Watson, Matthew (2017) Historicising Ricardo's comparative advantage theory, challenging the normative foundations of liberal international political economy. New Political Economy, 22 (3). pp. 257-272. doi:10.1080/13563467.2016.1216535

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Abstract

David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is now two centuries old, but it remains at the heart of economists’ theories of international trade. It also continues to provide the underlying economic ethic for liberal International Political Economy (IPE). Ricardo’s numerical illustration of the mutually shared gains from specialisation and trade involvedcomplementary structures of comparative advantage being exhibited by a productively superior hypothetical “Portugal” and a productively inferior hypothetical “England”. Yet the historical back-story of actual eighteenth-century trading relations between the two countries reveals Portugal’s repeated struggles to meet its treaty obligations to the English in the context of the European quest for empire. Those difficulties persisted even when it harnessed its (less profitable) commercial trade to (much more profitable) slave trading practices. Ricardo’s account of the purely mathematical logic of comparative advantage writes out of economic history the centrality of both imperial wars and African slavery to the early English and Portuguese experience of “free” trade. Given this historical back-story, liberal IPE thus appears to be in urgent need of new normative foundations to decouple it from these highly illiberal economic processes.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Comparative advantage (International trade), Ricardo, David, 1772-1823 -- Influence, Portugal -- Colonies -- Economic conditions, Great Britain -- Colonies -- Economic conditions, Slave trade -- Portugal, Slave trade -- Great Britain
Journal or Publication Title:	New Political Economy
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	1356-3467
Official Date:	2017
Dates:	Date Event 2017 Published 8 August 2016 Available 10 July 2016 Accepted 21 March 2016 Submitted
Date of first compliant deposit:	3 August 2016
Volume:	22
Number:	3
Page Range:	pp. 257-272
DOI:	10.1080/13563467.2016.1216535
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
Grant number:	ES/K010697/1

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