Contemporary trade policies

The economic integration of several countries or states may take a variety of forms. The term covers preferential tariffs, free-trade associations, customs unions, common markets, economic unions, and full economic integration. The parties to a system of preferential tariffs levy lower rates of duty on imports from one another than they do on imports from third countries. For example, Great Britain and its Commonwealth countries operated a system of reciprocal tariff preferences after 1919. In free-trade associations no duty is levied on imports from other member states, but different rates of duty may be charged by each member on its imports from the rest of the world. A further stage is the customs union, in which free trade among the members is sheltered behind a unified schedule of customs duties charged on imports from the rest of the world. The 19th-century German Zollverein was a customs union. A common market is an extension of the customs union concept, with the additional feature that it provides for the free movement of labour and capital among the members; an example was the Benelux common market until it was converted into an economic union in 1959. The term economic union denotes a common market in which the members agree to harmonize their economic policies generally, as is the case with the European Union. Finally, total economic integration implies the pursuit of a common economic policy by the political units involved; examples are the states of the United States or the cantons of the Swiss Confederation.

Economic integration may be brought about by the political will of a state powerful enough to impose it, as under the Roman Empire or the European colonial systems of the 19th century, or it may result from freely negotiated agreement between sovereign states, as was more common in the 20th century.

The attempts at economic integration made after World War II can be appraised only by reviewing them against the background of the long process through which, over the centuries, the nations of the world have progressively achieved economic integration. Thus, for instance, the world’s greatest power in the 17th century, France, was divided into a number of provinces separated from one another by various customs barriers involving a multitude of duties, tolls, and prohibitions. Trade regulations and fiscal charges differed from one region to the next; there was not even a single system of weights and measures. Not until after the Revolution did the economic integration of France really get under way.

The economic integration of the United States was not achieved all at once, but as the result of a long process during which the powers of the federal authorities were constantly reinforced. The Constitution empowered the federal government to regulate the conditions of trade with other countries and to set up a single system of duties. It also abolished the right of individual states to maintain separate customs legislation and to issue their own currencies. It authorized the federal government alone to issue currency and established the principle of free movement of persons, merchandise, and capital between the federated states. But the conflict of interest between North and South was settled only by the American Civil War, and although the economies of the states can be considered as integrated for practical purposes, there remain many economic and fiscal disparities among them.

The difficulties faced by the 13 original states should not be underestimated. During the years prior to the adoption of the Constitution there were bitter trade disputes among the states, which imposed tariffs against each other and refused to accept each other’s currencies. Everything seemed to justify the words of a contemporary liberal philosopher, Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester (England):

As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their differences of governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and sub-divided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains.

The Swiss example is no less instructive. Although the Helvetic Confederation emerged as a political entity in the 14th century, its economic integration was achieved, only after many vicissitudes, with the constitution of 1848. The terms of this document established a common currency, set forth the principle of a common protective system for the cantons, and provided for free movement of goods and Swiss citizens throughout the national territory. Swiss economic integration is all the more remarkable in that it comprises peoples who speak four different languages.

When the colonial powers of Europe founded their empires from the 16th century onward, they attempted to monopolize trade with the colonies and to turn it to their own profit. This policy involved four main restrictions: (1) The colonies were to trade exclusively with the mother country. (2) They were not to undertake manufacturing; transformation of raw materials into finished goods remained a monopoly right of the mother country. (3) Imports and exports of the colonies were to be carried only in ships flying the mother country’s flag. (4) The mother country exempted colonial products from duty, or imposed lower rates.

This system, although progressively attenuated, applied in various forms from the 16th to the 19th century. Based on force, it was to the benefit of the home countries and detrimental to the economic growth of their colonies. (See colonialism.)

The best-known example of the early customs unions is the German Zollverein (literally, “customs union”). Even though Napoleon had reduced the number of German states from 300 to 40 at the beginning of the 19th century, those that remained were isolated from each other by their own customs systems. In addition, numerous internal customs barriers hampered trade within each state. At the same time, there was no single external tariff, and the German industries that had sprung up during the Napoleonic Wars were being crushed by English competition. These difficulties were at the root of the creation of the Zollverein.

The starting point was Prussia’s abolition of all internal duties and its adoption of an external tariff in 1818. In the next few years a number of other German states followed the Prussian example. Bavaria and Württemberg set up a customs union in 1828, and by 1830 four separate customs unions were in existence. Prussia then sought to break up the local customs unions and attach them to a general customs union, the Zollverein. The coverage of the Zollverein increased until, by 1871, it included all the German states.

In its first phase, from 1834 to 1867, the Zollverein was administered by a central authority, the Customs Congress, in which each state had a single vote. A common tariff, the Prussian Tariff of 1818, shielded the member states from foreign competition, but free trade was the rule internally.

During a second phase, from 1867 to 1871 (following Prussia’s victory over Austria at Sadowa), executive power was wielded by a federal council (Bundesrat) composed of governmental delegates, in which decisions were taken by an absolute majority. Prussia was entitled to 17 of the 58 votes and held the chair of the council. Legislative power lay with a “customs parliament” (Zollparlament) composed of deputies directly elected by popular vote, and, like the council, taking decisions by a majority vote. This arrangement transformed what had been a confederation into a federal state.

After the victory over France and the proclamation of the German empire in 1871, the customs parliament and the federal council were replaced by the parliament and the executive council of the empire. The federal state had become a nation.

The progressive destruction of a tangled maze of regulations, prohibitions, and controls set the stage for the subsequent rapid development of the German economy. Although economic integration occurred before political unification, it would not have been possible had not many difficulties been swept away by irresistible pressure from Prussia with its military victories.