ABSTRACT
A considerable literature developed around the issue of the idleness of the labouring class. Reflecting an interest in economic psychology, this was another facet of the concern with national productive capacity. Apparently inspired by a desire for a cheap and large labour-supply intermixed, if not mainly cloaked, with the nationalistic purpose of enhancing England's economic power and prestige, this view has been aptly characterised as a belief in the "utility of poverty". The economic changes which were to come, however, were products of a period of ferment which had begun long before. The pace of economic events had not been uniformly paralleled by changes in the legal and institutional framework of society. The practices of both the feudal order and the mercantilist state which followed reflected the belief that the pursuit of individual interest, unless closely controlled, would conflict with the social interest.
