Many opponents of free trade like to appeal to a higher ideal. They see material progress as vapid and unimportant. But what about intellectual and artistic progress?

How many artists, academics and intellectuals would be around if we had to grow our own food and build our own houses? Writing was developed when trade made it a necessity in Mesopotamia.

Free trade makes artistic and intellectual pursuits possible. Intellectuals who disdain trade and its material progress do so at their own peril.