... powers of economic control and regulation. They levied tolls or tariffs on goods entering and leaving their jurisdictions. Local guilds of merchants and artisans fixed wages and prices and otherwise regulated working conditions2. The modern centralized state was a more complicated affair. The policies of economic nationalism represented a transfer of these functions from the local to the national level, where the central government attempted to unify the state economically as well as politically. The old knights disappeared and hired government officials or bureaucrats took their place. The question then became where was this money to be found? The period of mercantilism is mostly characterized in obtaining as much bullion as possible. This was not only on the state level. It laid so much stress upon the importance of owning wealth that "being rich" came to be regarded as the sole virtue of the average citizen. The economic policies of ...

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