Understanding The Mercantilism

What is mercantilism? Mercantilism is an economic system where government take controls of foreign trade. It was close to realism system. It is very concerned with the aim to increase the assets and capital of a nation because the nation’s well-being was depend on import and export. It is important to note that they are trying to maximizing the net export.

It began on 16^th to 18^th century in Europe countries, Britain, Spain, and France.  On that time, the welfare of the nation was measure by how much the gold that it had.  And after that, the gold was used to build armies and navies, of course to protect the nation. The more gold they had, the more powerful they become. During the mercantilist period, it was not a surprise that conflict between two or more militaries of nation-state were happened more frequent.

Furthermore, mercantilist period was growing rapidly, especially in England. England applying free trade policies, prohibiting imports, and more of industrial revolution that happened there. Many things are invented there (Golden Age) making England became the dominant power in Europe. 

Credit: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Mercantilism.html

             : http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/economic-   history 

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