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Peculiarities of free trade in modern Britain
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근대 영국 자유무역의 특성

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Academic journal
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Journal
국민대학교 한국학연구소 한국학논총 한국학논총 제45권 KCI Accredited Journals
Published
2016.1
Pages
285 - 326 (42page)

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Peculiarities of free trade in modern Britain
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Free trade has been regarded not only as an essential element in the economic system of modern Britain, but as a pivotal concept that defined the Victorian era, the heyday of British empire. In particular, the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts in the later 1840s has usually been considered as a historic watershed ushering in a new era of free trade. Free trade, replacing protectionism and mercantilism, has been thought of as an indispensable and essential force in shaping Britain’s supremacy in modern international economy. On closer examination, however, the certainties and hegemony that free trade has been depicted to have possessed in the conventional interpretation of modern Britain need to be modified. First, the definition of free trade was very often variable and ambiguous. Did free trade simply mean an absence, or a low level, of tariffs? And were the customs duties imposed primarily to protect domestic industries, or intended to control government’s financial resources? For instance, in terms of tariffs measured as a percentage of the value of the imports, the acme of Britain’s free trade was not so much the mid-Victorian era as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition, the number of goods subject to protective customs remained relatively high throughout the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Secondly, free trade, both in theory and practice, coexisted with protectionism and mercantilism at least from the late seventeenth century, and the boundaries between the two were seldom clearly drawn. Free trade and protectionism resided side by side quite comfortably not only among the various sectors of economy, but within a section of an industry, or even within a single theorist. Free trade thus evolved gradually, and sometimes painfully, from its historical coexistence with mercantilist and protectionist theories and practices. Thirdly, contrary to the conventional view analyzing the rise of free trade in terms of the conflict between the manufacturing and agricultural interests, historical evidence shows that the commercial and financial sectors played a much more decisive role in the rise of free trade. Finally, it needs to be emphasized that the potency and hegemony of free trade, even in its heyday, were not so certain as have been assumed, because of its conceptual ambiguities, the complicated nature of its historical origins, and the conflicting and intermingling interests of the various sectors of economy.

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