2025/07/04 by Ryan Walter · 1 voice · 1 citation
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #American History and Culture #Political Theory and Influence
paper · doi:10.1080/09672567.2025.2530388
openalex publication_date 2025/07/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
The literature that attacked and defended Britain’s Corn Laws is typically studied in relation to the history of economic theory, focusing on the supposed discovery of comparative advantage or the law of diminishing returns. This paper adopts a different approach to the debates of 1813–1815, examining the idiom in which Parliament was accustomed to receiving advice on commercial legislation, identified here as policy counsel. Parliament, understood as an institution possessing its own rhetorical and argumentative norms, proved generally wary of theory, insisting on its domestication by casuistry. This finding modifies our understanding of the early history of economic theory.