The Corn Laws of 1815: policy counsel, casuistry, and theory

Ryan Walter

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2025, vol. 32, issue 4, 553-573

Abstract: The literature that attacked and defended Britain’s Corn Laws is typically studied in relation to the history of economic theory, focusing on the supposed discovery of comparative advantage or the law of diminishing returns. This paper adopts a different approach to the debates of 1813–1815, examining the idiom in which Parliament was accustomed to receiving advice on commercial legislation, identified here as policy counsel. Parliament, understood as an institution possessing its own rhetorical and argumentative norms, proved generally wary of theory, insisting on its domestication by casuistry. This finding modifies our understanding of the early history of economic theory.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2025.2530388

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