The Trading Body

The mystics of muscle have often characterized world trade as damaging and unnatural, and as a system which fails to properly match the processes of life for humans and other biological entiities. They prescribe the silver bullet ideal of bioregionalism and isolationism (nationalism) as that state to which working men should strive for. Like most proponents of the irrational, they should check their premises.

Global trade is the only economic paradigm which, in fact, fits the true wholistic human-scale analogies the mystics use. Their premises are the ones which are incorrect and unscaleable. The following argument makes no specific logical connections necessarily justifing the functioning of a heavily-integrated global marketplace - it isn't meant to. It merely discredits the logical processes and conceptual frameworks of those who try to besmirch the latter by a similar method.

If all systems are intertwined and merely differ in scale, as the mystics propose, then that scale must be universal. If cells are the building blocks and support structure of organs, and organs the building blocks and support structure of the body, one must go further. The individual is the building block and support structure of the industry, the industry is the building block and support structure of the world.

The primary difference between this extension of the analogy of wholism and the political extensions often attached to it is that this implies no coercion or codependence, nor any specific methods by which the system could (or should) be manipulated. It merely displays the way in which the universe functions, with no assumption that any element in the chain is (or should be) more important to any man than himself and his place in it.

We as individuals are not best put to minimize our productivity, to cower down on self-sufficient farms or in isolated communities. Our greatest achievers and our own ambitions always strive to specialize and optimize. Thus we are cells in our industries, carefully following our mind's directions to build the strongest and healthiest organs possible. We are essential parts of the organs which keep the world moving, and the transportation arteries and oceans are like central nervous systems and cardiovascular systems, transporting our individual and industrial achievements to their best-served places, to mutual benefit.

Some organs are more specialized than others (welders). Some, like the legs and arms, are masses of multiple organs functioning in tandem to achieve the most efficient series of tasks (multinational conglomerates). Either way, all function for their own ends, and benefit from the independent action of the other. Some, such as the brain (banks) are more vital than others, such as finger nails (filing clerks). None function efficiently in the absence of their superiors. The destruction of some vital part could expose the whole body to annihilation.

No part of our body could immolate itself for the sake of another. Certainly no vital and essential organ could be sacrificed for the sake of a lesser one. We cannot lessen the unimportance of the hair by removing the kidneys. It's true that we can persevere without certain redundant and replacable parts, but we are not truly whole or entirely healthy when such is our state.

Strange that the most vital parts are the ones we choose to threaten with destruction every day; we threaten to destroy the heart while pampering the toes. We propose to destroy large corporations to subsidize artists. We tamper with the independent functions of the parts in order to present a false sense of equality between unequals.

Americans preaching isolationism would be well-served to keep in mind that neither part survive long if the head is severed from the body. Third world dictators would be well-served to realize that their plans to nationalize foreign holdings and control capital flows will not work any better at healing their economies than would tightening the rubber band around the wrist of a healthy arm. Like severing a hand in hopes that a more ideal body will sprout from it, it results in nothing but rot on one side and painful injury on the other.