EmpiricalRequires evidence

The poor-law comparison is confounded, and Part I supplies the confound itself. Kelly and Grada: it was only because England was a relatively prosperous place that it was able to afford a generous system of public charity, and had living standards been as low as in France the English poor law would probably have been unaffordable. So France and Scotland were not countries that declined the institution, they were countries that could not buy it. The 1690s contrast therefore does not isolate institutions from productivity; agricultural intensification is upstream of both the relief spending and the resilience. The comparison still shows that a rich society can convert wealth into survival, which is not nothing, but it is weaker than a natural experiment.

Risk landscape