Essay On Mercantilism

2799 Words6 Pages

David Yan
Mr. Jack Carter
University English II
6 April 2014

Thomas Mun’s Mercantilism Theory and Its Effects on the American Colonies
An unmistakable tension fills the air of a small Boston townhouse on a warm summer evening. In every town hall in the American colonies, there are loud grumblings over the recently passed Molasses Act and all its substituents, including the Sugar and Stamp Acts. These acts, descendants of the mercantilist “Navigation Acts” passed by British Parliament in the 1650’s, were put in place to help Britain recover from its devastating losses in the Seven Years’ War. These acts threatened to cripple the already-weak economy of the Colonies and negatively affect the exporting powers of the New England ports, since producers of molasses and rum would have to charge higher prices for products that already had a thin margin of profit and high competition. The colonists, realizing this threat, banded together as the slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” echoed throughout the colonies. The Molasses, Sugar, and Stamp Acts, products of Thomas Mun’s theory of mercantilism, acted as a final straw for the colonies that would signal the start of the American Revolution. More importantly, these acts signaled the beginning of the end of mercantilism, an economic mindset that dominated the economies of Europe’s largest nations for two centuries. Britain’s powerful mercantilist economic policy controlled every facet of British trade until it was ultimately abandoned when restrictive mercantilist trade laws led leaders of the American colonies to declare a need for fair representation, followed by the events of the American Revolution which led to the demise of mercantilism.
The theory of mercantilism follow...

... middle of paper ...

...up official trade relations between the American Colonies and Spain’s own colonies in Peru. France carried out similar economic policies, as Marie-Jeanne Rossignol would point out, “An edict issued in August 1784, which was intended to open up more trade opportunities for Americans in the French Caribbean.” Through this new edict, the French released their West Indian Ports from simply being a feeder of raw materials for France’s mainland to letting the colonies become an independent trading port. Even Britain joined in, as the aftermath of the North American colonies independence also forced the British to rethink its exclusive monopoly of colonial policy. Throughout the rest of Europe, similar edicts and trade relations were being opened. Soon after the American Revolution, European colonial mercantilism collapsed.
Mercantilism was shown to have its own

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