Want to make the world a better place? Want to help people live better? Want to improve things anywhere and everywhere for everyone?
One way is to see the powerful and pure magic of trade for what it is, then promote and advocate for it as much of it as possible.
Trade is pure magic. Why? Because every time it happens voluntarily, and I mean this, every time it happens, it creates something that didn’t exist before, something that appears out of thin air, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
What does it create? An increase in value for both traders. An increase in wealth on each side of the exchange.
In my book Automatic Influence I give an example:
Say we go to the store and buy a banana. What do we say to the clerk? “Thank you.” What does the clerk say to us? “Thank you.” We both win because the clerk wanted the dollar more than the banana, and we wanted the banana more than the dollar.1
In that moment at the checkout, who is better off? Who has more than they had before? The answer is, both of us. That magic moment of exchange created value for each of us.
- Let’s say I’m the banana buyer. I want the banana more than I want the dollar, which is why I’m willing to trade a dollar for a banana. In that moment of exchange the worth of the new thing in my hand (the banana) is greater than what was in my hand before. Value went up.
- Let’s say I’m the banana seller. I want the dollar more than I want the dollar, because, to me, the dollar is worth more. In that moment of exchange the worth of the thing in my hand (the dollar) is greater than what was in my hand before. Value went up.
In their book Indivisible James Robison and Jay Richards explains this trade magic with a memory of Jay’s sixth-grade classroom experience in Amarillo, Texas. Mrs. Hubbard, Jay’s teacher, brought a box of cheap toys to class, one for each student, and told them they were going to play a “trading game.” “She passed out the goodies,” Jay remembers, “one to each student: a paddleboard with one of those red rubber balls tied down with a rubber band, an egg of Silly Putty, a set of Barbie trading cards. Nobody got the same toy, and we could all see what everybody else got.”
“She then asked us to write down, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much we liked our gift. We didn’t have to consult anyone. Mrs. Hubbard then had us call out, one by one, the score we had given our toy. She added them all up, and she wrote down the total on the board.”
“Next, she told us that we could trade with the others in our row. So everyone had four other potential trading partners. No one had to trade, and no one could steal; but if one kid had the Silly Putty, another had the paddleboard, and each preferred the other’s toy, then they were free to trade. Some students kept or got stuck with their original gift, but a lot of us ended up with a toy we liked more. Again, we wrote down how much we liked our toys, on a scale of 1 to 10, and called them out, and Mrs. Hubbard added up the scores. Guess what happened? The total went up after the trade.”2
This exchange magically increased the “wealth” of the room. Each person who traded felt their sense of satisfaction increase. The value they had in hand went up.
Then the teacher encouraged a second round of trades, this time with anyone in the room. The room came alive with energy as children approached each other and negotiated trade after trade for several minutes. Some children traded several times.
When the teacher settled them back to their seats, asked them to rate their toy from 1 to 10, then added up the score, Jay says “it was much higher than the first two scores. Almost everyone ended up with a toy he liked more than the one received at the beginning. No one had a score that had gone down.”
That day, everyone was better off. No one was harmed. When no one steals from another, or tricks another into a trade, and when no one is forced to trade, all trades work magic: they increase the wealth of everyone involved.
Why in the world should anyone ever try to get in the way of this magic?
Is it possible that one reason for so much of the problems and poverty in the world is that outsiders are preventing trade magic from working it’s magic?
1Erik Van Alstine, Automatic Influence: New Power for Change in Work and Life (New York: Stone Lounge Press, 2016), p. 114.
2James Robison and Jay Richards, Indivisible: Restoring Faith Family and Freedom Before It’s Too Late (New York: Faith Words, 2012), p. 212-3.