Let’s Stay Together: On Direct Exchange and the Social Order - Gene Callahan - Mises Institute

Let’s Stay Together: On Direct Exchange and the Social Order - Gene Callahan - Mises Institute: "Even if a country is worse at producing everything than is some other country, it can still net a material gain by specializing in the areas where it has a comparative advantage and trading for other goods."

"We hear that international competition will result in some nations being "winners" and others "losers." We read a headline that some company has "crushed" its competition, or that the U.S. is at "economic war" with Japan or OPEC.

Employed as loose metaphors, such terms are useful. But the analogy does not extend very far. The key difference between a game and the market process is that, in the market, all participants gain from voluntary exchange."

"In a market economy, whether it is domestic or international in scope, everyone's standard of living can rise at once. America has not lost if Japan or China should become wealthier than the U.S. An increase in the standard of living anywhere benefits all people who are economically integrated with the area in question."