ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the 'Discourse' in the context of the tradition of dialogical discourse, which suggests that Sir Thomas Smith's treatise, however innovative in content, was an established form of expression and well suited to social analysis. It demonstrates that Smith's examination of English society in 1549 was fundamentally and thoroughly grounded in economic modes of analysis that examined both long and short-term developments. The chapter explores the historiography of class awareness in early modern England, and suggests that while scholarly debate surrounds the subject, there is a growing consensus that contemporaries analyzed social relations based upon notions of class that were grounded in the possession of wealth, especially landed property. Although Smith heartily approved of making profits, they were limited by a principle of social utility that declared that whatever destabilized society was unacceptable.
