YOU NEED MONEY TO MAKE MONEY 269
imported strange and disturbing technologies, poisoned it with alien
dreams.
The dreams caught on faster than the technologies and wrenched
the country out of sync. Three wars destroyed the regime by exposing
the gap between east and west, backward and advanced, fantasy and re
ality. The first was the Crimean War (1854-56), which underlined the
difference between citizen and servile armies; the emancipation of the
serfs followed shortly thereafter. The second was the humiliating de
feat by Japan (1904-05), the first time Russia had known a setback in
its Drang nach Osten. This was followed by the installation of a parlia
ment (the Duma) and popular elections—a good idea in principle but
bad for autocracy. The third was World War I, the Great War, when
millions of Russian peasants were ordered into clouds of bullets and
shrapnel. With that, an incompetent government and military estab
lishment deservedly lost legitimacy, and the regime was overthrown.
The whole sequence was a repeat in its way of Spain's long decline: a
great ^randustrial power could not cope with the demands and pre
tensions of better-equipped nations. And like Spain, Russia knew what
was happening, but responded with too little, too late.
The last of our four sources of funds was international capital flows.
Here again, one sees the east-west gradient at work. England invested
in French railways; France and Belgium in Prussian ironworks and Aus
trian banks; Germany in Italian banks and Balkan railways; everybody
in Russian mining and industry. In general, money a-plenty followed
opportunity a-plenty, with no lack of promoters and pied pipers.
Some students of economic development, specialists in Third World
backwardness, seek to explain retardation by the unwillingness of rich
countries to invest in the poor. The charge does not stand up in history
or logic. Businessmen have always been "in it for the money" and will
make it and take it where they can. To be sure, they have their prefer
ences. They have always sought to minimize risk and maximize com
fort; also have preferred kind climates to unkind, close places to far,
familiar cultures to strange.
They sometimes make big mistakes. In spite of the greatest care and
forethought, not every investment pays off. But this has not stopped
businessmen and investors from trying again. It is not want of money
that holds back development. The biggest impediment is social, cul
tural, and technological unreadiness—want of knowledge and know-
how. In other words, want of the ability to use money.