Dazzling new flows of wealth and information had one more powerful effect: they stimulated the commercial forms of mobilization often described as capitalism that were driven by gradients of both wealth and information. For the most part, traditional rulers had mobilized wealth with the threat of coercion, the promise of protection, and appeals to religious and legal authorities. But in all civilizations, merchants had also mobilized a lot of wealth through commerce. Commercial mobilization depended on arbitrage, on buying cheap in one region and selling dear somewhere else. To succeed,
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