Why Free Trade Didn’t Create World Peace

And if we should expect it to in the future

Photo by UX Gun on Unsplash

Introduction

In the years leading up to the First World War, global trade was at the highest it had ever been in recorded history. Early-1900s trade data is hard to come by, specifically for under-developed countries, but researchers estimate that global exports had reached almost $275 billion by 1913–almost fifteen percent of global economic output.

These extensive trade networks were impressive enough to convince at least one former cowboy that the benefits from trade were so great as to make war highly improbable. And his arguments were persuasive.

It took Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb who was perhaps familiar with Angell’s ideas (but perhaps not), to put a hole in his idealistic philosophy–and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The assassination triggered a cascade of defense treaties that would pull the world into its deadliest military conflict to date.

A war which many citizens thought would take several months (a year at the absolute most) ended almost half a decade later with the deaths of tens of millions of people.

After the war ended, countries became more reluctant to have their borders infiltrated.