Free Trade Agreements - Bane or Boon?
This article appears on Digital SLEN (The Official E-Newsletter of the IESL) in Issue 38 - January 2018. Free Trade Agreements - Bane or Boon? In the current climate of arguments against Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that border on histrionics, it is useful to look back into the history of development of free trade ideas. The first coherent treatise on the subject was the book authored by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith in 1776 titled "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (widely known by its short tile of "The Wealth of Nations"). Adam Smith (image source: adamsmith.org) Adam Smith's work was in response to the Mercantilism prevalent at that time which was in vogue since 1500s. Colonialism, from which Sri Lanka suffered greatly (the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in 1505 when their merchant fleets were rowing the seven seas to plunder wealth of other nations), was fueled by Mercantilism that posited wealth to be