|
The French can do just fine with locally caught fish and Icelanders can ferment potatoes if they need some hooch to drink. In fact, throughout most of history people did without trade, eating what was fished and hunted and grown locally, building with local materials, and making cloth from cotton or flax or whatever fiber was convenient. In ancient times, trade was for exotic non-essentials like myrrh or spices, and only the haves and have-mores could afford them. If a tribe of people happened to live in a particularly deprived area, they might have to make a trade trip once a year to go and trade their surplus with a neighboring tribe for a necessity, usually salt.
Only when cheap transportation came on the scene did comparative advantage show up. Suddenly, all that excess cod in Iceland could be traded for the excess wine and the standard of both sides rose, for it was not a zero-sum exchange. But in the two or three centuries that have passed since cheap bulk transportation was invented, capitalists have far oversold the benefits of trade, for the purpose of lining their own pockets. They have conditioned the public to expect fresh strawberries any time of the year, season be damned.
As time goes on, and the era of cheap transportation comes to an end with Peak Oil far in the rearview mirror, people will again realize that trade was overrated, just like Italians know now. Ask any Italian from a coastal area where the best seafood in Italy is, and he will tell you his own town. Not 30 km up or down the coast, but his own town. Which also has the best olive oil, the best wine, the tastiest artichokes, etc. They had trade in the Roman era, then it fell by the wayside until Marco Polo showed up. If it goes away again, their way of life isn't going to fall apart.
Trade has really turned the world upside down. I'm reminded of that when I go to the dollar store and see little bags of rocks, carefully selected and packaged by Chinese hands and shipped 10,000 miles so that people can drop them into the bottom of their flower vases.
|