The History of Capitalism

Westinghouse is able to not run an exploitation extraction chain but get rich by investing in inventions that will help everyone. And do you know you could get rich through mercantile adventures before but those always had a quasi military edge? At the very least you need caravan guards and lots of nasty caravan guards to get through even if the principal purpose of the thing is mercantile. Medieval European monks when they describe merchants often describe them as hominase duri, as tough men, tough guys. Precisely because they move from place to place carrying valuable goods in an environment of very uncertain law and order and next to no enforcement.