Speaker
Description
The eighteenth century was a period of intense geopolitical conflict and frequent wars, yet it also witnessed an unprecedented surge in trade, particularly colonial trade among the major empires. Within this dynamic context, Adam Smith formulated his inquiry into the wealth of nations. Scholars of Smith have often examined his perspectives on the interplay between trade and war. On one side, he is regarded as a precursor to the liberal tradition in international relations, suggesting that trade fosters peace, aligning with the doux commerce thesis (Modelski 1972; Coulomb 1998; Gartzke and Li 2003; Hill 2009). Conversely, he is also viewed as a skeptic of expanding international trade, wary of the mercantilist ethos that pervades commercial societies (Wyatt-Walter 1996; Paganelli and Schumacher 2019).
This study shifts the focus from the binary question of whether trade promotes peace or conflict. Instead, it examines Smith’s views on foreign trade amid wartime conditions. To address this, I analyze Smith’s stance on the Laws of Nations, with particular attention to his views on neutral trade following the First League of Armed Neutrality during the American Revolutionary War. This perspective, previously unexplored in the secondary literature, sheds light on Smith’s thinking regarding two core objectives of any nation: prosperity and defense, with the latter as the foremost duty within his system of natural liberty.
Ultimately, this analysis reveals Smith’s nuanced stance, situated at the crossroads of realism or neo-mercantilist traditions in international relations and the principles espoused by the early advocates of free trade (predating Richard Cobden) in the nineteenth century.
| Organization | University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne |
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