Mandate Open Door policy institutionalized commerce-as-peace before laissez-faire gave way

Evidence

In contrast to the monopolist practices of the old trading companies, the mandate system guaranteed ‘equal economic opportunity’ in the mandates for all League members. Rappard framed this ‘Open Door’ policy as a recognition that international commerce led to peace. We have seen that this sweetness-of-commerce thesis can be traced back to the eighteenth century, but Rappard credited it to the ‘great trade emancipator and peacemaker’ Richard Cobden. In 1842 (at the height of his campaign against the Corn Laws), Cobden argued that the ‘colonial system, with all its dazzling appeals to the passions of the people, can never be got rid of except by the indirect processes of Free Trade’. In contrast, as a typical neoliberal, Rappard was not prepared to leave the fortunes of commerce to laissez-faire. In his search for a body of international norms to secure a competitive market order, the peculiar juridical status of the mandates proved to be both a blessing and a curse. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 90

Categorization

• XREF: Directly continues the book’s earlier tracing of the sweetness-of-commerce thesis from the eighteenth century; also converges with debates on whether free trade really produces peace. — connects to: The mandate Open Door policy institutionalized the free-trade-brings-peace thesis — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 90
• SEED: Article angle: the Open Door mandate as the original institutional expression of the ‘democratic peace via trade’ doctrine now found in trade-agreement preambles.

Broader Connections

• The mandate Open Door policy institutionalized the free-trade-brings-peace thesis #corroborates (0.98) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 90