ABSTRACT
Communities which have been more or less self-contained have persisted for thousands of years, but no community which has once become dependent upon an extensive foreign trade has retained its prosperity for over a limited period. The history of Carthage and Athens, as of Venice and Genoa, demonstrate the fleeting nature of such prosperity. The explanation is simple. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that so long as industry is dependent upon foreign markets so long will the workers continue to be exploited, because an extensive foreign trade is dependent ultimately upon capitalist adventurers. The workers become parasitic upon the capitalist, because he alone can find the market. Once the fact is grasped that the economic dependence of the workers is bound up with an extensive foreign trade, as it is with large industries and the division of labour, it follows that their emancipation is bound up with small industries and local markets.
