The Free Trade Doctrine of the Classical Economists: No Unconditional Subscription to Trade Liberalisation

Abstract

The paper discusses the views of the British classical economists David Hume, Adam Smith and David Ricardo on international trade and trade liberalisation. While they were in favour of free trade, they did not unconditionally subscribers to the free trade doctrine, but tied it to the condition of free competition. As Adam Smith insisted with regard to the East India Company, a trading monopoly, trade was "ruinous and destructive" to India and several other countries. The German economist Friedrich List insisted that free trade cannot generally be the starting point of economic relationships amongst nations, but only the terminal point, after the nations involved had developed their productive powers and competitiveness.