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As the author of a book on imperialism, Tony surely knows how the 
introduction of the small tax sufficed to drive large numbers of people 
into the labor markets in certain colonies.  Similarly, the loss of a 
relatively small source of protein could have the same effect. 
Well-trained economists are familiar with the ability of marginal changes 
to have large effects. 
 
More important than the loss of game as a food source for the poor was the 
destruction of crops, both by animals that the shooters wished to preserve 
for their own amusement, as well as by the hunters who trampled the crops, 
and by the multiplication of creatures that consumed crops because the 
predators that would normally keep them in check were decimated by the 
hunters. 
 
Both Tony and I have made these arguments before and need not repeat them 
again. 
 
Tony informs me that I believe that capitalism was an urban phenomenon.  I 
was not aware of that before.  I was assumed that capitalism was a complex 
phenomenon that engage people in the town and the countryside. 
 
Since we're attributing views to one another, I would say that Tony makes 
the case that if the classical political economists did not comment on a 
matter, then it was certainly unimportant.  I do not see these people as 
purely disinterested scientists.  They may have been insensitive to the 
sufferings of the poor.  Certainly, that failing is not uncommon among 
economists today.  They may have suffered from cognitive dissonance.  Or 
they may have been crafting their work to suit the prior political beliefs 
-- something related to what Schumpeter called vision. 
 
Michael Perelman 
 
 
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