【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】
prices are in constant and rapid flux and are determined from below by inspaniduals freely exchanging in the marketplace. money is a means of exchange, and prices are the information people use to guide their choices. von mises demonstrated that socialist economies depend on capitalist economies to determine what prices should be assigned to goods and services. and they do so cumbersomely and inefficiently. relatively free markets are, ultimately, the only way to find out what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept.e economics helps to explain how yanomamlike huntergatherers evolved into manhattanlike consumertraders. in the nineteenth century french economist frederic bastiat well captured the principle: “where goods do not cross frontiers, armies will. in addition to being fierce warriors, the yanomam are also sophisticated traders, and the more they trade the less they fight. the reason is that trade is a powerful social adhesive that creates political alliances. one village cannot go to another village and announce that they are worried about being conquered by a third, more powerful village—that would reveal weakness. instead they mask the real motives for alliance through trade and reciprocal feasting. and, as a result, not only gain military protection but also initiate a system of trade that—in the long run—leads to an increase in both wealth and skus.f free and fair trade occurs in societies where most inspaniduals interact in ways that provide mutual benefit. the necessary rules weren39。t generated by wise men in a sacred temple, or lawmakers in congress, but rather evolved over generations and were widely accepted and practiced before the law was ever written. laws that fail this te