During the nineteenth century, the world came closest to a free-trade regime, including goods, capital and human migration. This was a century of unprecedented peace and economic growth. Once countries began trading and investing freely within each others borders, they formed a vested interest in the peace and stability of their neighbors. People preoccupied with earning money have little time to engage in warfare. Once human appetites for conquest and domination are suppressed, the desire for profits and mutual gain increases.
Profits are the moral symbol of human growth earned from productive enterprise.
In the free marketplace, no one can advance without making others in society profit as well. Entrepreneurial prosperity is created only through voluntary cooperation. Yet profits have a bad name. They are incessantly castigated everyday by political, academic, and media elites. The politics of class warfare is a conscious war on this economy's most industrious, creative, and risk-taking individuals.