And if deception is the agent, as with superstition and monopoly, it is natural that the many should ultimately become enlightened.
Another law of Providence wars against spoliation.

It is this: Spoliation not only displaces wealth, but always destroys a portion.
War annihilates values.
Slavery paralyzes the faculties.
Monopoly transfers wealth from one pocket to another, but it always occasions the loss of a portion in the transfer.
This is an admirable law.

Without it, provided the strength of oppressors and oppressed were equal, spoliation would have no end.
A moment comes when the destruction of wealth is such that the despoiler is poorer than he would have been if he had remained honest.
So it is with a people when a war costs more than the booty is worth; with a master who pays more for slave labor than for free labor; with a priesthood which has so stupefied the people and destroyed its energy that nothing more can be gotten out of it; with a monopoly which increases its attempts at absorption as there is less to absorb, just as the difficulty of milking increases with the emptiness of the udder.
Monopoly is a species of the genus spoliation.

It has many varieties, among them sinecure, privilege, and restriction upon trade.
Some of the forms it assumes are simple and _naive_, like feudal rights.
Under this _regime_ the masses are despoiled, and know it.
Other forms are more complicated.

Often the masses are plundered, and do not know it.