Introduction: free trade and social welfare in a long-term perspective

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates how, in order to build consensus, each country adopted a different mix of protectionism and social protection, to enable national capitalism to develop against foreign competition and to contain the number of possible losers. It focuses on non-state actors, trade unions and the Social Democratic Party, and shows how the relation between foreign trade and social costs was a basic component of the political struggle in the Weimar Republic. The book deals with the reconstruction of the world economy after World War II. It describes the negotiations of the International Trade Organisation from 1945 to 1948, of which the trade/welfare dilemma was the fundamental pivot. The book discusses the re-emergence of the nexus between free trade and social welfare after World War II, in connection with trade liberalisation promoted by the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation in 1948.