In economics the word was first employed in industrial organisation to refer to combinations of business firms through agreements, cartels, concerns, trusts, and mergers — horizontal integration referring to combinations of competitors, vertical integration to combinations of suppliers with customers.1 In the sense of combining separate economies into larger economic regions the word integration has a very short history.
Now that we know, or believe we know, the history of the term and its new meaning, we must admit that this meaning is by no means clear. Let me quote a footnote from a historian’s work published in 1955.
This will be a brief chapter in defence of distinctions which according to some schools of thought are not justified by genuine differences. To differentiate between economic analysis and economic thought may be to judge the former as rigorous and the latter as superficial, or to suggest that the former develops generalisations while the latter offers generalities. Such judgements would be offensive to many. On the other hand, there is much to be said in favour of the distinction, especially if it serves to contrast pure with applied theory.
Every serious discussion of economic integration, national, multinational, or worldwide, is based on concepts and issues of international-trade theory. Movements of goods, services, people, capital funds, and moneys across natural or political frontiers are what interregional and international economic relations are all about — and all of these movements are part and parcel of economic integration. Trade is usually regarded as the quintessence of economic integration, and division of labour in several of its aspects as its underlying principle. This holds for intranational as well as international trade.
Perhaps I should justify my including historians in a history of thought on the subjects on which they report. Historians select the events and circumstances which they research according to the importance they attach to them; and these implicit valuations of relative importance are necessarily based on some general thoughts and insights. If historians report, for example, on Colbert’s efforts to remove interprovincial trade barriers in France, they evidently imply that such a policy has had some significance for the economic and political development of France and that Colbert may have been aware of that significance, although perhaps — as some have actually tried to show — for reasons not tenable on the ground of present economic theory. If historians report on the free-trade and protectionist debates among the American colonies before the Confederation, on the development of the British system of Imperial Preference, on the creation of the European Economic Community or the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, they cannot help having some point of view — sometimes perhaps a little vague or even naive, but sometimes very clear and explicitly stated — from which they judge the course of events. The views of historians, or their concealed value judgements, may be as important for a history of thought on economic integration as the views of ‘pure’ economic theorists. Representatives of the historical school of economics may attach even more importance to the historians’ accounts than to the theorists’ speculations.
From my files of contributors to the history of thought on economic integration I shall select for presentation in this chapter those who may appropriately be listed as political economists. Most of them were proponents, promoters, or architects of various schemes of economic integration; some were opponents or dissenters; and a few were neutral observers commenting on possible consequences or on the chances for success.
As I proceed to the third group of men whose names should not be omitted in a history of thought on economic unification or integration, two brief reminders may be permitted: one, that the economic integration proposed or opposed may be national, regional, or worldwide; the other, that the inclusion of a name in this group of men need not imply a judgement that the person here named cannot be regarded as a political economist. Persons are listed as statesmen, men of affairs, or men of letters because it is chiefly in these capacities or for achievements in these fields that they have become known to the world.
This chapter is reserved for group contributions to the history of thought on economic integration, following two chapters which reported on individual contributors and preceding one which will again report on individuals. But since joint authors of books or articles are also ‘groups’, I must qualify my declaration of intent by stating another criterion: joint authors whose names appear with the titles of their publications are considered as individual contributors; group authorship in the present context should be taken as referring to writers who remain unnamed or are named only in the text or in the prefaces or letters of transmittal of the publications included here.
As we come to the fifth group of contributors, those among my readers who are chiefly interested in economic analysis may at last get what they have been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for. In Chapter 4 a review of the theoretical issues was offered without indication of the parentage of the ideas; now the names of the authors will be given together with some of their intellectual offspring. But first a few general principles regarding the inclusiveness, selectivity, and general arrangement of this survey should be set forth.
