Last week’s celebration of The Australian Financial Review’s 70th anniversary invites a reflection on the newspaper’s enduring economic philosophy. Its advocacy of the open, competitive economy is as valid and relevant today as it was all those years ago.

Yet, as was the case in the early postwar decades, openness and competitiveness are again under pressure. The founders of the rules-based international trading system in 1948 sought to prevent a third world war by facilitating trade between nations, integrating them in peaceful coexistence through voluntary interdependence.