This stability and security which slave-owning gave to all society (to the owned to some extent, and to the owners altogether) also produced a very valuable effect, which is, the presence of _leisure_. Because revenue was fairly certain, because this kind of arrangement prevented violent fluctuation of fortune, competition in excess, and the rest of it, therefore was there a considerable proportion of people at any time who had ample opportunity for study, for cultivating good tastes, for writing and building well, and judging well, and--what is very important--for conducting the affairs of the State without haste or the panic and folly of haste. One alleged _economic_ disadvantage of slave-owning must be looked at narrowly before we leave this description of the Servile State. One often hears it said that slave labour is less productive than free labour, that is, labour working at a wage under Capitalism. People sometimes point to modern examples of this contrast, saying that places like the Southern States of America, where slave labour was used a lifetime ago, were less productive than the Northern States, where labour was free. But though this is true of particular moments in history, it is not generally true. Free labour working at a wage under the first institution of capitalism--when, for instance, a body of capitalists are beginning to develop a new country with hired free men to work for them--will be full of energy and highly productive. But when what is called “free labour”--that is, men without property working by contract for a wage--gets into routine and habit, it is doubtful whether it is more productive than slave labour. It is accompanied by a great deal of ill-will. There is perpetual interruption by strikes, and lock-outs,[4] and the process of production cannot be as minutely and absolutely directed by the small and leisured class as can slave labour. _There is no reason why a free man working for another’s profit should do his best._ On the contrary, he has every reason to work as little as possible, while a slave can be compelled to work hard.