The Economic Ideas of the English Mercantilists

This is because it has policies that had very many constrictions. Additionally, in France, it was known as colbetism after Colbert a finance minister. Besides in Germany, it was referred to as bullions because they had given great value to silver and gold. The thinkers of this theory advocated for a fixed line of thinking that in my opinion might have been very narrow. There was not much left on the theory in its early years only some pamphlets that described this line of thinking (Rekhi). It would be done by increasing the taxes on goods and services, tariffs, quotas as well as subsidies. They believed that this would help in achieving an economic balance in trade especially. The idea was to regulate foreign trade by enabling the government to stimulate production.

They were to lace protective laws of all imported good which were to be cheap and affordable to enable the export of manufacturing goods (Acharyya, 2014). These early mercantilist therefore defined the wealth of a country on the basis of the number of precious metal that it had. Notably, the later and earlier mercantilist seemed to share a difference in this view as they put more value on money as opposed to metal. It is because the early mercantilist had been impressed by the flow of metals in the European continent. In the 1500 little vale was placed on understanding the role of money in trade and the reasonable view of the importance of trade balance among countries. However, in the 18th century a lot of change taking place trying to finding a resolution to these issues.

There was a study rise in insight into the market. The substitution of cause-and-effect analysis for the moral analysis of the scholastics does not represent a clear break with the past; however, because the logical analysis was used by some of the scholastics and moralizing still exists in the modern economic literature. The development of the economic theory was the more influenced by the discovery that the methods of discovering the laws of physics could be used to discover the laws of the economy. There was important in finding the casualty in the economy knowing its rules and how one could control the economy. It is because this would determine the types of government intervention that could positively affect the course of economic events and analysis.

Nonetheless, the government interference should be balanced and not be in a position to interfere with the demand and supply. Therefore they decided that there was a need for the government to invest in the private interests to benefit the public. In the era of the classical economist, however, saw the public good is the individual self-interests in a harmonious system. There were some main ideas and characters that was promoted by mercantilist to strengthen the country. Firstly, wealth was the main aim of other mercantilist with silver and gold. Gold was the sole source of power and consequentially power. Secondly, the theory to balance foreign trade which costly involved precious metals. It was considered the only source of gold and silver which is different from today.

It is because nowadays there is better technology which may be attributed to the industrialization period. The mercantilists believed that the countries that did not possess silver and gold mines could still acquire a lot of wealth as they could trade with other nations. One of the greatest mercantilist sirs Thomas Mun even declared that foreign trade id the honor of a kingdom, it improves the land. Fourthly, the mercantilist really advocated for the growth of a larger population as it assisted in making a strong military it a more production capability. Additionally, the larger the population, they bleed, the cheaper the labor and production cost. It would assist in maximizing output. According to one of the mercantile, they refer to the people as the strength of a nation.

Additionally, they encouraged immigration it only added to the sauntered foreign wealth (Rekhi, 2016). Also, they had very scientific views on taxation that are really shocking as hey appeared to be ahead of their time. They argued that everyone should pay the set depending on the type of benefit they received from the state. It is actually not very far from what is done today in most institutions. Before the mercantilists value was mainly placed on the unique qualities possessed by an artifact our product and this depended on its utility. Therefore value and price were considered to be very different. This is why there were some special acts that were passed to support industry development. Protection was given to the industries because their main objective was to maintain a favorable balance of trade.

Mercantilist and theories to include mercantilism were criticized by many other writers who saw the fault in that system. The opposition, however, started in the late 17th century in France. Which was further enhanced by Adam Smith in his book that only partially supported the idea of mercantilism? However, I believe that the theories should not be completely dismissed. Both Knut Wicksell. Keynes admired the ideas and theories of mercantilist. Money was not only a means of exchange but of value too. They even noted that there was a possibility that the whole economic system could one day create optimum employment resources. Keynes advanced the idea of certain ideas more than others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blaug, M.  Economic theory in retrospect.