Ricardo's Gauntlet - 9781783082995

‘Ricardo’s Gauntlet’ advances a critique of the mainstream economic case for international free trade. While the core of the case for free trade is David Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage, the book argues that this case relies on a cluster of interconnected and mutually enforcing ‘economic fictions’ – economic theories or doctrines that pretend to be fact but which upon examination turn out to be mirages. Exposing the layers of fictions nested in the subfields of mainstream economies empties comparative advantage of its persuasiveness, bringing down the case for free trade.

This book is not, however, confined to dealing with esoteric puzzles within economic theory. Rather, it takes a social theoretical perspective and grapples with comparative advantage and its associated economic fictions as ideas that ground an argument with social currency, social validity and social effects. While ‘Ricardo’s Gauntlet’ engages in economic debates, it does so with the purpose of demonstrating the fragility of mainstream economic ideology and the flaw at the heart of its justification of free trade.

Proposing a novel disaggregation of the case for free trade into its component fictions – and drawing on and uniting heterodox and radical strands including social theory and political philosophy – ‘Ricardo’s Gauntlet’ reveals that the case for free trade fails precisely on its own terms. This failure unnecessarily and dangerously limits our understanding of what is right and wrong, with high sociopolitical stakes.