Totally agree with
@TheMichaelEvery ! I think the term mercantilism was thrown about in such a way that it went over the heads of most people for a long time. And to be honest, I myself didn't grok the full implications until I properly studied
@michaelxpettis and
@M_C_Kleinbook 's book, Trade Wars are Class Wars.
For those who haven't read it, their argument is that modern mercantilism is not primarily about imposing tariffs or accumulating gold. Instead, it is about structuring an economy so that it consistently produces more than it consumes, forcing the excess production to be absorbed by other countries through trade surpluses.
Alas, this is the way of generational social knowledge. A handful of very smart people know all of these very smart things. The vast majority of us don't. We learn about them when we have to confront their consequences through lived experience. Notably, when the implications of not enough of us knowing about them begin to impact our lives negatively.
We then learn about them quickly. The resulting lessons go on to influence our collective consciousness and social-political preferences until the next generation of ignorants ascends to influence and power. And so on and so on.
The problem is: time and time again, the very smart people we assign the job of remembering these things (so that we don't repeat the same mistakes again) don't do a good job of communicating what they mean early enough. Other times, it's because they're so focused on understanding the past, they miss the modern-day fundamentals that make their historical knowledge relevant again.
I doubt very much that most people who have working jobs, even those who work in finance, know what mercantilism means.