Helen Paul: It's difficult to deal with mercantilism as a state nation state ideology when you have multinational companies that are so very powerful. Demaris Kaufman: Of course Smith's great torch shone down on the cantalism it's all right as he would be aware of coming out of the European tradition. Craig Muldruin: Europe is a lot of small states that are a war with each other and competition with each other relative to say a country the size of China who doesn't need to worry so much about these ideas of trading games.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europe was dominated by an economic way of thinking called mercantilism. The key idea was that exports should be as high as possible and imports minimised.
For more than 300 years, almost every ruler and political thinker was a mercantilist. Eventually, economists including Adam Smith, in his ground-breaking work of 1776 The Wealth of Nations, declared that mercantilism was a flawed concept and it became discredited. However, a mercantilist economic approach can still be found in modern times and today’s politicians sometimes still use rhetoric related to mercantilism.
With
D’Maris Coffman
Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London
Craig Muldrew
Professor of Social and Economic History at the University of Cambridge and a Member of Queens’ College
and
Helen Paul, Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton.
Producer Luke Mulhall