Colbert's Mercantilism
Jean-Baptiste Colbert became Controller-General of Finances in 1665 and spent twenty years trying to make France rich by making everyone else poorer. He had been Mazarin's man of business and had brought down Nicolas Fouquet, the previous superintendent, partly by demonstrating the scale of his peculation and partly by drawing Louis XIV's attention to Vaux-le-Vicomte. His premise was that the quantity of wealth in the world was fixed and consisted of bullion, and that a state grew rich by exporting more than it imported and holding the difference. Everything followed from that. Tariffs were raised sharply in 1664 and 1667, aimed at the Dutch; state manufactures were founded or subsidised in glass, tapestry, lace and cloth, with the Gobelins works making furnishings for the crown; craft guilds were reorganised and quality standards imposed by inspectors, with defective goods publicly destroyed; internal tolls were reduced and the Canal du Midi built; and trading companies were chartered for the East and West Indies and the Levant. He rebuilt the navy from about twenty serviceable ships to nearly two hundred, founded the Academy of Sciences, and reformed the accounts so that revenue was recorded. The system's weakness was that it could not survive its own logic. Colbert's tariffs helped cause the Dutch War of 1672, which cost more than the policy earned, and he spent his last decade financing wars he had opposed. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations largely against this, and named it. He also codified the law on commerce, on the navy, and on slavery in the colonies, and the Code Noir of 1685 was issued in his name after his death.
- Year: 1665 CE
- Category: Political
