How Successful Was The Economic System In The Seventeenth Century Essay

Though there was an elaborate economic system during the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, the financial system was not on an international level. During this period there was a monopolistic structure with five European economic powers competing for dominance. The fight for dominance was conducted by occupying other countries in search of their resources, with a particular emphasis on three types of resources. The primary resources that these countries were looking for were cloth and textile, spices, and silver. Three factors were lacking during the sixteenth and seventeenth century that inhibited the economy from reaching an international level. The first element that was absent was a sense of political, economic gains from world trade.

During this period, Britain experienced a rapid growth in their population which made it increasingly difficult for them to keep up agriculturally; they were rapidly losing the capacity to feed their citizens adequately. Based on this, Britain realized that industry and manufacturing weren’t enough to remain dominant, they also needed emphasis on the agriculture of their nation to feed their increasing population. Due to their growing population, Britain needed to rely on imports for their agriculture, and because of this, their imports began to amount to more than their exports. These weaknesses ultimately lead to the decline of Britain as they gave leverage to other powers and allowed for other countries to become balanced with Britain regarding the economy. Another factor that leads to the weakening of the British hegemony was the shift from personal management to managerial capitalism, which saw the rise of the telegraph message. The telegraph gave other countries the opportunity to have a faster and more efficient means with each for trade. The shift to managerial capitalism gave other countries the chance to develop further, and as a result of this development, international trade began to