Thank you for clarifying RTL, as you say most people really wouln't want to swop the safety of life we have now let alone the health care, education and few of us would survive as women with our laws and attitude now on equality, working in the world and making our own choices ( good or bad) in life.
There are several who I empathise with and proud of, who were certainly ahead of their time and 'broke' boundaries in commerce and the law (of the time)
My dad who unfortuneatly had a short life died when I was 17 yrs old, him being just 42yrs old. For years he was a retail grocer and then went into wholesale fruit, veg, flowers, at that time wholesale agents would bid at the docks on the landed cargo, have everything taken back to the wholesale market to sell to retail buyers, so they never knew what they would get or if they would get anything nor the prices and the same happened in the home market, growers auctioned off their produce locally, only the big canning factories purchased directly often having their own land/agr labs... so if you remember the "man from Delmonte" advert, that is what my dad was.
He agreed a price annually and directly from grower, world wide, so he was guaranteed a price, knew what he was getting and that also enabled him to sell directly to supermarkets Tesco was his first guaranteeing the same quality of goods, same price nationwide...of course they all have their own buying agents now but my dad was a trail blazer, identifying a gap and filling it, until the other wholesalers caught on and replicated it.
Another is Robert Kett a wealthy tanner, landowner and farmer of a 'noble' Norfolk family, along with his brother William who both go back directly to Toka the Francigine whose grandson was Harold Godwineson King Harold II of England. When the 'pheasants' revolted in 1549 and started to rip up the hedges because of the enclosure of land laws one of their targets was Robert Ketts land who, instead of resisting joined in ripping out his own fences/hedging and leading the revolt he was offered a pardon and rejected it and a week later he was captured, taken the the Tower of London, back to Norwich Castle and hanged from the walls along with his brother and several other members of the family so Ketts Rebellion was a very brave and principled step away from his wealthy life to help others who were not in the same position as him in life, so extreme action about his charitable belief of others less fortuneate than him...sure beats popping a coin in a charity box