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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsMercantilism put trade and production to work for state power; capitalism generally organizes them around private ownership, profit, and market exchange. The contrast is useful, but not absolute: mercantilist economies included private merchants and competitive trade, while capitalist economies can have substantial government direction.
What is mercantilism?
Mercantilism was a varied set of early modern policies, especially associated with European states, that aimed to strengthen the state through commerce. Governments commonly sought to expand exports, build reserves of precious metals, encourage domestic manufacturing, and control trade with rivals and colonies. They used tools such as tariffs, export bounties, production rules, privileged companies, and colonial trade restrictions.
Mercantilism was not one uniform doctrine, and it is too simple to say every mercantilist believed that wealth consisted only of gold and silver. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica account describes differing emphases, including foreign trade, manufacturing, population, and state action. It also notes that mercantilist policies could foster manufacturing, skills, and transport. Read the historical account of the mercantile system.
What is capitalism?
Capitalism is an economic system in which productive assets are generally privately owned and firms and individuals pursue returns through production and exchange. Markets, prices, and competition coordinate much of that activity, though the balance between private decisions and government action differs across capitalist systems.
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Capitalism does not mean “no government.” Governments may regulate markets, provide public services, influence economic conditions, and shape trade policy without making an economy non-capitalist. Capitalism describes broad organizing principles, not one fixed set of policies or a single level of public-sector involvement. Britannica’s overview of market systems discusses the varied institutional relationships between public and private sectors.
Mercantilism and capitalism compared
| Question | Mercantilism | Capitalism |
|---|---|---|
| What is the main aim? | Build state power and national commercial advantage; a favorable trade balance and reserves were often prized. | Enable private owners and firms to earn returns and accumulate wealth through production and exchange. |
| Who owns businesses? | Private merchants and companies operated, often under state rules or special privileges, including monopolies. | Productive assets are generally privately owned, with firms seeking returns. |
| How is activity coordinated? | Governments commonly steered trade and production through regulation, duties, subsidies, restrictions, and privileges. | Markets, prices, competition, and private decisions play a major role; regulation and public provision vary. |
| What is the approach to trade? | Policies often favored exports and restricted imports to improve the state’s position and build reserves. | Trade may be open or regulated; capitalism does not require one particular trade policy. |
| What kind of label is it? | A diverse early modern policy tradition, rather than one precisely defined economic system. | A broad economic system found in multiple historical and national forms. |
Why did mercantilist governments intervene in trade?
Mercantilist policy treated economic activity as a means of strengthening the state, including its position against commercial and political rivals. A favorable balance of trade was often valued because exports could bring in precious metals and imports could be seen as sending them abroad. That emphasis helps distinguish mercantilist policy, but it is not a complete definition of every mercantilist idea.
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Intervention also aimed to develop domestic production and shipping. Governments could protect local manufacturers with duties, reward exports, regulate how goods were made, grant trading privileges to companies, or reserve colonial commerce for designated routes and firms. Such measures could build industrial capacity and transport networks, even as they constrained trade and competition.
How did mercantilism give way to capitalism?
There was no single moment when mercantilism ended and capitalism began. Commercial activity, private enterprise, and competition existed in mercantilist eras, and some historians treat mercantilism as an early stage in capitalism’s development. The Minneapolis Fed’s discussion of Antwerp, for example, describes competition and trade alongside elements later associated with capitalism. Read its account of the evolution of modern economics.
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Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, became an influential critique of mercantilist emphasis on favorable trade balances. Smith argued for reducing tariffs and many regulations, and wrote: “By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.” This was Smith’s argument about how markets could coordinate individual activity—not a guarantee that private interest always serves society. His book did not instantly end mercantilist policies across countries. OpenStax explains Smith’s challenge and the later movement toward tariff reduction and freer trade as a broad historical sequence, rather than a clean switch. Read the OpenStax discussion of capitalism and the first Industrial Revolution.
How to use the distinction without oversimplifying
- Ask what the policy is meant to achieve. Building national power and commercial advantage is a mercantilist aim; pursuing private returns through production and exchange is characteristic of capitalism.
- Look at who coordinates decisions. Direct state steering is typical of mercantilist measures, while market prices and competition play a central role in capitalist coordination.
- Do not treat any regulation as proof an economy is not capitalist. Capitalist systems differ in public responsibilities and government involvement.
- Do not assume a country fits one pure model. Private commerce and competition can coexist with state privileges and trade controls, and capitalist economies can use tariffs or industrial policies.
Further reading
For readers who want to examine Smith’s argument in its original form, The Wealth of Nations is a substantial primary source, not a quick introduction. A listed Bantam Classics paperback edition is available through Bookshop.org.
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