Free Trade is Fair Trade
Thorold Rogers looks at how Governments have tried to make trade ‘fair’, and concludes that they would have been better ensuring it was free.
1869
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Thorold Rogers looks at how Governments have tried to make trade ‘fair’, and concludes that they would have been better ensuring it was free.
1869
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
To Sir Francis Bacon, writing in 1625, it was self-evident that one man’s gain is always another man’s loss — that if Paul is doing well Peter must be doing correspondingly badly. He wanted Governments to step in and even things up, but Victorian economist Thorold Rogers warned that Bacon had fallen prey to a delusion which has nursed wars and corruption, but brought no justice.
THE laws of every country prohibit force, and afford remedies against fraud. Unless this were done, society would not hold together. But they have also, from time to time, (always indeed ineffectually) tried to prevent or annul contracts which are made under circumstances unfavourable to one of the parties. Thus most legislatures have sought to restrain usury in the interest of borrowers, to fix prices in the interest of purchasers, to control wages in the interest of employers, and sometimes, but rarely, to fix minimum rates of wages, or to find employment, in the interest of labourers.
All these attempts have failed in the long run. The endeavour to lower the rate of interest, has in effect raised its rate. Regulations fixing prices have caused great fluctuations in prices; and so, for reasons which we shall see hereafter, have on the whole raised prices. The control of wages has been oppressive, without being effectual; and all attempts to find employment, or to raise wages above the rate at which they would naturally stand, have diminished employment, and so diminished wages.