Mercantilism: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 04:00, 14 October 2022

Mercantilism is an economic policy located (debatably) on the far right of the economic axis that strives to increase the exports of a nation but decrease the imports to it. It is usually authoritarian-leaning, as well, since it is an ideology that believes that the state should be the primary recipient of wealth (much like Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination State Capitalism).

Traditionally, mercantilists believed that gold ownership was the main indication of wealth; and gold is NOT manufactured, but rather exists in a finite supply on Earth and is simply divided amongst the nations that have it. The Great Steve Heimler from Heimler's History compared the way mercantilists saw gold to the way hungry people see a pie: There is only one pie, and everyone is trying to get as much as they can!

He emerged out of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Feudalism and was the precursor of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Capitalism, although they both see wealth as radically different things.
Mercantilism is based on the core assumption that wealth exists in the form of precious metals and is simply distributed, thus it's based on the amount of gold/silver a country had, and that the state/nation should focus on enriching themselves first. Since it believed that the real riches of a nation was a byproduct of the amount of gold and other precious metals that it had, it led to colonialism having a big focus on finding gold and silver mining places, since that would undermine the capacity of other powers to enrich themselves.
And due to seeing wealth as a zero-sum game, it also believes that increasing the national trade surplus will make the nation richer while making the other nations (its rivals and enemies) poorer.

As stated before, Mercantilism and Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Capitalism see the nature of wealth as completely different. While Capitalism sees wealth as the goods and services produced and consumed, and sees gold simply as a mean of exchange to obtain these goods; Mercantilism sees gold as the goal, not as a mean to an end.
Which also lead to the core difference (in practice), which is trading policy.
While Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Capitalism sees free trade as a way to increase the nation's wealth, since it lets the nation specialize in what it can do better while letting what it can't do to be handled by others and thus generate more wealth, Mercantilism sees free trade as something that weakens the nation by allowing its rivals (and trading partners in this situation) to stockpile more wealth which could've been kept by the nation, making it poorer.

This resulted in policies that sought to maximise the types of goods produced within the country and minimising things that needed to be imported, as well as the nation's exports, usually translating into policies such as restricting the nations colonies could trade with, if at all. Mercantilism was also generally in support of a strong merchant class, seeing them as on par with the nobility.

Mercantilism in the modern days

Mercantilism is a very old ideology, which stopped being relevant more than 3 centuries ago; but Mercantilist mentality (which isn't the same as Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Protectionist mentality) can be seen in modern economic policy. The biggest example is US trading policy under the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Trump administration.
Trump argued that the U.S. "loses" money spent in importing foreign goods and materials, and that a "strong economy" must run a trade surplus. Furthermore, the rhetoric of the president often suggests that any money spent on imports enriches foreign competitors at the expense of American businesses and workers.

Personality

Mercantilism acts as a stereotypical European Merchant, Banker, Sailor and/or Noble investor in the 16th to 18th centuries.

How to Draw

Draw a ball.
Fill in with blue.
Draw a yellow ship on waves.
Draw in the eyes.

You're done!

Relationships

Further Information

Wikipedia

Mercantilism

Videos

Online Communities

r/Mercantilismemes

Gallery

Credit: OzymandiasFR, Mercantilism can be seen at the bottom with all the "Dead" ideologies.
Credit: u/beancakeinatree, Source
u/K-Tech2 Source
Alt design

Animations

Mercantilism is one of the main characters in the online video series Voyage by Galileo.

File:Voyage, A PolCompBall Series Episode 1 - Pilot

Template:Authright Template:Rightunity tr:Merkantilizm

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 |title = [[File: Merc.png]] Mercantilism
 |image = Merchant.png
-|caption = "Let's be honest, you don't know what I am."
+|caption = "I'M NOT BUYING YOUR STUPID PRODUCT!"
 |influences =
 [[File: Feud.png]] [[Feudalism]]<br>