i'm actually quite struck by that trilima that denny roderick um posited of this notion that you can have any one of the any two of the following three which is free elections national sovereignty or free trade. i do think the critics of globalization would do well to find other arguments then reviving the mercantilists in in the 17th century yeah and the question post financial crisis though is that are these doctrines neo-macanstellist in any meaningful sense?
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