It was not a mere shifting of the centre of gravity of commerce, such as Europe witnessed in the past, when the commercial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, to Holland, and finally to Britain: it had a much deeper meaning, as it excluded the very possibility of commercial or industrial hegemony.
Kropotkin discusses the deeper implications of the shift in commerce and industry beyond mere geographical changes.
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The small industries are as much a distinctive feature of the British industry as its few immense factories and ironworks.
The figures show, on the contrary, what an immense number of small factories and workshops resist the absorption by the big factories, and how they multiply by the side of the great industry in various branches, especially those of recent…
And at the same time we learn that immense quantities of land go every year out of culture, to be transformed into game reserves for rich Englishmen and foreigners.
They are entirely in our institutions, in our inheritances and survivals from the past--in the “Ghosts” which oppress us.
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