Free trade benefits, not doubts, productive and peaceful cooperation among men. This becomes evident from David Ricardo’s “law of association”, as Ludwig von Mises called it. However, free trade alone does not, and can not, secure peace and prosperity. The uncomfortable truth is that the state (as we know it today) is inherently in conflict with the free market system, including free trade, thus undermining, even at times destroying, international cooperation among men. Mises put it succinctly: “Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.”