alternatehistory.com

I’ve been listening to the audible version ‘Napoleon: A life’ by Andrew Roberts and an interesting little detail popped up that I found quite fascinating.

Though Napoleon adopted a classically Colbertian Mercantalist economic policy, he did, in fact, read Adam Smith, according to Roberts (amusingly, a quick google results in people on ah.com asking ‘what if Napoleon read Adam Smith), but felt the industrial disparity between Britain and France precluded such policies. Despite tireless efforts, his attempts at managing the French economy resulted in a level of development by the end of his rule comparable to 1780 Britain. Not horrendous, but its hard to call that much better than mediocre. Even the Soviets managed to catch up better than that.

So, lets assume that Napoleon adopts a much more laissez faire economic and trade policy, just like Adam Smoth would suggest. This will result in economic destablization to some degree, I’m sure, but France is coming out of the Revolution, so destablizing part of society is better known as ‘tuesday’ (at least, after the 7 day week is brought back). Still, there’s no shortage of employment available, this is Napoleon, after all, so the army’s there. The army will also provide a very good source of industrial demand for all sorts of production types.

Beyond whatever economic effects we see, there’s also diplomatic and military effects. This idea pretty much precludes the continental system as we know it. Napoleon, in this example, would be more likely to force his client states and allies into a grand free trade zone (maybe allow some nominal tariffs just as a way of keeping track of everything, sounds very Napoleonic to me). Enforcing such a free trade zone would likely help France develop industrially, as well. They might not be as developed as Britain, but they sure has Russia beat.

This would almost certainly annoy many leaders across Europe, buts its less annoying than forcing them to embargo Britain. Even more importantly, if Napoleon goes full Smithian during the window of peace with Britain, it is quite possible that war could be averted. If Britain has the opportunity to trade with France on favorable terms, they have a huge stake in continued peace with France. At this point, all bets are off; we’ve totally detoured history, and you could write more or less any specific course.

Ultimately, if Napoleon does this, it results in a unified European economy the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Crisis of the Third Century.
Top