Mercantilism

Résumé du document

Mercantilism was both an economical policy and different theoretical ideas. It was typically a European phenomenon which reached its highest development in the seventeenth century. It slowly disappeared during the eighteenth century. Thus, mercantilism covered the period from the Renaissance to the industrial era. Mercantilism was never a coherent economical doctrine. It was more an addition of different ways of thinking which appeared in different Europeans countries and were at the origin of national experiences. We can wonder in which way Mercantilism was a moral revolution and in what ways it represented a major breakthrough toward modernity. As most of the European colonial powers saw the process of colonization through mercantilist ideas, Colonies became an experimental field for mercantilism. Thus we can also wonder what significance it would hold for North American colonization efforts.

Extraits

[...] We can say there was a mercantilist thought. They all share the same idea that national wealth, which is a basis of the power of a nation, is based on its ability to acquire gold. Thus the main goal of the political economy is to increase production within the nation in order to conquer new markets abroad. In doing so a nation has a positive commercial balance. The most essential thing for a state is to own precious metal, to have material wealth. [...]

[...] They chartered companies as trading monopolies. British monarchy for example gave the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Royal African Company monopolies on trade in their respective regions. Each nation tried to get the monopole of colonial commerce for its own profit or for companies' profit. Mercantilism policy was first advanced in France in the seventeenth century under the empire of Louis XIV. Jean Baptiste Colbert, chief minister of Louis XIV from 1661 to 1683, played a great role in it. [...]

[...] Colonial British America. London _J. W. Horrocks, A Short History of Mercantilism _Kupperman, Karen Ordah. Major problems in American Colonial History. 2nd ed. _Middleton, Richard. Colonial America : A History, 1565-1776. 3rd ed. _R. B. Ekelund, Jr., and R. D. [...]

[...] Mercantilism was never a coherent economical doctrine. It was more an addition of different ways of thinking which appeared in different Europeans countries and were at the origin of national experiences. We can wonder in which way Mercantilism was a moral revolution and in what ways it represented a major breakthrough toward modernity. As most of the European colonial powers saw the process of colonization through mercantilists' ideas, Colonies became an experimental field for mercantilism. Thus we can also wonder what significance it would hold for North American colonization efforts. [...]

[...] Colonisation had for goal to bring wealth and prosperity to the motherlands. It was the consequence of the ruling of the colonies through a mercantilist point of view. However mercantilism was a major breakthrough toward modernity. It prepared rise of capitalism and initiated the processes that shaped our modern societies as industrialisation, development of banking activities and trade Bibliography _D. C. Coleman, ed., Revisions in Mercantilism _Gerhard Rempel, Mercantilism. Western New England College, http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/mercantilism.html _Greene, Jack P and Pole, J.R. [...]