Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political Economy

by John Ruskin

"Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political Economy" by John Ruskin is a collection of essays first published between August and December 1860. The work challenges conventional economic thinking by arguing that true wealth can only exist in societies that value honesty. Drawing from biblical parables, Ruskin critiques eighteenth and nineteenth-century economists and examines questions of fair wages and industrialism's destructive effects. Though violently criticized upon release, the essays profoundly influenced figures from Thomas Carlyle to Mahatma Gandhi, who translated the work and implemented its principles in his own revolutionary social experiments.