Protecting the infant industry: Cosmopolitan versus nationalist economists

The passionate debate, among policy makers and theorists, over the appropriateness of protecting infant industries in developing countries was one of greatest interest in the economic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On one side of the argument are the British advocates of free trade, concocting subtle arguments to neutralize the boisterous aspirations of insubordinate colonies (and former colonies) yearning for independence; on the other, the standard‐bearers of Economic Nationalism, responding fiercely to the incessant firing of classical contentions. Such reaction to laissez‐faire economics gave birth to a corpus of ideas which was to form the core intellectual bulwark of commercial protectionism and cultural freedom. Discusses and comments on the conflicting views which animated the confrontation through examination of the major works of the most illustrious exponents of both factions.