 He drew on the theories of Werner Sombart, who posited that foreigners bring capitalism to countries embarking on a course of modernization, which at a later stage rebel against perceived foreign domination.Zeletin placed early-1920s Romania at this second stage, thus explaining the "nationalism of reaction" that was "xenophobic, in particular anti-Semitic", directed against the country's Jewish community.Prophetically, he suggested that Romanians would "attempt to emancipate themselves from foreign patronage, in order to live on their own strength"; he died before the worst of the country's xenophobic and anti-Semitic reaction had displayed itself.