With the Vagabonds Act of 1547, Edward VI, King of England, ordained that any able-bodied Englishman who was out of work for more than three days should be branded with a V for vagabond or an S for slave and appropriated.
The privatisation of commonly farmed land – the commons – had rendered many small farmers landless and thus unemployed. In 16th-century England, in the early days of capitalism, that which happened a little later to Africans on a massive scale was practiced with white Christians. Some 200 years later, Adam Smith stretched out his invisible hand, thus providing the British with both an excuse and an explanation. How will we generate The Wealth of Nations 500 years after Edward’s Vagabonds Act?