Liberal economic discourse on colonial practices and the rejection of the British Empire (1750-1815)

Alain Clément ()
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Alain Clément: TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: "In the mid‐eighteenth century, colonisation was criticised on the grounds that profits from it were captured by private merchants that the colonies prospered in spite of not because of colonial policy, and that benefits accrued to the colonies and other foreign nations but not to the home country. The empire came at a cost that did not obviously outweigh its benefits. The solutions proposed tended towards relinquishing the colonial empire. This is relatively clear in the writings of Burke, Anderson and Tucker but less so in those of Smith, who advocated not independence (for which public opinion was unprepared) but free trade between the colonies and the home country."

Keywords: colonialism; liberalism; British empire; exclusive trade; individual interest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Published in European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2012, 21 (4), pp.583-604. ⟨10.1080/09672567.2012.708766⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00727666

DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2012.708766

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