TRADE AS IF PEACE MATTERS

Beginning with some fundamental questions about trade and trade-related conflicts, contradictions, and failures, this article presents a critique of available trade theories that have so far failed to stand up to the test as regards pro-trade arguments. Smith-Ricardo trade produces a static, hierarchical world filled with exploitation. Japan has the structural and cultural strength to break the Ricardian shackles, but only replicates the inequitable pattern inside the center. The self-reliance model aimed at equitable relations, but was caught in a static world of mutually isolated layers. The fourth model of externality cooperation takes a fresh approach in searching for equitable economic transaction, through dialogue at all levels to identify the externalities and to agree on cooperative approaches, and through widening concern, not only guided by selfinterest, but also by other-interest. The result is a trade pattern that is both dynamic and equitable.