Ricardo says that even if a country is very good at making lots of things, you're still having to give up the production of what you're really, really good at in order to make something that you're merely good at. The system of natural liberty and the system of comparative advantage and free trade, it doesn't exist in the present. That's not how states organise themselves. Richard? Yeah, I think the other wonder about magic numbers is that if you can say, well, this is the objective truth, because it's numerically true, then nobody can argue with it.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential economists from the age of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. Ricardo (1772 -1823) reputedly made his fortune at the Battle of Waterloo, and he made his lasting impact with his ideas on free trade. At a time when nations preferred to be self-sufficient, to produce all their own food and manufacture their own goods, and to find markets for export rather than import, Ricardo argued for free trade even with rivals for the benefit of all. He contended that existing economic policy unduly favoured landlords above all others and needed to change, and that nations would be less likely to go to war with their trading partners if they were more reliant on each other. For the last two hundred years, Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage in support of free trade has been developed and reinterpreted by generations of economists across the political spectrum.
With
Matthew Watson
Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
Helen Paul
Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton
And
Richard Whatmore
Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History
Producer: Simon Tillotson