Title: Economic nationalism in the history of international economics

Authors: Sanja Grubacic; Julian Schuster

Addresses: Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT 06515, USA ' Webster University, St. Louis, MO, 63119, USA

Abstract: This paper examines the sources of economic nationalism by a closer examination of the theory and policy of international trade, originating in the 19th century. We compare and contrast the views of British classical writers, the main proponents of trade liberalism, with the writings of Friedrich List, the main proponent of economic nationalism. The focus is on the distributional implications of trade, and the treatment of the benefits that a poor country may derive from trading with a rich country in 19th century economic thought. We also review the current literature on economic nationalism, and find that alternative perspectives emerge from differing views on the benefits and drawbacks of globalisation. We argue that List's approach remains relevant to understanding contemporary economic nationalism because it highlights a historical context in which the adverse distributional implications of foreign trade are likely to provoke nationalist sentiment.

Keywords: free trade; protectionism; distribution; globalisation; inequality; economic liberalism; economic nationalism; Ricardo; List; Malthus; history; international economics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2018.093414

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2018 Vol.9 No.3, pp.300 - 317

Received: 21 Jul 2017
Accepted: 23 Jan 2018
Published online: 25 Jul 2018 *

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