The Collapse of the Global Trading System

The notion that trade per se fosters peace and prosperity is fanciful.

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann, The Globalist, May 18, 2016 | http://www.theglobalist.com/the-collapse-of-the-global-trading-system/
The notion that trade per se fosters peace and prosperity is fanciful. The trade = peace and prosperity formula is one that would be difficult to convince Africans who, until well into the latter part of the 19th century, suffered from the slave “trade.”
The same applies to the Amerindians whether in North, Central or South America for whom the consequences of “trade” included plunder and genocide. And it applies to the Chinese for whom the opium “trade” resulted in the Opium War, which heralded a century-and-a-half of exploitation and humiliation.
One might also add that there was lots of intra-European trade at the beginning of the last century, with Britain and Germany each other’s major trading partners. They still went to war in 1914! http://www.theglobalist.com/the-collapse-of-the-global-trading-system/