pdf Puritan Economic Experiments مجانا للكاتب غاري نورث
This book is relatively simple. It covers three topics: the common ownership of land, the imposition of price and wage controls, and sumptuary legislation. The final topic is unfamiliar to most people. Three centuries ago, legislators believed that it was the civil government’s duty to enforce fashions. Sumptuary laws were not aimed at public lewdness; rather, they were aimed at members of the lower class who wore clothing appropriate to the upper class. The legislators recognized that clothing was (and usually is) symbolic of personal status within a social hierarchy. They then jumped from the social hierarchy to the hierarchy of civil government. Rather than allowing market forces (mainly income and expenditure restraints) to “keep the lower class in its place,” they resorted to public coercion.