Free Trade Doctrine Research Articles

Discursos parlamentares, economia política e as Leis do Trigo (1839-1846)

ABSTRACT Debates in the British House of Commons between 1839 and 1946 revealed four distinct positions on the controversial Corn Laws. The Radicals, led by Richard Cobden, fought for overall free trade. The moderate Whigs, headed by Lord John Russell, leaned toward a fixed duty on imported corn. The Conservative Peelites, rallied behind Robert Peel, supported the prevailing sliding-scale system, while the landed Tories, who coalesced around Lord George Bentinck, wished protection all around. This article analyzes how the principles of political economy got entangled with political considerations in the speeches delivered by the leaders of each parliamentary faction. It concludes by highlighting the crucial role of political economy, especially the free trade doctrine, along with material evidence and historical precedent, as the key concurring factors in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

PROTECTIONISM IN CONDITIONS OF WORLD TRADE MULTIPOLARITY

In terms of the formation of the world trade multipolar system, the issues concerning the implementation of a protectionist trade policy appear especially acute and are the primary focus of both theorists and practitioners. This paper primarily aims to explore trade protectionism in the global economy in conditions of multipolarity, to identify the vectors of the war in Ukraine's influence on policy in the sphere of food trade, to determine the origins of the WTO crisis in the system of multilateral regulation of international trade and to assess the prospects of further ensuring free trade doctrines, which is based on combinatorial approach and included the calculation of quantitative indicators of foreign trade restrictiveness and estimation of qualitative parameters of shifts in foreign trade policy. The empirical findings indicate high dynamism of increasing new trade restrictions, in particular export ones, caused at first by the COVID-19 pandemic and later by the war in Ukraine; slow but constant increase in import restrictions, so that at the end of 2022 9% of global import was affected by import restrictions; growth in export restrictive measures on food, feed and fertilizers as a response to food security challenges, caused by the war in Ukraine. The current paper reveals the necessity to take into account import dependence indicators and import capacity of export in formulating vectors of transformation of foreign trade policy towards national production support in the context of economic nationalism ideology. The authors emphasize the importance of the WTO dispute settlement system and the failures in its implementation call into question the possibility of organization functioning in the existing format, particularly as the number and spread of RTAs surged. Prospects for further research in this area are the assessment of macroeconomic effects and threats of the unilateral opening of the Ukrainian economy for imports against the background of the protectionist policy of "main players" of the world economy, determination of the potential of the protectionist policy of selective types of economic activity implementation in the conditions of post-war recovery.

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

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.

ГОЛОД В БРИТАНСКОЙ ИНДИИ В 1860-1870-Х ГОДАХ : БЕЗДЕЙСТВИЕ, ЧРЕЗМЕРНОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ И УМЕРЕННОЕ ВМЕШАТЕЛЬСТВО

In 1860-1870 s the British authorities in India tested various theoretical ideas and practical methods to prevent famines or minimize level of starvation and mortality: from total inaction in accordance with free-trade doctrine during Orissa famine (1866) and tough state regulation by means of organization of public works, large-scaled food procurement, market prices restrain during Bihar-Bengal famine (1873-1874) to a limited interference in the situation during Great famine (1876-1878). During this period, the British famine relief policy was notable for extremely inconsistency that could be referred to the incapacity of the colonial administration to suggest adequate solution of the crisis situations being unable to exceed the limits of predominated liberal economic doctrine of free market and laissez-faire. Moreover, in this period the Indian policy was excessively individualized and depended in a large degree on personal decisions of officials that led very often to contradictory steps from their side. Severe consequences of the famines, hot discussions in the public sphere, ruined careers and practical experience of these decades led to a formulation by the very beginning of 1880-s of more or less balanced famine policy that combined a range of indirect protective/preventive measures and a very restrained intrusion into market mechanisms.

The Economic Discourse of Joseph Garnier in Spain

In the 19th century the liberal author Joseph Garnier (1813-1881) had a clear influence on Spanish economists; however, his discourse has not been much studied in the literature. His Elements were adopted as an economics textbook at Spanish universities and it was one of the most recommended books on political economy. In contrast, other authors such as John Stuart Mill were not so well received. A study of the reasons for this influence in the context of nineteenth-century Spain is therefore needed. This article aims to fill this gap and highlight the work of Garnier who facilitated the diffusion of the free-trade doctrine and the rationalization of the administration in Spain.

Le nouvel accord commercial entre le Canada, les États-Unis et le Mexique : vers la fin de l’ALENA

Since 1994, Canada, the United States and Mexico have been bound by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On November 30, 2018, a new Trade agreement, intended by the United States, was concluded between the same three countries and is aimed to replace NAFTA. While establishing a free trade area, already well advanced as a result of the implementation of NAFTA, this new trade pact introduces changes affecting both the substantive rules and the applicable procedures. It has a twofold characteristic with respect to the doctrine of free trade to the extent that it deepens certain aspects, but attenuates others. It also contrasts with the unilateralism demonstrated by the United States since the election of President D. Trump.

El pensamiento económico de los primeros economistas colombianos

This paper offers an approximation to the economic thought of the Colombian economists of the middle of the 19th century. It takes some of the most influential economists as a reference: Florentino Gonzalez, Salvador Camacho Roldan, Anibal Galindo and Miguel Samper. The way in which the free trade doctrine was incorporated in the thought of the Colombian statesmen is analyzed, mainly with regard to the conception of State. The methodology used is a study of the texts and the rhetoric therein. The conclusion is that the political prescriptions of the economic liberalism, which include the promotion of free trade, the theory of comparative advantage in international trade, the rejection of monopolies and the suspicion on the action of government, exerted a partial influence in the foundation of the liberal nineteenth-century project.

Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas by Christian Kracht

as the ending of the fox and raven fable, in which an ant with a violin teams up with an opera-singing human shark and they play havoc together. The author is both an award-winning painter and poet. The vivid details, poetic touches, and allusions in these stories attest to that: Kandinsky, Ensor, Munch, Hoffmann , Goethe, Grimm, Pushkin, Doctor Zhivago, and others. He is currently under nomination for the 2015 Gysbert Japicx Prize for fiction. Henry J. Baron Calvin College Amitav Ghosh. Flood of Fire. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2015. isbn 9780374174248 Throughout his work, Amitav Ghosh considers the ramifications of commercial, political, historical, and personal networks that span the globe. In the final novel of his Ibis trilogy , Ghosh interweaves the storylines of the preceding novels in a manner that underscores the plot-driven quality of these novels and Ghosh’s penchant for thinking in global terms. In Flood of Fire, Ghosh reacquaints readers with several characters introduced in Sea of Poppies, including Neel Rattan Halder, Zachary Reid, Paulette Lambert, and Baboo Nob Kissin. Amid romance plots and battle scenes on land and water, Ghosh continues to probe the historical implications of a messianic free-trade doctrine in language that applies to contemporary critiques of capitalism’s excesses. As the back matter in the Ibis novels indicates, Ghosh has profound respect for archival sources. At times Ghosh’s love of detail gets the better of his storytelling acumen and mundane information bogs down the narrative. Fortunately , more frequently, Ghosh imbues his descriptive passages with a brio that entertains and intrigues: “Few were the tamashas that could compare with the spectacle of the Bengal Native Infantry on the march. Every member of the paltan was aware of this—dandia-wallahs, naach-girls, bangyburdars, syces, mess-consummers, berry-wallahs, bhisties—but none more so than Havildar Kesri Singh, whose face served as the battalion’s figurehead when he rode at the head of the column.” Among the new characters introduced in Flood of Fire, Kesri Singh is the most compelling. Kesri, Deeti’s older brother, leaves his village to join a regiment in the East India Company, serving with honor in what Kesri increasingly realizes is a dishonorable enterprise. Not only does Kesri recognize that “in a lifetime of soldiering he had never known what it was to fight . . . for something that tied you to your fathers and mothers,” he also realizes that “doing his job” in the service of the East India Company makes him little different from “hired murderers.” Kesri’s eventual disenchantment with the system he serves is contrasted with the development of Zachary Reid from “an ingenuous, good-natured boy” into what Baboo Nob Kissin considers “a perfect embodiment of the Kali-yuga,” the age of vice in Hindu cosmology. While Ghosh often treats his characters with generosity and empathy, the portrayal of Zachary steadily turns unsympathetic: “I have become . . . a man of the times . . . a man who wants more and more and more; a man who does not know the meaning of ‘enough.’ Anyone who tries to thwart my desires is the enemy of liberty.” In the Ibis trilogy, Ghosh shows us a different kind of liberty built upon a love of language, an unflinching appraisal of human folly, and the hope that telling stories can bring us a better, perhaps more benevolent , future. Jim Hannan Le Moyne College Christian Kracht. Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas. Daniel Bowles, tr. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2015. isbn 9780374175245 The “imperium” of the title refers, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to Germany at the “global zenith of [its] influence” around the beginning of the last century when it actually boasted colonies, including this one in the South Seas. It also suggests the heavenly utopia Kracht’s hero aspires to create here. The story is that of an overzealous pursuit of an idealism so ludicrous that it could come only from actual history—typical of that era of fads and fanaticisms. It is an idealism whose extremism Kracht admits has undeniable parallels to that of another “romantic vegetarian” whose dystopia became tragic historical reality all too soon after this one. This is the story of August...

Negotiating free trade in fact and theory: the diplomacy and doctrine of Condy Raguet

Condy Raguet (1784–1842) was the first Chargé d'Affaires from the United States to Brazil and a conspicuous author of political economy from the 1820s to the early 1840s. He contributed to the era's free-trade doctrine as editor of influential periodicals, most notably The Banner of the Constitution. Before leading the free-trade cause, however, he was poised to negotiate a reciprocity treaty between the United States and Brazil, acting under the authority of Secretary of State and protectionist apostle Henry Clay. Raguet's career and ideas provide a window into the uncertain relationship of reciprocity to the cause of free trade.

Globalisation: concept, outcome, future—a continental view

‘Tax policy takes place in times of globalisation’, runs the invitation to the conference. This note focuses on the last notion. It examines the concept of globalisation, which is a major characteristic of capitalism, its free-trade aspect. A preliminary definition is required, since globalisation is often used without prior definition and even as a synonym of internationalisation. Thirty years ago it was not to be found in a dictionary. Another concept, the human rights is related to globalisation and is cherished by the globalisation’s supporters. It is the subject of a separate section. The hypotheses underlying the free-trade doctrine and the extent to which the facts correspond to them are discussed after that. The next part deals with the globalisation’s effects on the economic system, the culture and the social environment. The decline of capitalism since the eighties and still more its collapse in 2008 had heavy consequences for its essence and its outcome. This paper ends with some considerations on the future of globalisation, more particularly the American and European position in this respect. Nothing seems to stop its further triumphal procession.

RECIPROCITY AND HENRY C. CAREY’S TRAVERSES ON “THE ROAD TO PERFECT FREEDOM OF TRADE”

Free trade and protectionist doctrines have long had ambiguous relationships to bilateral trade deals, known throughout the nineteenth century as “reciprocity” arrangements. Henry C. Carey, “the Ajax of Protection” in the nineteenth-century United States, embodies the ambiguity from one side of the controversy. Carey’s early adulthood in the mid- to late 1820s was a time when the forerunners of the Whig Party pursued reciprocity at least partly as a means of fostering protection. In the 1830s, Carey, too, endorsed reciprocity—because he stood for free trade and believed reciprocity would promote it. In the 1840s and 1850s Carey changed his mind, decided that protection was the real “road to perfect freedom of trade,” and for that reason opposed reciprocity with Canada. In the 1870s he remained a protectionist but reconciled his doctrine with reciprocity. This article attempts to explain the changes in the disposition toward reciprocity of America’s foremost protectionist thinker from the Second Party System to the generation after the Civil War.

Trade, globalization and uneven development

Mainstream geographical economics propagates the free trade doctrine, presenting capitalism as entailing, but capable of overcoming, uneven geographical development. Geographers have failed to engage with the international trade theories that rationalize this, or develop alternatives. Beginning with the entanglements through which trade happens, I examine how theories rationalizing the free trade doctrine isolate trade, mobilizing a narrow sociospatial ontology. Marxisant trade theories offer important critiques, but are similarly marred by limited sociospatial ontologies. By contrast, attending to the entanglements of trade, geographical political economy can decenter the free trade doctrine, creating space for taking seriously alternative trading imaginaries and practices.

The Free-Trade Doctrine and Commercial Diplomacy of Condy Raguet

Condy Raguet (1784-1842) was the first Charge d’Affaires from the United States to Brazil and a conspicuous author of political economy from the 1820s to the early 1840s. He contributed to the era’s free-trade doctrine as editor of influential periodicals, most notably The Banner of the Constitution. Before leading the free-trade cause, however, he was poised to negotiate a reciprocity treaty between the United States and Brazil, acting under the authority of Secretary of State and protectionist apostle Henry Clay. Raguet’s career and ideas provide a window into the uncertain relationship of reciprocity to the cause of free trade.

Maurice Allais, fighter against unquestioned truths

The paper presents some less known theoretical views of the recently deceased Nobel laureate, Maurice Allais, which significantly diverge from certain 'unquestioned truths' of mainstream economics. Although a liberal and a cofounder of the Mont Pelerin Society, Allais was opposed to globalization and the simplified doctrine of free trade, and advocated reasonable protectionism. A convinced European and a proponent of European confederation, he was opposed to the Maastricht Treaty for its excessive emphasis on free trade. In his opinion, political union should precede economic integration. Finally, although a liberal and a monetarist, Allais did not believe in the self-regulating power of financial markets. He argued that radical reforms of the international financial and monetary system were necessary, by which the regulating mechanisms would be institutionalized. In 1988, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics 'for his pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources'.

A Functional Anarchy

During the Bush administration, the United States ratified a free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. Ratification in Costa Rica was considerably delayed because of widespread popular opposition that led to a referendum in October 2007. The strategies used to gain a victory for the Yes campaign were opposed by the Patriotic Movement for No, a diverse network of neighborhood-based patriotic committees, trade unions, agricultural organizations, academics, women’s organizations, environmental movements, and the Church. Resistance to the agreement in Costa Rica is helping to dereify free trade doctrines and producing proliferating forms of political association that articulate credible and appealing alternatives to neoliberalism. The referendum unleashed a struggle for hegemony in Costa Rica that has important implications for state—civil society relations and the rescaling of state power.

Malta and the Nineteenth Century Grain Trade: British Free Trade in a Microcosm of Empire?

It is often assumed that Britain’s colonies followed the British doctrine of free trade in the second half of the nineteenth century. Malta, which became a British colony in 1814, did indeed become an early free trader. However, she failed to liberalize the grain trade, even when the mother country famously repealed the Corn Laws. This paper documents that although institutions changed over the years, the ad valorem equivalents of the duties on wheat did not. The reason for this seems to be that administrators were convinced that is was not possible to fund government spending in any other way. The duties on grain in Malta were therefore not protectionist, but rather for revenue purposes, in contrast to the UK Corn Laws. Taxing an inelastic demand for foreign wheat by Maltese, who were unable to grow enough food to support themselves, was certainly an effective way of raising revenue, but probably not the fairest one, as contemporaries were well aware.

Free trade nation: commerce, consumption, and civil society in modern Britain

Book synopsis: One of Britain's defining contributions to the modern world, Free Trade united civil society and commerce and gave birth to consumer power. In this book, Frank Trentmann shows how the doctrine of Free Trade contributed to the growth of a democratic culture in Britain - and how it fell apart. Far from the cold economic doctrine of today, in an earlier battle over globalization Free Trade was a passionately held ideal, central to public life and national identity. Free Trade inspired popular entertainment and advertising, in seaside resorts, shows, and shopping streets. It mobilized an alliance of elites and the people, businessmen and working-class women, imperialists and internationalists. Free Trade Nation follows the creation of this culture in nineteenth-century Britain, and its subsequent unravelling in the First World War and the depression of the 1930s, when consumers and internationalists, labour and business now attacked it for sacrificing international stability and domestic welfare at the temple of cheapness. These successful attacks marked the end of a defining chapter in history.The popular culture of Free Trade was never to return. For anyone interested in the current problem of globalization, this book offers a vivid and thought-provoking perspective on the success and failure of Free Trade. For champions of trade liberalization, it is a reminder that culture, ethics and popular communication matter just as much as sound economics. Believers in Fair Trade, by contrast, will be surprised to learn that in the past it was Free Trade, not Fair Trade, that was seen to stand for values such as democracy, justice, and peace.

Response to Richard Peet

I wish to begin by thanking Dick for his generous comments on my attempt to unearth the local origins of the free trade doctrine, which Britain globalised in the name of Corn Law repeal, beginning in 1846. As he intimates, the issues he raises are ones that I have given considerable thought to. In these comments, I will pick up on the two issues he would emphasise differently (in his view, the greater significance of London-based British political economists, by comparison to Manchester-based cotton textile capitalists; and the ideological construction of knowledge, rather than the spatiality of knowledge production), but let me begin by noting some fundamental points of agreement. The logical foundation for free trade rooted in Ricardo and Torrens is indeed, in his words, 'wrong from the beginning'. A critique of the logical claims of this 200-year line of thinking, and its grounding in self-evidently false assumptions about the socio-spatial organisation of capitalism, is at the centre of my own analysis (cf. Sheppard 2005, 154-6). Almost two decades ago, with Trevor Barnes, I argued from a Marxian perspective that trade and uneven development are inextricably connected even in the absence of the powerasymmetries that enabled Britain (and more recently the US, and now China) to rig trade to the advantage of elites, and indirectly also at times workers, in these countries (Sheppard and Barnes 1990). We are also in agreement that national interest was key to the implementation of the free trade doctrine, that comparative advantage is a social construct (in this case, a consequence of the ability of mercantilist Britain to ruin India's sophisticated cotton textile and clothing industry, creating the conditions of possibility for the success of the Manchester cotton barons), and that Portugal was just the first of many places to suffer the opposite of what advocates claimed would be a rising tide of free trade that lifts all boats. Any challenge of the hegemonic and taken-for-granted status of the free trade doctrine must deconstruct

Collapsing Goods and the Milieu of Innovation

In his article ‘‘Collapsing Goods in Medicine and the Value of Innovation,’’ Thomas Magnell argues for the moral superiority of innovation as a method for solving problems of collapsible goods. Furthermore, ‘‘the moral significance of innovation is such that if any of the other ways of dealing with problems in the form of moral problems with collapsing goods does more to promote innovation than the others, then that way has added moral value.’’ 1 Magnell suggests that a free market promotes innovation better than regulation. This suggestion should lead us to an examination of the relationship between markets and innovation. In general, there is a tendency to separate the advance of knowledge from economics. John Stuart Mill does this in On Liberty when he tells us that the ‘‘principle of free trade and the principle of liberty rest on different grounds and that the principle of individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade.’’ 2 Such a separation is a mistake with regard to innovation. Not only are the structures of science and markets relevantly similar, they depend on each other for their mutual advance. Free trade is just as important as the principle of liberty in advancing knowledge, and is crucial for the discovery of innovations that solve collapsing goods problems. Collapsing goods are goods that if used below a certain threshold, everyone benefits. As more people use the good, more people benefit. General utility increases up to and until a certain point is reached, a point which may not be known in advance. At that point over use leads to a collapse in general utility as the good loses most or all of its value. 3 For example, antibiotics help cure infections. More people using antibiotics tends to increase general utility as the population becomes healthier. However, an increase in the number of people who use antibiotics also tends to increase the number of people who misuse the drug. Such people either do not take the full course of the drug or take it for off-label uses. In either case, such misuse increases the odds that surviving bacteria will be immune to the antibiotic and replicate themselves

Free Trade: A Dead End for Underdeveloped Economies

Critics of the free trade doctrine tend to argue that the theory of comparative advantage is not wrong in itself, but that its assumptions are not generally fulfilled in the real world, and hence that free trade is desirable under ‘ideal conditions.’ By contrast, this paper argues that the theory of comparative advantage does not hold even under ‘ideal conditions.’ The theory, a variation on the story of static efficiency, pays no attention to dynamic considerations, such as long-term technical change and productivity growth, which are essential in economic development. Starting from the ‘growth laws’ of Verdoorn and Kaldor, this paper argues that dynamic efficiency is intimately related to industrial growth. Moreover, because industrial goods have higher income elasticity of demand than agricultural goods, there is a positive feedback mechanism from international and domestic demand for industrial goods to the Verdoorn-Kaldor ‘laws’ of productivity growth. The empirical evidence indicates that poor countries do not have a comparative advantage in agricultural goods, and that they have an absolute disadvantage in the trade of agricultural as well as industrial goods. Further liberalisation of trade in agricultural goods will therefore harm rather than help the poorest countries. To achieve economic development, those countries need the freedom to implement a strategy designed for that purpose, just as the now-industrialised countries did.