Brown the Ricardian

Gordon Brown likens opponents of free trade (such as the European Union) to the Luddites who opposed technical progress:

The ideologies that support protectionism offer no positive or credible alternative of how all the world can prosper and are little more than the modern equivalent of Luddism.

The analogy is a good one. Free trade is just like technical progress, as both are ways of getting goods more cheaply.
And it's an old one. David Ricardo explicitly made the point at the end of his Essay on Profits:

If the interests of the landlord be of sufficient consequence, to determine us not to avail ourselves of all the benefits which would follow from importing corn at a cheap price, they should also influence us in rejecting all improvements in agriculture, and in the implements of husbandry; for it is as certain that corn is rendered cheap...by such improvements, as by the importation of corn.

This raises two questions. Was this the first use of the analogy between technical progress and free trade? And is Brown dropping a hint here that he's a neo-Ricardian? Well, I can dream...

Comments

[james higham]

Doesn't matter anyway, as he won't be PM for long.

[Planeshift]

I'm going to reveal great ignorance here, and make myself look stupid. But can someone tell me why Slavery isn't technical progress as it allows us to get goods more cheaply.

[dearieme]

Planeshift: who's "us"?

[Kevin Carson]

Never mind who Brown thinks is opposed to "free trade." Just who the hell does he claim is in *favor* of "free trade"? Tom Friedman? Thomas Barnett? Himself?!! Bwahahahahaha!

If there were any danger of a government adopting genuine free trade, where big business was forced to globalize on its own nickel instead of suckling at the taxpayer teat and hiding behind "intellectual property" [sic] monopolies, there'd be a corporate coup d'etat.

Brown and his ilk are nothing but money pimps for corporate mercantilism. Referring to government-subsidized and government-privileged globalization as "free trade" ranks right up there with gems like "Ministry of Truth."