To trade is to be human

Most of us live our lives by working hard and honestly to earn what our labor produces. We then save/invest some, and spend the rest exchanging our labor or trading if you will, our labor for other goods and products. This is done to increase the material, social and economic value of our lives. This is a humanistic behavior found in all nations, cultures and among people.

I was watching my dogs interact the other day, and the thought occurred to me, animals do not trade, nor do they have a need to. To trade (the DNA for free markets) are intrinsically human. Animals are self-sufficient, but human beings are not; therefore we need to trade. We trade to increase our chances of survival and power to do more. Our ability to trade increases our production. For example, engineers make tractors that allow farmers to plough and plant grain. The farmer needs the engineer to build more efficient tractors, and the engineer needs the farmer to get his food. This is a natural dependency that is created by the forces of trading. There are rules that apply to the forces of trading. We all know a little physics and we know about the law of gravity. We did not create this law, it was (and depending on your belief system) created by God. What is law of trading? The fundamental law of trading is the "Law of Supply and Demand". Price is control mechanism that strives to bring balance between the two.

Where people exist, trading will exist. From rural communities to complex modern societies, trading lives. If we can accept the fact that humans beings must trade to survive, then what is the role of the government with respect to trading and the marketplace? Should they regulate it? Should they interfere? Should they slow it down? or even stop it? Or should they facilitate it?

The government that encourages this by its policies will create an environment that can create wealth (creation of jobs, productions goes up etc etc). If the government thinks that it can be the police of free trade, it will stifle it and create a depression, but trade will go on, it will survive though badly hurt, because trading and markets are intrinsically human.

So the first law of trading is that "The law of supply and demand will exist where human beings exist, and price is the control mechanism that brings a balance between the two". Stay tuned for more.