Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/397

 SOCIAL CONTROL 383

as an excellent means of prolonging the hold of the nobles upon the remainder. The short-sightedness of the French parasite orders on this point was one cause of their premature downfall ; while, by timely and ample concessions to the new industrial elite, their brethren in England have, so far, saved their estates and their monopoly of the best offices.

The ennobling of new fortunes, the opening of careers to talent, the equalizing of opportunities, the dissolving of the hereditary classes through one another, and the increase of the social capillarity that facilitates the free ascent or descent of men in the social scale according to their personal fitness are the suc- cessive steps by which a society of parasites and hosts passes over into a hierarchy of classes graded according to success in a fair competition.

No people will toil and sweat to keep a class in idleness and luxury unless cajoled or compelled to do so. The parasitic class is, therefore, always a ruling class, and utilizes as many as it can of the means of control. But it is not by the means used that we can best distinguish this class control from social control. If we would know the real tenor of a control we should scruti- nize the laws, obligations, and exceptions which it upholds. In other words, it is by studying the constitution of the society that we leam if there is a parasitic relation, and discover who are the parasites and who are the hosts. It is what men obey, rather than why they obey, that betrays the presence of class exploitation.

Still there is no doubt that in the gamut of motives to obe- dience the ruling class does not strike quite the same chords as the social group. When the exploited are not a cowering spaniel race, but are, from a purely human point of view, the equals of their masters, they will not respond to all the instru- ments of control that society is able to use upon its wayward members. Some of these instruments cannot be used at all, and others that can be used are so modified as to be scarcely recog- nizable. For instance, those pressures which reach the individual through the suggestion and opinion of those close about him cannot well be turned to account by the parasitic class. The immediate influences to which the slave, serf, or peasant is exposed