As Europeans expanded their market reach into the colonial sphere, they devised a new economic policy to ensure the colonies’ profitability. The philosophy of mercantilism shaped European perceptions of wealth from the 1500s to the late 1700s. Mercantilism held that only a limited amount of wealth, as measured in gold and silver bullion, existed in the world. In order to gain power, nations had to amass wealth by mining these precious raw materials from their colonial possessions. Mercantilists did not believe in free trade, arguing instead that the nation should control trade to create wealth and to enhance state power. In this view, colonies existed to strengthen the colonizing nation.
Colonial mercantilism, a set of protectionist policies designed to benefit the colonizing nation, relied on several factors:
Colonies rich in raw materials
Cheap labor
Colonial loyalty to the home government
Control of the shipping trade
Under this system, the colonies sent their raw materials—harvested by enslaved people or native workers—to Europe. European industry then produced and sent finished materials—like textiles, tools, manufactured goods, and clothing—back to the colonies. Colonists were forbidden from trading with other countries.
Commodification quickly affected production in the New World. American silver, tobacco, and other items—which were used by native peoples for ritual purposes—became European commodities with monetary value. Before the arrival of the Spanish, for example, the Inca people of the Andes consumed chicha, a corn beer, for ritual purposes only. When the Spanish discovered chicha, they bought and traded for it, detracting from its spiritual significance for market gain. This process disrupted native economies and spurred early commercial capitalism.
Answer:
New England's shipbuilders earned profits by providing ships for the triangular trade
Explanation:
The New England colonies developed as a trade and economic center. The geographic condition did not make the region suitable for growing crops. The colonists focused on shipbuilding, fishing, and whaling while many of the colonists were artisans, blacksmith, merchants, traders, and furniture maker. By seeing the growth of the Atlantic slave trade, colonists began to expand the shipbuilding industry with a shipyard that helped them to earn profits by supplying vessels in the triangular trade.
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Gorbachev's reforms were gradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the command economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the rouble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production).
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Gas mask and traffic light
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A range of cultural, religious, and racial ideologies were used to justify imperialism, including Social Darwinism, nationalism, the concept of the civilizing mission, and the desire to religiously convert indigenous populations.
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