Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political Economy

About this book

In four essays, John Ruskin attacks the economics of his day, which treated human beings as machines driven only by self-interest. He argues that 'there is no wealth but life', that employers owe duties to their workers just as soldiers and doctors owe duties to the public, and that a fair wage, not the lowest possible one, is a matter of justice. The title comes from the Gospel parable of the vineyard, in which the last workers hired are paid the same as the first. The volume adds other essays on political economy.

Context and significance

Ruskin (1819–1900), the great art critic, published the essays in a magazine in 1860, which stopped them after protests from readers. The book later inspired founders of the British Labour Party and changed the life of Mohandas Gandhi, who read it on a train in South Africa and translated it into Gujarati as Sarvodaya. Compare Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

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