[Lowland]

are normally
stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for
themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep
it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a
basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some
thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was
not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards
mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the
whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward
was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or
indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.
Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by
restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the
final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of
many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation,
capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were
prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this, too,
entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted were
obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was how
to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the