The Economist’s founder and the fight for free trade

My CEI colleagues Iain Murray and Ryan Young wrote in 2018 that tariffs benefit “domestic producers and the politicians they support,” at the expense of “everybody else in the economy.” 

If it were only that obvious to everyone. Instead, protectionists have taken to disingenuous arguments to get support from voters. Free trade is unpatriotic, critics say, or it helps only the global elite. 

These arguments resonate because most people are several degrees removed from commerce. Many of free trade’s greatest defenders were at one time involved in trade, from David Ricardo to Richard Cobden to Jean-Baptiste Say. 

Yet few turned thought to deed as effectively as James Wilson, who founded The Economist newspaper in 1843. A manufacturer and exporter, Wilson converted many in England to the free trade cause. And he did so not by stoking fear, but by providing facts and trusting his readers’ reason. 

Wilson was born in 1805 in Hawick, Scotland. Beginning in the 18^th century, Hawick was transitioning from a borderland backwater into an industrial hub. Wilson capitalized on these changes, eschewing university for a prosperous mercantile career. 

Wilson witnessed firsthand the value of free enterprise and open seas. By 1837, he was worth an estimated £3 million in today’s money. But this success was temporary. That year, Wilson lost everything when the price of indigo suddenly dived. 

In his 1873 book Lombard Street, Wilson’s famous protégé and son-in-law, Walter Bagehot, attributed the events of 1837 to a collapse in public confidence that could only be mitigated by intervention from a proactive central bank. Wilson nevertheless soothed his creditors by selling off some assets and pledging to sell more in case his investment skills had dulled. 

They had not, and in 1844 he retired from business to focus on The Economist. It was an immediate success, and Wilson completed his financial recovery. Later, he entered Parliament and had begun the monumental task of balancing British India’s budget when he died in 1860. 

From the start, three aspects distinguished The Economist: clear communication, sharp insight, and reliance on facts. This approach neutralized protectionist appeals to self-interest, and led voters to associate free trade with peace, civilization, and prosperity for all. This shift forged a political consensus against trade barriers that lasted until the early 1900s. 

Wilson himself embodied all three of the magazine’s defining characteristics. He communicated in “simple, vigorous prose” because he sincerely believed in laissez-faire. As Alastair Buchan wrote, the “able and conscientious Scotsman … took great pride in the fact that he had paid off all his debts and had subsequently completely re-established himself without any outside assistance.” 

Wilson’s insight stemmed from seeing the benefits of free trade firsthand through his business career. He had a “business-imagination” that Bagehot found lacking in those who start economic arguments with, “Suppose a man upon an island.” Reflecting on his career, Wilson once reminisced, “I became acquainted—well acquainted—with the middle classes of this country,” but also “the working classes; and also, to a great extent, with the foreign commerce of this country in pretty nearly all parts of the world.” 

He could connect with ordinary readers because he worked among them and understood their experiences. According to Buchan, one academic was shocked to learn, Wilson “never reads a book; he gets all his knowledge from documents and conversation … that is at first-hand.” Likewise, Bagehot wrote that Wilson only formulated his central arguments by “talk[ing] a subject out.” 

Above all, Wilson argued from evidence. The Economist was the first weekly news magazine in England to regularly publish statistical data. Its prototype was a pamphlet Wilson issued in 1839 against Britain’s protectionist Corn Laws. Unlike more demagogic appeals, Wilson grounded his arguments in data on export volumes, trade routes, and crop prices. According to Richard Spall, this amounted to “the most sophisticated analysis” of its time that proved repeal would cause profits, wages, and crop prices to rise. 

This was a new conclusion. Many reformers accepted landowners’ claims that the Corn Laws kept grain prices high. But Wilson introduced the economic argument that everyone benefited from general prosperity. In this way, Wilson “steer[ed] the controversy away from one of class interest.” He effectively communicated important political points by presenting economic figures in an accessible way. 

Wilson repeated this framework in the prospectus issue of The Economist. He wrote as the new publication’s thesis that “FREE TRADE, free intercourse, will do more than any other visible agent to extend civilization and morality throughout the world … to extinguish slavery itself.” But how would he prove it? 

First, by leading with articles that practically applied free-trade principles to “all the important questions of the day.” Then, through reporting on commerce, banking, agriculture, and other sectors, Wilson proved that free trade was logical in every part of the economy. Most importantly, he promised: “An article on the elementary principles of political economy, applied in a familiar and popular manner to practical experience.” Wilson aimed to show readers what was happening, explain why it was significant, and equip them to draw broader conclusions for themselves. 

Today’s writers, politicians, and activists can learn something from James Wilson. He viewed free trade as a logical conclusion, a practical necessity, a political imperative, and a moral obligation.But Wilson would not meet protectionists at their level. He used practical examples to raise the standard of debate. Once there, he could rely on facts, logic, and sound economics to persuade others — an approach many today still seek to emulate.