Neo-Mercantilism: An Intellectually Promiscuous Ideology?
An interview with Prof. Eric Helleiner on the global and intellectual roots of economic statecraft and national power
Eric Helleiner: Your questions were among the most thoughtful I have received. Thank you.
Mateus: Although you maintain your own distinct voice throughout the book, you cite a vast array of works. For me, this is incredibly exciting because it provides a roadmap to seek out these primary sources, which is highly stimulating. Thank you, Eric, for joining us. Today, we are going to discuss your book, The Neo-Mercantilist: A Global Intellectual History, published by Cornell University Press.
But before we dive into the book’s core arguments, I would love to hear a bit more about your methodology. Eleven years ago, David Armitage published what is now recognized as a seminal article on the international—or rather, the global—turn within intellectual history. He opens with a quote from Pierre Bourdieu: “We often believe that our intellectual life is spontaneously international, and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Both of your recent books attempt to reclaim a disciplinary history that is far more provincial than is generally acknowledged. In doing so, you indirectly expand our understanding beyond the central “great authors” or “great books”—the economists, historians, or political philosophers we typically rely on as the sole foundation for our concepts of the international economy and statecraft. Could you walk us through the practical challenges of expanding our historical purview in such a global project?
Eric Helleiner: I would be happy to. First, let me thank you for the invitation and for your deep interest in my work. It is a pleasure to discuss this subject with you. Your question about methodology is interesting because I am a political scientist by training. I have always felt like a bit of an interloper when working on history—even though many of my collaborators are historians—since I was not formally trained in the discipline, let alone in global intellectual history.
Consequently, my method is heavily informed by my political science background. In this particular case, the driving force behind the project was a deep frustration with my own field’s parochialism. The way political science told its own history was extremely Western-centric, or more specifically, Eurocentric. Having taught for over three decades, I was always waiting for someone to write a history of the field that looked beyond Marx, Keynes, Adam Smith, and Friedrich List to explore how thinkers in the rest of the world approached the politics of the global economy.
That was the catalyst for the project. However, addressing your specific question about method: I encountered several practical challenges. The most immediate was the language barrier, an obstacle that faces anyone attempting to work within a truly global frame. Compounding this was a lack of specialist knowledge regarding many of the specific countries and regions I wished to explore.
To overcome these hurdles, my primary strategy was to partner with scholars who possessed the linguistic skills and regional expertise that I lacked. For instance, I collaborated with a Korean scholar who could interpret late-19th-century Korean texts with a nuance I could never achieve. I also worked closely with one of my own PhD students, an American, whose knowledge of Spanish texts and Latin American intellectual history proved invaluable. Furthermore, I partnered with a specialist in Chinese history and political economy. Recognizing that I could not undertake this monumental task alone and actively seeking expert collaboration became a cornerstone of my methodology.
Beyond collaboration, the method required absolute immersion in the literature. I delved into intellectual, economic, and political histories, familiarizing myself with the secondary literature to understand established narratives and references. From there, I went to the original texts as often as possible. I am a staunch advocate for reading primary sources. It is not necessarily that secondary literature misinterprets these works, but rather that subsequent authors might overlook elements that are crucial to your own specific research questions.
In this pursuit of original texts, I benefited immensely from the labor of others. Countless scholars working in global history have translated vital works that would have otherwise remained inaccessible to me. I am enormously grateful for their efforts. For example, Fukuzawa Yukichi’s famous Japanese texts are now available in English, and a new translation of Zheng Guanying’s influential 1890s work was recently published. Realistically, I could not have written this book twenty years ago. The fantastic translation work historians have done allows outsiders to the discipline, like myself, to access these global perspectives.
In short, executing this kind of global history is incredibly difficult and exceptionally time-consuming. It requires reading vast amounts of secondary literature, rigorously pursuing original texts, and painstakingly tracing international connections. All told, this project took me seven or eight years to complete.
Mateus: That extensive timeframe certainly accounts for the remarkable nuance of your claims. One aspect I deeply appreciated was how you deliberately complexified your arguments. Whenever you made a broad claim, you grounded it by returning to the primary text, cautioning the reader against drawing rash conclusions by highlighting the author’s caveats or specific contextual framing. This careful reading was evident not only with the central figures but throughout the entire work.
While reading, I constantly wondered how a single scholar could possess the linguistic breadth to pursue such a project. But upon reaching the acknowledgments, the sheer number of collaborating scholars made it clear that the project’s methodology was as global as its subject matter. That is fantastic.
Eric Helleiner: Indeed. Additionally, I deliberately presented my findings at various institutions to solicit critical feedback. I would outline my thesis and essentially say, “Here is what I think; please tell me why I am wrong.” Those sessions provided extraordinarily valuable critiques that further refined the book.
Mateus: That is a wonderful approach. Moving to the core concepts: when discussing the global intellectual history behind the rise of neo-mercantilist ideology, how were you able to trace the dissemination of these ideas? Furthermore, how did you evaluate the transformations they underwent as they were reappropriated in new contexts? To ground this discussion, could you start by introducing your definition of neo-mercantilism?
Eric Helleiner: I am glad you asked because this is a crucial starting point. The term “mercantilism,” and by extension “neo-mercantilism,” has been deployed in countless ways. It is a highly controversial and heavily politicized term; within my own field, it is frequently used as a mere rhetorical pejorative. For a long time, I actually steered clear of the word, unsure if it was the right framing. Eventually, I realized its widespread usage made it a valuable concept, and I hoped my work might help lend it some much-needed analytical clarity. I also chose to use it because many of the thinkers I studied were consciously building upon older mercantilist traditions.
I define neo-mercantilism primarily as a belief in strategic trade protectionism. I must emphasize “strategic”—these thinkers did not advocate for autarky. They were certainly fierce critics of free trade, but their goal was to use protectionism surgically to cultivate specific domestic sectors, usually industry, during the periods I examined. However, protectionism is only the first component. The ideology also encompasses various other forms of government economic activism, such as establishing state-owned enterprises or implementing controls on foreign investment.
Crucially, the ultimate objective behind this strategic protectionism and state activism is the promotion of state power and wealth. This sets them apart from other ideologies. Neo-mercantilists view power and wealth at the state level as fundamentally interconnected and mutually reinforcing: a country cannot be truly wealthy if it is not powerful, and it cannot be powerful without wealth. Their orientation is deeply statist. Unlike classical liberals, who operate with an individual, market-driven, or globally integrated orientation, the neo-mercantilist’s primary unit of analysis is the state.
The final component of my definition is that this intellectual project occurs in the post-Smithian age. This means these thinkers were writing with a full awareness of Adam Smith’s devastating critique of traditional mercantilism. Pre-Smithian mercantilists did not actually call themselves mercantilists; Smith invented the concept of the “mercantile system” as a target for his own aggressive critiques. Therefore, to embrace a mercantilist framework after Adam Smith—whose work was globally influential—required a deliberate intellectual response. Neo-mercantilists acknowledge Smith’s critiques but maintain their belief that state intervention and protectionism remain essential for cultivating national prosperity. They are “neo”-mercantilists precisely because they are updating the ideology in the wake of classical political economy.
“I define neomercantilist ideology in the pre-1939 period as a belief in the need for strategic trade protectionism and other forms of government economic activism to promote state wealth and power in the post-Smithian age. [...] Both mercantilists and neomercantilists saw the wealth and power of a state as intricately interconnected; strengthening the power of a state would boost its wealth, and vice-versa.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 4
Returning to your question about dissemination: it is vital to recognize that this ideology is highly varied. Friedrich List, the German thinker who published his famous treatise in 1841, is undoubtedly the most famous figure associated with this tradition. However, the central premise of my book is that the neo-mercantilist landscape is populated by many other essential, yet overlooked, thinkers. For too long, the historical focus has rested exclusively on List.
If you are a Marxist, your origin point is Marx. If you are a classical liberal, you look to Smith. Today, those exploring neo-mercantilism instinctively default to List. I am trying to demonstrate that this ideology is much more complex, possessing multiple independent origins rather than a single intellectual genesis. List is a monumental figure, but he is far from the only one. The ideology shares a coherent core—a belief in state-led strategic protectionism and economic activism to foster power and wealth in a post-Smithian era—but its roots are thoroughly diverse.
“It is time to decenter List in the history of neomercantilist thought. The conventional wisdom that neomercantilism radiated outward from a single Listian core to the rest of the world is historically inaccurate. [...] As this book has shown, the ideology was a diverse, polycentric phenomenon with multiple endogenous roots that emerged across the globe in response to the pressures of global capitalism and free trade.
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 331
Mateus: Accordingly, your book traces both the endogenous emergence of this ideology in various parts of the world, as well as the international transmission of related ideas. You detail, for instance, List’s formative influences in the United States, as well as the later post-Listian currents that cited him globally. We will delve into those specifics shortly.
What initially fascinates me, however, is the broader backdrop of this intellectual dissemination: the history of globalization itself. Before discussing the thinkers in detail, what were the specific historical conditions that allowed these neo-mercantilist ideas to circulate internationally and, paradoxically, acquire a global perspective of their own?
As you noted, neo-mercantilism is not inherently autarkic; it is deeply concerned with the state’s position within an international system. Could you elaborate on the complex relationship between cosmopolitan commitments and nationalist elements within these policy frameworks? This is particularly relevant today, as neo-mercantilism is frequently equated with blunt nationalism—such as Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric. Yet, your research beautifully nuances this view, demonstrating that many historical neo-mercantilists maintained long-term visions that included profound social and cosmopolitan objectives.
Eric Helleiner: I deeply appreciate this point, as it is something I constantly emphasize to colleagues who reflexively associate neo-mercantilism solely with aggressive interstate conflict and war—treating it as the economic equivalent of structural realism in international relations. While it is certainly true that many neo-mercantilists embraced that combative approach, it paints an incomplete picture. As you astutely noted, many of these thinkers harbored remarkably cosmopolitan views alongside their nationalist sentiments.
This dual allegiance is not ahistorical. Just as a 19th-century liberal could simultaneously be a fervent nationalist and a committed internationalist, so too could the neo-mercantilist. To illustrate this starkly: the first serious proposal for an international trade organization—the conceptual ancestor of today’s WTO—did not originate from a liberal advocating for boundless global integration. It was proposed by Friedrich List in 1837 when he called for a World Trade Congress. Furthermore, the first rigorous conceptualization of an international development organization was put forward by Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese neo-mercantilist, in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
There are countless examples of neo-mercantilists who viewed their ideology as entirely compatible with international cooperation. Initially, I found this surprising, but upon deeper reflection, it makes perfect logical sense. A 19th-century classical liberal advocated for laissez-faire policies: dismantling barriers and allowing the frictionless flow of goods, services, and people. A neo-mercantilist, conversely, demanded state control and strategic protectionism, yet they still desired an integrated global economy. If multiple nations are actively intervening in their respective economies while engaging in international trade, sophisticated international cooperation becomes an absolute functional necessity to manage those complex state-to-state relations.
Therefore, their internationalism is a logical extension of their statism. This is a vital historical corrective when analyzing contemporary figures like Trump. Critics often assume that his neo-mercantilist leanings preclude any belief in international cooperation. Yet, the very tradition he draws upon contains a rich history of supporting—and indeed, pioneering—international cooperative frameworks that are foundational to our modern world order, such as structured trade organizations and international development initiatives.
I should also add that it is fascinating to observe how these historical thinkers actively perceived themselves as participants in a unified, international movement. We recognize this phenomenon in other ideologies: classical liberals established the Cobden Club in the 1860s to champion free trade globally—a precursor to the Mont Pelerin Society. Marxists, similarly, organized the First and Second Internationals and the Comintern. I was curious to find an equivalent formal body for neo-mercantilism. While no such institution existed, the thinkers themselves undoubtedly operated with an internationalist ethos.
List, despite his reputation as a staunch German nationalist, traveled extensively through France, Germany, and Eastern Europe, giving lectures and promoting neo-mercantilist policies far beyond his homeland. He even became an American citizen for a time, reflecting his highly cosmopolitan life. This pattern holds true for many other figures in this tradition; they viewed themselves as intellectual vanguardists leading a global movement. We see echoes of this today in figures like Steve Bannon, who attempt to forge a “nationalist international” by cultivating allied ideological movements across the United States, Brazil, and Europe. There is a clear 19th-century precedent for this kind of internationalized nationalism.
Mateus: That is a brilliant parallel. It is also fascinating to consider the financial modes of neo-mercantilism—such as controls on capital mobility—that you detail in the book. As a brief aside, my master’s research focused on inequality across Adam Smith’s entire body of work, and your points resonate deeply with a specific tension in his thought. In his 1766 lectures on jurisprudence, Smith lamented the absence of a global sovereign body capable of arbitrating matters of war, specifically concerning the warlike rivalries birthed by the “jealousy of trade”—the mercantilist drive to acquire wealth at the direct expense of neighboring nations.
Furthermore, at the end of The Wealth of Nations, while discussing the political obligations wealthy classes owe to small republics, Smith makes a profound, yet often misunderstood, joke. Referencing the Stoic ideal of being a “citizen of the world,” he notes with sad irony that the new cosmopolitan citizens were the merchant elite. Smith recognized the difficulty of taxing this class because their capital was highly mobile; they could shift their wealth across the globe without tethering themselves to any specific political community. He joked that they had become citizens of the world by virtue of not being true citizens anywhere.
Interestingly, this precise observation was weaponized by later 19th-century thinkers as a critique of absolute laissez-faire. They recognized that unfettered capital flows are not politically neutral; they fundamentally impact the sovereignty and social fabric of a polity. This demonstrates that a profound critique of liberal economics can actually emerge organically from an internal tension within classical liberal thought itself.
Eric Helleiner: That is an exceptionally important observation. By the mid-19th century, economic liberals like Richard Cobden were genuinely promoting a cosmopolitan identity. By the late 19th century, this evolved into movements like the push for Esperanto, where the standardization of language, money, and metrics was viewed as the architecture for a unified global community. The neo-mercantilists were deeply skeptical of this frictionless cosmopolitanism, yet, importantly, they harbored cosmopolitan commitments of their own.
To build on your point about Smith, it is worth noting that Friedrich List actually envisioned a global federation as his ultimate utopian ideal. While he argued for protectionism in the short term, his long-term theoretical horizon imagined a unified world.
“Despite his criticism of the ‘cosmopolitan’ sentiments of the Smithian school, List endorsed the long-term goal of a ‘union of whole human race’ or ‘confederation’ of all nations. [...] List depicted his neomercantilist advice as supporting this long-term goal. In his words, neomercantilist policies would help to prepare countries ‘for admission into the universal society of the future.’”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, pp. 76-77
We see a similar dynamic among East Asian neo-mercantilists. Emerging from a Confucian tradition, many were profoundly uncomfortable with the ruthless emphasis they were forced to place on state power and material wealth, which clashed with traditional Confucian virtues. To reconcile this, they argued that prioritizing national power was a harsh necessity for the present, but that ultimately, the world would integrate globally into a harmonious system where morality and virtue—not brute wealth and power—would dictate international relations. Therefore, the appeal to a broader, long-term cosmopolitan vision while remaining highly skeptical of contemporary liberal internationalism is a feature found in both Western and non-Western neo-mercantilist traditions.
Mateus: This is a fascinating nuance. Now, let us move to questions that directly introduce the core narrative of your book to a wider audience. As I mentioned, these transcripts will be translated into Portuguese to help disseminate this vital scholarship to Brazilian readers.
We just discussed Adam Smith and David Hume. In the 18th century, they represented a current of thought that viewed the “mercantile system” not merely as a set of economic logics, but as the manifestation of raison d’état within political economy—what J.G.A. Pocock famously identified in the British Isles as “Machiavellian political economy.” In his brilliant book Translating Empire, Sophus Reinert demonstrates how much of an outlier Hume and Smith truly were. They astutely recognized that modernity was defined by the intimate fusion of trade and political power, and that economic statecraft was vital for political survival. Yet, they fiercely opposed this reality, arguing that the rivalries stemming from the “jealousy of trade” were dragging nations away from the perpetual peace that doux commerce was theorized to bring.
As a Brazilian-trained economist, I know firsthand that Friedrich List is frequently taught in undergraduate programs strictly through a Keynesian or developmentalist lens. However, for the sake of our historical imagination, we must be cautious about anachronistically applying 20th-century economic paradigms to these foundational thinkers. Your book brilliantly contextualizes List by drawing attention to his transatlantic influences and distinct methodological approaches.
Could you reconstruct List’s core ideas? Where did they originate, how did he synthesize them, and what specific strain of neo-mercantilism did he come to represent? I am particularly intrigued by his lesser-known and more troubling assertions, such as his insistence that tropical nations were climatically unsuited for industrialization. How did climate theory so heavily infect his economic analysis?
Eric Helleiner: Those are excellent questions. Let me immediately address the concept of raison d’état. I emphasize in the book that this state-centric approach to economics is not exclusively a European tradition. In East Asia, for example, there is a deep-rooted Legalist tradition stretching back millennia that conceptualizes economics strictly in terms of state power. Similarly, the ancient South Asian text, the Arthashastra—often considered the world’s first treatise on political economy—shares this exact orientation. I once had a colleague suggest that the tradition I describe is simply the default state of human economic thought across centuries. While I think that is an overstatement, it is undeniably a dominant tradition in regions historically characterized by strong states and intense interstate conflict.
Returning to Friedrich List: he essentially builds upon this deep, state-centric tradition. His foundational premise is that the international arena is defined by perpetual conflict. He heavily criticizes classical liberals for naively assuming an underlying baseline of peace. If peace cannot be guaranteed, List argues, a nation must ensure its own power and wealth to survive. In the 1830s and 1840s, observing the unprecedented dominance of Great Britain, he concluded that industrialization was the ultimate engine of that power.
List argued that other nations must emulate Britain’s industrial might. However, his most famous and innovative argument was a critique of British hypocrisy. He warned that Britain was advising other nations to industrialize via free trade, which he deemed a strategic deception. Britain, he pointed out, had not achieved its supremacy through free trade, but through centuries of aggressive protectionism and state activism. Only after achieving absolute industrial dominance did Britain pivot to free trade and demand others do the same. This is the origin of his famous metaphor: Britain had climbed to the top and was now “kicking away the ladder” so no one else could follow. Therefore, he argued, developing nations must ignore British rhetoric and copy actual British history by utilizing strategic trade protectionism to incubate their domestic industries.
That is the core of his thesis, but as you rightly point out, there is a crucial, widely ignored caveat. List believed this strategy was only applicable to a select few states—primarily the German states, France, and the United States. He explicitly argued that regions he termed “torrid” or tropical should never attempt to industrialize. Regarding a country like Canada, he suggested they were not yet “civilized” enough but might eventually graduate to industrialization. However, for tropical nations, he prescribed a permanent role as agricultural commodity exporters.
His rationale, as you noted, was rooted in a highly deterministic climactic theory of political economy. He genuinely believed that populations in tropical zones were intellectually and culturally unsuited for industrial labor. He offered pseudoscientific explanations, suggesting that harsh winters force populations to plan ahead, thereby embedding a culture of industriousness absent in warmer climates. Ultimately, this theory served as a thinly veiled justification for profound Eurocentrism and imperialism. List explicitly argued that regions like Asia and South America should be colonized and forcibly subjected to European institutions, culture, and religion.
The profound historical irony is that List became enormously popular in the very regions he deemed fundamentally incapable of development. Anti-colonial and developmental thinkers in these “tropical” regions eagerly adopted his critique of free trade but selectively ignored his blatant imperialist and racist caveats. In South America, a region he explicitly condemned to permanent agrarian status, his ideas became foundational.
While most ignored his climactic determinism, a few brilliant figures directly attacked it. My favorite example is M.G. Ranade, a late-19th-century Indian intellectual. Ranade found List’s critique of free trade highly applicable to India, whose domestic industries were being decimated by British colonial policy. Yet, he masterfully dismantled List’s climactic theory, pointing out the glaring historical contradiction: India possessed the most advanced cotton manufacturing industry in the world prior to colonization. How could a tropical region be inherently incapable of industry when it had historically been the global leader in textile production until the British systematically dismantled it? Although Ranade tactfully referred to “European theorists” rather than naming List directly, the intellectual target was unmistakable.
Mateus: And how did his transatlantic experiences shape these theories?
Eric Helleiner: His transatlantic experiences were absolutely foundational. List was exiled from the German states for political reasons, relocated to France, and eventually arrived in the United States in the 1820s. There, he immersed himself in a powerful protectionist intellectual circle centered in Pennsylvania. He quickly became a leading advocate for the American System, updating the Hamiltonian protectionist theories of the 1790s for the Jacksonian era. He became deeply embedded in these transatlantic intellectual circuits.
I argue in the book that List is best understood as a highly creative synthesizer of multiple traditions. He drew upon the administrative focus of German Cameralism, the protectionist legacy of post-Napoleonic France, and the vibrant Hamiltonian tradition of the United States. He wove these distinct strands into a unified, coherent theory of national development, deliberately speaking to audiences across all these regions. He was a highly cosmopolitan intellectual, despite the glaring exception of his imperialist views regarding the Global South.
Mateus: This synthesis is fascinating. Moving forward chronologically, we observe that as our concepts of statecraft and institutions drastically evolved from the 18th century onward, so too did the application of these ideas. We transitioned from a highly diverse world composed of various overlapping sovereignties and sprawling empires into a modern international system strictly defined by the nation-state.
You touched upon how many neo-mercantilists maintained a long-term view that encompassed global development, while others, like List, were content with a rigidly hierarchical, imperialist world order. Considering this profound historical shift toward the nation-state as the sole valid mode of sovereignty, how did this conceptual and institutional transformation alter the trajectory of neo-mercantilist thought?
This is particularly salient in regions like East and Southeast Asia, which historically contained a vast array of diverse, non-European modes of sovereignty. These regions experienced aggressive colonial state-building efforts, followed by fierce post-colonial independence movements, where political economy served as a primary tool for statecraft. Could you explain to our listeners how the evolving conception of the “nation-state” intersected with, and fundamentally changed, how non-European populations utilized political economy?
Eric Helleiner: That is a vital observation. When analyzing ancient traditions like Chinese Legalism, it is crucial to remember that they operated without any modern conception of the “nation”; their sole focus was the apparatus of the state. Therefore, we must be historically precise. We cannot cleanly argue that the rise of neo-mercantilism perfectly corresponds with the invention of nationalism, as some earlier mercantilists also exhibited proto-nationalist tendencies. I often encounter the argument that “neo-mercantilism is simply nationalist mercantilism,” but I reject that distinction.
Mateus: I understand your distinction. Your book details mercantilists who actively advocated for imperial frameworks rather than strict nation-states. Conversely, you highlight neo-mercantilists in the Global South who viewed economic policy as the primary mechanism for integrating a fragmented population into a cohesive nation. These are incredibly complex, interconnected dynamics.
Eric Helleiner: You have summarized it perfectly. The second dynamic you mentioned—using economics to forge the nation—is perhaps the most historically fascinating. Returning to China: the mid-19th century Self-Strengthening Movement faced an existential crisis without a modern concept of the nation-state. They drew upon deeply rooted Legalist statecraft traditions but innovated by concluding that true wealth and power required the total mobilization of the populace. Nationalism, therefore, was birthed as an instrumental tool to serve the mercantilist cause.
This instrumental view of the nation is heavily present in List’s work as well. He criticized classical liberals for focusing exclusively on immediate market exchange while ignoring what he termed the nation’s “productive power.” For List, productive power encompassed infrastructure, culture, civic institutions, and the collective mindset of the populace. A nation needed to recognize that immediate, individual market interests do not necessarily align with long-term, collective national security.
Nationalism was essential for List because cultivating productive power required immediate economic sacrifices—such as absorbing the short-term costs of tariffs—for the benefit of future generations. He beautifully compared it to planting a tree whose shade you will never sit in. Nationalism provided the temporal continuity required to justify long-term industrial investment. This dynamic is replicated globally. The late-Qing intellectual Zheng Guanying conceptualized international trade as “commercial warfare,” arguing that victory required the total mobilization of society, explicitly including the mobilization of women. In these contexts, the language of the nation was adopted specifically because it facilitated comprehensive, long-term economic warfare.
Mateus: This naturally brings us to the social dimensions of neo-mercantilism. As you establish, List did not pioneer the “social” iteration of neo-mercantilism that was later developed by thinkers like Gustav Schmoller in Germany. Could you elaborate on what distinguishes “social neo-mercantilism”? What happens when the focus shifts from merely increasing aggregate state capacity to prioritizing domestic class relations and the material conditions of the working class as central components of the neo-mercantilist project?
Eric Helleiner: This is an area I found deeply compelling. In contemporary political economy textbooks, Friedrich List is frequently—and correctly—juxtaposed against Karl Marx. However, these textbooks often draw a false binary, claiming that while Marxism is obsessed with domestic distribution, the neo-mercantilist tradition cares exclusively about aggregate national power and ignores domestic inequality. While this critique accurately describes List, it misrepresents the broader tradition.
Many prominent neo-mercantilists, including List’s ideological successors like Gustav Schmoller, were profoundly focused on domestic distribution. They opposed free trade not merely because it weakened the state internationally, but because it enriched specific domestic elites at the expense of the working masses. There is a robust class analysis embedded within this literature.
This is vividly apparent in the work of Henry Carey, the preeminent American neo-mercantilist. Carey vehemently attacked the power of the merchant class, arguing that free trade enriched financial traders while actively impoverishing farmers and industrial workers. This rhetoric is highly relevant today. When we analyze modern populists like Donald Trump, we see a distinct revival of this social neo-mercantilism—the marriage of border protectionism with a populist appeal to the working class against a purportedly parasitic globalist elite.
Does this focus on class make them Marxists? Absolutely not. For the social neo-mercantilist, the root of exploitation is British free trade policy; for the Marxist, the root is the capitalist mode of production itself. Thinkers like Schmoller were fundamentally conservative; they advocated for protective tariffs specifically to alleviate poverty and preempt socialist revolutions, thereby preserving domestic capitalism. While they were not Marxists, it is historically inaccurate to claim they were unconcerned with domestic distribution.
Mateus: That brings us perfectly to Henry Carey. Despite his historical significance, he is largely forgotten today; I admit I had never encountered his work before reading your book. You point out that he was viciously critiqued by his contemporaries—John Stuart Mill notably complained that Carey’s work was the most annoying book he had ever forced himself to read.
Could you introduce Carey and outline what made his vision so distinctive? It is particularly fascinating that, despite operating in circles familiar with Friedrich List, Carey remained largely uninterested in List’s writings and forged his own intellectual path.
Eric Helleiner: You should not feel bad about not knowing him; he is glaringly absent from almost all political economy textbooks. I possessed a passing familiarity with him through his influence on early ecological thought—thinkers connected to E.F. Schumacher occasionally referenced Carey’s pioneering work on soil erosion. However, it was not until I dove into his archives for this project that I realized the magnitude of my own field’s failure to appreciate his historical influence.
Let me make the case for why Henry Carey is essential reading. First, in the American context, he is the intellectual architect of the Republican Party’s protectionist tradition. Writing in the late 1840s, his ideas became foundational to the Republican platform in the 1850s. The entire lineage of American protectionism that figures like Trump invoke today traces directly back to Carey’s movement. If we wish to understand the historical DNA of modern American populism, we must read Henry Carey.
However, his global influence is arguably even more staggering. Historical orthodoxy dictates that Friedrich List inspired Bismarck’s famous 1879 protective tariffs. I demonstrate in the book, quite conclusively, that Carey was significantly more influential in Germany than List. Similarly, in Meiji Japan—the textbook example of successful state-led industrialization—Carey’s work arrived decades before List’s and was heavily utilized by Japanese officials.
When you consider the three greatest industrial success stories of the late 19th century—Germany, Japan, and the United States—Henry Carey was the dominant intellectual influence in all three. Yet, the academy has almost exclusively focused on List.
As to why Carey was forgotten, I believe you highlighted the primary reason: his prose is excruciatingly difficult. His magnum opus is a repetitive, dense three-volume treatise that took me three agonizing days to finish. Had the ideas not been so historically vital, I would have considered it a massive waste of time. Thankfully, in 1864, his work was brilliantly synthesized into a single, accessible volume.
Crucially, Carey did not write that synthesis. It was authored by his relative, Kate McKean, who stands as the only prominent female intellectual in the pre-1945 neo-mercantilist canon. I have recently finished reviewing her archives and am publishing an article on her work. She was an incredibly impressive scholar who bluntly told Carey his books were unreadable and took it upon herself to popularize his theories.
“McKean’s role highlights the fact that the neomercantilist tradition was not an entirely male preserve. She was not just a passive translator of Carey’s ideas; she actively shaped their presentation and dissemination for a wider audience, standing as a rare and significant female voice in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century political economy.”
Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 116
Returning to what made Carey unique: he championed a fiercely social, and even progressive, form of neo-mercantilism. Beyond his environmental concerns, he actively courted the emerging American women’s movement in the 1850s, arguing that protectionism was essential for achieving gender equality—a concept entirely absent in Hamilton or List.
“Carey’s critique of British free trade was distinctively ecological. He warned that the British system was not just economically exploitative but environmentally destructive, driving a global division of labor that literally extracted the natural fertility of the soil from the global periphery to feed the industrial core.”
Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 111
Most radically, he was a vehement anti-imperialist. He entirely rejected List’s Eurocentric climate theories. Carey argued passionately that nations like India, Brazil, and Jamaica had an absolute right—and the inherent capacity—to industrialize. He forcefully debunked European theorists who claimed India was inherently agrarian, reminding his readers that British imperialism, not natural law, had destroyed India’s historic industrial base.
“Carey critiqued Britain’s role in India — particularly its policies of free trade — for undermining local manufacturing and commerce, eroding dynamic and diversified village economies, exhausting local soils, and leaving Indians vulnerable to the power of distant traders, monopolies, and centralized power.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 195
While his progressive stances on gender, the environment, and imperialism sound radically left-wing today, his core economic vision was fiercely conservative. Karl Marx attacked Carey because Carey had no desire to dismantle capitalism. Carey envisioned a domestic utopia of small entrepreneurs, farmers, and unregulated local markets, shielded from the devastation of British free trade by massive, impenetrable tariff walls. It was a vision of radical border protectionism paired with domestic deregulation—a paradox that maps surprisingly well onto contemporary populist movements.
Mateus: Your insights perfectly anticipate a theme we will explore in tomorrow’s seminar regarding how colonial contexts fundamentally shifted the application and objectives of political economy. It is remarkable that an American thinker like Carey recognized that Europe possessed no exclusive, inherent claim to industrial development. This brings me to my final two questions regarding the book.
The first is somewhat broad. You detail the endogenous emergence of neo-mercantilist thought in diverse regions—Turkey, Japan, and China. Through your massive research effort, you also traced these localized theoretical developments in regions like Latin America. Since we cannot summarize every case study here, could you reflect on how this global enterprise fundamentally altered your own perspective on the history of political economy? Which of these non-Western intellectual traditions did you find most structurally unique, particularly in how they reimagined governmentality and statecraft beyond merely mimicking European models?
Eric Helleiner: I am thrilled you asked this, because discovering these endogenous traditions was the most transformative aspect of the project. I did not set out to prove a preconceived theory. In fact, if you read my work prior to 2015, you will find me repeating the conventional wisdom: that Meiji Japan imported Friedrich List and successfully applied his theories, creating a developmental model later copied by Korea, Taiwan, and Deng Xiaoping’s China.
That narrative is ubiquitous in our textbooks, and I now believe it is fundamentally incorrect. While East Asian intellectuals were eventually exposed to List—and, as noted, even more so to Carey—their developmentalism was largely endogenous. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japanese leaders drew primarily upon a sophisticated, localized political economy tradition known as Kokueki, which had flourished since the 1720s.
Prior to Western intervention, Japan was a highly commercialized, urbanized society fractured into hundreds of competing domains. Out of this fierce, localized economic competition, sophisticated mercantilist doctrines evolved organically. Domain leaders enacted policies to protect local industries, capture export markets, and amass specie. When Western powers violently forced Japan open, Japanese intellectuals did not need to learn protectionism from a German theorist. They simply took their deeply ingrained, domain-level mercantilism and scaled it up to the national level. When they finally read List, their reaction was essentially, “Of course, we have been doing this for a century.”
“Thus, by the time of the Meiji Restoration, Japanese thinkers were already drawing on rich intellectual traditions of local and Chinese mercantilism that were different from their European counterparts in both origins and content. These traditions provided a crucial foundation on which the Meiji leaders built.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 209
Furthermore, Japan was heavily influenced by Chinese intellectuals reacting to the Opium Wars. The Chinese “Self-Strengthening Movement” developed brilliant theories of state-led economic defense—what Zheng Guanying called “commercial warfare.” While these ideas failed to gain political traction in a fracturing China, they were widely read and highly influential in Meiji Japan. I found similar endogenous traditions of statecraft in Korea. So, when we analyze the post-1945 “East Asian Developmental State,” we must recognize that its roots lie not in Western textbooks, but in a deep, intra-regional circulation of indigenous economic thought.
Mateus: Thank you. Following directly from that: how does recognizing this global, endogenous richness fundamentally change our theoretical understanding of neo-mercantilist ideology? Furthermore, how does decentering European narratives equip us to better navigate the geopolitical and economic dilemmas of our current era?
Eric Helleiner: Beyond proving the endogenous origins of these ideas and decentering List, the research profoundly changed my view on how neo-mercantilism intersects with internationalism. As we transition back into a neo-mercantilist world order today, it is vital to remember that historical advocates of this ideology were not inherently hostile to international cooperation; indeed, they pioneered concepts of international development. We see this historically in Latin America, where structuralists like Raúl Prebisch seamlessly integrated import substitution industrialization with robust advocacy for international cooperative frameworks.
Additionally, it is crucial to understand that neo-mercantilism is entirely politically promiscuous. It belongs to neither the left nor the right. We see radical left-wing neo-mercantilists in 19th-century Bolivia and in the socialist framework of Sun Yat-sen. Simultaneously, there are countless reactionary, right-wing iterations. We are witnessing this exact ideological fluidity today, with both left and right populists globally embracing state-led economic nationalism.
“Sun Yat-sen’s vision demonstrates that neomercantilism could be seamlessly fused with socialist and anti-imperialist commitments. He sought state power and wealth not for conservative national aggrandizement, but to uplift the Chinese people, prevent the dominance of domestic capitalists, and foster a more equitable, cooperative international order.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 250
On a purely pragmatic level, we must study this history because it is dictating our present. Our textbooks utterly fail to explain the Careyite protectionist tradition that animates the modern American populist right. Similarly, when Xi Jinping explicitly cites Sun Yat-sen as an intellectual inspiration for China’s modern political economy, Western analysts are caught flat-footed because Sun Yat-sen is entirely absent from our curricula. In Latin America, regional integration and economic policies are still debated using the vernacular of historical figures like José Batlle y Ordóñez in Uruguay or Alejandro Bunge in Argentina. If we wish to understand the trajectory of global politics, we must understand the diverse intellectual histories that shape these national psychologies.
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“The history of neomercantilism is a reminder of the enduring power of economic nationalism, but it also reveals a tradition that was far more internationally engaged, intellectually diverse, and socially concerned than its critics have often acknowledged. It was an intellectually promiscuous ideology, capable of being married to almost any domestic political project.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 351
Mateus: That is a brilliant point. Recent historiography is beginning to uncover the depth of these non-Western traditions. Nicola Miller’s Republics of Knowledge, for instance, elegantly demonstrates that Latin American developmentalism was not a mid-20th-century reaction, but a deep-rooted, endogenous 19th-century critique of liberal political economy. These regional intellectual frameworks were structurally crucial in early attempts to theorize the unequal dynamics between the global center and its peripheries.
I was also fascinated by recent studies exploring statecraft in the Southern Cone. I recently learned of the profound influence the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle exerted over late-19th-century regimes in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. The idea that Latin American state-building relied heavily on Carlyle’s concept of the “heroic figure” to unify the nation and spur development was a revelation to me. It highlights how intellectual history illuminates the extraordinary agency of historical actors in the periphery. They did not passively absorb European ideas; they actively appropriated, hybridized, and deployed them to serve highly specific local political ends—sometimes fusing left-wing social aims with authoritarian, Carlylean aesthetics.
Eric Helleiner: May I interject quickly regarding your point about Latin America?
Mateus: Sure.
Eric Helleiner: It reminds me of a central argument from my 2014 book, Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods. I argued that Latin American delegations played a massive, yet severely under-recognized, role at the 1944 conference. Their primary contribution was forcing the Bretton Woods architects to formally commit to international development. As your comments highlight, that mid-century diplomatic success was the culmination of a deeply rooted Latin American developmentalist tradition that stretches all the way back to the mercantilist Bourbon Reforms in the 18th century. It infused the region’s 19th-century intellectual culture before finally achieving global institutional influence in 1944.
“The architects of the postwar international economic order were also interested in constructing a liberal multilateral order that could better accommodate neomercantilist ideas that had become prominent in less industrialized parts of the world. [...] many of the officials who participated in the Bretton Woods negotiations came from these less industrialized parts of the world and were often deeply committed to pursuing neomercantilist industrialization strategies after the war to boost the wealth and power of their states.”
— Eric Helleiner, 2021, p. 345
Mateus: That is a fantastic point. My own doctoral research focuses precisely on a forgotten cohort of Brazilian liberals following independence. They initially believed Brazil was destined to become a great liberal hegemony by breaking the Portuguese mercantile monopoly. When the Brazilian monarchy rapidly abandoned classical liberalism in favor of state consolidation, these early Smithian theorists felt profoundly betrayed. Exploring these aborted intellectual trajectories reveals how deeply embedded these debates over statecraft truly were in the region. There is currently incredible work being done tracing the 19th-century intellectual circulation between Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.
This brings me to my final question. My personal academic journey—transitioning from formal economics to political philosophy, and finally to intellectual history—was driven by a need to denaturalize the highly dogmatic way economics is generally taught today. As Mark Blaug noted decades ago, modern economics departments have largely abandoned the history of economic thought, dismissing it as antiquarian trivia or reducing it to a teleological history of analytical tools. Given your experience, what advice would you give to current economics students regarding the vital importance of studying their discipline’s intellectual history, particularly from a truly global perspective?
Eric Helleiner: You have articulated the core argument beautifully. The primary value of intellectual history for economics students is the realization that the parameters of current economic orthodoxy are historically contingent. Studying history reveals a vast, rich spectrum of debate regarding economic organization that far exceeds the narrow methodological consensus of the present moment. Economic paradigms shift rapidly; policies deemed impossibly archaic a decade ago—like neo-mercantilism—can suddenly become the dominant global reality. A student equipped with historical knowledge is intellectually agile and prepared for these inevitable paradigm shifts.
Regarding the global dimension: it is a truism that we live in a deeply interconnected world. To navigate it, we must strive to understand the intellectual heritage of nations outside the Western core. While we may never perfectly translate the cultural nuances of distant political traditions, engaging seriously with the historical thinkers that shaped their current geopolitical strategies is indispensable. Those historical ideas leave powerful intellectual residues that dictate modern policy.
Finally, addressing the institutional shift you mentioned: when I was an undergraduate in the 1980s, completing an economics degree required mandatory coursework in both economic history and the history of economic thought. I studied under the renowned Sam Hollander. Today, those requirements have been virtually eradicated from economics departments globally. A massive interdisciplinary vacuum has opened up.
Because modern economics has retreated into pure mathematical abstraction, scholars in adjacent fields must fill the void. I wrote my recent book from within a political science department. In many universities, it is political scientists who are conducting the applied political economy that economists have abandoned. Similarly, scholars like yourself in history departments are taking up the mantle of the history of economic thought. By pursuing this work, you are providing a crucial service, preserving the historical and political dimensions of economic knowledge that the discipline of economics has unfortunately discarded. The work you are doing is vital.
Mateus: And so is yours, Eric. Thank you so much. To your point, it is fascinating that some of the greatest contemporary historians of economic thought operate outside economics departments. Ryan Walter, for example, is a professor working in the School of Political Science and International Studies in the University of Queensland, in Australia. But he is an Intellectual Historian of Economics. His book, A Critical History of the Economy, brilliantly dissects how the concept of the “international economy” was artificially severed from its foundational political context. It is imperative that students recognize the inherently political dimension of economic knowledge and begin demanding that these historical modules be returned to economics curricula. They are an indispensable component of a true economics training and education.