Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor or they will never be industrious.

– Arthur Young (1771)

It is manifest, that in a Free Nation where slaves are not allow’d of, the surest Wealth consists in a Multitude of laborious Poor.

– Bernard de Mandeville (1732)

The poor know little of the motives which stimulate the higher ranks to action – pride, honor and ambition. In general, it is only hunger which can spur and goad them into action.

– Joseph Townsend (1786)