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its markets are exhausted; so every effort is made to impose 
it not only on the native but the foreigner, and should guile 
fail, then force! 
But the process ineluctably goes on ; when the whole world 
buys the nasty stuff , and will accept no other , the exploiter is 
still 
faced 
by diminishing returns . No possibility 
of 
expansion ; sooner or later dividends dwindle , and the 
Business is Bust. 
To even the most stupid it becomes plain at this stage that 
war is wholly ruinous ; organization breaks down altogether ; 
one meaningless revolution follows another ; famine and 
pestilence complete the job. 
Last time - when Osiris replaced Isis- the wreck was limited 
in scope- note that it was the civilized, the organized part 
that broke down. 
(Jews and Arabs could remain aloof , and keep a small 
torch burning until Light returned with the Renaissance.) 
This time there is no civilization which can escape being 
involved in the totality of the catastrophe. 
Achievement of high aims, which tends ultimately to the 
well-being, the prosperity of the republic , depends on the 
proportion of masters to servants . The stability of a building 
depends on the proportion of superstructure to foundations. 
The rule holds good in every department of Nature. There is 
an optimum for every case. If there is one barber for ten 
thousand men, most of them will remain unshorn; if there are 
five thousand barbers , most of them will be out of a job . 
Apply this measure to society ; there must be an optimum 
relation between industry and agriculture, between town and 
country . When the proper balance is not struck , the 
community must depend on outside help, importing what it 
lacks, exporting its surplus. This is an unnatural state of 
affairs; it results in business, and therefore ultimately in war. 
That is, as soon as the stress set up by the conditions 
becomes insupportable. So long as "business" is confined to 
luxuries,· no great harm need result; but when interference 
with the flow of foreign trade threatens actual necessities, the