The proposition that free trade is beneficial for all countries
is central to mainstream bourgeois economics. It is invoked in
support of both the structural adjustment programmes prescribed
by the Bretton Woods institutions for the Third World, and the
new world trading order being ushered in through the WTO, The
theoretical justification for this proposition was provided
originally by David Ricardo through a celebrated example. He
considered trade between England and Portugal and showed that
even if one of the countries could produce both cloth and wine
cheaply, i.e. had an absolute advantage in the production of
both goods, nonetheless, if their relative advantage in the
production of the two goods differed, then each would be better
off by specialising in the production of the good for which it
was better suited and exchanging it for the other good. Ricardo
never once explained why countries differed in their relative
advantages. Subsequent attempts to re-establish the Ricardian
proposition have invoked t