Specialisation and Exchange

I recently heard a radio interview with Matt Ridley, who wrote the book called The Rational Optimist. His comments about the nature of human progress are apt. After describing some of the great advances made over the last few centuries, he said,

That kind of progress has come about through the exchange of goods and services. That is what does it. Specialisation and exchange means that when we work for each other, we raise each other’s living standards, by doing what we are good at and swapping if for what other people are good at. That is the big theme of human history. When we do more of that, peoples living standards go up, when we do less of that, by cutting people off from trade and not letting them exchange, and not le them specialise, living standards go down.

This is clear. Prosperity is cutting the amount of time you have to take to fulfil your needs, and you do that by getting other people to do things for you and doing things for them in exchange. This is what happens in the commercial world.

God has created the world in a way that forces us to cooperate to improve our lives. Markets provide a way for us to do that without the need to know or trust the people we are cooperating with.