Rapide espansioni e contrazioni commerciali nei nuovi mercati

“It is a phenomenon by no means peculiar to the Chinese trade, that a sudden expansion of commerce should be followed by its violent contractions, or that a new market; at its opening, should be choked by British oversupplies; the articles thrown upon it being not very nicely calculated, in regard either to the actual wants or the paying powers of the consumers. In fact, this is a standing feature in the history of the markets of the world. On Napoleon’s fall, after the opening of the European continent, British imports proved so disproportionate to the continental faculties of absorption, that “the transition from war to pace” proved more disastrous than the continental system itself.” [Karl Marx, The Anglo-Chinese Treaty, 1858] [Marx Engels, On Colonialism, 2011]