HIST 124 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Merchant Capitalism, Aristocracy, Mercantilism
30 Nov 2016
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Merchant empires were hybrids they were traditional and modern. You can think of merchant empires as a bridge between old social formations and a new liberal capitalism formation. This system is the birth of two things the new importance of the merchant and the absolutist government formations in europe. The feudalism system in europe made them an easy target for empires from the east to try and conquer them. Because of the feudalism system in europe merchants were able to look at their own personal interests and make more money for themselves and gain more political power. Merchants desire to have more sets the stage for liberal-capitalism. The merchants relied on people producing goods like in a kin ordered social formation. The last two points show the modern aspect of merchant capitalism and older social formation aspects. The merchants would trade for things and then sell them to people for a lot of money.
