… it is no longer individuals only, or cities, that enrich themselves by distant commerce and export; but whole nations grow rich at the cost of those nations which lag behind in their industrial development.

Petr Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread

Hermetic quote Kropotkin Bread rich

Consider also:

  1. “whole nations grow rich at the cost of those nations which lag behind”
  2. “the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure”
  3. “I can no longer believe the nice speculative contradictions of our divine theologians,” he wrote.
  4. “We are out to break the political will of another group of nations, and our worst foes are those of our own people who are giving the show away. We go to war to defend the rights of the little nations, and we imprison Irishmen who can not forget that their mothers were raped by British soldiers. We are particularly strong on Belgium, and her representative complains that there is to be no seat for Belgium on the Allied war council. The Germans go to war for Kultur, yet they cannot find an expedient for contracting out of the shelling of cathedrals. And if these things are done in the green tree of the people in power, what shall be done in the dry tree, and withered sticks of the mediocre.”
  5. “Commerce is weird,” Billy says. “I mean, think about it. People buy things.” “And I,” Anil says, “am buying you a drink. Put that goddamn banana away.”