However, the companies need it for mercantilism, to sell and get profit.
The French imagined a Europe that straddled mercantilism and social democracy, in which Brussels would sponsor industrial and infrastructure "grands projets" (Parisian Keynesians adore grands projets), arousing the jealousy of the Americans.
The proposed economics look like a version of 18th-century mercantilism: conquer a castle, set up your trading post there, exploit need and scarcity.
Smith and Hayek resorted to the idea of a spontaneous order not to argue against the necessity of government, but to argue against mercantilism and the micromanagement of the economy, and to remind us that the patterns of behaviour that arise from the rules we impose through legislation often fail to match our best-laid plans.
It reduced transaction costs, of course, but it also kept major economies from using their exchange rate as a weapon of mercantilism.
Amid all this raw mercantilism, is there a role for the artist?
Along with a crass mercantilism, this desire for self-insurance fuelled America's asset bubble and helped produce the conditions for today's bust.
At least so the argument goes, especially among radical types who are inclined to write off America's whole strategy in the region as one of mercantilism backed by bombs.In a similar spirit of stridency, Venezuela is now insisting on renegotiating the few remaining contracts with Western oil firms that it has not already overhauled.
There is no place in this mercantilism for imported consumer goods.
The problem is that the WTO is only a good thing to the extent that it succeeds in liberalising, rather than blocking, trade and that may soon be in doubt.The WTO and its predecessor were in truth a pact made with the devil, or, to be more precise, with the doctrine of mercantilism.
And some of the early mercantilists, like John Hales, were enchanted by the idea of an overflowing treasure chest.But Mr Grampp argues that, on the whole, we should stop confusing mercantilism and bullionism.
