International Trade 国境贸易
Accounts of barter of goods or of services among different peoples can be traced back almost as far as the record of human history. International trade, however, is specifically an exchange between members of different nations, and (1) and explanations of such trade begin only with the (2) of the modern nation-state at the close of the European Middle Ages. As political thinkers and philosophers (3) to examine the nature and function of the nation, trade with other nations (4) a particular topic of their inquiry. It is, accordingly, no surprise to find (5) of the earliest attempts to describe the function of international trade within that (6) nationalistic body of thought now known as "mercantilism." Mercantilist analysis, which reached the (7) of its influence upon European thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, focused (8) upon the welfare of the nation. It insisted that the acquisition of wealth, (9) wealth in the form of gold, was of paramount importance for national policy. (10) took the virtues of gold almost as an article of faith; consequently, they (11) undertook to explain adequately why the pursuit of gold deserved such a high (12) in their economic plans.
The trade policy dictated by mercantilist philosophy was accordingly (13) : encourage exports, discourage imports, and take the proceeds of the resulting export surplus (14) gold. Because of their nationalistic bent, mercantilist theorists either brushed aside or else (15) not realize that, from an international viewpoint, this policy would necessarily prove self-defeating. (16) nation that successfully gains an export surplus must ordinarily do so at the (17) of one or more other nations that record a matching import surplus. Mercantilists´ (18) often were intellectually shallow, and indeed their trade policy may have been little (19) than a rationalization of the interests of a rising merchant class that wanted (20) markets-hence the emphasis on expanding exports—coupled with protection against competition in the form of imported goods. Yet mercantilist policies are by no means completely dead today.