Abstract: Engels discussed tariff and the related issues on many occasions in his writings. Using “tariff” as the keyword, we search all the 50 volumes of Marx and Engels Collected Works and find out two important stages in which Engels formulated intensively tariff and related issues. The first one is 1845–1853, when Engels mainly elaborated from the perspective of the impact of tariffs on the interests of various classes in the European nations, and the second one is 1879–1893, when he mainly elaborated from the perspective of the relation between tariff policies and the stage of economic development in the United States and the roles played by the tariff policies in the national competition. At the second stage, standing at the height of world history and starting from competition and evolution, Engels made a comprehensive and in-depth illustration of the changes in the US tariff policies and their roles; at this stage, he recognized to a certain extent some of List’s thoughts on tariff, which is not in conflict with his criticism of List at the first stage. The essence of Engels’s thoughts on tariffs is the multi-level investigation based on his profound historical insight and grand global vision. Engels’s thoughts of the political economy formulated on the development and evolution of the tariff policies and their roles and mechanisms after the US Civil War are still of great practical significance even for nowadays.

Key words: Engels; the United States; tariff policies; national competition; political economy

From: World Review of Political Economy 2020 11 (2)

Editor: Wang Yi