> The absolute cheapest (in fuel) way to move goods, responsible for essentially every advance in living in the last century.

This is a very distorted view of technological and human progress.

A huge factor in improvements in global standards of human living over the last century has been improvements in health care: hygiene, vaccination, antibiotics, basic medication, birth control and health education.

Far from being dependent on either the profit motive or global trade, they are largely public goods, have overwhelmingly been provided outside of private enterprise, and do not in the main depend on goods being transported globally.