mdmd(4) - Notes, Gallows

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

> 108.26    "for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst Slavery
> must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows,--Slavery without
> the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without
> the Cross."

Tracing up one side of this "equation," the Gallows follows from Slavery
which follows from Commerce.  On the other side, the Cross follows from
The Crusade which follows from [implied] X.  So I've been wondering what X
is.  The cynical (surely that doesn't include anyone here) might say it's
obviously Commerce too, or at least it's Churchly analogue, i.e., the
Church as revenue-generator, turning pious offerings into Profit for the
Elect.  It could also maybe be something either more or less sinister, or
nothing at all--an unbalanced equation as it were.  Steve Maas