Cobdenism is an
economic ideology (and the associated popular movement) which perceives international
free trade and a
non-interventionist foreign policy as the key requirements for prosperity and world peace. It is named after the British statesman and economist
Richard Cobden and had its heyday of political influence in the
British Empire during the mid-19th century, amidst and after the endeavour to abolish the
Corn Laws.
Based on
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...
's assertion that
full employment
Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or unemployment#Cyclical unemployment, deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely Structu ...
and economic growth require access to foreign markets, Cobden perceived the expansion of foreign trade as the main means of increasing global prosperity and emphasized the importance of the international division of labour for economic progress. Akin to his ideal of Britain as an industrial society of small cooperating property owners, he believed in an international order of small, independent nations attaining shared prosperity through international trade. As Cobden saw Britain's involvement in empire as an unwelcome distraction of domestic investment into its industrial capacity, his writings became influential in
anti-imperialist circles, being picked up by e.g.
John A. Hobson
John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption.
His principal and e ...
. Moreover, it influenced the economic thinking of
John Maynard Keynes, who was a staunch adherent of Richard Cobden's theories prior to the
First World War, after which he abandoned Cobdenism in favor of "insular capitalism".
Rarely used today and already in decline by the end of the 19th century, Cobdenism was revived by some academics during the 1980s to support the liberalization of the British economy.
[Castorina, C. (1985). “Cobdenism for the 1980s”. ''Economic Affairs'', 5(2), pp. 58–60.]
See also
*
Manchester Liberalism
References
{{reflist
Schools of economic thought
Eponymous political ideologies
Non-interventionism