The symbolism of the "lost" silver as the vanished dream-ideal continues
in these lines from the disillusioned Charles Gould. Note that he is responding
to the notion of using the silver to make Sotillo join him, i.e., a Unionist move.
Symbolically, this stands for using illusory idealism to reunite the anarchic
factions of mankind into a society, which according to Nostromo is the
only way such Unity can exist. To the disillusioned viewpoint, that prospect presages
"a disastrous ending," precisely because "plunder" would remain
the fundamental desire of Man beneath the unifying fiction. Worse still would
be the obligation "to defend it," meaning to participate in the oppressive
imposition of the illusion. In short, the dream-ideal is "a danger and a
curse," and on all levels Charles Gould is "glad we've removed it":
he has become the "buccaneer"
who is quite at home facing anarchic human warfare without higher idealism.