There are many who use the coronavirus crisis to blame freedom to trade for the current epidemic. And, of course, there are those who are already arguing for autarky, closing our borders, and producing everything locally.
But we have been living in a world that relies on trade between different populations since the birth of civilization.
For example, eight thousand years ago, there was an intense trade in lapis lazuli, a semiprecious blue stone, between what is now Afghanistan and the first agricultural civilizations of Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq. Lapis lazuli was one of the most important symbols of high social status.
Five thousand years ago, Ötzi (“the Iceman”) was killed in the Alps in what is now Austria. He carried a hunting ax cast from copper

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