List noted how Britain’s emergence as “the first industrial nation” at the end of the eighteenth century depended on prior state policies to promote British industry. “Had the English left everything to itself,” he wrote, “the Belgians would be still manufacturing cloth for the English, England would still have been the sheepyard for the [Hanseatic League].”
李斯特论证了英国是如何依赖国家政策促进英国工业而在18世纪末成为“第一个工业化国家”的。“如果英国人把所有东西都留给自己，”他写道，“那么比利时人现在仍在为英国人做衣服，（而）英国现在仍是（汉萨同盟）的大羊圈。”