mercantile system
Noun
Meaning
an economic system (Europe in 18th century) to increase a nation's wealth by government regulation of all of the nation's commercial interests
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
Monopoly of one kind or another, indeed, seems to be the sole engine of the mercantile system.
The Mercantile System still had a certain artless Catholic candour and did not in the least conceal the immoral nature of trade. ... But when the economic Luther, Adam Smith, criticised past economics things had changed considerably. ... Protestant hypocrisy took the place of Catholic candour.
Adam Smith noted that at the core of the mercantile system was the "popular folly of confusing wealth with money", that bullion was just the same as any other commodity, and that there was no reason to give it special treatment.
Smith saw the mercantile system as an enormous conspiracy by manufacturers and merchants against consumers, a view that has led some authors, especially Robert E. Ekelund and Robert D. Tollison, to call mercantilism "a rent-seeking society".