The world in the 17th and 18th century was run by European powers, and at the time the greatest of these powers was France. France began to rise to its height with the reign of King Henry IV who set forth the ground for future kings to come by drawing attention back to the power of the king of France. His successor, King Louis XIII was crowned when he was just 9 years old leaving Cardinal Richelieu with the real power. Richelieu drastically increased the reach of the French crown by restraining the power of the nobility and centralize the government around one body, which was the king. After the death of Cardinal Richelieu and the following the reign of Louis XIII came the most well known French king in history, King Louis XIV. During his reign he fought three major wars, the Franco-Dutch war, the war of the League of Augsburg, and the War of Spanish Succession in which he gained much land throughout Europe and proved his power to be ever more dominant than that of any other king at the time or ever in fact. He was the first true absolutist ruler. Louis XIV controlled every aspect of French life and the nobility looked to him as all powerful unlike in many other countries and other kings, in fact the nobles would take turns dressing the king so that in return he would grant them favors. During this time France also changed their economic policy under financial minister Colbert.
Colbert’s policy of mercantilism, otherwise known as colbertism was set up during the reign of King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu but did not reach its full strength until the reign of Louis XIV. The goal of mercantilism at the time was to strengthen its own economy in France by cutting down on imports and growing their exports rapidly in an attempt to rely on the country’s own resources as a sustainable force and in doing so, weakening other nations economies. Under the reign of Louis XIV mercantilism was a solid economic policy which proved to be beneficial during the war times that he lead his country through. Even though the policy of mercantilism worked during the reign of Louis XIV and Colbert mercantilism was not the most effective economic policy for france in the 17th and 18th century. This was because not only did France change back to a different system soon after, mercantilism took away freedoms from the people (restrictions of mercantilism). It also benefited only the extremely wealthy aristocrats and the king himself. Mercantilism was not the most effective economic policy because a more effective policy existed; which was capitalism (Laissez-Faire).
Throughout French history, the country and it’s leaders have always pushed to expand their economy, whether by colonizing new lands or just venturing to new lands to attempt to start trading with them. When France adopted the policy of mercantilism it greatly infringed upon the system of free trade that had been set up so long ago in the country. Colbert’s ideas on how to strengthen the French economy were valiant and in many ways worked to an extent. He established new industries inside his own country that allowed for many people to get jobs who didn’t have jobs previously, he protected inventors, invited skilled workers from other countries to come work in France so that they could keep up with faster industrializing nations such as Britain. This was significant because the campaign of wars that King Louis XIV was leading France into would have left any other country at the time bankrupt. Colbert believed that the only way to keep his country afloat was by controlling everything to the ways that he believed would be the most effective.
Even though some of Colbert’s policies did truly boost the economy they did so in such miniscule ways and provided the most finite of solutions. Colbert’s policies created a feeling of resentment towards the government that is obviously shown by the revolutions that followed the reign of King Louis the XIV or even years after. Just one in many ways that Colbert’s system oppressed the French population was by prohibiting the emigration of skilled workers from France, forcing them to stay and work. The working man made up the middle class of France during the 17th and 18th centuries and by not allowing them to leave the country and putting these laws in place the government continues to put the ideas that would soon become known as liberalism into the heads of the middle class. Colbert also had the quality and measure of each product fixed by law. This alone could help the economy and make people happier with the products they bought. Yet Colbert did was create punishments for artisans who made products that did not meet the standard such as, public exposure or pillory, which was the whipping of the person in public. These punishments lead to further cynical thoughts about the government of France as a whole. Colbert’s restriction on selling under the standard products makes people in the lower middle class and below unable to be as productive as before, once again weakening the middle class, the driving force of France’s economy.
Mercantilism in France made the rich richer and the poorer. It was no coincidence that the people that are able to change the government economic policies were already rich. By getting rid of domestic tariffs and increasing the tariffs on imported goods the price of labor goes up and the price of food goes up at the same time. In no way improving the conditions the standard of living for the poor but at the same time making the people who own the land and sell the crops even richer.