Plato's social structure, although not based upon birth, was still based upon a monopoly of philosophers dictating the lives of others according to their state-generated power, unlike Smith's more democratic ideals. Smith's analysis more perfectly echoes that of William Petty, who stressed how breaking down tasks, like Smith's pin-manufacturing plant, could generate higher levels of efficiency in economic production. Petty also placed a strong emphasis, as did Smith, upon the vital need of a nation to practice free trade.
Question
Discuss David Ricardo's 'Theory of Comparative Costs,' its history, and its strengths and weaknesses as a theory of international trade.
David Ricardo argued that a nation should do best, what it can do best, and most cheaply, and because economics is a study in scarcity. For a nation to be entirely self-sufficient, the mercantilists argued, is militarily and economically foolish, leaving it vulnerable to dependency and attack. But Ricardo countered that obtain its goods a nation should trade with other powers that could produce such goods more efficiently relative to the other goods produced within each nation's respective borders. Thus, a nation should specialize in certain types of production. "Using his famous example of two nations (Portugal and England) and two commodities (wine and cloth), Ricardo argued that trade would be beneficial even if Portugal held an absolute cost advantage over England in both commodities. Ricardo's argument was that there are gains from trade if each nation specializes completely in the production of the good in which it has a 'comparative' cost advantage in producing, and then trades with the other nation for the other good" ("David Ricardo," the New School, 2008). In other words, even if a nation can produce everything more efficiently than any other nation, it is still better off specializing in what it can produce at the least expensive cost and engaging in international trade with other nations. "Ricardo's simple analysis demonstrated that even when one country is technologically superior in both goods; it could still be advantageous for countries to trade. In this circumstance, a comparative advantage is present for those products that the country can produce most-best in comparison to other countries, even if the most best product is produced less productively than in the other country. For example, suppose the U.S. is 10X more productive in corn and only 2X more productive in watches compared to Switzerland. In this case the U.S. is clearly...
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