ABSTRACT
Britain’s political good fortune was not fortuitous. It was the direct consequence of the domination of government and society by a landed aristocracy jealous of the Crown and with a stake in economic growth. If for the encouragement of industrial expansion a combination of internal freedom and external protectionlaissez-faire in the arms of mercantilism-was the best economic policy, then the seventeenth-century victory of the landowners over the Crown was a decisive step towards industrialism.
