historians are always telling us about the class that does not work, never about the class that does; and in this way we come to regard the first of … - Frédéric Bastiat

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historians are always telling us about the class that does not work, never about the class that does; and in this way we come to regard the first of these classes as the entire nation. I cannot help thinking that among the Greeks, among the Romans, among the people of the Middle Ages, men just did what they do now, and were subject to wants so pressing and so constantly recurring, that they were obliged to provide for them under pain of death. Hence I cannot help concluding that such employments then, as at present, formed the principal and absorbing occupation of the great bulk of the human race.