Franson mercantilism The theory and practice of mercantilism in early modern Europe were densely entwined with both the emergence of capitalism and the formation of over-seas empires.. I
Trang 1it would unfairly brand him as a traitor to the Lutheran
cause for the rest of his life
Melancthon provided a kind of balance to Luther
that Luther himself appreciated He was not a strong
leader, and many rightly accuse him of being too eager
to compromise Yet his key role in many of the
Ref-ormation documents and his personal influence and
friendship with many of the reformers clearly show
how essential Melancthon was in the early years of the
Reformation Melancthon died in 1560 and was buried
next to Luther in the castle Church of Wittenberg
See also humanism in Europe
Further reading: Aland, Kurt
Four Reformers: Luther, Mel-ancthon, Calvin, Zwingli Augsburg: MPLS, 1979;
Melanc-thon, Philip Loci communes 1543 J A O Preus, trans St
Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1992; Cox,
Fran-cis Augustus The Life of Philip Melancthon: Comprising and
Account of the Most Important Transactions of the Reforma-tion Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2006.
Bruce D Franson
mercantilism
The theory and practice of mercantilism in early
modern Europe were densely entwined with both the
emergence of capitalism and the formation of
over-seas empires Briefly, capitalism can be defined as an
economic system in which goods and services,
pro-duced by individuals and privately owned firms, are
bought and sold in markets, thus benefiting
individ-ual owners of capital and private property In early
modern Europe, mercantilism extended this notion
regarding capitalist production and exchange to the
level of the state More specifically, it refers to the
theory and practice of how the early modern
Europe-an states Europe-and nation-states related to each other Europe-and
to their respective colonies
The basic theory behind mercantilist practice was
fairly simple The whole point of creating overseas
colonies was to augment the economic, political, and
military power of the colonizing state, often referred
to as the “mother country,” though this locution is
deceptive, since the unit of analysis is less a
“coun-try” than a specific state apparatus Colonies were
to serve the colonizing state in two principal ways:
as a market for manufactured goods produced in the
home country, and as a source of raw materials from
which the nation-state’s private producers would
cre-ate manufactures An ideal mercantile relationship was thus conceived as hierarchical, reciprocal, and exclusive; the colonizing power was to be dominant, the colony subordinate Manufactures were to flow in one direction, raw materials in the other At the same time, rival colonizing states were to be excluded from this relationship It would not serve the English state’s mercantile interests, for instance, for its rivals (e.g., Spain or France) to trade with its colonies From the perspective of any given colonizing state, the whole point of creating overseas colonies was to enhance its own power vis-à-vis competing states
It would therefore be counterproductive for a col-onizing state to permit its rivals to benefit by trad-ing with its colonies by either exporttrad-ing manufactures
to them or receiving raw materials from them The exclusionary nature of the ideal mercantilist relation-ship was thus just as important as its hierarchical and reciprocal qualities Finally, mercantilism also called for low wages and minimal consumption in the home country and for maximizing of exports, thus encourag-ing industrial development and permittencourag-ing the greatest percentage of money and resources to be kept in the hands of the state
Mercantilist practice often deviated from mercan-tilist theory, however, depending on time, place, and circumstance Spain, the New World’s first colonizing power, endeavored relentlessly to forge an exclusive mercantile relationship with its colonies, with decid-edly mixed success Despite an abundance of laws and decrees intended to ensure an exclusive relationship, smuggling, contraband, and other forms of illicit trade made Spain’s mercantile system, hermetically sealed in theory, exceedingly leaky in practice In addition, Spain did not have the industrial base with which to meet its own or its colonies’ demands for manufactured goods
As a result, much of the silver and gold plundered from its New World colonies slipped through the fingers of the Spanish state on its way to Dutch, Flemish, and English merchants, who were able to provide the indus-trial manufactures that Spanish merchants were not The English were more successful in achieving the mercantilist ideal, principally through a series of Navigation Acts (most notably in 1651 and 1660) that required England’s colonies to trade exclusively with the mother country But here, too, smuggling and con-traband poked many holes in the system, rendering mercantilist practice a far cry from the ideal The Dutch state, committed to free trade and frequently encour-aging its capitalist class to invest in its rivals’ colo-nies, rarely adhered to mercantilist theory, yet Dutch