Studio Aletheia · World Builders Academy
6.2.ESC 6th Grade World Civilizations
Critics of Mercantilism
Lesson 4.15 · Hume, Adam Smith, and a New Economic Idea
Not everyone believed mercantilism made sense. Two Scottish thinkers argued that trade did not have to be a competition where one side wins and the other loses, an idea that would eventually reshape the global economy.
Learning Targets and Success Criteria
Build the vocabulary and evidence needed to meet standard 6.2.E.
What I will learn
- I can summarize David Hume's criticism of mercantilist theory.
- I can summarize Adam Smith's argument that trade benefits all nations involved.
- I can compare a primary source defending mercantilism with one criticizing it.
- I can explain how mercantilism affected ordinary workers and consumers.
What success looks like
- I explain Hume's argument about how more gold in circulation affects prices.
- I explain Smith's claim that nations should specialize in producing what they make most efficiently.
- I compare Thomas Mun's defense of mercantilism with Adam Smith's criticism of it.
- My exit ticket explains at least one way mercantilism disadvantaged working people.
Analyze multiple perspectives on the increased interactions among and between world societies through a variety of primary and secondary sources.
Pulling twenty-five lessons into one argument.
These terms will be used throughout the mini-lesson, evidence lab, hands-on activity, journal, and exit challenge.
David Hume
An eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher who argued that accumulating more gold would raise prices and reduce its value, undermining the logic of mercantilism.
Adam Smith
An eighteenth-century Scottish economist who argued in The Wealth of Nations that trade could benefit all nations and that markets, not government control, should guide the economy.
Specialization
Smith's idea that a nation should focus on producing what it can make most efficiently and trade for other goods, benefiting all trading partners.
Dueling Voices
A historical thinking method that compares two primary sources presenting opposing arguments on the same issue to better understand the full debate.
Where this shows up in the real world.
History is not just something that happened. It is training for how you will read evidence, weigh sources, and make decisions in a career.
Debating Free Trade Versus Protection
Economists today continue to debate the same core question Hume and Smith raised: does government protection of domestic industry help or hurt a nation's overall prosperity?
Structuring Opposing Arguments
Debate coaches teach students to analyze both sides of an argument fairly, similar to how historians compare dueling primary sources like Mun's and Smith's.
Two Scots Challenge an Economic Consensus
By the eighteenth century, mercantilism's fiercest critics were building the foundation of an entirely new way of thinking about trade.
Even as mercantilism shaped European colonial policy for two centuries, it faced serious criticism. The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that if a country's gold supply kept growing, prices would eventually rise so high that people would stop buying goods altogether. Hume also pointed out a deeper flaw: if abundance reduces an item's value, then the more gold and silver a nation accumulated, the less valuable that gold and silver would actually become, directly undermining mercantilism's core assumption that piling up precious metal was the path to lasting wealth.
The economist Adam Smith, also a Scot, extended this critique in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations. Smith rejected the mercantilist idea that trade was a zero-sum competition, arguing instead that trade could benefit every nation involved. He proposed that a country should specialize in producing what it could make most efficiently, then trade for everything else, an approach that would make both trading partners wealthier than if each tried to produce everything domestically. Smith also opposed government regulation of the economy, arguing that competition among producers, not government monopolies and tariffs, would naturally keep prices fair and encourage businesses to operate efficiently.
Reading Smith's argument alongside a defense of mercantilism, such as Thomas Mun's 1664 England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, reveals just how sharply economic thinkers of the era disagreed. Mun praised foreign trade as the great revenue of the king and the honour of the kingdom, while Smith countered that mercantilist policy served merchants and manufacturers, not consumers, who bore the cost of maintaining and defending colonial empires. Smith specifically criticized how mercantilism kept wages low to maximize exportable profit, an effect that fell hardest on working people rather than the merchants who benefited most. This dueling-voices debate between defenders and critics of mercantilism marks one of the first great arguments in the history of economics, and its core question, whether trade is a competition or a shared benefit, is still debated by economists and policymakers today.
Adapted from Studio Aletheia's World Builders Academy curriculum library, drawing on classical world history resources on the economic critics of mercantilism.
Materials for the dueling voices analysis.
- A. Mun and Smith excerpts, provided
- B. Highlighters, 2 colors minimum
- C. Notebook or chart paper
- D. A pencil for annotating
- E. Your Evidence Log
Every session this unit: identify the evidence, cite where it came from, connect it to the day's vocabulary, write a one-paragraph explanation.
Analyze the Debate
Practice comparing primary sources that defend and criticize mercantilism.
Analyze Dueling Voices
Compare Thomas Mun's defense of mercantilism with Adam Smith's criticism of it.
Evidence Log: Entry 15
Accountability Checklist
Exit Challenge
In a short paragraph, compare mercantilism's defenders and critics, and explain how Adam Smith's idea of specialization challenged mercantilist thinking.
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