Bentham on Spanish protectionism

Abstract

In 1821, John Bowring published a manuscript of Bentham's under the title of Observations on the restrictive and prohibitory commercial system: especially with a reference to the Decrep of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820. In all probability this text was originally conceived as an appendix to a book that Bentham never published, to Wit Rid Yourselves of Ultramarina, the commentary on Spanish colonization. The 1821 publisned text has been reprinted by W. Stark in the third volume of Jeremy Bentham's Economic With some corrections of obvious misprints, but without the benefit of the mauscript. Stark was very dismissive of this work, which he thought demonstrated how barren Bentham's economic thought had become. Stark believed thad Bentham was too orthodox in attacking Spanish protectionism when, Stark said, Spain was a case fit for an educational tariff, in the fashion proposed by list. However, many economists today think that few things are so harmful for an underdevelooped country as a tariff, eduational or not (except when it is low rated, revenue raising and accompanied by an equivalent domestic excise tax).