Cornhill Magazine in four articles.[1] Its stated aim is to define wealth and show that the acquisition of wealth is only possible in a society that values honesty.[2]
Title
The eleventh hour labourers, etching by Jan Luyken based on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
The "last" are the eleventh hour labourers, who are paid as if they had worked the entire day. Rather than discuss the contemporary religious interpretation of the parable, whereby the eleventh hour labourers would be death-bed converts, or the peoples of the world who come late to religion, Ruskin looks at the social and economic implications, discussing issues such as who should receive a living wage. This essay is very critical of the economists of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this sense, Ruskin is a precursor of social economy. Because the essay also attacks the destructive effects of industrialism upon the natural world, some historians have seen it as anticipating the Green movement.[3]
The essay begins with the following verses, taken from Matthew 20:13 and Zechariah 11:12 respectively (in the King James Version):[4]
Friend, I do thee no wrong.
Didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Take that thine is, and go thy way.
I will give unto this last even as unto thee.
If ye think good, give me my price;
And if not, forbear.
So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
Reception and influence
Ruskin says himself that the articles were "very violently criticized", forcing the publisher to stop its publication after four months.
1906 UK general election listing the book as one of their key influences.[8]
Mahatma Gandhi's paraphrase
Unto This Last had a very important impact on
Phoenix Settlement
.
Gandhi translated Unto This Last into Gujarati in 1908 under the title of Sarvodaya (Well Being of All). Valji Govindji Desai translated it back to English in 1951 under the title of Unto This Last: A Paraphrase.[10] This last essay can be considered his programme on economics, as in Unto This Last, Gandhi found an important part of his social and economic ideas.
