Foundation

Mallow looked up, grim in his turn, "Once and for all, Jael, there is no possibility of a popular rebellion."

"You're sure of yourself!"

"I'm sure of the Seldon crisis and the historical validity of their solutions, externally and internally. There are some things I didn't tell Suit right now. He tried to control the Foundation itself by religious forces as he controlled the outer worlds, and he failed, -which is the surest sign that in the Seldon scheme, religion is played out.

"Economic control worked differently. And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of yours, it's a poor nuclear blaster that won't point both ways. If Korell prospered with our trade, so did we. If Korellian factories fail without our trade; and if the prosperity of the outer worlds vanishes with commercial isolation; so will our factories fail and our prosperity vanish.

"And there isn't a factory, not a trading center. not a shipping line that isn't under my control; that I couldn't squeeze to nothing if Sutt attempts revolutionary propaganda. Where his propaganda succeeds, or even looks as though it might succeed, I will make certain that prosperity dies. Where it fails, prosperity will continue, because my factories will remain fully staffed.

"So by the same reasoning which makes me sure that the Korellians will revolt in favor of prosperity, I am sure we will not revolt against it. The game will be played out to its end."

"So then," said Jael, "you're establishing a plutocracy. You're making us a land of traders and merchant princes. Then what of the future?"

Mallow lifted his gloomy face, and exclaimed fiercely, "What business of mine is the future? No doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now. Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today."