The Free Trade of Ideas: Spreading the Classical Liberal Gospel of Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League

Frederic J. Fransen ()

ICER Working Papers from ICER - International Centre for Economic Research

Abstract: One of the central concepts of classical liberal economic thought is the superiority of free trade over protectionism. The key historical event leading to the dissemination of this idea was the activity of Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain in the 1840s. This paper explores the ways in which Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League were received on the Continent, and the relative reception of free trade ideas in France, through Fr\E9d\E9ric Bastiat and later the Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce in 1861; in Italy, through Francesco Ferrara and Camillo Cavour; and in Germany through John Prince Smith. A preliminary conclusion about the role of general levels of economic knowledge in the receptivity of free trade ideas precedes suggestions for further research.

Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2002-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bemservizi.unito.it/repec/icr/wp2002/fransen36-02.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:icr:wpicer:36-2002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ICER Working Papers from ICER - International Centre for Economic Research Corso Unione Sovietica, 218bis - 10134 Torino - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Daniele Pennesi ().