Charles Dickens did more than write
classic stories such as A Christmas Carol
(see Dec 18 posting).
Dickens also worked as a newspaper
editor and writer at various times,
always focused on the goal of improving
the lives of ordinary people.
One particularly vexing policy was
the Corn Law, which restricted
the import of grain (“corn” here
refers generically to grain).
The specifics of the law changed
at various times, but the general
purpose was to keep grain prices
high. This helped agricultural
landowners, but it hurt average
workers (who spent a significant
portion of their income on food).
It also worked against the interest
of factory owners. Even if the factory
owners were callous and heartless,
they did need to make sure their
workers ate enough so they could
keep working.
During the 19th century the British
parliament gradually became more
representative of the people, but
in the early decades it was
dominated by the agricultural interest.
Dickens wrote about this (see
http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/miscellaneous-papers/1/).
Dickens joined the Anti-Corn law league,
which finally was successful in
convincing Parliament to repeal
the Corn Law in 1846.
Recommended reading: Charles Dickens,
biography by Michael Slater, particularly pages 223,
244-245.
Economists aren’t surprised when
politicians advocate policies to restrict
imports — we’ve seen these before, and
we’ll probably continue to see them as long
as the narrow interests that benefit from
import restrictions are more visible than
the rest of the people that are hurt by
these policies.
……………..
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