Around the figure of Nostromo, Conrad spins a story about revolution, politics, and racial conflicts as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself. Heading the Gould Concession, the imperialistic silver mine, which runs the country's economy, is the somewhat idealistic Englishman Charles Gould, and his American financier, Holroyd, who sees the slave economy as a higher form of social Darwinism, "a pure form of Christianity." Opposing Gould is the cynical Frenchman, who claims to belive in nothing but "the truth of his sensations."