lies
enables this class to live on rent, interest and profit in
proportion to their ownership. As parasitism increases
and multiplies it proves to be a dead weight which
eventually drags down any economy that tolerates it.

V. A class of dependents, defectives and delinquents, supported
by society but contributing little or nothing to
its maintenance or its advancement.

Every civilization has maintained a greater or lesser degree of mobility
between the classes. Mobility makes it possible for those with greater
ability and energy to leave the countryside, settle near the
market-place and climb the ladder of success. It has also made it
possible for policy makers to dump those whose services are no longer
needed or wanted by the ruling oligarchy.

Among the driving economic forces in a civilization are hunger, fear,
greed, ambition. In practice these forces have proved far more effective
than whips and clubs in the hand of slave drivers. They animate the
rat-race for pelf, power, "success", which attracts idealism, energy,
ability and throws out the carcases of those no longer able to make a
contribution to the wealth and power of the oligarchy and its
establishment.

Hunters, herdsmen, cultivators, craftsmen, mariners, miners perform
services that maintain the solvency of any economy in which they play a
leading role. Fast talkers, adventurers, promoters, manipulators,
gamblers add little or nothing to the income of the communities in which
they operate. Often, however, as gargantuan consumers, they play an
important role in building up the deficits which finally wreck an
economy.

Accumulations of wealth in market centers tempts the ambitious and the
adventurous to enter the rat-race and grab more than their pro-rata
share of the honey. The most obvious way to do this is to secure
possession of the honey pot.

Far away, in the tribal past of a civilization, lay a period of scarcity
in which the members of the community shared the scarce income or
starved. As the tribal wealth increased, the leaders, their families and
retainers got more than a fair share of the available goods, services,
preferment, privileges. At a very early stage the "ants" stored away
what they could spare, while the "grasshoppers" had a "good time".
Investing their stored wealth in land or productive enterprises the
"ants" added unearned income to their normal earnings from productive
labor.

Because the "ants" hel