The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 IS FREE ENTERPRISE COMING BACK? 601from Adam Smith's free tradedoctrines in practice as Napoleonhad been, whatever the formermight think of the Wealth of Nations.Speenhamland Poor Law of J795The English also stuck them~selves with a disastrous poor lawin 1795, a half dozen years afterthe Fall of the Bastille in Parisand just as Napoleon was emergingas one of the greatest militarygeniuses of all time. This newwelfare arrangement lead to difficultiesbeyond the maladjustmentsgrowing out of the protractedwars. England had had a problemof poor relief ever since the breakupof the medieval manors centuriesbefore (it was local and lessobvious then). The Church hadtried to care for the needy untilthe Reformation and then theState was saddled with the responsibility.Elizabeth, whose fatherHenry had started the English Reformation,made the first systematicattempt to cope with the problem.New poor laws were passedfrom time to time to correct themaladjustments created by the lastones. One writer in 1622 thoughtthe root of the difficulty was theprevalance of monopolies:This engrossing of Trade intofew men's hands hath caused ourhome trades to decay, ... to the utterundoing of all sorts of poor people inEngland, and the great damage of allhis Majesty's loving subjects. 9A common explanation for thewoes of the poor of England fromthe Sixteenth Century to the Victorianera is the enclosure movement,the change from a peasantvillage-communaltype of ownershipto the landed estates of thearistocracy. The classic literarywork growing out of this socialand economic revolution was Goldsmith'sDeserted Village, publishedin 1770. But there have been dissentersfrom this view, then andmore recently. Probably few knewEngland at this time as well asJohn WesleylO (he is said to havetraveled the equivalent of ninetimes around the earth during hisministry and mostly on horseback),but he ridiculed Goldsmithand saw considerable progress allaround him. It fascinated him.Chamberlain,ll drawing fromAdam Smith's experience, empha-