Mercantilism vs. Laissez-Faire
...foreign markets, production was carefully regulated with the object of securing goods of high quality and low cost. It also exercised much control over economic life through trading companies and trading corporations. Mercantilist ideas were most predominate in England with the creation of a large shipping industry and skilled industrial population. Its ideas did not start to decline until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the introduction to the “Laissez-Faire” ideology. Laissez-Faire translates into French as “leave alone” and that’s exactly what the people did. The economics and politics of this system is best described as no interference. It is based on the belief that natural economic order tends when undisturbed by outside regulation to give the most worthy well-being for the individual and then in effect for the community as a whole. The ideology of Laissez-Faire was historically a reaction against mercantilism. It was on behalf of a group of French thinkers called “physiocrats” that this new movement began. They especially opposed the taxation of commercial pursuits. A leader in this new system was...