Conclusions: Private Interests and Public Welfare in International Society

Abstract

We have now surveyed five periods of international economic history over the last five centuries, and seen the variations over that time in the prevailing ideas concerning economic relationships between states; in the dominant interest-groups affecting those relations; in the motives inspiring these groups and the governments they influence; in the means used by governments to achieve their ends; and therefore, finally, in the type of economic domination and dependence that resulted.