''A Plan of the English Commerce: Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of This Nation, As Well the Home Trade As the Foreign'' is perhaps chief among
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
's tracts dealing with economic issues. In it he argues that the employment of labour on the ''working up of domestic produce'', particularly wool, would be the true path to prosperity.
Defoe describes how
Henry VII selected areas that were suited for woolen textile manufacture: Henry VII "set the Manufacture of Wool on Foot in several Parts of his Country...pitch'd upon for its particular Situation, adapted to the Work, being filled with innumerable Springs of Water, Pits of Coal, and other Things proper for carrying out such a Business..."
In the tract Defoe describes how the Tudors, Henry VII and
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, developed England’s woolen
manufacturing industry, by use of policies that would now be described as:
* government subsidies to private enterprise;
* high
tariff
A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and poli ...
s on competing finished woolen products imported from abroad;
* high taxes on raw wool that is exported out of England, and for a time the banning of such exports, so as to provide inexpensive raw material for the fledgling English wool industry;
* distribution of
government-granted monopoly rights;
* the government bringing in to England from the
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
artisans skilled in wool textile production;
* workers rights; and
* government-sponsored
industrial espionage
Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security.
While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governmen ...
.
[Chang, Ha-Joon (2007) ''The Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies and the Threat to the Developing World'', Random House]
References
Editions
Defoe, Daniel (1728). ''A Plan of the English Commerce: Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of This Nation, As Well the Home Trade As the Foreign'', Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc; 2 Reprint edition (June 1967) ,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plan Of The English Commerce
1728 books
Economic nationalism
Works by Daniel Defoe