12 - The formation of states and transitions to modern economies:

Summary

During the long transition toward modern forms of state sovereignty the scope for functional levels of efficiency from the administrative and organizational capacities available to any and every conceivable kind of political regime remained severely constrained. In a European mirror England's fiscal-cum-financial constitution was reconstituted at a propitious period in the realm's political and geopolitical history. Europeans traded with maritime economies and their hinterlands in Asia that, in terms of scientific and technological knowledge, craft skills, and commercial institutions for the organization and coordination of markets, were as capitalist as anything operating in port cities of the west. This chapter summarizes a sample of the publications from a familiar list of European mercantilist intellectuals whose views reflect their times, locations, epistemological frameworks, and the priorities that they accorded to problems and themes in political economy in order to educate and influence policies formulated by European rulers and statesmen of the period.