Mercantilism
Read this article about the many components of mercantilism. Since mercantilism was less a school of thought than a collection of policies, this piece does an excellent job explaining the underlying economic thinking of the time and how it created those policies.
Introduction
Mercantilism is an economic system that dominated the major European trading nations during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This "mercantile system" was based on the premise that national wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and collecting precious metals in return. It superseded the medieval feudal organization in Western Europe, especially in the Netherlands, France, and England. Domestically, this led to some of the first instances of significant government intervention and control over the economy, and it was during this period that much of the modern capitalist system was established. Internationally, mercantilism encouraged the many European wars of the period and fueled European imperialism.
Mercantilism was finally challenged by advocates of "laissez-faire" who argued that international and domestic trade were both important, and that it was not the case that one country must grow wealthy at the expense of another. As this and other economic ideas arose throughout the nineteenth century, the mercantilist view was superseded. Nonetheless, many of the ideas and policies have not been forgotten, emerging again as circumstances changed. For example, the Great Depression of the early twentieth century created doubts about the efficacy and stability of free market economies, providing a new role for governments in the control of economic affairs.
Source: New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mercantilism#Definition
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