Before GDP, before central banks, before the neutral elegance of macroeconomic curves, the wealth of a nation gleamed from within its vaults. Gold and silver — solid, visible, weighty — were thought to be the blood of prosperity, the foundation of strength. In early modern Europe, to be powerful was to be full of metal.
This was the age of the Bullionists and the Mercantilists — a time when economic thought was not yet disentangled from statecraft, when trade policy was a weapon and treasure was the prize. It was a time of rising empires, maritime conquest, colonial exploitation, and the first global circuits of exchange. And within it, a new way of thinking began to emerge: the economy as a battlefield of nations.
In The Wealth of Ideas, Alessandro Roncaglia guides us through this historical moment with clarity and care — showing how economic theory did not begin as theory at all, but as anxious commentary, as political guidance, as a strategy for survival in a world whose boundaries were expanding fast.
And at the heart of it all: a single question — What makes a nation rich?
The Bullionist Vision: Wealth as Metal
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the Bullionists held a simple, almost tangible view: wealth is money, and money is gold and silver. Therefore, to enrich a nation is to increase its store of bullion. Everything else — trade, industry, policy — should serve that end.
It was a worldview born not of abstraction but of history. Spain had flooded Europe with precious metals from the New World. England, watching enviously, sought its own path to accumulation. Trade deficits were seen as dangerous — they meant an outflow of treasure. Imports drained power; exports replenished it.
One of the earliest and clearest Bullionists was Thomas Milles, who warned that England’s wealth was being siphoned away through imports. Later, Gerard de Malynes echoed the same concern: foreign exchange transactions were disguising a hemorrhage of national treasure.
Their focus was narrow. But their instinct was foundational: economic flows have political consequences.
The Mercantilist Expansion: Trade as War by Other Means
Bullionism soon evolved into something more dynamic — a broader vision known as Mercantilism.
While Bullionists equated wealth with metal, Mercantilists began to see wealth as surplus — the excess of exports over imports, the favorable balance of trade. They recognized that gold and silver mattered, yes, but that what mattered more was the system that brought them in.
This shift was subtle but profound. It birthed a new kind of economic reasoning — one that saw the state not just as protector of commerce, but as its architect.
In this world, policy was everything.
– Encourage exports.
– Restrict imports.
– Support manufacturing.
– Build a merchant fleet.
– Colonize where you must.
– Legislate where you can.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French finance minister under Louis XIV, embodied this logic. Through tariffs, subsidies, and centralized control, he sought to turn France into an autarkic powerhouse. His goal was not open markets. It was national glory.
Trade was not a mutual benefit. It was a zero-sum game. For one nation to gain, another must lose. Mercantilism was the economic expression of geopolitical rivalry.
Antonio Serra: A Forgotten Spark
Amid these early debates, a remarkable voice emerged from Naples: Antonio Serra. Writing in 1613, he challenged the narrow bullionist view and introduced the idea that a country without mines could still grow rich — if it developed productive industry.
For Serra, wealth was not just in metal, but in the structure of production — the ability to create value, to trade, to retain surplus. He laid the foundation for a broader understanding of economic development, one that anticipated later theories of industrial policy and economic complexity.
Serra was nearly forgotten. But in Roncaglia’s telling, his insights reemerge as a turning point — the moment when political economy begins to shift from treasure to structure, from hoarding to producing.
Mercantilism and Morality: The Ambiguous Legacy
Modern economists often dismiss Mercantilism as primitive — confused about value, obsessed with trade balances, blind to the benefits of free exchange.
But to view Mercantilists this way is to miss their world. They were not solving equilibrium problems. They were navigating power. They lived in an age of monarchies, wars, famine, and fragile states. For them, economics was not a neutral science. It was a question of survival.
Their legacy is not just policy — it is a vision of the economy as embedded in geopolitics, sovereignty, and social cohesion. They asked not only, What is efficient?, but also, What is strong? What is secure?
Today, in a world of trade wars, industrial reshoring, and strategic tariffs, Mercantilist echoes return. We speak again of national resilience, of supply chain sovereignty, of economic patriotism.
Perhaps they were never really gone.
What the Bullionists and Mercantilists Still Teach
We are no longer living in a world where gold anchors currency. But we still live in a world where money concentrates power, and where trade decisions can remake the map.
The Bullionists remind us that wealth is not neutral — it accumulates in specific places, with consequences.
The Mercantilists remind us that trade is never just exchange — it is strategy, it is politics, it is narrative.
And both remind us that economic thought is always born of fear and hope — fear of loss, hope of security — and that behind every theory lies a vision of what a nation is, and what it should become.
A Glint of Gold, a Glimmer of Meaning
In the end, the Bullionists and Mercantilists were not economists in the modern sense. They were custodians of national fortune, advisors to kings, anxious observers of a shifting world. They wrote with urgency. They thought with purpose. They believed that wealth was not an abstraction but a means to peace, to power, to pride.
And though their frameworks are no longer ours, their questions remain:
– What makes a country rich?
– Who wins and who loses when nations trade?
– Is the economy a system of mutual benefit — or a struggle for dominance?
– And can policy serve not just prosperity, but sovereignty, justice, and common purpose?
The gold may have changed. But the game remains.
And if we listen closely, we might still hear their voices —
not as relics, but as warnings.