Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/215

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 203

the petty husbandry, first in a part of the provinces, and then in Italy, by the fanning of large estates; the prevailing tendency to devote the latter in Italy to the rearing of cattle, and the culture of the olive and the vine; finally, the replacing of the free laborers in the provinces as in Italy by slaves.

Elsewhere he says emphatically:

It was ancient social evils at the bottom of all the ruin of the middle class by the slave proletariat that brought destruction on the Roman commonwealth.

To realize how parasitism may draw a society out of its true orbit, one has but to consider what would happen to us if the occidentals should contrive to exploit the toiling yellow millions of the Orient. For one thing, such a colossal parasitic exploit would sharply arrest the rise of our working classes and block the path of democracy with a centralized bureaucratic machine. Says Mr. Hobson :

The greater part of western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the south of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen, and a large body of personal servants and workers in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and manu- factures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa.

VII. The conjugation of societies. There is no change of destiny more abrupt than that which occurs when two unlike societies yield up their identity in the formation of a single society. -Of such conjugation there are two primary types, juxta- position and superposition.

The merging of juxtaposed groups may come about either through alliance or through conquest. In the former case the train of consequences is about as follows: In a certain crisis neighboring peoples ally themselves, each, however, retaining its own customs and institutions. Thenceforth they have the same name and flag, are involved in a common enmity or friend- ship with other states, experience in common certain hopes and discouragements. In time union becomes a habit, and is kept up even if external pressure is removed. The memory of the old