Merry Christmas friends of reason and those of fear without reason! Christmas is about sharing. This article comes to share an idea or a line of thought. Being the very last of these arguments, it doesn’t at all imply that the issues of trade are to be completely forgotten. Rather, it terminates a series we had begun with you some weeks ago. You will still encounter several trade articles in the future. Today, we abandon the self centered discussion that focused on Africa and move to discuss the general idea of forming trade blocks. My subject here therefore is to show that trade blocks are necessary for both rich and poor nations.
Nations, like individuals are not self sufficient such that they can provide all they need by themselves. The forces that occasion exchange and specialization for individuals act to occasion the same for nations. By exchanging what we have in surplus for what is scarce to us, we are able to command more goods than we can produce by ourselves. In the course of time, due to changes in preferences of majority of individuals, some resources which prior bore little value may turn to be most valuable. Some raw materials further are only available in some nations yet humans can’t survive without. Though the resources are scarce in some nations, to the continent, or the world they are not. The above statements emphasize on the importance of trade.
Trading is a good example of scratching my back so that I may scratch yours. Trade blocks remove boundaries and enlarge each of the nations’ trading horizons. Under a block, more diverse resources are brought together and the block can claim the production of more products and a bigger market. Unlike the world of charity and religion where benevolence can be relied upon, in business world the powers of benevolence come second in command after those of the market. Market power is determined by the much you can buy or sell as individuals, nations or even blocks. Just as individuals pull to their circles many friends to protect themselves from certain hazards of life, nations also, and only the rational ones, aim at pulling to their circles as many allies as they can so as to be able to speak in the world of trade. These tendencies, and you will bare me witness, are very common in the world of business where many firms in the same industry come together formally or informally.
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