------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW -------------- 
Published by EH.NET (February 2005) 
 
Lars Magnusson, _The Tradition of Free Trade_. London: Routledge,  
2003. xiv + 194 pp. $100 (cloth), ISBN: 0-415-26215-1. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by William K. Hutchinson, Department of  
Economics, Vanderbilt University. 
 
 
Lars Magnusson, Professor of History at Uppsala University, has  
packaged into a book a half dozen of his essays that were written  
during the past two decades. These essays examine the writings of  
economic thinkers in Britain, the United States and Sweden during the  
period from the last half of the eighteenth century to the end of the  
nineteenth century. The book may be aptly described as a history of  
the manner in which various writers have used the works of economists  
such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and J.S. Mill in a  
political economy vein to rationalize various political agendas,  
positions, or institutions. The focus is on the political economy of  
free trade as it evolved during this period, in these three locations. 
 
The first essay, "The Invention of a Tradition of Free Trade: An  
Introduction," makes a case for using the intellectual history  
approach to analyzing the writings of economic thinkers. He argues  
that survival of economic theories, such as the theory behind free  
trade, is not due to the superior logic of one argument relative to  
another, but rather, it is due to the circumstances of the time and  
place in which the theorist lives. Magnusson makes the argument in  
this essay that political and economic circumstances in nineteenth  
century Britain determined the way in which Adam Smith's free trade  
argument would be interpreted by writers. Moreover, it is the  
language, customs, stage of development, culture and political  
institutions extant in a country that determines the way in which  
writers such as Adam Smith will be interpreted. The five remaining  
essays offer detailed documentation of arguments made by various  
economic writers as evidence to support Magnusson's thesis. 
 
Essays two and three establish the linkages for various writers to  
Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ by demonstrating how writers used various  
aspects of this work to substantiate their arguments for free markets  
and, sometimes, for free trade. Essay two is a review of the  
economists in the Classical School, most of whom professed to build  
on the foundation established by Smith. J.R. McCulloch and Cobden  
figure prominently in this essay which focuses on the various  
interpretations of arguments for free trade that are said to appear  
in the _Wealth of Nations_. Essay three addresses how the Manchester  
School attempted to manipulate the _Wealth of Nations_ for their  
purposes. It discusses the various groups that materialized during  
the early nineteenth century and the positions they took regarding  
free trade versus fair trade and the corn laws. 
 
Essay four addresses the issue of Mercantilism in the nineteenth  
century and how other countries viewed Britain's encouragement for  
them to join her in moving toward free trade. Britain is viewed as  
promoting free trade because it was now in her self-interest to do  
so, whereas Britain had behaved in a mercantilist manner when that  
served her purpose. Thus, the writers surveyed argue that the  
benefits from free trade are dependent on the stage of development at  
which a country finds itself. Essay five discusses the role of Adam  
Smith in the economic writing in the United States during the  
nineteenth century. Discussion focuses on writings of Henry and  
Matthew Carey, Friedrich List and John Rae while mentioning other  
minor contributors to the political economy literature of  
nineteenth-century America. It is generally understood that economic  
writers in the United States were more likely to support protection  
for domestic industry until the end of the nineteenth century.  
Interestingly, this is the time that one could say economists, as  
opposed to economic thinkers, began to appear in the United States. 
 
The last essay describes the role of Adam Smith in the development of  
Swedish economics by surveying the economic writings of those who  
came before Wicksell. An argument is made that Sweden was different  
and that the focus of Smith and the Classical School on individualism  
had to be adapted to include a role for the state as protector of  
social well being. Swedish economic thinking also had an emphasis on  
agriculture which some argued derived from the Physiocrats and other  
French economists of the eighteenth century. 
 
This book is not about the development of economic theory that  
supports free trade as the preferred policy position to maximize the  
welfare of a nation. Rather, it is about the attitudes of economic  
writers in Britain, the United States and Sweden who were attempting  
to convince others of the merits of their views. Many of these  
writers attempted to use parts of the _Wealth of Nations_ in their  
arguments to establish credibility. Secondary sources are heavily  
relied on in assessing the motives and agendas that may have  
influenced the arguments of various writers. There are 3.4 footnotes  
per page of text and well over 200 works that are referenced, which  
indicates the extent to which the text is a collection of other  
people's thoughts regarding writings on free trade issues during the  
nineteenth century. This book would be of interest to one who wishes  
to learn what writers of political economy were thinking regarding  
the topic of free trade during the nineteenth century in Britain, the  
United States and Sweden. 
 
 
William K. Hutchinson is Visiting Professor of Economics at  
Vanderbilt University and editor of _Abstracts in Economic History_.  
Recent publications include "Does Ease of Communication Increase  
Trade? Commonality of Language and Bilateral Trade" _Scottish Journal  
of Political Economy_ (2002) and "Linguistic Distance as a  
Determinant of U.S. Bilateral Trade, 1970-1986," _Southern Economic  
Journal_ (forthcoming). 
 
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