No it hasn't really. Technological development has lowered the costs and availability of most things in our lives. If you look at the actual practices of gover

No it hasn't really. Technological development has lowered the costs and availability of most things in our lives. If you look at the actual practices of governments and individuals over the last few centuries you won't find much truly free trade. You'll find all kinds of protectionism, exploits of positional control over markets, currency flows (I'm looking at you China), and the occasional super-power deciding to to have a war on ... well slavery was the one that mostly worked. But free trade? Well, most countries agree that they should be allowed to freely export whatever they want... imports are another matter of course.