Mercantilism wherever you look

Discussion on the future of the UK outside the European Union rages on. Reading through most of the articles, and comment on the articles, in the newspapers, it is as though Adam Smith had never written “Wealth of Nations” and Henry George had never written “Protection or Free Trade?”

The prevailing idea of economics expressed here, on both sides of the EU debate, is the seventeenth century mercantilist view which was refuted by Smith and all the classical economists who followed in his wake. Smith is a hard read, though not impossible for a reader of one of the newspapers which are aimed at the better educated sector of the public. George wrote a popular exposition of the argument against mercantilism.

Mercantilism is the dominant theory behind EU trade and economic policy. It will drag the continent to disaster if it is not abandoned; it was the ruin of France, Spain and Portugal in the eighteenth century; these countries and their former colonies still suffer from the legacy. But when commentators advocate boycotts of EU products and the imposition of tariffs on imports from the EU, they reveal the same mercantilist notions as those who support the EU and all its works.

Please take some time off from the internet and come back when you have read and digested these volumes. Both are in print and available on line.