When John Ruskin was writing, "There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey," is it possible that his subjects were builders and new home buyers of the day?

I ask this question based on today's demonstrated inabilities of the home building industry, and a general mistrust in their collective morality.

Since many homes built in the 1800's still stand in London today, it seems Ruskin's words were almost certainly directed at other commodities.

Ruskin also offers us the following: "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort."  How is it that Ruskin understanding of quality so far back was so enlightened, yet the builders today, as seen in their actual performance, are as proscriptive towards such concepts?

An extrapolated version of Ruskin's quote appeared in the June 10, 1939 NY Times, in an ad for a Madison Avenue advertising agency: "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution; it represents the wide choice of many alternatives."  

Does this help us interpret why today's builders are what they are?

While ‘high intention' speaks of motive, the word ‘choice' is an indication of the behaviour.

IMHO, the dubious motives of builders today manifest predominantly as sociopathic behaviour.

Throughout North America, builders, developers (or sociopaths), or whatever you want to call them, write the rules out of greed, and with a disregard for the rights of buyers.

When Ruskin coined the word, ‘illth', as the reverse of wealth in the sense of ‘well-being' (ill-being), perhaps his views on the wealthy had been at the forefront of defining a sociopath; since then the actions of builders have just helped to clarify the meaning, IMHO

More on Illth:     "Wealth, therefore, is 'The possession of the valuable by the valiant'; and in considering it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, and the valour of its possessor, must be estimated together. Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly considered wealthy, are in reality no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth; and operating for the nation, in an economical point of view, either as pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the stream flows, are useless, or serve only to drown people, but may become of importance in a state of stagnation should the stream dry); or else, as dams in a river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller; or else, as mere accidental stays and impediments, acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as 'illth,' causing various devastation and trouble around them in all directions; or lastly, act not at all, but are merely animated conditions of delay, (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead,) in which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and 'impedimenta,' (things that impede)..." John Ruskin - from Unto This Last (1862)

John in Port Moody, BC

Real Estate Evolved