Mercantilism and the South-Slavic Mercantilists

Abstract

The author first talks about the general characteristics of mercantilism as the first relatively complete economic doctrine which dominated in many European places during the 15th, 16th, and the 17th centuries. The characteristic features of mercantilism are stressed in some European countries, especially in Great Britain. Mercantilism includes a certain economic doctrine, on the one hand, and economic system based on this doctrine, on the other hand. The basic characteristic of mercantilism is the wish to improve foreign trade, concretely, to improve export, for the realization of this goal it is necessary to develop manufacture, to build traffic system and other infrastructure and similar things and all of this should be done with strong slate intervention. The author devotes a great part of the article to the south- Slavic mercantilists. In the gallery of the south-Slavic mercantilists and writers close to that subject we find the prominent place taken by three Dubrovnik economy writers. They are: Benko Kotruljić (or Beno Kotruljević, that is, Benedetto Cotrugli), Nikola Vitov Gučetić and Stjepan Gradić. All of them also symbolize the continuity of economic thought in Dubrovnik in the 15th, 16th and the 17th century. Very important economic writers are also Matija Vlačić (16th c.) and Juraj Krilanić (17th c,), Šimun Grisogono from Zadar (17th c.) as many others that came later. The author pays special attention to the abovementioned Dubrovnik writers and Šimun Grisogono, too.