SOME ILLUSTRATIVE FACTS

extravagant expenditure, and the high interest rates. 7High interest rates in Rome were evidently the result ofreckless disregard of the future. Before Rome had seri-ously depleted her capital wealth, at about the end ofthe republic, the interest rate was as low as 4 to 6 percent. 8

§3. Examples of Influence of Poverty

The characteristics of foresight, self-control, and regardfor posterity are partly inherent and partly induced byconditions of the environment. Among the cases whichhave been given are conspicuous examples of both, al-though it is difficult here, as always, to disentangle theinfluence of heredity from that of environment. We areaccustomed, for instance, to ascribe to the Jews a naturalracial tendency to accumulate, though this characteristicis certainly re-enforced by, if not largely due to, the ex-traordinary influence of Jewish tradition. Of the Scotchit would be difficult to say how much of their thrift isdue to nature and how much to training handed downfrom father to son. The American negro is regarded asby nature a happy-go-lucky creature, but studies ofnegro life in Africa indicate that under favorable condi-tions the negro is self-denying, while recent experiencewith industrial schools has demonstrated the fact thatforethought and saving can be readily fostered by train-ing. Reckless wastefulness has been created in large partamong the negroes by tyranny and slavery.

The influence of conditions upon accumulation maybe seen everywhere, even in the most advanced industrial

’ The Sociological Theory of Capital, pp. 64, 95-99, 129. Rae’s authorityfor Roman interest rates is Boucher, Histoire de VUsure, p. 25.

8 Seligman, Edwin R. A., Principles of Economics. London , Longmans,Green and Co., 1907, p. 404.

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