Wealth and Want
... because democracy alone is not enough to produce widely shared prosperity.
Home Essential Documents Themes All Documents Authors Glossary Links Contact Us

 

Commerce

 

Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George, a themed collection of excerpts from the writings of Henry George (with links to sources)

ALL living things that we know of co-operate in some kind and to some degree. So far as we can see, nothing that lives can live in and for itself alone. But man is the only one who co-operates by exchanging, and he may be distinguished from all the numberless tribes that with him tenant the earth as the exchanging animal. . . . Exchange is the great agency by which what I have called the spontaneous or unconscious co-operation of men in the production of wealth is brought about, and economic units are welded into that social organism which is the Greater Leviathan. To this economic body, this Greater Leviathan, into which it builds the economic units, it is what the nerves or perhaps the ganglions are to the individual body. Or, to make use of another illustration, it is to our material desires and powers of satisfying them what the switchboard of a telegraph or telephone, or other electric system, is to that system, a means by which exertion of one kind in one place may be transmitted into satisfaction of another kind in another place, and thus the efforts of individual units be conjoined and correlated so as to yield satisfactions in most useful place and form, and to an amount enormously exceeding what otherwise would be possible. — The Science of Political Economyunabridged: Book III, Chapter 11, The Production of Wealth: The Office of Exchange in Productionunabridged Chapter 9, The Office of Exchange in Production

MEN of different nations trade with each other for the same reason that men of the same nation do — because they find it profitable; because they thus obtain what they want with less labor than they otherwise could. — Protection or Free Trade, Chapter 6: Trade - econlib -|- abridged

TRADE is not invasion. It does not involve aggression on one side and resistance on the other, but mutual consent and gratification. There cannot be a trade unless the parties to it agree, any more than there can be a quarrel unless the parties to it differ. England, we say, forced trade with the outside world upon China and the United States upon Japan. But, in both cases, what was done was not to force the people to trade, but to force their governments to let them. If the people had not wanted to trade, the opening of the ports would have been useless. — Protection or Free Trade, Chapter 6: Trade - econlib
 
TRADE does not require force. Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell.. It is protection that requires force, for it consists in preventing people from doing what they want to do. — Protection or Free Trade, Chapter 6: Trade - econlib -|- abridged

IF all the material things needed by man could be produced equally well at all points on the earth's surface, it might seem more convenient for man the animal, but how would he have risen above the animal level? As we see in the history of social development, commerce has been and is the great civilizer and educator. The seemingly infinite diversities in the capacity of different parts of the earth's surface lead to that exchange of productions which is the most powerful agent in preventing isolation, in breaking down prejudice, in increasing knowledge and widening thought. These diversities of nature, which seemingly increase with our knowledge of nature's powers, like the diversities in the aptitudes of individuals and communities, which similarly increase with social development, call forth powers and give rise to pleasures which could never arise had man been placed like an ox in a boundless field of clover. The "international law of God" which we fight with our tariffs — so shortsighted are the selfish prejudices of men — is the law which stimulates mental and moral progress; the law to which civilization is due. — Social Problems — Chapter 19: The First Great Reform.

... go to "Gems from George"

 

 

To share this page with a friend: right click, choose "send," and add your comments.

Red links have not been visited; .
Green links are pages you've seen

Essential Documents pertinent to this theme:

essential_documents
Home
Top of page
Essential Documents
Themes
to email this page to a friend: right click, choose "send"
   
Wealth and Want
www.wealthandwant.com
   
... because democracy alone hasn't yet led to a society in which all can prosper