mercantilist

comparative more mercantilist · superlative most mercantilist

1. Of, pertaining to, or believing in mercantilism.

   According to the mercantilist thinking that dominated European thought between the 16th and 18th centuries, poverty was socially useful. True, it was miserable for the poor. But it also kept the economic engine humming by ensuring the availability of plentiful cheap labour.

   2013 July 27, “Penury portrait”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846

plural mercantilists

1. economicsOne who believes in mercantilism.

   On this point there was no difference between mercantilists and feudalists, between crowned planners and vested interests, between centralizing bureaucrats and conservative particularists.

   1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, chapter 6, in The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 70