Please let me show you the intimate connexion there is on one side between the restrictive regime and the spirit of war, and on the other side between free-trade and the spirit of peace.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 178 to 193 (in French)
September 1847

This long project for a speech that Frédéric Bastiat planned to give in Bayonne starts with the question he asks about the relevance of geographic borders on the economy. It can be wrapped up in these terms: “What is this political economy which, as Pascal says, constitutes the truth across a river and constitute a lie on this side of it?” He then shows how protectionism not only develops to the detriment of consumers but also hinders the productivity of producers.

In the last part, he extensively considers the spirit of war and the spirit of peace, which are the topic of today’s quote. Between the lines, I find my preferred apocryphal quote, viz. that “If goods and services do not cross borders, soldiers will.” He does not, in any way, says that free-trade guarantees peace or that protectionism will immediately morph into war. However, it appears clearly that protectionism feeds itself on the antagonisms between peoples and fuels them while free-trade tends to reduce antagonisms and cannot be built on such a bellicose approach of relationships between peoples.