dim.

If men could divest themselves of the sentiment of rivalry and
hostility between different nations, they would perceive that the
matters in which the interests of different nations coincide
immeasurably outweigh those in which they clash; they would perceive,
to begin with, that trade is not to be compared to warfare; that the
man who sells you goods is not doing you an injury. No one considers
that the butcher and the baker are his enemies because they drain him
of money. Yet as soon as goods come from a foreign country, we are
asked to believe that we suffer a terrible injury in purchasing them.
No one remembers that it is by means of goods exported that we
purchase them. But in the country to which we export, it is the goods
we send which are thought dangerous, and the goods we buy are
forgotten. The whole conception of trade, which has been forced upon
us by manufacturers who dreaded foreign competition, by trusts which
desired to secure monopolies, and by economists poisoned by the virus
of nationalism, is totally and absolutely false. Trade results simply
from division of labor. A man cannot himself make all the goods of
which he has need, and therefore he must exchange his produce with
that of other people. What applies to the individual, applies in
exactly the same way to the nation. There is no reason to desire that
a nation should itself produce all the goods of which it has need; it
is better that it should specialize upon those goods which it can
produce to most advantage, and should exchange its surplus with the
surplus of other goods produced by other countries. There is no use
in sending goods out of the country except in order to get other goods
in return. A butcher who is always willing to part with his meat but
not willing to take bread from the baker, or boots from the bootmaker,
or clothes from the tailor, would soon find himself in a sorry plight.