Submission

This is a rare case. Here, the merchants are running scared. Coercion is rife; merchants pay a lot of money to avoid being robbed or having their homes burned down. Their profits may be almost all eaten away by this. The law is of little help, usually because it is corrupt, maybe because it is ineffectual. Thieves will have many spies in the midst of the merchants. This is an unstable state of affairs; it cannot persist long. Either the commercial life of the society falls apart, or the picture changes—often to Infiltration as described below.

Table of Contents