In 1927 Ludwig von Mises published a scathing attack on European colonialism, which he described as antithetical to all the principles of liberalism. Mises traced modern imperialism to the 1870s, when the industrial countries had abandoned free trade in order to compete for colonial markets in Africa and Asia. … Mises flatly rejected such arguments. The basic idea of colonial policy in this period, he argued, was to take advantage of the superior weaponry of the ‘white race’ to subjugate, rob and enslave weaker peoples. But, even as he criticised colonial imperialism, Mises argued that the British Empire was different; she pursued ‘grand commercial objectives’, he argued, and her free-trade policies benefited her colonial subjects and the whole world.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 248