There is ample evidence that people have
been trading with one another since the earliest
times. As economists James Gwartney of
Florida State University and Richard Stroup
of Montana State University put it, the motivation
for trade can be summed up in the
phrase, “If you do something good for me, I
will do something good for you.”1 There are
three important reasons why voluntary
exchange is good not only for the contracting
parties but for the world as a whole.