ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to explore the relationship between international trade and international factor movements in the sphere of economics and situate it in the realm of politics. It argues that the explicit prescriptions and the implicit neglect of economic theory both conform to the compulsions of political reality. The hypothesis is borne out by the developments in the theory of international trade, when juxtaposed with the evolution of the free trade doctrine in the political arena during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
