I'm just aware that complaints of luxury at the time often look like this from Arthur Young:

“The employment of the women and children is drinking tea with white bread and butter twice a day; an extremity that may surely be called luxury in excess!”

A very different idea of luxury...

Nice :) I know nothing about Fenelon, but without more context wanted to check this wasn't an example of the "common complaint that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people" (using the words of Adam Smith) - i.e. reactionary, regressive, directed at the poor rather than the rich

I'd like to see a version of this chart on the low UK % who think aid is effective, but comparing with the US, France & Germany. Would help point to whether the UK's lower aid support is more driven by different values or perceptions of efficacy.

From: developmentengagementlab.org/publication/...

Ah I can imagine!

Have you any more examples? Reminds me of an old Alpine proverb, "Happy as a corpse" (Graham Robb, The Discovery of France, p.72); or that charwoman’s epitaph, “Don’t mourn for me, friends, don’t weep for me never, for I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever” (in Keynes' Economic Possibilities).

And Melito of Sardis once more, giving voice to the risen Christ:

For example, I have come across the below from Frederick Law Olmsted (The Cotton Kingdom), which reminded me of the utility of poverty doctrine. But otherwise don't know much regarding slavery and am just curious of the parallels.

Have you any thoughts on whether slavery was partly motivated by a backward-sloping (free) labour supply curve? The old "utility of poverty doctrine" (horribly) held that low wages were necessary and desirable on that ground, and I have wondered whether advocates of slavery made a similar argument.

Joseph Ratzinger, on Christ's descent into hell:

When Jesus asks whose image is on the coin, & whose inscription, are we supposed to remember that we too bear an image & a name? (Cf. Genesis 1, Numbers 6:27) That is, whilst the coin may be Caesar’s, we are God’s. Are the Greek words the same as those used in the Septuagint? Just brilliant, if so

Hmm... One of the big impacts of the Industrial Revolution was that it made demographics matter a lot less for national power. In 1756 Ange Goudar could say that the “most widely accepted maxim in politics is that only a large population can create a mighty state”. But by 1870? Here's David Landes:

Samuel Johnson saw this too, in 1783: “it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow weak or diseased children to grow up.” (from Boswell’s Life)

This suggests that the UK's Country Programmable Aid - which is supposed to capture predictable flows to partner countries - may actually be a fifth lower than official stats.

And these stats already show that UK CPA fell by ~60% between 2016-22...

data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?lc=en&tm...

At that IDC session, the FCDO's Nick Dyer said: "we are now managing our budget in a way where we are saying to our country programmes - or I am saying - 80% will be predictable, 20% you've got to manage because we may ask for it back".

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/... [see 14:35:34-47]

Not only does this directly crowd out other overseas aid spending. The uncertainty around asylum costs also limits the FCDO's ability to plan ahead, as highlighted at this week's International Development Committee evidence session:

This follows us also highlighting how much of an outlier the UK is versus its peers.

The UK spends over two-and-a-half times more aid per refugee and asylum seeker within its own borders than any other G7 economy.

www.cgdev.org/blog/costs-h...

I wonder whether recipients value fragmentation as a way to mitigate the risk of bilateral aid cuts...

(And though greater use of multilateral channels would also solve the problem, it seems hard to convince donors to make this switch).

Cool :) What era were these from?

Quite a change from 1818! I recently came across this in Robert Owen's autobiography, where he remembers a dinner conversation with Friedrich von Gentz at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (Gentz being the "learned secretary" to the Congress):

Do you have a view on whether the labour supply curve was backwards-sloping in the period, and whether the demand for leisure would have been rising or falling anyway due to changes in real wages?

But perhaps the banned leisure activities were for the more well-to-do, rather than labourers..?