This is the text of the 29th Wincott Lecture, oublished by the IEA in February, 2000. In the intellectual battle between state control of resources and free markets, some argue that the market economy now reigns supreme. The Berlin Wall has fallen. Maoism has given way to joint ventures in China. In the U. S. and England, New Democrats and New Labor both claim to support the basics of free markets.
Ideology is one thing, reality is another.
Much of the world's population still endures insecure property rights, corrupt courts, and arbitrary bureaucracies. Thugs and tyrants are slow to change their ways. Robert Lawson and James Gwartney James Gwartney is Professor of Economics and Policy Sciences at Florida State University. Robert Lawson is Associate Professor of Economics at Capital University in Ohio. But there are reasons for thinking that American support for free trade cannot be taken for granted.