For the Masses, by the Masses

Abstract

This chapter describes the economic policy that the Royal Society of Arts has operated in since its founding in 1754. It describes the mercantilist operations of the Society in which they assumed that the most important matter in an economy was the amount of gold and silver it was able to obtain from its rivals. It also recounts how the Society encouraged industries to replace foreign imports and rewarded improvements that boosted exports, emphasizing that the more exports a country sold, the more gold and silver it acquired. The chapter looks into criticisms of the system of monopolies in the eighteenth century, arguing that monopolies allowed a handful of merchants to raise prices for consumers. It explains how the Society had tried to undercut the monopolists of domestic industries when it came to London's fishmongers or country millers.