“Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.”

—  Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

Essay on Mitford's History of Greece (1824)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopul…" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay?
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay101
British historian and Whig politician 1800–1859

Related quotes

Samuel Romilly photo

“Who will not be proud to concur with my honored friend in promoting the greatest act of national benefit, and securing to the Africans the greatest blessing which God has ever put in the power of man to confer on his fellow creatures?”

Samuel Romilly (1757–1818) British politician

Quoted in Memoir of William Wilberforce, Thomas Price (Boston: Light &amp; Stearns, 1836), pages 59–60. https://ia902609.us.archive.org/5/items/memoirwilliamwi00pricgoog/memoirwilliamwi00pricgoog.pdf <br class="br">Slave Trade Bill speech (1807)

Ha-Joon Chang photo

“Almost all of today's rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.”

Ha-Joon Chang (1963) Economist

&quot;Kicking Away the Ladder&quot; http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue15/Chang15.htm, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 15, 1 September 2002, article 3

George Mason photo

“That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Article 15
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

Ian Smith photo

“Life's greatest lessons have come to me so late … that a country can have political independence while its people are not free.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Joshua Nkomo (On the UDI).[citation needed]
About

Wendell Berry photo

“The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country — or, for that matter, a region — to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people’s ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Bad Big Idea"
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (1993)

Ram Narayan photo

“The greatest blessing that one can get from music is that it makes an artist immensely satisfied with life irrespective of the financial condition in which they may be.”

Ram Narayan (1927) classical sarangi player from India

[An Interview with Pandit Ram Narayan, Official website, http://www.webcitation.org/5n5BHIfXo]

Richard Cobden photo

“He [Cobden] said that the great mass of the labouring classes, the unskilled labouring class, were in a condition which permanently was one disgraceful to the Government of the country…The system of protection had produced nothing but misery to the labouring population of this country, and until it was removed misery would continue to be their inheritance. He would meet the opponents of free trade with this simple proposition—they could not benefit the condition of the mass of the people of this country but by the admission of more food.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/jun/10/repeal-of-the-corn-laws in the House of Commons (10 June 1845). <br class="br">1840s

James Bovard photo

“The U. S. government has created a trade lynch law that can convict foreign companies almost regardless of how they operate.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

From The Fair Trade Fraud (St. Martin&#x27;s Press, 1991) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigrams%20page%20Fair%20Trade%20Fraud.htm

Salah Al Budair photo

“The greatest blessing for the people in the Kingdom is that the country is standing on the strong foundation of Islam, tawhid, faith and sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh), Shariah and unity, and solidarity of the people.”

Salah Al Budair (1971) Imaam at Masjid al-Nabawi

Makkah imam says Gulf alliance to help Yemenis https://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/740816?page=5 (2nd May 2015)

Ha-Joon Chang photo

“Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 2, Learning the right lessons from history, p. 61
Context: Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.

Related topics