The history of international trade is a focusing on the development of open markets. It is known that various prosperous world civilizations throughout history have engaged in trade. Based on this, theoretical rationalizations as to why a policy of free trade would be beneficial to nations developed over time. These theories were developed in its academic modern sense from the commercial culture of England, and more broadly Europe, over the past five centuries. Before the appearance of Free Trade, and continuing in opposition to it to this day, the policy of mercantilism had developed in Europe in the 1500s. Early economists opposed to mercantilism were David Ricardo and Adam Smith.
Economists that advocated free trade believed trade was the reason why certain civilisations prospered economically. Adam Smith, for example, pointed to increased trading as being the reason for the flourishing of not just Mediterranean cultures such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but also of Bengal (East India) and China. The great prosperity of the Netherlands after throwing off Spanish Imperial rule, and declaring Free Trade and Freedom of thought, made the Free Trade/Mercantilist dispute the most important question in economics for centuries. Free trade policies have battled with mercantilist, protectionist, isolationist, communist, and other policies over the centuries.
Wars have been fought over trade, such as the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the Opium Wars between China and Great Britain, and other colonial wars. All developed countries have used protectionism at some time, due to special interest pressure or, prior to the 19th century, a belief in mercantilism, but usually reduced it as they gained more wealth[1].
[edit] The US and free trade
The colonies which became the United States generally supported free trade; indeed British restrictions on trade were a major factor in the war for secession. New England was famous for smuggling. However, the 1st U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, advocated tariffs to help protect infant industries in his "Report on Manufactures." This was a minority position, however, which the "Jeffersonians" strongly opposed for the most part. Later, in the 19th century, statesmen such as Senator Henry Clay continued Hamilton's themes within the Whig Party under the name "American System." The opposition Democratic Party contested several elections throughout the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s in part over the issue of the tariff and protection of industry. The Democratic Party favored moderate tariffs used for government revenue only, while the Whig's favored higher protective tariffs to protect favored industries. The economist Henry Charles Carey became a leading proponent of the "American System" of economics. This mercantilist "American System" was opposed by the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
The fledgling Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig," strongly opposed free trade and implemented at 44 percent tariff during the Civil War in part to pay for railroad subsidies, the war effort, and to protect favored industries.[2] President William McKinley stated the United States' stance under the Republican Party (which won every election for President until 1912, except the two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland) as thus:
"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest'…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards."[3]
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق