Bullionism is an

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

theory that defines

wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

by the amount of

precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lu ...

s owned. Bullionism is an early or primitive form of

mercantilism Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduce ...

.{{Citation needed, date=October 2018 It was derived, during the 16th century, from the observation that the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. On ...

, because of its large

trade surplus The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balanc ...

, possessed large amounts of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

—

bullion Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes fro ...

—despite the fact that there was not any mining of precious metals in England.

Examples of bullionists

Thomas Milles (1550–1627) and others recommended that England increase exports to create a trade surplus, convert the surplus into precious metals, and hinder the drain of money and precious metal to other countries. England did restrict exportation of money or precious metals around 1600, but Milles wanted to resume using

staple port The staple right, also translated stacking right or storage right, both from the Dutch ''stapelrecht'', was a medieval right accorded to certain ports, the staple ports. It required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port and to ...

s (ports where incoming foreign merchants were required to offer their goods for sale before anywhere else) to force merchants from abroad to use their assets to buy English goods and prevent them from transferring gold or silver from England homewards. Milles's opinions, however, were not widely valued. One of his contemporaries wrote, "Milles was so much out of step with the time that his pamphlets had little influence." Gerard de Malynes (1586–1641), another bullionist, published a book named ''A Treatise of the Canker of England's Common Wealth'', that asserted that the exchange of foreign currency had been a trade of value rather than exchanging the weight of metals. Therefore, the unfair exchanging of precious metals by

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becaus ...

s and money changers would cause a deficit in the English

balance of trade The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance ...

. To ban the flow of

exchange rate In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of t ...

s, he demanded the strict fixing of exchange rates for

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order ...

s, only by the concentration of precious metals and weights, and for strict regulation and monitoring of foreign trade. He failed, however, to convince his contemporaries “...that the cambists were responsible for gold outflow or to elicit enthusiasm for a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

sale of exchange, par pro pari, by the royal exchanger." He did succeed in creating one of the first economic controversies, and Edward Misselden opposed him in 1623 in his book ''The Circle of Commerce: Or, the Balance of Trade''.

References

* Irvin L. Jeffery (2008). “Paradigm and Praxis: Seventeenth-Century Mercantilism and the Age of Liberalism” Ph.D. diss., University of Toledo. International trade theory Metallism Preclassical economics

Examples of bullionists

See also

References