How did economists' thinking in the eighteenth century challenge the traditional notions of a state-centered economy?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. Traditional thinking favored the idea of mercantilism: that the world's wealth was limited and that a state needed to increase its overall share at the expense of others. There was tremendous emphasis on domestic trade growth and particularly the need of overseas colonies to benefit the mother land by supplying raw goods necessary for production. In the eighteenth century, however, physiocrats in France countered with the argument that government intervention in the market, as with regulation of certain trades, was actually detrimental because it decreased competition in the marketplace. They argued that the market was more like an organic entity; it was complex and interdependent on other systems in the world. Like the natural world, it would operate by natural laws. Their approach to laissez-faire economics put the emphasis on the individual, rather than the state. This was a radical change in thinking, which opened the door for individual prosperity rather than benefits directed to the state or the individual ruler.