The system was and today is still quite cruel. In the days when colonialism the people of other lands were considered enslaved. They had no value to Europe's empires, except, to extract the minerals and spices. There was no quality of life for colonists and their burden was difficult. It was not uncommon for native peoples to die while working to satisfy their emperors, kings and queens.
...This system dominated Western European economic thought and policies from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries. The goal of these policies was, supposedly, to achieve a “favorable” balance of trade that would bring gold and silver into the country and also to maintain domestic employment. In contrast to the agricultural system of the physiocrats or the laissez-faire of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the mercantile system served the interests of merchants and producers such as the British East India Company, whose activities were protected or encouraged by the state....
