Readers are offered a book by the outstanding English art critic and social reformer J. Ruskin, written on the basis of lectures given by him in Manchester in 1857. The author sets himself the difficult task of bringing morality and aesthetics into the political economy; part of the solution to this problem is the desire to introduce elements of beauty into a person's everyday everyday life, into his work and production. Wary of modern machine civilization and preaching free ennobled labor, John Ruskin expresses a number of interesting ideas about the place and role of the state, about the discovery and application of human talent, about the accumulation and distribution of labor results, etc. The book will be of interest to philosophers, art historians and specialists in the history of economic thought, as well as to all interested readers.