Question

What is the difference between benign mercantilism and malevolent mercantilism in theory? How could you tell the difference between them in practice?

Answer 1

The main difference between benign and malevolent mercantilism in theory is that benign tends to protect the welfare and make the domestic economy more stable while malevolent tends to seek in more power. In practice, colonization can be considered as malevolent mercantilism while protectionsim using tariffs can be considered benign mercantilism.