One of the encouraging things in the article was the training offered via Christ's Hospital. Drop in the ocean, but a constructive idea.
Something not mentioned was that sometimes the rich of a parish would set up a brewery and use part of the profits to pay for the Poor Law requirements. (And part for profit). Which does then make me wonder about whether that put a few ale wives out of business.........
Another Elizabethan period law was one limiting new houses/homesteads (which was semi-enforced). Basically the powers that be had noticed how yeoman (8 acres or more) were well fed strapping lads who made good soldiers, so they wanted more yeoman. So they passed laws saying you couldn't create a new holding that was smaller than 8 acres. Which outlawed people from putting up a little hut on a bit of waste land. (Also the parish didn't really want another house at the poor end of the scale.)
Also wondering whether the practice of having letters of recommendation/introduction was around at this point. If you had a letter on you extolling your good character and working ability, would that see off the punishment? The article is interesting but I'd like to know a lot more on the workings of the system.
Your post helps highlight how we tend to, subconsciously and otherwise, reward the already privileged. There is something in our minds, possibly extending back to the tribal days when chiefs led their tribe around the countryside, told people what to do and people were largely happy with this arrangement. But it extends further and causes us to believe, automatically, that there's something wrong with people who are poor/less privileged, and that those who are privileged in some way, deserve it.
That could be part of the reason why people tend to dislike people who've recently become accomplished in some way. The already accomplished find it annoying, and often seem to feel their new peer did it in a somehow less admirable manner, even though odds are good that their privilege is not entirely the result of honorable actions, either. And the accomplished person's previous peers now dislike him because to them, he now reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with them.
We're very much surface analysts, most of us, and only rarely dig beneath.
It was even worse for the poor in Japan. The lowest group were the hinin (non-human or outcast). These people were treated extremely harshly and one account I read recently talks of the hinin being burnt to prevent the spread of disease. This was done whether they were dead or alive.
The Indian (country of India) caste system was pretty wretched as well. The lowest class was the "untouchables," known as another Indian-sounding name that I can't think of. They couldn't be touched by any other caste and were responsible for the lowest of tasks, such as hauling animal carcasses, cleaning latrines and man other highly mundane, repetitious, and grueling tasks. And it was by birth, which would seem to be the great injustice of the system. Whereas western philosophy tended to believe in not punishing children for what their parents did, this system did exactly that.
Simply by indecent of who your parents were, you could be an untouchable, or a wealthy priest with lots of power and money.
Wait, have we actually gotten past that system yet in actuality? Hmm...
