Mercantilism, Vol. II

Eli Heckscher (1879-1952) was a professor at the Stockholm School of economics for 36 years, a giant of economic and intellectual history, and a leading figure in Sweden of conservative liberalism, active in public discourse.One of his major scholarly achievements is Mercantilism (Swedish, 1931; English, 1935; revised edition, 1955), treating hundreds of years of writings and developments, mainly in England, France, and Germany.In the Introduction to the 1994 Routledge republication of Mercantilism, Lars Magnusson writes: The first volume deals with mercantilism as a system of unification.It includes a detailed presentation of the legislative measures takenby national states during the Early Modern era in order to establish acentralized regulative order in an economic sense. The second . . .volume...begins with Part II "Mercantilism as a system of power"...[Heckscher] seems wholeheartedly to accept the argument by the historiciststhat the aims of mercantilist policy were to strengthenthe power of the state... Part Ill is devoted to a discussion ofmercantilism as a system of protection. It is here that Heckscherpresents his famous distinction between a "policy of provision", socharacteristic of the economic administration of medieval towns, andthe "system of protection" which belonged to the mercantilistperiod... Heckscher adds that the system of protectionism could, byand large, be explained by a socio-psychological attitude: "a fear ofgoods" [which] had its roots in the autarky of the medieval age....[Heckscher suggests that mercantilist writers] were obsessed withthe view that economic development hinged upon a vast circulation ofmoney... In the last section, Heckscher discusses mercantilism as aconception of society.The present republication is made by permission of Heckscher'sgrandson, Sten Heckscher.