"Modern techniques have torn down state frontiers, both economical and intellectual. The growth of means of transport has created a world market and an opportunity for division of labor embracing all the developed and most of the undeveloped states"
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“Modern techniques” is doing double duty here: it’s praise for human ingenuity and a warning about what ingenuity inevitably bulldozes. Lange frames technology not as a neutral tool but as a geopolitical solvent, dissolving borders in two registers at once: “economical and intellectual.” That pairing is the tell. He’s not only talking about cheaper shipping or faster trains; he’s pointing to how ideas, standards, and expectations travel with goods. When transport compresses distance, sovereignty stops being a wall and becomes a membrane.
The line is also a subtle argument for internationalism dressed up as description. Lange was a Norwegian politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1921), writing in an era when Europe was trying to rebuild an order after World War I while watching mass industry and global trade accelerate. His rhetoric leans technocratic: no villains, no utopias, just “growth of means of transport” producing structural consequences. That calm tone is strategic. By making integration sound inevitable, he nudges readers toward cooperation as pragmatism, not idealism.
The subtext is the bargain of modernity: expanded “division of labor” can raise prosperity, but it also binds “developed” and “undeveloped” states into a single system where dependence travels both ways. The “world market” isn’t just an opportunity; it’s a discipline, pushing states to compete, specialize, and conform. Lange’s sentence reads like a forecast, but it’s really a pitch: if frontiers are already torn down by technology, politics has to catch up before the next crisis writes the rules.
The line is also a subtle argument for internationalism dressed up as description. Lange was a Norwegian politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1921), writing in an era when Europe was trying to rebuild an order after World War I while watching mass industry and global trade accelerate. His rhetoric leans technocratic: no villains, no utopias, just “growth of means of transport” producing structural consequences. That calm tone is strategic. By making integration sound inevitable, he nudges readers toward cooperation as pragmatism, not idealism.
The subtext is the bargain of modernity: expanded “division of labor” can raise prosperity, but it also binds “developed” and “undeveloped” states into a single system where dependence travels both ways. The “world market” isn’t just an opportunity; it’s a discipline, pushing states to compete, specialize, and conform. Lange’s sentence reads like a forecast, but it’s really a pitch: if frontiers are already torn down by technology, politics has to catch up before the next crisis writes the rules.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
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