Liberalism, Perfect Competition and Real Markets

Abstract

The argument we have developed in the preceding chapters was focused on the history of selected economic facts concerning the process of globalization and its effects on the sustainability of development. History of facts, however, is strictly linked to history of ideas. Our topic is not an exception. On the contrary, in this case the link is particularly tight, as the evolution of international markets proceeded in parallel with the evolution of liberalism. The latter progressively shaped the attitude towards the process of liberalization of markets, while the consequences of this ever-changing historical process modified the trend of liberal ideas. We cannot thus understand the evolution of globalization without grasping its interaction with the evolution of liberalism. As a premise to this analysis we intend to sketch in this chapter a cursory history of economic liberalism. Its evolution had a crucial impact on the process of globalization and on the sustainability of world development, as it affected the prevailing view on the role of free markets, on the liberalization of domestic and international exchanges, and on the opportunity of state interventions in the economy.