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From The Colonial Perspective, What Were Some Drawbacks Of Mercantilism

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From the colonial perspective, what were some drawbacks to mercantilism? What were some benefits? Why did this economic issues become political ones? One historian has written, “Fail to understand mercantilism and you will inaccurately see British tyranny everywhere in colonial America.” Why might this historian say this? As Benjamin Franklin stated, “ Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” No form of government has the right to monopolize business although some might be impaired by the notion of a collective goal. When should any society be deiceved in a way to give up peace for liberty? Discenting from the freedoms the colonist came to America to bestow upon their children should not have bee …show more content…

When one is in accordance to the laws of the nation, it is the rulers who safe guard his individual liberties, one is not renouncing his rights; he his entrusting his rulers to safe guard those liberties. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. However, when the government is hostile to its laws, one’s liberties are no longer safe guarded and the government becomes a terror to good works. The promotion of such sytem of managing the economy is oppressive and does not have any noticeable grounds of being useful. The governments of the world, at the time, were on the gold standard which meant when the gold leaves the boundaries of a nation and enters another, the importing country’s funds decrease and the exporting country’s funds increase. England then decided trade will only be national. For this reason, regional jobs were assigned, such as the Hat Act of 1732 which prohibited the export of hats produced in the colonies. The founders addressed this issue in Grieveince sixteen of the Declartion of Independce which states, “For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World” This also was a folly of

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