Note 20 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Many objections can be made to Loria’s arguments. He is constantly confusing capitalist and landlord. He seems to consider capitalists and labourers as two strictly separated classes, though we see continually people passing from one class to the other. And when he tells us that, if wages were higher, the labourers would save a portion of their earnings and so accumulate capital, but that the employers, wishing to prevent this, keep wages low,—he ascribes to both capitalists and labourers so much forethought and consciousness of class-interest as men scarcely ever have, except in books on political economy20. Yet we cannot think but that in the main Loria is right. The gist of his reasoning is what we have already remarked in the beginning of this paragraph. As long as there is an abundance of land not yet appropriated, and therefore at the disposal of whoever may choose to cultivate it, nobody applies to another for employment, and the only labourers a man can procure are forced labourers. But when all land has been appropriated, those who own no land are at the mercy of the landholders, and voluntarily serve them; therefore slaves are not wanted.