NIEO is based on the ( French ) mercantilist idea that international trade would be a zero-sum game ( i. e., causes no net benefits ), and on the view that it benefits the rich at the expense of the poor.

Adam Smith wrote in Wealth of Nations that Britain should liberate all of its colonies and also noted that it would be economically beneficial for British people in the average, although the merchants having mercantilist privileges would lose out.

Whereas later economic ideas were often developed by academics and philosophers, almost all mercantilist writers were merchants or government officials.

Over all, however, mercantilist policies had a positive impact on Britain helping turn it into the world's dominant trader, and an international superpower.

Indeed, Paul Samuelson, writing within a Keynesian framework, defended mercantilism, writing: " With employment less than full and Net National Product suboptimal, all the debunked mercantilist arguments turn out to be valid.

His reign saw an extended period of internal peace, although the finances stagnated following failed mercantilist doctrines pursued by the Hat administration ended only in the 1765 – 66 parliament, where the Cap opposition overtook the government and enacted reforms towards greater economic liberalism as well as a Freedom of Press Act almost unique at the time for its curtailing of all censorship, retaining punitive measures only for libeling the monarch or the Lutheran state church.

Major European nations in the 17th and 18th century all adopted mercantilist ideals to varying degrees, the influence only ebbing with the 18th-century development of physiocrats in France and classical economics in Britain.

Some people believe that, because Britain adopted his call for free trade policies, it fell behind the United States and Germany by 1880, having gained its dominance under the mercantilism of Cromwell and Elizabeth I ( when according to Adam Smith, England was much less mercantilist than Spain and Portugal, who decayed much due to their colonial mercantilist policies, their gold reserves all naturally flowed to Britain, who at the time had a much more efficient production system, even though Portugal and Spain had colonies with much richer natural resources than Britain ).

At first the countries followed mercantilist policies designed to strengthen the home economy at the expense of rivals, so the colonies were usually allowed to trade only with the mother country.

Guayaquil, despite being destroyed on several occasions by fire and incessantly plagued by either yellow fever or malaria, was a center of vigorous trade among the colonies, a trade that was technically illegal under the mercantilist philosophy of the contemporary Spanish rulers.

This led to friction with the inhabitants of these colonies, and mercantilist policies ( such as forbidding trade with other empires and controls over smuggling ) were a major irritant leading to the American Revolution.

The Netherlands, which had become the financial center of Europe by being its most efficient trader, had little interest in seeing trade restricted and adopted few mercantilist policies.

In an essay appearing in the 14 May 2007 issue of Newsweek, business columnist Robert J. Samuelson argued that China was pursuing an essentially mercantilist trade policy that threatened to undermine the post-World War II international economic structure.

The application of these coastwise shipping laws and their imposition on Puerto Rico consist in a serious restriction of free trade and have been under scrutiny and controversy due to the apparent contradictory rhetoric involving the United States Government's sponsorship of free trade policies around the world, while its own national shipping policy ( cabotage law ) is essentially mercantilist and based on notions foreign to free-trade principles.

In Henley Road, smuggling in colonial times was a reaction to the heavy taxes and regulations imposed by mercantilist trade policies.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal.

The party takes mercantilist positions in supporting protectionist policies on international trade.

In Holland, the Dutch Republic ’ s 17th-century ( 1609 – 1672 ) mercantilist dominion was a first instance of global, commercial hegemony, made feasible with its technological development of wind power and its Four Great Fleets, for the efficient production and delivery of goods and services, which, in turn, made possible its Amsterdam stock market and concomitant dominance of world trade ; in France, King Louis XIV ( 1638 – 1715 ) and ( Emperor ) Napoleon I ( 1799 – 1815 ) established French hegemony via economic, cultural, and military domination of most of Continental Europe.

In 1602 Iceland was forbidden to trade with countries other than Denmark, by order of the Danish government, which at this time pursued mercantilist policies.

This typical mercantilist measure as such did not hurt the Dutch much as the English trade was relatively unimportant to them, but it was used by the many pirates operating from British territory as an ideal pretext to legally take any Dutch ship they encountered.

He was a defender of the mercantilist system of government-licensed controlled trade.

He had the mercantilist partiality for a numerous population, and became prominent with a new scheme for the relief and employment of the poor ; it is noteworthy also that he advocated the reservation by the mother country of the sole right of trade with her colonies.

Great Britain's trade with Latin America greatly expanded in the revolutionary period, so it supported the revolutionaries against Spain, which in the past, due to mercantilist ideas, had always denied Britain trade with the Spanish colonies.

Britain is abandoning the mercantilist principles which have guided its imperial policy, and since colonial trade will no longer be restricted, local colonial politics need no longer be restricted.

Christian IV first initiated the policy of expanding Denmark's overseas trade, as part of the mercantilist wave that was sweeping Europe.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal.

When the principles of free trade affect U. S. short-term interests or even the interests of political constituencies, Zoellick is more a mercantilist and unilateralist than free trader or multilateralist.

However, the massive drain of wealth from New France to Europe resulting from mercantilist trade policies made it impossible to back card money with gold bullion.

He thus espoused mercantilist visions and rejected the free trade ideas of Fukuzawa Yukichi.

Furthermore, " in the mercantilist view no child was too young to go into industry ".

Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the welfare of the state and benefited a small but concentrated elite minority, summing up British imperialism, which he believed was the result of the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies.

Mercantilism in its simplest form was naive bullionism, but mercantilist writers emphasized the circulation of money and rejected hoarding.

The authors noted most for establishing the English mercantilist system include Gerard de Malynes and Thomas Mun, who first articulated the Elizabethan System, which in turn was then developed further by Josiah Child.

Perhaps the last major mercantilist work was James Steuart ’ s Principles of Political Economy published in 1767.

Mercantilism was centered in England and France, and it was in these states that mercantilist polices were most often enacted.

Adam Smith rejected the mercantilist focus on production, arguing that consumption was paramount to production.

It was in charge of demographics concerns and of empowering the population, which, according to mercantilist theory, was to be the main strength of the state.

They advanced the theory of ' gentlemanly capitalism ', arguing that the traditional landed aristocracy was responsible for the growth of the early, mercantilist empire, and controlled later imperialism with their domination of capital and through financial institutions in the City of London.

Jacob was an eager proponent of mercantilist ideas.

The Academy was founded on 2 June 1739 by naturalist Carl Linnaeus, mercantilist Jonas Alströmer, mechanical engineer Mårten Triewald, civil servants Sten Carl Bielke and Carl Wilhelm Cederhielm, and politician Anders Johan von Höpken.

Proponents of this theory point to the constant warfare in the 17th and 18th centuries among European countries whose governments were predominantly mercantilist and protectionist, the American Revolution, which came about ostensibly due to British tariffs and taxes, as well as the protective policies preceding both World War I and World War II.

Examples of government-granted monopolies include cable television and water providers in many municipalities in the United States, exclusive petroleum exploration grants to companies such as Standard Oil in many countries, and historically, lucrative colonial " joint stock " companies such as the Dutch East India Company, which were granted exclusive trading privileges with colonial possessions under mercantilist economic policy.

It was also the basis for a theory of law and government which would gradually supersede the mercantilist regime that was then prevalent.

In opposition to Colbert's mercantilist views he held that the wealth of a country consists, not in the abundance of money which it possesses but in what it produces and exchanges.

The main concept of absolute advantage is generally attributed to Adam Smith for his 1776 publication An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in which he countered mercantilist ideas.

This use of protectionism is criticized on grounds that go back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, which was aimed directly at classical mercantilist policies, and whose arguments are applied to neo-mercantilism.