thers. It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture, in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commoditiesSmith, Adam; The Wealth of Nations 1776In this paragraph, it is the Mercantile System, a system recommended by Smith to fix the problems in British commerce. In the Mercantile system, foreign trade is highly encouraged because it helps benefit the consumers, and helps lower cost for the consumer. It is a very consumer based system. It limits the exportation of goods, for the benefit of the local workmen , and welcomes the importation of foreign goods, to benefit of local consumers. This is unfortunately not how the Mercantile System actually worked. Smith believed that commerce had been warped in the minds of greedy consumers. Unfortunately, with prohibitions on import in Great Britain, the Mercantile System could only work half way. The key aspect to the Mercantile System is that it allows goods from other countries to be imported. When importation is blocked, the Mercantile System can no longer be effective, and it leads commerce in a new direction.Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system, the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerceSmith, Adam; The Wealth of nations. 1776.It was obvious to Smith that the consumer should be the most important aspect of commerce, but in the British Mercantile System, the most important aspect became the producer. Adam Smiths was trying to preserve the ol...
