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Chapter 3: The Emergence of Free Trade and the Importance of Comparative Advantage — Economics 101

Why specialization plus exchange beats self-sufficiency — even when one party is better at producing everything. This chapter walks through mercantilism’s failure, Adam Smith’s case for free trade, and David Ricardo’s deeper insight: it is comparative advantage (lowest opportunity cost), not absolute advantage, that determines who should produce what.
Chapter 8: Capitalism Versus Socialism — Economics 101

Pure command and pure market systems don’t exist in the real world. What actually exists is hybrids — capitalism and socialism — that differ in how much the government owns, regulates, and redistributes. Behind the debate sit Adam Smith and Karl Marx, with rival views of human nature that still drive modern policy arguments.