Adam Smith’s Case against the British Empire

Abstract

The paper articulates Adam Smith’s claim that the British Empire was inimical to Great Britain’s interest. It is argued against Smith that, given the structure of global trade prior to the Industrial Revolution, the mercantilist restrictions on trade and capital movement characterising the British Empire probably increased Britain’s national income. But it is also argued, in agreement with Smith, that the military costs of enforcing these restrictions outweighed any benefit. Smith’s ‘cost of enforcement case’ against the Empire resonated strongly in liberal critiques of Empire in the century after Smith. At the same time, Imperial Federationists of the early twentieth century used Smith’s proposal of a political union in place of the Empire to validate mercantilist sentiments which Smith deplored. Smith’s case against the Empire is of mixed value and had conflicting impacts on its readers.