Similar to The Corn Laws, an Act was passed to protect Are the silk manufacturers against competition from less expensive foreign imports to ensure monopoly of local silk manufactures around 1824.
This sounds a familiar conflict today when trade friction and political dispute are heated by China exporting massive cheap low end products to the rest of the world.
John Mill looked into the economic aspect of the silk trade issues through this essay. He through the essay challenged the argument “In the claim of the monopolists, two things are implied:—that they cannot support themselves under a free trade; and that, if they cannot support themselves, they ought to be supported by the nation. If they would say any thing in point, they must prove both these assertions; that they have hitherto been content with assuming them, it requires very little consideration to perceive.”
The work influenced Henry George who completed his great work Protection or Free Trade.
John Mill is known as one of the founders of economics. This is a must-read book for people who are interested in the deepest thoughts about free trade, monopoly, and protectionism by John Mill, one of the greatest thinkers on the planet.
