Boots theory

In the Discworld series of novels by Terry Pratchett, Sam Vimes is the captain of the City Watch of the fictional city-state of Ankh-Morpork.

But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.

[4] In the New Statesman, Marc Burrows hypothesized Pratchett drew inspiration from Robert Tressell's 1914 novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.

[7] In 2016, the left-wing blog Dorset Eye also ran an article discussing the theory, giving fuel poverty in the United Kingdom as an example of its application, citing a 2014 Office for National Statistics (ONS) report that those who pre-paid for electricity—who were most likely to be subject to fuel poverty—paid 8% more on their electricity bills than those who paid by direct debit.

[9] In an article titled "The Price of Poverty" published in Tribune Magazine in 2022, the theory was cited as explaining the economic predicament in the United Kingdom.