Mercantilism

Abstract

According to Schumpeter, the construction of scientific economics was started in the late eighteenth century on two different foundations made in earlier periods. The first one is the ancient and medieval economic thought of philosophers, while the second one is popular arguments of current practical economic problems in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (Schumpeter 1954, pp. 9–10). The medieval theories of just price and usuary can be considered as representative examples of the former. The latter is, of course, related to what is now called mercantilism. Since it deeply concerned with problems of international trade, our explanation of the development of the theory of international trade is also to start with the consideration of mercantilism.