David Ricardo (1772-1823) was one the great British economists and like Adam Smith, a defender of Free Trade. Unlike modern Free Marketeers, he did understand that there were limits to the benefits of free trade. From On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Chapter 7, "On Foreign Trade":
Experience, however, shews, that the fancied or real insecurity of capital, when not under the immediate control of its owner, together with the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country of his birth and connexions, and intrust himself with all his habits fixed, to a strange government and new laws, check the emigration of capital. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations.
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3 comments:
http://www.freetradedoesntwork.com/
Best recent work on the subject,imo.
Economyincrisis.org carries some of Fletcher's columns.
Ken,
Thanx for the tip! I'll check it out soon.
Steve
http://economyincrisis.org/content/avoid-trade-war-we%E2%80%99re-already-one
Fletcher's latest.
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