Editing Capitalism (section)

=== Mercantilism ===
{{Main|Mercantilism}}
[[File:Lorrain.seaport.jpg|left|thumb|A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of [[mercantilism]]]]
[[File:Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey.jpg|left|thumb|[[Robert Clive]] with the [[Nawabs of Bengal]] after the [[Battle of Plassey]] which began the British rule in [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal]]]]
The economic doctrine prevailing from the 16th to the 18th centuries is commonly called [[mercantilism]].<ref name=GSGB>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pf9Jd1sIMJ0C |title=An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory |date= 2002 |publisher=[[Resistance Books]] |via=[[Google Books]] |isbn=978-1-876646-30-1 |access-date=27 August 2016 |archive-date=11 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161211173733/https://books.google.com/books?id=Pf9Jd1sIMJ0C |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Burnham">{{cite book |last=Burnham |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Burnham |title=Capitalism: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2003}}</ref> This period, the [[Age of Discovery]], was associated with the geographic exploration of foreign lands by merchant traders, especially from England and the [[Low Countries]]. Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist methods.<ref name="Scott" /> Most scholars consider the era of merchant capitalism and mercantilism as the origin of modern capitalism,<ref name="Burnham"/><ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica 2006">''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (2006)</ref> although [[Karl Polanyi]] argued that the hallmark of capitalism is the establishment of generalized markets for what he called the "fictitious commodities", i.e. land, labor and money. Accordingly, he argued that "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date".<ref>{{cite book |last=Polanyi |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Polanyi |title=The Great Transformation |publisher=[[Beacon Press]] |location=Boston |date=1944 |pages=87}}</ref>

England began a large-scale and integrative approach to mercantilism during the [[Elizabethan Era]] (1558–1603). A systematic and coherent explanation of balance of trade was made public through [[Thomas Mun]]'s argument ''England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, or the Balance of our Forraign Trade is The Rule of Our Treasure.'' It was written in the 1620s and published in 1664.<ref>{{cite book |first1=David |last1=Onnekink |first2=Gijs |last2=Rommelse |title=Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650–1750) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M1QdbzdTimsC&pg=PA257 |year=2011 |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |page=257 |isbn=978-1-4094-1914-3 |access-date=27 June 2015 |archive-date=19 March 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319130220/http://books.google.com/books?id=M1QdbzdTimsC&pg=PA257 |url-status=live}}</ref>

European [[merchant]]s, backed by state controls, subsidies and [[monopoly|monopolies]], made most of their profits by buying and selling goods. In the words of [[Francis Bacon]], the purpose of mercantilism was "the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices...".<ref>Quoted in {{cite book |first=George |last=Clark |title=The Seventeenth Century |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=1961 |page=24}}</ref>

After the period of the [[proto-industrialization]], the [[British East India Company]] and the [[Dutch East India Company]], after massive contributions from the [[Mughal Bengal]],<ref name="Prakash">[[Om Prakash (historian)|Om Prakash]], "[http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3447600139/WHIC?u=seat24826&xid=6b597320 Empire, Mughal]", ''History of World Trade Since 1450'', edited by [[John J. McCusker]], vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 237–240, ''World History in Context''. Retrieved 3 August 2017</ref><ref name="ray">{{cite book |first=Indrajit |last=Ray |year=2011 |title=Bengal Industries and the British Industrial Revolution (1757–1857) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CHOrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=57, 90, 174 |isbn=978-1-136-82552-1 |access-date=20 June 2019 |archive-date=29 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160529021839/https://books.google.com/books?id=CHOrAgAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> inaugurated an expansive era of commerce and trade.<ref name=Banaji>{{cite journal |last=Banaji |first=Jairus |year=2007 |title=Islam, the Mediterranean and the rise of capitalism |journal=[[Journal Historical Materialism]] |volume=15 |pages=47–74 |doi=10.1163/156920607X171591 |url=http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/15983/1/Islam%20and%20capitalism.pdf |access-date=20 April 2018 |archive-date=29 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329015002/http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/15983/1/Islam%20and%20capitalism.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="britannica2">{{cite book |title=Economic system:: Market systems |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178493/economic-system/61117/Market-systems#toc242146 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2006 |access-date=4 January 2009 |archive-date=24 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090524075921/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178493/economic-system/61117/Market-systems#toc242146 |url-status=live}}</ref> These companies were characterized by their [[colonialism|colonial]] and [[Expansionism|expansionary]] powers given to them by nation-states.<ref name="Banaji" /> During this era, merchants, who had traded under the previous stage of mercantilism, invested capital in the East India Companies and other colonies, seeking a [[return on investment]].