of increasing commercial competition. High unemployment and rising relief rolls were almost constant problems, and it was assumed that at least a significant minority of the population lived in conditions of chronic poverty and were a permanent threat to public.

Keywords

Locke, Property, History Of Ideas, Theory Of Labor, Seventeenth Century

Themes

On Locke

Links to Reference

• http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709054
• http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2709054
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709054?casa_token=nc1HCgBSTSkAAAAA:W_MjaNTWduqvOHXVj0tqKXDhMv-MUQRcHQrfO_7aalnaDsfAr7L-70uSJCg4ZCv6XAaL92Wf8wcWpV3wXHF4RNfr9KpQdpCtCF7SQi4CGfP0SX-iYmc7
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2709054.pdf?casa_token=LPBcoXNMmxoAAAAA:jbRjE7RmpO2a4iGW-vX83gLX7I2F3o_0zHEpoVO-lOGm6iwDhdLPeZ1tkatn4eiBTQRgRuHiUliOHq9im1Q2toC_UXvRPpDfzDhmjOTLChjPh2DOJN_L

Citation

Share

How to contribute.