Free Trade

Adam Smith argues that retaliation in a trade war can sometimes force the offending country to lower its tariffs, but more often than not the reverse happens (1776)

Adam Smith on Good Wine and Free Trade

Adam Smith on the “liberal system” of free trade (1776)

Bastiat on the most universally useful freedom, namely to work and to trade (1847)

Bastiat on the spirit of free trade as a reform of the mind itself (1847)

Condy Raguet argues that governments cannot create wealth by means of legislation and that individuals are better judges of the best way to use their capital and labor than governments (1835)

David Hume on how the prosperity of one’s neighbors increases one’s own prosperity (1777)

Forrest McDonald argues that the Founding Fathers envisaged a new economic order based upon Lockean notions of private property and the creation of the largest contiguous area of free trade in the world (2006)

Friedrich List and Manufacturing Power

Guyot on the protectionist tyranny (1906)

Harriet Martineau condemns tariffs as a “vicious aristocratic principle” designed to harm the ordinary working man and woman (1861)

Henry George on a “free trade America” as the real city set on a hill (1886)

Henry George on how trade sanctions hurt domestic consumers (1886)

Henry George on the scramble to get government favors known as trade “protection” (1886)

James Mill likens the expence and economic stagnation brought about by war to a “pestilential wind” which ravages the country (1808)

James Mill on the natural disposition to accumulate property (1808)

James Mill on the ruling Few and the subject Many (1835)

Jane Haldimand Marcet, in a popular tale written for ordinary readers, shows the benefits to workers of foreign trade, especially at Christmas time (1833)

John Taylor on how a republic can “fleece its citizens” just as well as a monarchy (1822)

Lord Kames argued that neither the King nor Parliament had the right to grant monopolies because they harmed the interests of the people (1778)

Ludwig von Mises shows the inevitability of economic slumps after a period of credit expansion (1951)

Mises on how the “boon” of a tariff privilege is soon dissipated (1949)

Molinari calls the idea of using tariffs to promote a nation’s economy “a monstrosity” (1852)

Nicholas Barbon on the mutual benefits of free trade even in luxury goods (“wants of the mind”) (1690)

Richard Cobden on how free trade would unite mankind in the bonds of peace (1850)

Richard Cobden outlines his strategy of encouraging more people to acquire land and thus the right to vote in order to defeat the “landed oligarchy” who ruled England and imposed the “iniquity” of the Corn Laws (1845)

Richard Cobden’s “I have a dream” speech about a world in which free trade is the governing principle (1846)

The 10th Day of Christmas: Richard Cobden on public opinion and peace on earth (c. 1865)

The 9th Day of Christmas: Condy Raguet on the anti-Christian character of protection and the need for peace on earth (1832)

Voltaire on the Benefits which Trade and Economic Abundance bring to People living in the Present Age (1736)

William Cobbett denounces the destruction of liberty during and after the Napoleonic Wars (1817)

William Graham Sumner on free trade as another aspect of individual liberty (1888)

William Graham Sumner on the “do-nothing” state vs. ”the meddling” state (1888)

William Grampp shows how closely connected Richard Cobden’s desire for free trade was to his desire for peace (1960)