Sarmiento's “liberty” was not the freedom just to do whatever one pleased; rather, it was the ordered and limited liberty to which the bourgeoisie aspired, for he distinguished “liberty” from “license” and disdained the lawless freedom that characterized the “barbarism” of the Argentine gaucho of his day.

Sarmiento, pp. 64, 75, 95, repeatedly refers to the gauchos' shiftlessness (incuria), which on p. 64 he contemptuously contrasts with the industrious habits of the Scottish and German immigrants who had settled to the south of Buenos Aires. Here it is well to distinguish feral humans from boosters. The latter move into frontier districts—usually after ferals have paved the way—with an eye to profiting financially from undeveloped resources and raising their status in bourgeois society. The boosters of course are quite pleased with the arrival oflaw and order and other appurtenances of civilization.