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… is from page 187 of Herbert Giersch’s 1976 “Comment” in the 1976 collection The Market and the State: Essays in Honour of Adam Smith [2] (Thomas Wilson and Andrew S. Skinner, eds.):
The West German economic development from 1951 to 1971 would have ideally matched the objectives of mercantilist writers and practitioners. But, paradoxically, the mercantilist outcome was not due to any grand mercantilist design. On the contrary, the relatively fast development was accompanied by moves toward more laissez-faire in the field of foreign trade, capital movements, and migration. Between 1951 and 1971 West Germany was able to make decisive steps toward free trade and factor mobility.
DBx: Giersch here assumes that most “mercantilist writers and practitioners” sincerely sought with their proposals and policies to enrich the nation with greater access of ordinary people to goods and services.
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