… is from pages 55-56 of Tomas Larsson’s excellent 2001 volume, The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization (emphasis added):
International trade – and trade per se – encourages people to seek the relatively more productive lines into which their efforts can flow. There is no knowing in advance how competition will sort things out. But we can know that economies will be more robust and productive overall if that sorting out is allowed to take place without hindrance – if labor, materials, and other resources are allowed to be continually bid away to relatively more productive uses. Competition is “unfair” only from the perspective of those who feel they have an unalienable right to rest on their laurels – even when that means crimping the choices and prospects of everyone else.
This quotation reminds me to recommend to those of you looking for an accessible, crystal-clear, and moving book to introduce a friend, student, child or grandchild of high-school age or older, etc., to the case for free trade – a book that makes a great Christmas gift – that you can do no better than to give Russ’s The Choice.
