A country which always sends out fewer commodities or less produce than it receives puts itself in equilibrium by impoverishing itself; it will receive ever less, until, in extreme poverty, it receives nothing.
 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law (1748). copy citation

add
Author Montesquieu
Source The Spirit of Law
Topic poverty equilibrium
Date 1748
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone
Weblink