Mathew Forstater wrote: > > But Smith, contrary to much popular misconception clearly stated the many > advantages that came to the colonizers as well as the disadvantages to the > colonized. Great post, Mat. To what extent do you think Smith's vigorous opposition to any form of interference in the market led him to be less eurocentric than his contemporaries like the raving bigot Say and Ricardo and the Mill family? I have in mind passages like this; "the savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries." Smith WON,book IV,ch IX,p307. His opposition to colonial monopoly on trade: "depresses the industry of all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies without in the least increasing, but on the contrary, diminishing that of the country in whose favor it was established." Ibid. Smith may have been opposed to the economic nature of colonialism but accepted political colonialism. I think Smith was just a free-trade imperialist. Sam Pawlett
