ABSTRACT
Since Adam Smith 'favourable balance of trade' performs a key role in the formation of a specific mercantilist discourse. According to Smith, it served as the theoretical core of Mercantilism, as both a system of thought and practice. In 1930 Jacob Viner published his influential essay on trade theories before Smith. In this article, Viner supported Smith's basic thesis that the main fallacy of the mercantilists had been their identification of money and bullion with wealth. It can be stated firmly that very few English writers explicitly at least argued for the need to accumulate precious metals in order for the prince or state to have a financial reserve in liquid form. In fact, as also Viner noticed, there is hardly any mention at all of the king's treasure in the literature. This chapter discusses the different uses of the concept of a favourable balance of trade during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
