Colbert's Mercantilism
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Controller-General of Finances from 1661, built the most systematic mercantilist economic programme in European history. He founded the French East India Company (1664), West India Company (1664), and Levant Company; expanded the French navy from 20 to 270 warships; established royal manufactures (Gobelins tapestries, Sèvres porcelain); imposed protective tariffs; and drained the Dutch trade surplus by targeting their re-export trade. Colbert's system — that national wealth was finite and France must seize as large a share as possible — drove the Nine Years' War and the War of Spanish Succession. His road-building, canal construction (Canal du Midi, 1681), and codification of French law (the Code Noir, 1685, regulating slavery) reshaped France for generations. His system directly provoked Adam Smith's counter-argument in The Wealth of Nations (1776).
- Year: 1665 CE
- Category: Political
