Mercantilism | An in-depth history of European imperial economics

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Thanks man! I figured that longer videos that are more in dept is better both for my audience as well as for the algoritm.

@@quillinkhistory9539 definitely agree and I’m all for in depth content

Happy to hear that! I was quite afraid that the information would not come across when I was about to upload it.

Many thanks friend :)

Thankyou! What is the "Great Reset"?

"The wellbeing of workers (...) was secondary for most mercantile thinkers. And some even went so far as to claim that poverty of the working class was a requirement for a country to be powerful". - Yeah. Let's take lessons from them.

@@paulrdrs Take a lesson, not all.

@@paulrdrs Capitalism started of with similar results, we had to suffer through a stint of Socialism before social programs and laws were introduced so not perfect on both sides but mostly mercantilist.

Im fairly certain the capitalists your speaking of have aspirations akin to EITC and other Mercantile organisations.

But did too much restriction on trade with other countries lead to some using privateers to cut out the middleman?

Happy to help, its quite horrifying to learn how common people were viewed and treated in early modern society.

Regarding your question of the sources. I know its problematic that I mainly use sources that are written in Swedish since it makes so that many people are unable to fact check the literature. The reason that I used mostly Swedish literature is because that was the literature that was available and straight forward enough for me to use. I did try to find English literature on the subject but the once I was able to get in my university library was to dense and convoluted to be able to condense into a 30 minute video. I do think, however, that the Swedish literature that I am using have a high enough standard to use. Most of the books are written (or edited) by the Swedish intellectual historian Lars Magnusson. He is one of the leading scholars on economic intellectual history in Sweden and he also writes works on economic though in larger western perspective.

Regarding your second question about how the end of mercantilism related to the start of capitalism, I'm afraid that I'm not well read enough on the Physiocrats. What I do know, however, is that in the mid to late eighteenth century did several economic thinkers point out shortcomings in mercantilist economics. This critique was strengthen by the fact that mercantilists policy in several countries had failed to produce the results that had been promised, this was very much the case in Sweden, which led political oppositions to adopt more economic-liberal leaning ideas as a way to attack the ruling factions. When these two processes gained steam by the end of the eighteenth century, together with the growth of liberal political ideas like universal rights and representative governments, mercantile economics gradually lost ground and credibility. Let me know if that answeres your question.

@@quillinkhistory9539 Well that sounds good to me. Oh are you able to tell me what States adopted this model? Was it all of them or France, Britain, Netherlands and Sweden?

@@quillinkhistory9539 A useful elaboration you could make is the response of the poor in revolts or habits and even any social help they got, I know the Vincentians helped out. Yeah it was a stark contrast to the Medieval era, not that they were treated particularly well then but they tended to be well fed. I read a paper on the Paris Hosptial, well two, which seems to elucidate a change in thinking of poverty as a state of life to be celebrated who are owed aid from the rich, to a disease or even a crime. Indeed the Wars and definitely the wage problem was highlighted, Paris was popular as grain was distributed. In fact poverty got so bad they gave up punishing the poor. I wonder when they realised that.