Editing Classical liberalism (section)

=== Free trade and world peace ===
Several liberals, including Smith and Cobden, argued that the free exchange of goods between nations could lead to [[world peace]]. Erik Gartzke states: "Scholars like Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, [[Norman Angell]], and [[Richard Rosecrance]] have long speculated that [[free market]]s have the potential to free states from the looming prospect of recurrent warfare".<ref>Erik Gartzke, "Economic Freedom and Peace," in ''Economic Freedom of the World: 2005 Annual Report'' (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2005).</ref> American political scientists John R. Oneal and Bruce M. Russett, well known for their work on the democratic peace theory, state:<ref>{{cite journal|first1=J. R.|first2=B. M.|title=The Classical Liberals Were Right: Democracy, Interdependence, and Conflict, 1950–1985|journal=International Studies Quarterly|volume=41|issue=2|pages=267–294|year=1997|last1=Oneal|doi=10.1111/1468-2478.00042|last2=Russet|doi-access=free}}</ref> {{blockquote|The classical liberals advocated policies to increase liberty and prosperity. They sought to empower the commercial class politically and to abolish royal charters, monopolies, and the protectionist policies of mercantilism so as to encourage entrepreneurship and increase productive efficiency. They also expected democracy and laissez-faire economics to diminish the frequency of war.}}

In ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'', Smith argued that as societies progressed from hunter gatherers to industrial societies the spoils of war would rise, but that the costs of war would rise further and thus making war difficult and costly for industrialised nations:<ref>Michael Doyle, ''Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism'' (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 237. {{ISBN|0393969479}}.</ref> {{blockquote|[T]he honours, the fame, the emoluments of war, belong not to [the middle and industrial classes]; the battle-plain is the harvest field of the aristocracy, watered with the blood of the people. ... Whilst our trade rested upon our foreign dependencies, as was the case in the middle of the last century...force and violence, were necessary to command our customers for our manufacturers...But war, although the greatest of consumers, not only produces nothing in return, but, by abstracting labour from productive employment and interrupting the course of trade, it impedes, in a variety of indirect ways, the creation of wealth; and, should hostilities be continued for a series of years, each successive war-loan will be felt in our commercial and manufacturing districts with an augmented pressure|[[Richard Cobden]]<ref>Edward P. Stringham, [https://ssrn.com/abstract=1676244 "Commerce, Markets, and Peace: Richard Cobden's Enduring Lessons"], ''Independent Review'' 9, no. 1 (2004): 105, 110, 115.</ref>|source=}}
{{blockquote|[B]y virtue of their mutual interest does nature unite people against violence and war, for the concept of cosmopolitan right does not protect them from it. The spirit of trade cannot coexist with war, and sooner or later this spirit dominates every people. For among all those powers (or means) that belong to a nation, financial power may be the most reliable in forcing nations to pursue the noble cause of peace (though not from moral motives); and wherever in the world war threatens to break out, they will try to head it off through mediation, just as if they were permanently leagued for this purpose.|[[Immanuel Kant]]<ref>[[Immanuel Kant]], ''The Perpetual Peace''.</ref>}}

Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the welfare of the state and benefited a small, but concentrated elite minority, summing up British [[imperialism]], which he believed was the result of the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies. To Cobden and many classical liberals, those who advocated peace must also advocate free markets. The belief that free trade would promote peace was widely shared by English liberals of the 19th and early 20th century, leading the economist [[John Maynard Keynes]] (1883–1946), who was a classical liberal in his early life, to say that this was a doctrine on which he was "brought up" and which he held unquestioned only until the 1920s.<ref>[[Donald Markwell]], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/john-maynard-keynes-and-international-relations-9780198292364;jsessionid=4B0FEAE67C6CC2944F0147AFD5045F62?cc=au&lang=en& ''John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901225622/https://global.oup.com/academic/product/john-maynard-keynes-and-international-relations-9780198292364;jsessionid=4B0FEAE67C6CC2944F0147AFD5045F62?cc=au&lang=en& |date=1 September 2017}}, Oxford University Press, 2006, ch. 1.</ref> In his review of a book on Keynes, Michael S. Lawlor argues that it may be in large part due to Keynes' contributions in economics and politics, as in the implementation of the [[Marshall Plan]] and the way economies have been managed since his work, "that we have the luxury of not facing his unpalatable choice between free trade and full employment".<ref>[https://eh.net/book_reviews/john-maynard-keynes-and-international-relations-economic-paths-to-war-and-peace/ John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005051008/https://eh.net/book_reviews/john-maynard-keynes-and-international-relations-economic-paths-to-war-and-peace/ |date=5 October 2017}} Donald Markwell (2006), reviewed by M S Lawlor (February 2008).</ref> A related manifestation of this idea was the argument of [[Norman Angell]] (1872–1967), most famously before World War I in ''[[The Great Illusion]]'' (1909), that the interdependence of the economies of the major powers was now so great that war between them was futile and irrational; and therefore unlikely.