Voluntary exchange is the very definition of what it is to be human

Adam Smith was here a little earlier with his comments upon the innate tendency to truck and barter of course. But we seem to be gaining proof that it's more than just humans like or tend to do so, it's the very definition of what makes us human in the first place:

Researchers reviewed ancient fossils and landscapes and found that what separates us from other forms of early man was our ability to flourish in even the most extreme environments, from searingly hot deserts and tropical jungles, to icy mountains and wastelands.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, claim that ability was far more important than art, language or technology, at setting us apart from other hominids, such as Neanderthals or Homo erectus, who also had rich cultures, yet still died out.

Not only did Homo sapiens survive in harsh landscapes but they thrived there, learning to become ‘generalist specialists’ who could out-compete those around them no matter what the environment.

There must be something that led to that ability to outcompete of course. That being:

Dr Brian Stewart, study co-author said:"Non-kin food sharing, long-distance exchange, and ritual relationships would have allowed populations to 'reflexively' adapt to local climatic and environmental fluctuations, and outcompete and replace other hominin species.”

The first two of those both being trade, that propensity to truck and barter.

Observation of modern humans tells us that this is something that we do, the best we know of proto-humans tells us that those who succeeded did it too. Voluntary exchange seems to be at the heart of our very identity - a fact which makes it very odd that so many people wish to protect us from trade.