Harvard Group Supplies Theoretical Framework to Contest Free Trade / Two Points: 'Comparative Advantage' Theory Damaged; Japan's Prowess Must Be Matched

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Free trade has been a venerated economic principle in the United States going back 200 years. But there have been challengers.

The first was Alexander Hamilton, who in 1791 argued for government policies that would encourage native manufacturing while protecting it from British exports.

Britain was the world's great trading power then - a role that eventually passed to the United States, without much attention having been paid to Hamilton's theories. But now that Japan wears the crown, some professors at the Harvard Business School are trying to supply the theoretical framework for another challenge to free trade.

The professors' views are not brand …