News Snapshot:
The West would do well to rediscover the patience and courage of its convictions. Photograph: iStock One of the oldest and most persistent ideas of the western enlightenment is the civilising force of free economic exchange. The belief that trade and political concord reinforce one another – at times called doux commerce or “gentle commerce” – goes back at least as far as Montesquieu’s writings 300 years ago. This belief motivated some of the weightiest economic decisions of the past 50 years: Washington’s welcome of China into the World Trade Organization; Germany’s determination to tie itself to Russia in a...
