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Criticism Of Mercantilism

What was mercantilism....?

Mercantilism is the idea that for a nation to prosper, it must create for itself colonies that supply raw materials to the nation and are exclusively a market for finished goods from only the mother country. This idea was enforced in the American Colonies by the Navigation Acts of 1655, which stipulated that English colonies could only trade with and purchase goods from English merchants. This caused many problems in the Colonies, as English products were more expensive and often of shoddier quality than foreign products, so a good deal of smuggling occurred, which was considered a significant offense and severely enforced, especially right before the American Revolution. The Navigation Acts were a significant point of contention between colonial merchants (especially prominent in New England) and the Royal Government. Mercantilism would continue to predominate as the leading economic theory until Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations espoused the idea of Capitalism and free markets.

What criticism did Adam Smith make against mercantilism?

Adam Smith (founder of capitalism) stated that mercantilism was wrong in that it forced colonies to limit their trade and only benefited the mother country.

What did Adam Smith say about mercantilism?

When Adam Smith wrote his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776, mercantilism had seen its better days. Smith's was a most elegant critique against the decrepit system, because it was so simple. He argued that all the functions that mercantilism invested in the state could be more efficiently performed by the individual entrepreneur. For instance, rather than have the government dictate prices and quantities of goods for sale, the "law of supply and demand" would automatically find the price and the quantity which best accommodated both the buyer and the seller. Secondly, rather than have the government decide what industry to invest in, the individual entrepreneur, spurred by the profit motive, would make that decision. And, rather than have the government organize production, the entrepreneur, again in the effort to maximize his profit, would find the optimum "division of labor" that would improve productivity and maximize profits.

What was the purpose for mercantilism?

Mercantilism was a set of economic theories that were in place in Europe between the Renaissance and about the time of the American Revolution. It sounds sort of naive by today's standards, but what the heck, it was a long time ago.

People believed in those days that there was only a fixed amount of wealth in the world. The wealth of a country had to do with its trade. More export, less import, was better because it meant wealth flowing in from other countries. Meaning your country had a bigger share of that fixed amount to total world wealth. The world economy was seen as a 'zero sum game', i.e. that if you got more money you got it by taking it away from someone else.

This was what led to protectionism (charging high tariffs on imports while subsidizing exports), and the imperialism of the 'Age of Discovery' and later. Every European power was trying to grab as much of the New World as possible, figuring that the more they had, the richer they'd be. The French & Indian War, the American Revolution, and even the War of 1812 were all based on the mercantile way of looking at things.

What was the role of mercantilism and imiperialism in european exploration and colonization during the 1800's

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Neo-mercantilism/protectionism... the downsides?

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