This learned and thought-provoking essay charts the evolution of
free trade as idea and policy from ancient antecedents to the
formulation of a mature theorization by Adam Smith, and from the
views of the classical economists to the Keynesian revolution and
beyond. Irwin's message is that, despite its critics over the
centuries, free trade has been and remains the basis for the most
effective and successful economic policies throughout the world.
(Kirkus UK)
About two hundred years ago, largely as a result of Adam Smith's
"Wealth of Nations," free trade achieved an intellectual status
unrivaled by any other doctrine in the field of economics. What
accounts for the success of free trade against then prevailing
mercantilist doctrines? And how well has free trade withstood
various theoretical attacks that have challenged it since Adam
Smith's time? In this readable intellectual history, Douglas Irwin
explains how the idea of free trade has endured against the tide of
the abundant criticisms that have been leveled against it from the
ancient world and Adam Smith's day to the present. An accessible,
nontechnical look at one of the most important concepts in the
field of economics, "Against the Tide" will allow the reader to put
the ever new guises of protectionist thinking into the context of
the past and discover why the idea of free trade has so
successfully prevailed over time.
Irwin traces the origins of the free trade doctrine from
premercantilist times up to Adam Smith and the classical
economists. In lucid and careful terms he shows how Smith's
compelling arguments in favor of free trade overthrew mercantilist
views that domestic industries should be protected from import
competition. Once a presumption about the economic benefits of free
trade was established, various objections to free trade arose in
the form of major arguments for protectionism, such as those
relating to the terms of trade, infant industries, increasing
returns, wage distortions, income distribution, unemployment, and
strategic trade policy. Discussing the contentious historical
controversies surrounding each of these arguments, Irwin reveals
the serious analytical and practical weaknesses of each, and in the
process shows why free trade remains among the most durable and
robust propositions that economics has to offer for the conduct of
economic policy.
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