Why was change necessary? Flashcards
Why, according to Malthus, did the poor law make the situation worse ?
The poor would have more and more children so they could claim more and more relief.
Thomas Malthus was an economist specialising in demography - the study of population.
He argued that population had an inbuilt tendency to rise and…
Outstrip all available food supplies
What did Malthus favour?
The abolition of the Poor Law altogether. The poor would then keep their families small because there would be no financial advantage in them having a lot of children; wages would rise because the poor rate would no longer be levied and employers could afford to pay more; everyone would prosper
David Ricardo was a political economist, and reached the same conclusions as…
Malthus about the poor law but by a slightly different route
In his ‘On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’ (1817) he put forward the idea of an ‘iron law of wages’ believing that there was a…
‘Wages fund’ from which money for wages and poor relief was paid
Why did the ‘Wages fund’ lead to the abolishment of the Poor Law being favoured?
Money for wages and poor relief was paid from the ‘wages fund’.
Therefore the more paid out in poor relief, the less available for wages - because less money was available for wages, more and more people were being drawn into pauperism, thus draining the wage fund still more.
Therefore to only break out of this cycle was to abolish the Poor Law altogether
Tom Paine was a writer and a republican who criticised the Poor Law because it was so inadequate. He proposed a property tax on the…
Very rich to be used for a variety of support systems for the poor, among these being family allowances and old-age pensions.
How did Tom Paine address the able-bodied poor?
He (like others) had a problem with the able-bodied poor and implied that they had to go into workhouses before they could receive relief.
Robert Owen was a radical factory owner who blamed capitalist economic system and abuse of the factory system for…
Creating poverty
How did Robert Owen put his ideas into practice?
At his New Lanark site, which consisted of a huge cotton-spinning milk and a mill-workers’ age, at this site he put his ideas into practice by building a new sort of community.
In the New Lanark site Owen stated that…
No adult was allowed to work for more than ten and a half hours per day, and sick pay was provided when illness or accident prevented a person from working.
Children had to be educated in the New Lanark school until 10 and only then they could work in his mills; a corporal punishment of children and adults was forbidden.
As a result of Robert Owen’s site his mills….
Ran at a profit
A large store at New Lanark sold goods to Owen’s Workers at cost price - part of his concept of a fair community
Why did Robert Owen create this community?
To suggest that if workers were employed in co-operative communities, everyone would share in the profits of whatever organisation they worked for.
In this way, the harder they worked the greater would be their income, and they would have no need for poor relief
Care would only need to be taken of the impotent poor
Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher and lawyer who developed the theory of…
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism stated that…
Any society should be so organised as to enable the greatest amount of happiness to be delivered to the greatest number of its people.
