Government decisions involving economic liberalisation are typically easy targets for criticism. This is particularly the case when significant national industries or institutions are perceived to have been adversely impacted as a result. For example, in the wake of the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the governments of Australia and the United States of America in May 2004 , Australian academics Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon, and John Mathews released a book unequivocally scathing of the politics of the agreement, entitled How to Kill A Country . In the book, Weiss et. al expressed their firm belief that the agreement was not in Australia's national interest, and therefore, should not have been approved by Australia's political representatives in parliament:

"We marvel that such vast areas of a country's social and economic life could be transformed so utterly, and with such minimal public debate - all in the name of seizing a `one in a lifetime opportunity' - to be thoroughly integrated with American interests in a manner that is entirely, 100 per cent favourable to the United States and in almost every way represents a step back for Australia..."

Although it is questionable as to whether or not this particular trade deal can indeed be truly called a "free trade agreement" , Weiss et. al's criticisms of the agreement are certainly nationalistic in inspiration, and arguably quite valid. But is it possible to effectively criticise economic liberalisation or the doctrine of free trade without relying on arguments driven primarily by nationalistic concerns?

This essay will seek to answer this question through a review of the free trade doctrine itself, followed by an analysis of three of the broad scholastic critiques of the doctrine that have emerged since the original publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

Having Faith in the Global Marketplace: Arguments for Free Trade

In order to understand the basis for the criticisms that have been levelled at the free trade doctrine over the last few centuries, it is necessary to first understand the rationale underlying the doctrine itself. The original (and classic) liberal argument in favour of free trade was composed in 1817 by David Ricardo, in his now infamous work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.  Harnessing the classical economic ideology formulated by his predecessor Adam Smith, Ricardo believed that increasing the extent of international trade would increase the sum of different commodities available to consumers, and therefore the sum of available enjoyments . More substantially, he argued that the economies of nation-states would be most effectively (and efficiently) driven and organised by the "invisible hand" of a free market :

"Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole."

In essence, Ricardo suggested, not only is it in the best interests of any pair of trading nation-states for the doctrine of free trade to be adopted between them, it is also in the best interests of the world for the doctrine to be adopted globally. Through the implementation of global free trade, Ricardo envisaged that the world's nation-states would be "bound together" by their common economic interests, thus becoming effectively interdependent .

Contemporary supporters of economic liberalisation typically borrow much from the original observations made by David Ricardo, but also draw on observations of events that have occurred during the nearly two-hundred years that have past since. For example, the social and economic failings of communist Russia have been interpreted by numerous scholars as something of a victory of "the market" over "the state", characterised by Brink Lindsey as a victory of the "invisible hand" over the "dead hand" . Formal developments in international trade relations, particularly those pertaining to the progress of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in liberalising global trade, have been of particular interest. Liberal commentators such as Swedish economist Johan Norberg have observed that the protectionist measures that continue to be employed by wealthy nation-states (such as Sweden, a member of the European Union) serve to subsidise inefficient farmers fortunate enough to live there, effectively at the expense of more cost-efficient farmers living in poorer regions, such as Latin America and Eastern Europe . While it is true that commentators such as Norberg are doing little more than reproducing the arguments that Ricardo made in the past by making such observations, the global situation has changed markedly since the time of Ricardo. As Gavin Kitching observes, in his recent book Seeking Social Justice Through Globalization:

"We have now begun, however, to move into a phase of capitalist development in which "the wretched of the earth" can be beneficiaries, or at least partial beneficiaries, of the further development of global capitalism."

In the modern era, the free trade doctrine is thus often supported by scholars in the context of the global fight against poverty. This support is in direct contrast with the doctrine's traditional links with economic imperialism, which will be discussed forthwith.

Free trade: Imperialism by another name?

In some quarters, the emergence of the classical doctrine of free trade is traditionally associated with the rise of an industrialising British Empire. This is in no small part due to the fact that both Adam Smith and David Ricardo (the Western figureheads of classic economic liberalism) were British, and composed their most infamous texts during the late 18th century and early 19th century . By the mid-19th century of course, the British Empire enjoyed industrial dominance over the rest of the world to such an extent that it was, effectively speaking, the "workshop of the world" . For some realist observers, it was not surprising that numerous prominent British scholars supported a trading regime that effectively favoured those economies in the best position to compete internationally. German nationalist and economist Friedrich List was one such historically significant observer. In his work National System of Political Economy, originally published in 1841, List attacked the economic cosmopolitanism espoused by the likes of Smith and Ricardo, and in particular the doctrine of free trade. Of England, List argued:

"She strove for commercial supremacy, and felt that of two countries maintaining free trade between one another, that one would be supreme which sold manufactured goods, while that one would be subservient which could only sell agricultural produce."

In other words, as Gavin Kitching has described, List broadly perceived the work of Smith and Ricardo to amount to little more than "a spurious defense of British economic imperialism" . The Listian critique of the doctrine of free trade is thus somewhat contextually ironic, given that it both condemns the doctrine as a theoretical tool of British national interest, and yet is explicitly nationalistic in inspiration itself.

Despite the influential nature of List's contribution to debate, it would be a fallacy to suggest that all critiques of the doctrine were motivated solely by nationalistic inspirations. Karl Marx, yet another influential German scholar of the 19th century, provided quite an intellectually nuanced criticism of free trade, concisely expounded in a speech (later published) to the Democratic Association of Brussels in January 1848. The crux of his observations was that free trade would not only be detrimental to the nationhood of the states involved, but would also serve to further antagonise class relations:

"...the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade."

In a similar manner to which bourgeois capitalists exploited the labour of the working-class in order to accumulate capital, Marx also hinted that similar exploitative relations could well develop between wealthy nations and poorer nations under conditions of free trade . This notion was further expounded upon by Russian contemporary and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who posited that using nationalistic arguments to support or reject free trade was superfluous to the central point of concern. For Lenin, the imperialism of one's own nation was no better than any other nation's imperialism; both should be criticised for "substituting petty-bourgeois reformism for Marxism" .

Although Marxism as a school of thought has fallen out of public intellectual favour in the 20th century, many modern critiques of the doctrine of free trade continue to exhibit a synergy with List's and Marx's original observations. Gramscian Marxist Robert Cox, who famously argued that "theory is always for some one, and for some purpose", has suggested that hegemonic interests were at the heart of both 19th century British and 20th century American intellectual support for free trade . This suggestion is essentially an extrapolation of the basic premise of List's earlier argument; namely, that it is in the interests of comparatively more economically powerful and/or more technologically advanced nation-states to seek open trading relations with comparatively less economically powerful and/or less technologically advanced nation-states. The nature of these hegemonic interests, it can be argued, transcends the purely economic, raising broader questions about the extent to which globalisation may prove ultimately hazardous to nationhood. For example, Leo Suryadinata observes that less powerful nation-states in today's global political economy are at risk of being "denationalised", in multiple senses of the word:

"American culture has penetrated other countries, enriching as well as eroding their respective national culture. Each state strives to preserve its national cultural institutions by limiting the absorption of American culture, or creating an alternative one."

More generally, one might argue that an uncompromising or nationally unbalanced implementation of the doctrine of free trade would threaten the existence of the cultural institutions of weaker nations. Returning to the case of the recently ratified Australia - United States FTA, it is this very concern which Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon and John Mathews believe has become a stark and unfortunate reality for Australia . Nor is Australia alone in this situation. Joseph Stiglitz, who is careful not to describe the recent "FTA" between the United States and Morocco as anything more than a mere "bilateral trade treaty", fears that the formulation of the treaty was driven more by U.S. corporate interests than any support of the free trade doctrine, or indeed compassion for the poor people of Morocco.  

Trade protectionism: a pragmatic solution?

A second broad school of thought opposing the free trade doctrine focuses on the idea that liberal economic policies are not always, strictly speaking, the policies that are in the immediate economic interests of a national economy. One of the fundamental observations of this school of argument is that the global economy is not a "level playing field". In obvious terms, the ability of a firm to compete is directly linked to its current financial position in the marketplace and its annual profit earnings. Many national businesses and corporations of the developed world (particularly those of the United States, the European Union, and Japan) currently have access to investment capital, technology, and indeed market share that businesses owned by people in developing countries can only dream of having access to. Furthermore, many of these corporations and businesses of the developed world accumulated (and consolidated) their wealth in an international economy that was not yet globalised or comparatively speaking liberalised, benefiting from protectionist controls imposed by their respective national governments over the lifetime of their operation. As social commentator George Monbiot has observed:

"Developing in direct competition with big business overseas is like learning to swim in a torrent: you will be swept away and drowned long before you acquire the necessary expertise."

Such arguments against the unqualified implementation of the free trade doctrine are, of course, inherently nationalistic. As Stephen Spruiell has succinctly observed , the question of whether or not a given government should engage in protectionist trade policies more or less pits the value of parochial, national interests against global interests.

Is it not logical and reasonable, however, to allow the governments of developing nation-states to engage in protectionist trade policies, such that their national industries are given a chance to develop without facing crushing competition from the "commercial behemoths" operating abroad? There is no simple answer. Observers like Monbiot and Robert Kuttner clearly think so, whereas liberal economists such as Milton Friedman  and Johan Norberg would vehemently disagree. What is clear, however, is that not all national industries would survive a move to absolute free trade. Tariff reduction by Australia in recent decades, for example, has not so much made the Australian manufacturing industry more competitive, but effectively imposed upon the industry a policy of attrition.

Is free trade an impossible economic ideal?

Perhaps the most pragmatic general critique of the doctrine of free trade is that it is an ideology divorced from reality. The underlying assumption of this critique is that the current geopolitical reality of the world is simply not conducive to the establishment of a global regime of absolute free trade. As Gavin Kitching has related, any minimally historically informed person would likely believe that the formal conditions required for the optimal operation of Ricardian free trade are "so grossly unrealistic as to be laughable" . Whether or not this form of critique is implicitly nationalistic in inspiration, or essentially systemic in inspiration, is a matter of semantics. It is telling, however, that one of the scholars most closely associated with the formulation of the free trade doctrine does not think it possible to implement, even within Britain:

"To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the public, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it."

So wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. While it is true that Smith may well have been pleasantly surprised at the significant progress made since the mid 20th century towards achieving global free trade, scepticism is rife among modern day commentators about the prospects of further trade liberalisation.

Since the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945, much of the scholastic rumination on the doctrine of free trade has focused upon the trials and tribulations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and its latter-day incarnation, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). At the Bretton-Woods Conference of 1944, the GATT was initially proposed as an appendix to a proposed Charter of International Trade Organisation  (ITO). Ironically, but tellingly for critics of the doctrine of free trade, protectionist interests within the United States Congress forced the U.S. government to withdraw from the proposed ITO agreement before it was ultimately ratified, effectively rendering it a political impossibility . The GATT subsequently became the world's primary multilateral mechanism for international trade liberalisation negotiations, until an agreement among GATT members to form the WTO was ratified during the Uruguay round of negotiations in 1994.

In recent years, the push for progress towards multilateral trade liberalisation through the World Trade Organisation has faced numerous challenges. As Patrick Cronin has postulated, the liberal logic of free trade is in stark contrast to the fact that international economic transactions take place in a world of politically disparate nation-states . This contrast is particularly important given that the WTO operates on a consensus-based decision-making model. In the first couple of decades of operation of the GATT, many significant tariff reductions were successfully negotiated. However, during that time, the politically difficult area of agriculture was not on the negotiating table, and there were less than 30 nation-states involved in negotiations, many or most with common economic interests . Today in the WTO there are 148 members at the negotiating table, and the scope of negotiations has increased dramatically, now incorporating issues relating to trade in services (GATS), trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS), and trade-related investment measures (TRIMS).  Some observers fear that a lack of progress towards trade liberalisation within the WTO could lead to a proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements that undermine the multilateral trade liberalisation agenda . Given the worthy criticisms that some have made of the patently "unfree" nature of the FTAs between both the United States and Morocco and the United States and Australia , for example, such fears may prove valid over the coming decades.

In conclusion, it certainly seems the case that many or even most arguments against the doctrine of free trade could be perceived as being inspired by nationalistic concerns. All three of the general critiques of free trade that have been reviewed in this essay are indeed influenced either partly or wholly by such concerns. However, given the current geopolitical realities of the world, this should not be surprising to anyone. For hundreds of years, the world has been segregated into politically and culturally disparate nation-states, and despite a prominent global push towards economic liberalisation in recent decades, the world is still formally segregated in such a manner. Both supporters (the "Ricardian game" is an early classic example) and critics of the free trade doctrine often postulate how the people of particular nations would benefit or not benefit (or indeed have benefited, or have not benefited) from the implementation of the doctrine, in order to effectively argue their point. Indeed, like many other decisions made by nation-state governments on behalf of their people, the question of "who benefits" is at the heart of the argument as to whether or not the doctrine of free trade should or can be implemented. While some still want to argue the anachronistic point that "buying American" (for example) is effectively a protectionist action and therefore "un-American", the reality of how the world operates today betrays those with such mindsets. In this context, Patrick Buchanan, himself quite an anachronistic political figure, has asked a somewhat flippant but still pertinent question:

"If economics professors are so fanatic about free trade, why not eliminate their tenure and import English-speaking economics professors from India at half the pay?"

A question, perhaps, best left to the likes of Milton Friedman or Johan Norberg to answer.

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