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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay that examines mercantilism as a major contributing cause of the American Revolution. The writer defines mercantilism and argues that British mercantile policies put American colonials into an untenable position, as the policies of the Mother Country virtually prohibited the economic development of colonies in the New World. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khammer.rtf
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on this economic philosophy. As a result, the American colonists were put into untenable situation, as the policies of the Mother Country virtually prohibited the economic development of colonies in
the New World. According to Wilkins (1999). It is therefore not an overstatement to say that if it were not for mercantilist theory, which dominated world economics at the end
of the eighteenth century, the problems that provoked the American Revolution might not have occurred. Mercantilism arose in Europe after the decline of feudalism. This economic theory proposed that
there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world and that a nations prosperity hinged on accumulating wealth. It was thought that this goal could be accomplished through several
means, such as: (1) protecting domestic industries with tariffs; (2) increasing foreign trade through colonial monopolies; (3) maintaining a favorable balance of trade, that is, exporting more than it
imported; and (4) increasing national reserves of gold and silver, which was a policy known as "bullionism" that maintained that the wealth of a nation consisted of its holdings in
precious metals (Wilkins, 1999). While it sounds good in theory that a country should only export and never import, when every other country in the world has the same philosophy,
the task becomes difficult. The only way that countries could survive economically was to encourage colonialism. Colonies provided a ready-made market for domestic goods, as well as a good source
for raw materials and resources (Wilkins, 1999). As this suggests, from the perspective of the British government, the primary purpose of the American colonies was to provide a market for
English goods. The government, therefore, made it illegal for the colonists to buy the goods they needed from other countries. The infamous Navigation Acts prohibited any import of European
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