Love has not triumphed over wealth, and thus it has not triumphed over law. As long as the People are committed to wealth, as long as they are locked in the sham relationship with capitalist society, they are not free from property relations and their treasure remains "unlawful," meaning both the silver and, on the deeper level, their secret purpose of independence.

On the surface, it seems like Nostromo has enough capital even in his schooner to carry Giselle off and begin a new life with her somewhere, and his continuing addiction to the silver comes across as an enslavement to greed. But we remember what the silver is to him: it is his defiance of "every possible betrayal from rich and poor alike." An ideal like that requires so much money that it calls attention to the allegory, because a life free from "every possible betrayal" is really only possible in a world without conquest.