The reality is that the economy and commerce are the backbone of civilization.  Without them the nation or person who holds it becomes impotent and vulnerable to all other influences.  However, whoever masters the economy becomes the power by which all others are influenced.

I, however, place economy among the first and most important
republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the
dangers to be feared.” 

This was written by Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer in 1816.  A man who understood freedom and establishing a nation of the people, by the people and for the people. The power of a strong economy with free trade and free from the dominance of the monopolistic banking system is critical to our freedom.  It is important to see that true freedom economically enables all other freedoms.  If we become serfs in a modern feudalistic system we will slowly lose all other freedoms. 

Fight for a free economy and you will win all other freedoms.