No, replied the group; you are the people; we are a privileged class,
who have our laws, customs, and rights, peculiar to ourselves.

PEOPLE.--And what labor do you perform in our society?

PRIVILEGED CLASS.--None; we are not made to work.

PEOPLE.--How, then, have you acquired these riches?

PRIVILEGED CLASS.--By taking the pains to govern you.

PEOPLE.--What! is this what you call governing? We toil and you enjoy!
we produce and you dissipate! Wealth proceeds from us, and you absorb
it. Privileged men! class who are not the people; form a nation apart,
and govern yourselves.*

* This dialogue between the people and the indolent classes,
is applicable to every society; it contains the seeds of all
the political vices and disorders that prevail, and which
may thus be defined: Men who do nothing, and who devour the
substance of others; and men who arrogate to themselves
particular rights and exclusive privileges of wealth and
indolence. Compare the Mamlouks of Egypt, the nobility of
Europe, the Nairs of India, the Emirs of Arabia, the
patricians of Rome, the Christian clergy, the Imans, the
Bramins, the Bonzes, the Lamas, etc., etc., and you will
find in all the same characteristic feature:--Men living in
idleness at the expense of those who labor.