Terribly Timely Tariffs

Mercantilism was an effective system for expanding state power and prosperity in early Modern Europe when three specific conditions existed: weak states, expensive trade, and zero-sum competition. These conditions combined to create a prisoner's dilemma where all nations engaging in mercantilism was both individually rational and mutually destructive. The significant changes in these three conditions in the late 18th to early 19th century removed the prisoner's dilemma, making it both individually and mutually rational to engage in a general policy of free trade.