Ch 12

This chapter is all about trade and how it effects and generally benefits everyone internationally. What struck me is not the fact that it is critical, we can see that by walking into target, but how devastated our economy would be without it because there is no alternative. Wheelan asks "if not more trade and economic integration, then what instead?" Which I took to mean as there is no "good" substitute for trade, and there needn't be one. This chapter also made me question the effect of trading items with negative externalities. Of course trading is prosperous for the economy, but if we are trading ideas or items such as smoking cigarets how does that effect everyone's politics or country as a whole?