Unit Two Essay

Option 1: "[For] the philosophers of the period...the concept of the balance of power was simply an extension of conventional wisdom. Its primary goal was to prevent domination by one state and to preserve the international order; it was not designed to prevent conflicts, but to limit them. To the hard- headed statesmen of the eighteenth century, the elimination of conflict (or of ambition or of greed) was utopian; the solution was to harness or counterpoise the inherent flaws of human nature to produce the best possible long-term outcome." 
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy 

From one point of view, balance of power politics in the early modern period succeeded spectacularly, ending unlimited wars of religion/ideology in favor of wars for the national interest (raison d’etat), and preventing a single European power from conquering the whole continent. From another point of view, it exported great power conflict to the rest of the world, turning Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas into battlegrounds for rivalling European states. In the end, did the European balance of power succeed in limiting conflict and producing the “best possible outcome” from flawed human nature? Or did it magnify conflict and increase the likelihood of global war?  Answer this question in a well organized essay using examples from multiple global regions.

Option 2: The European great powers of the early modern period (1500-1815) generally followed mercantilist economic policy. Mercantilists, like Jean-Baptiste Colbert, saw trade as a form of warfare; your rival’s gain was necessarily your loss. If your subjects purchased goods from your rival at a greater rate than the reverse, money would flow from your country to your rival and empower them. Thus, they argued that the national interest of a state (raison d’etat) should determine its economic policy and the state should use all the tools at its disposal, such as tariffs, monopolies, colonization, attacks on rival merchants, invasion of resource rich areas, takeover of rival colonies etc. to protect and increase its power. Free-market liberals, like Adam Smith, argued that this was a deeply inefficient and wrongheaded view of economics: all would benefit, they argued, if people were free to purchase goods from whichever merchant sold them cheapest, whether that merchant was from their country or from a foreign country. Could free market ideas have triumphed over mercantilism in this time period? Why or why not? Develop a thesis to answer this question, using specific examples from multiple geographic regions.

Note: Your essay should cite evidence from a variety of secondary sources from the Unit 2 Reader. 

Submission guidelines: 3-4 pages, size 12 font, double-spaced. Citations should be in-line and formatted as (Authorname Pagenumber) i.e. (Kennedy 12). Include a Works Cited page in MLA format for the secondary sources. 

Tips: See the essay rubric guide below for questions to ask yourself as you write and revise. 
History essay rubric guide

Intro basics:

• In the modern day, free markets dominate.
• However, in the early modern period, mercantilism dominated
• Why was it that mercantilism dominated then and not now?
• Due to the common misconception that wealth was a zero sum game
• THESIS: This misconception was what prevented free market systems from dominating
• To understand this misconception, we first must understand the system in which it took place. | Move?

In modern times, free markets dominate. However, in the early modern period, Mercantilism dominated. Ideologically speaking, the jump from Mercantilism to free market is quite a large one, so what allowed this shift? Why was it that free market economies dominate now and not then? The answer lies in a misconception rooted deep inside the concept of Mercantilism: wealth is zero sum. This misconception was what prevented free market systems from dominating.

To truly understand this misconception and its impact on the world, we first must understand the system in which it took place. In the wake of Europes' fragmentation, a balance of power was created through raison d'etat. The concept of raison d'etat states that the "well-being of the state justified whatever means were employed to further it"(citation). In other words, states should act only for their own personal gains without regarding the barriers of morality. A set of states all performing raison d'etat leads to a balance of power. Power was no longer controlled — or attempted to be controlled — through policy, but rather through the emergent property of "shifting international alliances that prevented any one country from becoming too powerful"(citation). The transition between raison d'etat to a balance of power manifested in multiple ways. One of these ways was war marking, as when "any state threatened to become dominant, its neighbors formed a coalition not in pursuit of a theory of international relations but out of pure self-interest to block the ambitions of the most powerful"(citation). War, arising out of pure self interest, led to groups of states maintaining the balance of power while having no regard for the greater good. Economically speaking, raison d'etat manifested in Mercantilism — a theory which guided economic policy and "held that the wealth of a nation could best be enhanced by the accumulation of precious metals like silver and gold"(citation). War, while prominent, was not what drove policy that effected virtually everybody's days to day life; economic theory, on the other hand, did.

Mercantilism, this economic theory, is reliant on a fundamentally flawed assumption. The core of this theory is about placing "emphasis on precious metals and government regulation" in an attempt to maximize exports while minimizing imports (citation). Mercantilists viewed imports as flow of wealth to rivals, and thus, the empowerment of rivals. Reversedly, exports leading to an intake of precious metals were viewed as an increase in power. Any import meant power to rivals and weakening of the state, and vise versa; thus, raison d'etat leads the state to do everything in its power to minimize its imports and maximize its exports. However, Mercantilism, while fundamentally being about wealth, confuses wealth with precious metals. The state is not simply trying to increase its intake of precious metals, but using this intake as a proxy for wealth. This is a flawed proxy. Precious metals are simply another commodity, and do not truly translate to wealth. By understanding that precious metals are a flawed proxy, the true misconception in Mercantilism is revealed: wealth is a zero sum game. Intuitively, wealth being zero sum makes sense. I give a slice of my pie to a rival, I lose a slice of my pie. The overall amount of pie is still constant. This pie model seems almost unquestionable when applied to precious metals — I trade away some gold, I lose some gold and my rival gains some gold. The overall amount of gold is still constant. This same scenario, however, does not apply with wealth. Of course, overall quantity of precious metals cannot be changed through trade, but wealth can. The fundamental assumption that Mercantilism is based upon is entirely flawed. Wealth not being zero sum was what, in part, allowed "alternative economic theories, such as Adam Smith's theory of a free market economy" to dominate (citation).

Free market systems, unlike what is assumed by Mercantilism, can generate wealth through trade. With a free market system, your rival's gain was not necessarily your loss — trade was clearly not zero sum. By disattaching precious metals from wealth, it can be understood that wealth is heavily tied to resource allocation, something that is best done by the emergent properties of a free market. With proper or improper resource allocation the overall wealth of the world can be, respectively, gained or lost. Adam Smith evidences this concept with an example, writing that "it is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy"(citation). If the "master of the family" was not so prudent and did attempt to make at home what it costed him less to buy, then he would be improperly allocating his resources and losing wealth without giving an equal amount of wealth. Thus, the overall amount of wealth in the world would have decreased. To illustrate this concept with a more specific scenario, imagine a room full of young students. At lunch time, the door closes, and the students proceed to trade. The students who wish to trade do so, and the ones who don't do not. By the end of lunch, the the students emerge with more value — more wealth — than before lunch, despite the fact that the classroom doors remained closed the entire time. This scenario is of course a microcosm of this {concept?}, where wealth was added to the world through the resource allocation done by the free market. This ability for free markets to generate wealth was what, {in part}, "shattered the prevalent doctrines of protectionism and mercantilism and became the basis for what would develop into capitalism"(citation).