concept

Political concepts work upon us for very different reasons and entreat our attention in very different ways. Some impose their authority over our thinking and actions because they saturate our environment, incanted strategically, or wondrously shorn of reflection on the public stage. We might seize on them for scrutiny because they seem to offer the possibility of disrupting the dulling familiarity of common nouns, or allow us to cut through to the interpretive dissonance of contemporary political predicaments. Not least, we seek those that can render more legible, if not more reasoned, what buttresses the predisposed disregard or unfounded passions that move us in our everyday

 

 

 

 

                                               distribution

By studying the way wealth was distributed in the American colonies, we can learn a great deal about their economy, like the relationship of the social structure to economic opportunity. The diversity of the regional economies and the uneven quality of statistical information from the period make broad generalizations difficult, but there are some general trends that can be identified, and it is possible to characterize the distribution of wealth in different colonies and the colonies as a whole.