s of cities soon saw the benefits of living in the city, such as jobs in industry where money was relatively steady and not depending whether it rains in the next 2 weeks. The farmers put down the plows and instead took up a job in town. Many people also moved into the cities just because of conditions and safety. Those who lived in mountains would move down into the plains, or into cities, sometimes only seasonally to work. They also moved sometimes country to country, such as people living in France going to Spain to work, and the like. The fear of every mercantilist country was, as one index put it, “fear of goods” or fear of deficits in trade. As it is today, the fear was that one would pay out their profits of exporting to import what they need, therefor losing the wealth they so desperately wanted. They tried to get gold bullion wherever and however they could. Countries became wealthier, and spent money on things such as enlargement of cities, estates for officials, and town areas, and day to day government. This money also went to fund the many wars that were occurring at the time. The money also went into the creation of large shipping industries and a larger population trained in industry. This however was also the downfall, since with the growth of wealth also came inflation. Inflation caused the price of everything from food, to beverages, housing, and raw materials to go up. The towns could no longer support such huge industries and the exporting, and therefore the system went belly up. The idea behind Mercantilism was to control the production of goods by the government so long as it benefits the people. Did it benefit the people? For a while yes, but ultimately drove the people into the ground....
