Protectionism or Free Trade -  Actuality of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Closed Commercial State Cover Image

Protekcionizam ili slobodna trgovina - Aktualnost Zatvorene trgovačke države Johanna Gottlieba Fichtea
Protectionism or Free Trade - Actuality of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Closed Commercial State

Author(s): Aneli Dragojević Mijatović
Subject(s): Supranational / Global Economy, Social Philosophy, Economic history, Early Modern Philosophy, 19th Century Philosophy, German Idealism, Economic policy, International relations/trade, Political economy
Published by: Hrvatsko Filozofsko Društvo
Keywords: protectionism; free trade; Johann Gottlieb Fichte; Georg Friedrich List; Friedrich August von Hayek; John Maynard Keynes;

Summary/Abstract: Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his work The Closed Commercial State (1800) argued for economic autarky as the next reform of protectionism. German-American economist Friedrich List published The National System of Political Economy (1840) which is considered to be the “Bible of protectionism”. List was the opponent of Adam Smith’s theses on the importance of free trade and international market. The advocate in a shift from open to closed economy is actual in the globalized world, which is determined by growing inequality and other social and political anomalies. Protectionism is imposed as a possible response to the discontents of globalization. The paper attempts to answer if there is a link between global capitalism and economic nationalism, and how are left and right political parties related to that possible link. Recently, in the days of political dissatisfaction, the alternative between left and right positions is replaced by the opposition between system and anti-system or protest parties. While system parties are criticized for keeping a status quo of neoliberal agenda, protest parties slide into nationalism and populism.

  • Issue Year: 38/2018
  • Issue No: 03/151
  • Page Range: 459-477
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Croatian