The consequences of Cobden
By Penny Hawthorne | 2 September 2005
Global Growth, the free-trade development NGO, has published a briefing written by Dr Nigel Ashford on the moral and political consequences of free trade. They say that...
...although there is an abundance of academic literature which puts the economic case for free trade, there is little that frames the case for free trade in terms of the moral values promoted... [The briefing says that] "protectionists attack free trade for sacrificing cultural and moral values at the altar of economic materialism, but this paper shows that free trade stimulates and encourages fundamental moral values: peace, freedom, human rights, democracy and trust."