In these heady days of ever increasing globalization it has become vital to question whether governments should be allowed to protect domestic enterprises from foreign competitors.This book represents a first attempt to provide a new conceptual basis for discussing the cases in which free trade should be the option of choice in trade policy and those in which protectionism should be used. Lüder Gerken expands the economic tool of ordo-liberalism, founded by Walter Eucken and developed by Friedrich von Hayek, to make it applicable to foreign trade.With impressive clarity and ingenuity, Gerken powerfully argues a scientific case for free trade as a best practice solution to the demands of globalization
