The state

Near the beginning of this volume we warned that no single obvious unifying theme renders the economic history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe intelligible. Indeed, the most important economic developments were those that impelled divergence in the institutions and endowments of the various European states. But the mind yearns for order and perhaps for this reason several generations of economic historians have struggled to fit the evolution of economic life in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries under the umbrella of mercantilism. The conflicting definitions of the term and the numerous exceptions that must be noted no matter what definition one uses have persuaded us to avoid using mercantilism as an organizing concept in this volume. But it cannot be, and has not been, altogether ignored. By assuming more activist postures, seventeenth-century absolutist and constitutional states alike became more effective in their attempts to channel economic life to their ends.

Tariff legislation, industrial regulation, trade wars, tax laws, and currency manipulations were the methods used by most governments to influence their economies. Few measures were novel to this period, but gradually there arose a more coherent body of thought about how to use government power to achieve economic ends, and conversely, how to use economic power to achieve political ends.

One interpretation of economic policy in this period identifies as its outstanding characteristic the tendency toward the economic unification of the nation-state. Medieval economic policy had been in the hands of various and overlapping authorities – municipal, religious, and royal.