Why did the Europeans want to use the economic strategy of Mercantilism to increase the amount of gold and silver they had?

First popularized in Europe during the 1500s, mercantilism was based on the idea that a nation's wealth and power were best served by increasing exports, in an effort to collect precious metals like gold and silver. Mercantilism replaced the feudal economic system in Western Europe. At the time, England was the epicenter of the British Empire but had relatively few natural resources. To grow its wealth, England introduced fiscal policies that discouraged colonists from buying foreign products, while creating incentives to only buy British goods. Under mercantilism, nations frequently engaged their military might to ensure local markets and supply sources were protected, to support the idea that a nation's economic health heavily relied on its supply of capital. Mercantilists also believed that a nation's economic health could be assessed by its levels of ownership of precious metals, like gold or silver, which tended to rise with increased new home construction, increased agricultural output, and a strong merchant fleet to provide additional markets with goods and raw materials.

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