The Economist was established in 1843 by James Wilson, a hatmaker from the small Scottish town of Hawick, to campaign against the protectionist Corn Laws. The tariffs were repealed in 1846 but the newspaper lived on as "a political, literary, and general newspaper", never abandoning its belief in free trade, internationalism and minimum interference by government, especially in the affairs of the market. (It did, however, abandon the Oxford comma.)
The Corn Laws, which by taxing and restricting imports of grain made bread expensive and starvation common, were bad for Britain. Free trade, in Wilson's view, was good for everyone. Wilson believed "that reason is given to us to sit in judgment over the dictates of our feelings." Reason convinced him in particular that Adam Smith was right, and that through its invisible hand the market benefited profit-seeking individuals and society alike. Wilson was himself a manufacturer and wanted especially to influence "men of business". Accordingly, he insisted that all the arguments and propositions put forward in his paper should be based on fact and rigour. That was why he called it The Economist.
Though Wilson founded The Economist, the newspaper's greatest editor was his son-in-law, Walter Bagehot (pronounced BAJ-ut), who was the paper's third editor, from 1861 to 1877. He broadened the range of the paper into politics; he was also responsible for greatly strengthening the interest in America that The Economist has always shown. The paper's influence grew under his editorship. One British foreign secretary, Lord Granville, said that whenever he felt uncertain, he liked to wait and see what the next issue of The Economist had to say. A later admirer of Bagehot's was Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States from 1913 to 1921.
Another remarkable editor was appointed in 1922: Walter Layton, whose achievement, in the words of The Economist's historian, Ruth Dudley Edwards in her book "The Pursuit of Reason" — was to ensure that the paper was "read widely in the corridors of power abroad as well as at home", a reputation it continues to enjoy today. His successor, Geoffrey Crowther, developed and improved the coverage of foreign affairs (especially with regard to America) and business.
From its earliest days, The Economist had looked abroad, both for subjects to write about and for readers. Even in the 1840s it had subscribers in continental Europe and America. By 1938 half its sales were outside Britain. Crowther's great innovation was to start a section devoted to American affairs, which he did just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. The "American Survey" section (renamed "United States" in 1997) was aimed not at Americans but at British readers who, Crowther believed, needed to know more about their new allies. In time, however, it earned a following in the United States too.
For most of its existence The Economist was content with a small readership. When Bagehot stood down as editor, circulation was just 3,700, and by 1920 it had climbed to only 6,000. After the second world war it rose rapidly, but from a base of barely 18,000. When Crowther left it stood at only 55,000, not reaching 100,000 until 1970. Today circulation is 1.5m, more than four-fifths of it outside Britain. Subscribers in the United States and Canada account for 57% of the total.
In recent decades the paper has added sections devoted to Europe, Asia, Latin America, China, and science and technology. It has also expanded coverage of books, arts and culture, and introduced columns on financial markets (Buttonwood), business (Schumpeter), Asian politics (Banyan) and Latin America (Bello).
The Economist has also been active in its pursuit of new readers on digital platforms. The newspaper started publishing online in 1996, and has more recently launched a daily news app (Espresso), a bilingual English-Chinese product (Global Business Review) and a virtual-reality app (Economist VR). Economist Radio produces several podcasts a week, and Economist Films produces short- and long-form video. The social-media department maintains widely followed accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, LINE, Medium and other social networks.
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