My good friend Harry Pollard may have overstated his case that "Trade  
(referring to free trade) has been normal throughout the history of Man".  
Maybe it should have been, but for better or worse, international exchange  
controls and trade monopolies have been more normal, I believe. A. Smith  
called it "mercantilism". Before that there were taxes and controls between  
provinces and principalities and city-states. Turgot pioneered in getting  
them lowered or removed in France, and his thinking helped inspire the U.S.  
Founding Fathers to put the commerce clause in our Constitution. Within  
city-states there were controls over trade with their contado's or  
hinterlands.  
  
Unilateral free trade was a British innovation, 1846-1914 approximately,  
briefly copied by Prussia and France. As an earlier contributor (Neill?) to  
this HES service noted, it is unusual to be able to generalize from here and  
now to everywhere and forever.  
  
Mason Gaffney