Sunday, October 08, 2006
The Myth of Free Trade Development
There's a wealth of material on the Post-Autistic Economics website if you poke around the site a little. Many of these are quite pithy and are written in a fairly accessible style (eschewing the pseudo-scientific jargonese, and obfuscatory mathematical pretentions of neo-classical discourse).
I'd recommend two in particular. The first, is 'The Strange History of Economics', in which the quite obviously ludicrous axioms of neo-classical theory are laid bare and criticised and in which the story of the rise, fall and rise again of neo-classical theory - and its recent ascent to the status of only game in town (self-declared) - is given in brief.
The other one is Ha-Joon Chang's essay, 'Kicking Away the Ladder: How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism'. The title is fairly self-explanatory. Chang provides a remarkably accessible account of the myth of free trade development - the idea that the developed world (particularly Britain and the US) rose to industrial and economic pre-eminence on account of their commitment to the 'open market' and the principles of 'free trade'. They didn't of course - but the myth is a useful one to foster and is used, as Chang suggests, to ensure the continued relative underdevelopment of the West's potential future economic rivals.
I'd recommend two in particular. The first, is 'The Strange History of Economics', in which the quite obviously ludicrous axioms of neo-classical theory are laid bare and criticised and in which the story of the rise, fall and rise again of neo-classical theory - and its recent ascent to the status of only game in town (self-declared) - is given in brief.
The other one is Ha-Joon Chang's essay, 'Kicking Away the Ladder: How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism'. The title is fairly self-explanatory. Chang provides a remarkably accessible account of the myth of free trade development - the idea that the developed world (particularly Britain and the US) rose to industrial and economic pre-eminence on account of their commitment to the 'open market' and the principles of 'free trade'. They didn't of course - but the myth is a useful one to foster and is used, as Chang suggests, to ensure the continued relative underdevelopment of the West's potential future economic rivals.
