ABSTRACT
Defoe’s The Great Law of Subordination consider’d; Or, The Insolence and Unsufferable Behaviour of Servants in England duly enquir’d into (1724) offers this description of the state of society:
the miserable Circumstance of this Country is now such, that, in short, if it goes on, the Poor will be Rulers over the Rich, and the Servants be Governours of their Masters; the Plebeii have almost mobb’d the Patricii; and as the Commons, in another Case, may be said to be gotten above the Lords, so the Cannaille of this Nation impose Laws upon their Superiors, and begin not only to be troublesome, but in time may be dangerous; in a word, Order is inverted, Subordination ceases, and the World seems to stand with the Bottom upward.
