m are scarce and dear in the
countries that receive them, we shall get on less favorable terms,
because the goods we now send to the foreign lands will have become
there more abundant and cheap. In general, we must regard the opening
of a profitable avenue for trade as we should the invention of a new
machine, the discovery of a better electrical transmitter, or the
utilizing of a cheaper motive power. It gives us more goods as the
fruit of a given expenditure of labor and capital and affords a profit
which, as we shall see, comes first to _entrepreneurs_ and later to
laborers and capitalists within the pale. Ultimately, those living
beyond the pale will get a share of this gain.

_Summary of Facts concerning the Economic Center._--We may, then,
regard a certain limited part of the world as a society in itself. It
is modified by its environment, but, in an important sense, it has a
self-contained life. The economic changes which go on within it can be
grouped under the five generic heads: increase in the amount of labor,
increase in the quantity of capital, improvement of method,
improvement in organization, and changes in the wants of the
individual consumers.

_The Geographical Boundaries of Society not Fixed._--The boundaries of
this central area are not fixed. As relations between the center and
the part of the outer zone which is nearest to it become more and more
intimate, the adjacent region takes on the character of the center. It
is, in an economic way, assimilated to it; and in this way the center
may be regarded as annexing to itself belt after belt of the
environing world. Ultimately it will doubtless annex the whole of it;
and for this reason, even though we confine our studies to the
center, we shall establish a system of economic laws which will apply,
in the end, to all the world. This indeed is not the only way in which
the economic life of the outer area comes into the economist's
purview, for he can study it for itself. This zone has its peculiar
life, which is a distant reflection of the life of the center. It is a
type of economic activity in which all the primary forces work, but in
which friction abounds and adjustments are made with extreme slowness.
For the present, what interests us is the life of the center itself,
and in studying this we take account of the influence of the
environment. The effects of these influences are first seen in changes
in the rate at which the five general dynamic m