Origins of Technocratic Internationalism

Abstract

After his successful political campaign in Britain for free trade, Richard Cobden went on a 14-month tour of continental Europe during 1846–7. He sought to combine sight-seeing with converting more continental Europeans to the free trade doctrine. As he was exploring the remains of Pompeii during his stop-over in Naples, meeting British archaeologists on the excavation site, he began to wonder: “Will the tourist from … Michigan be some day amusing himself with digging up antique steam engines at Manchester?”¹ After all, the British were leaders in technologies like iron and railways, which were crucial to the ongoing process of industrialization, just as the Romans had been hugely successful in developing and managing infrastructure and military technologies. British firms’ technological innovations dominated emerging new markets. Hence, freer trade in Europe and beyond would surely benefit the dominant industrial power, but why would states or firms outside Britain agree to compete on these terms?