ABSTRACT
The structure of the paper is as follows. First, it traces the origins of the free trade doctrine in classical political economy, so as to set out the fundamental propositions of orthodox trade theory, which provide the basis for the prescription that free trade would lead to both efficiency and equity. Second, it outlines the reasons for departures from free trade that seem to have been explored in economic theory but, despite history, set aside as exceptions that prove the rule. Third, it relates the economic theorizing to the political realities which have shaped the sequence of developments in the international trading system, since the early nineteenth century, to illustrate the flexibility of the free trade doctrine over time. Fourth, it situates free trade in the wider context of globalization, with an analysis of experience during the late nineteenth and the late twentieth centuries to show how uneven development has always excluded countries and people from development and prosperity. Fifth, it concludes that, despite the rhetoric, the invocation of the free trade doctrine is uneven in space and asymmetrical across sectors. This is because the multilateral system embodied in the WTO is characterized by double standards and rigged rules both of which need to be corrected.
