ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the mercantile Imperial System—the relationship of the American colonies to Great Britain—and its disintegration into two separate and mutually antagonistic systems. Structural degeneration is the outright disintegration of the System. But disintegration might also result from a policy of drift or any of the other dysfunctional elements in the System. During the course of the next two centuries they created new systems, called "empires," with new actors and rules of conduct. The mercantile Imperial System comprises two subsystems—a Dominant Subsystem on the one hand and one or more Dependent Subsystems on the other. The Dependent Subsystems are the colonies founded or otherwise acquired by the Metropolitan Country. The primary means to make the Dependent Subsystems actually dependent upon the Dominant Subsystem come under the heading of "mercantilism." Metropolitan countries have sought to use every and any means at their disposal to prevent the disintegration of their own imperial systems.
