VOLUNTARY TRADE AS THE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY Free Friends Forum #7

Can capitalism save the planet? | Johan Norberg | The Capitalist Manifesto (Video) Atlantic Books, June 10, 2023.  2:28

Busting 3 common myths about free market capitalism | Johan Norberg | The Capitalist Manifesto (Video)  Atlantic Books, June 10, 2023. 3:00

Dead Wrong® with Johan Norberg - How Sweden Got Rich - and Almost Poor (Video) Free To Choose Network, Sept 6, 2018.  1:41

The Capitalist Manifesto: How Free Markets Will Save the World (Video) The Cato Institute, Sept 26, 2023. 1:14:34

The New Statesman, By Michael Lind, July 8, 2023

Johan Norberg’s The Capitalist Manifesto is a feeble defence of a system under attack.

https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-essay/2023/07/love-capitalism

Why Do Intellectuals Love Socialism? Thomas Sowell (Video) Thomas Sowell, Dec 4, 2023. 9:4o

“Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who “speak truth to power” but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.” Thomas Sowell

Why Do So Many Intellectuals Hate Free Markets? (Article) 08/24/2020 Ralph Raico

https://mises.org/library/book/why-do-so-many-intellectuals-hate-free-markets

Francisco d`Anconia and Money (Video) aksourdough1, March 25, 2013.  1:57

Is Money The Root Of All Evil? Mike Maloney Reads Atlas Shrugged (

Video) GoldSilver (w/Mike Maloney) March 4, 2014. 20:48

“Francisco’s Money Speech” (Aricle) Capitalism Magazine. Ayn Rand, Aug 30, 2020

https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech/

Richard Cobden: The Man Who Helped Turn Britain into a Free-trading Nation | HOP | Ep. 9 (Video) Human Progress, Jan 21, 2021. 2:19

Cobden’s work turned Britain, the global hegemon at the time, into a free trading nation – an act that set in motion global trade liberalization that has lifted millions of people out of poverty.

Richard Cobden: On Free Trade - Classics of Liberty Podcast (Audio) Libertarianism(dot)org Podcasts, Sept 15, 2021. 9:56

The Rational Optimist: A 3 Minute Summary (Video) Snap Summaries, Dec 20, 2023.  3:06

Book Summary: "The Rational Optimist" presents a compelling case for the idea that human history has been marked by continuous progress, from our earliest days as a species to the present. Matt Ridley argues that trade, specialization, and innovation have played crucial roles in improving our lives, increasing our prosperity, and promoting interconnectedness among people worldwide. By examining the history of human development, Ridley illustrates how exchange and collaboration have led to greater abundance, longer life spans, and a brighter future for humanity. ✅ Key Takeaways: 1️⃣  Explore the concept of "collective intelligence" and how it drives innovation and progress. 2️⃣  Understand the importance of trade and specialization in creating wealth and well-being. 3️⃣  Learn how technology and ideas spread, leading to continuous improvement. 4️⃣  Embrace the idea that innovation and cooperation have the potential to solve future challenges. 5️⃣  Challenge pessimistic viewpoints and embrace a rational, optimistic perspective on human progress.

Matt Ridley—The Rational Optimist (Video) Hoover Institution, Dec 9, 2010  33:34

Matt Ridley is a journalist and best-selling author…. His most recent book is The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. Matt Ridley discusses the evolutionary process of "ideas having sex," calling it the secret behind human progress. He asserts that "barter was the trick that changed the world" and outlines his argument that life for the average human being is richer, healthier, and kinder than ever. Finally, he discusses whether limited government and rational optimism go hand in hand.

START 13:09 “barter was the trick that changed the world, elaborate on that”

NEXT 18:43 “I want to clear up this the direct link between commerce and virtue”

The Rational Optimist: The Rational Optimist How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley (Audiobook) Readers Hub, Dec 5, 2021  11:05:09

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley (book), May 18, 2010

https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-How-Prosperity-Evolves/dp/006145205X/ref=monarch_sidesheet

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises Part 2 (Audiobook) C] On Exchange (audiobook)

ON DEFINING AND UNDERSTANDING FREE TRADE—

comparing passages from the four books below.

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley

The Sane Society Erich Fromm

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises

Ch. X Exchange Within Society—starts with P.195 of the book

I . Autistic Exchange and Interpersonal Exchange

“Action always is essentially the exchange of one state of affairs for another state of affairs. If the action is performed by an in- dividual without any reference to cooperation with other individuals, we may call it autistic exchange. An instance: the isolated hunter who kills an animal for his own consumption; he exchanges leisure and a cartridge for food.

“Within society cooperation substitutes interpersonal or social exchange for autistic exchanges. Man gives to other men in order to receive from them. Mutuality emerges. Man serves in order to be served.

“The exchange relation is the fundamental social relation. Interpersonal exchange of goods and services weaves the bond which unites men into society. The societal formula is: do ut des. Where there is no intentional mutuality, where an action is performed without any design of being benefited by a concomitant action of other men, there is no interpersona1 exchange, but autistic exchange. It does not matter whether the autistic action is beneficial or detrimental to other people or whether it does not concern them at alI. A genius may perform his task for himself, not for the crowd; however, he is an outstanding benefactor of mankind. The robber kills the victim for his own advantage; the murdered man is by no means a partner in this crime, he is mereIy its object; what is done, is done against him.

“Hostile aggression was a practice common to man's nonhuman fore- bears. Purchase and purpose for cooperation is the outcome of a long evolutionarily process. Ethnology and history have provided us with interesting information concerning the beginning arid the primitive patterns of interpersonal exchange. Some consider the custom of mutual giving and returning of presents and stipulating a certain return present in advance as a precursory pattern of interpersonal exchange. Others consider dumb barter as the primitive mode of trade. However, to make presents in the expectation of being rewarded by the receiver's return present or in order to acquire the favor of a man whose animosity could be disastrous, is already tantamount to interpersonal exchange. The same applies to dumb barter which is distinguished from other modes of bartering and trading only through the absence of oral discussion.

“It is the essential characteristic of the categories of human action that they are apodictic and absolute and do not admit of any gradation. There is action or nonaction, there is exchange or nonexchange; everything which applies to action and exchange as such is given or not given in every individual instance according to whether there is or there is not action and exchange. In the same way the boundaries between autistic exchange and interpersonal exchange are sharply distinct. Making one-sided presents without the aim of being rewarded by any conduct on the part of the receiver or of third persons is autistic exchange. The donor acquires the satisfaction which the better condition of the receiver gives to him. The receiver gets the present as a God-sent gift. But if presents are given in order to influence some people's conduct, they are no longer one-sided, but a variety of interpersonal exchange between the donor and the man whose conduct they are designed to influence. Although the emergence of interpersonal exchange was the result of a long evolution, no gradual transition is conceivable between autistic and interpersonal exchange. There were no intermediary modes of exchange between them. The step which leads from autistic to interpersonal exchange was no less a jump into something entirely new and essentially dif- ferent than was the step from automatic reaction of the cells and nerves to conscious and purposeful behavior, to action.

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The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley p.56-58

“Whatever the explanation for the modernisation of human technology after 200,000 years ago, it must be something that gathers pace by feeding upon itself, something that is auto-catalytic.

“As you can tell, I like neither theory [genes or climate change as drivers]. I am going to argue that the answer lies not in climate, nor genetics, nor in archaeology, nor even entirely in ‘culture’, but in economics. Human beings had started to do something to and with each other that in effect began to build a collective intelligence. They had started, for the very first time, to exchange things between unrelated, unmarried individuals; to share, swap, barter and trade.

“The effect of this was to cause specialisation, which in turn caused technological innovation, which in turn encouraged more specialisation, which led to more exchange - and ‘progress’ was born, by which I mean technology and habits changing faster than anatomy. They had stumbled on what Friedrich Hayek called the catallaxy: the ever-expanding possibility generated by a growing division of labour. This is something that amplifies itself once begun.

“Exchange needed to be invented. It does not come naturally to most animals. There is strikingly little use of barter in any other animal species. There is sharing within families, and there is food-for-sex exchange in many animals including insects and apes, but there are no cases in which one animal gives an unrelated animal one thing in exchange for a different thing. ‘No man ever saw a dog make fair and deliberate exchange of a bone with another dog,’ said Adam Smith.

“Such reciprocity [e.g., grooming in monkeys, apes] is an important human social glue, a source of cooperation and a habit inherited from the animal past that undoubtedly prepared human beings for exchange. But it is not the same thing as exchange. Reciprocity means giving each other the same thing (usually) at different times. Exchange - call it barter or trade if you like - means giving each other different things (usually) at the same time: simultaneously swapping two different objects. In Adam Smith’s words, ‘Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want.’

“Barter is a lot more portentous than reciprocity. After all, delousing aside, how many activities are there in life where it pays to do the same thing to each other in turn? ‘If I sew you a hide tunic today, you can sew me one tomorrow’ brings limited rewards and diminishing returns. ‘If I make the clothes, you catch the food’ brings increasing returns. Indeed, it has the beautiful property that it does not even need to be fair. For barter to work, two individuals do not need to offer things of equal

value. Trade is often unequal, but still benefits both sides.

“As long as two people are living in different habitats, they will value what each other has more than what they have themselves, and trade will pay them both. And the more they trade, the more it will pay them to specialise.

“Evolutionary psychologists have assumed that it is rare for conditions to exist in which two people simultaneously have value to offer to each other. But this is just not true, because people can value highly what they do not have access to. And the more they rely on exchange, the more they specialise, which makes exchange still more attractive. Exchange is therefore a thing of explosive possibility, a thing that breeds, explodes, grows, auto-catalyses. It may have built upon an older animal instinct of reciprocity, and it may have been greatly and uniquely facilitated by language - I am not arguing that these were not vital ingredients of human nature that allowed the habit to get started. But I am saying that barter - the simul­ taneous exchange of different objects - was itself a human breakthrough, perhaps even the chief thing that led to the ecological dominance and burgeoning material prosperity of the species. Fundamentally, other animals do not do barter.”

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The Sane Society by Erich Fromm p.142-143

“The marketing orientation is closely related to the fact that the need to exchange has become a paramount drive in modern man. It is, of course, true that even in a primitive economy based on a rudimentary form of division of labor, men exchange goods with each other within the tribe or among neighboring tribes. The man who produces cloth exchanges it for grain which his neighbor may have produced, or for sickles or knives made by the blacksmith. With increasing division of labor, there is increasing exchange of goods, but normally the exchange of goods is nothing but a means to an economic end. In capitalistic society exchanging has become an end in itself.

“None other than Adam Smith saw the fundamental role of the need to exchange, and explained it as a basic drive in man. "This division of labour," he says, "from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opu­ lence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to enquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. . . . Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.”

“The principle of exchange on an ever-increasing scale on the national and world market is indeed one of the fundamental economic principles on which the capitalistic system rests, but Adam Smith foresaw here that this principle was also to become one of the deepest psychic needs of the modern, alienated per­ sonality. Exchanging has lost its rational function as a mere means for economic purposes, and has become an end in itself, extended to the noneconomic realms. Quite unwittingly, Adam Smith himself indicates the irrational nature of this need to exchange in his example of the exchange between the two dogs. There could be no possible realistic purpose in this exchange; either the two bones are alike, and then there is no reason to exchange them, or the one is better than the other, and then the dog who has the better one would not voluntarily exchange it.

The example makes sense only if we assume that to exchange is a need in itself, even if it does not serve any practical purpose­ and this is indeed what Adam Smith does assume.”

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The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith Chapter II, p. 29-31

“Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

“Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons.

“In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.”