  Various arguments have been used to show that economic cosmopolitanism is not a viable option. Marx and later Marxists have argued that capitalism is self-destructive in the long run, because the exploitation, alienation, and poverty that it inflicts on the proletariat will provoke a world-wide revolution that will bring about the end of capitalism. In the twentieth century, when nationalist tendencies proved to be stronger (or in any case more easily mobilized) than international solidarity, and when the position of workers was strengthened to the point of making them unwilling to risk a revolution, this forced the left to reconsider this view. 