ABSTRACT
Capitalism is a natural form of social behavior. It developed spontaneously and gradually over the long course of history until it reached a climax in the nineteenth century. Modern industrial capitalism developed during the nineteenth century as great manufacturing, mining, and steam-powered transportation brought enormous increases in wealth and provided the means for a vast increase in population. Fully capitalist economies were born "when capitalism combined with industrialism to create what is now the modern world". Mercantilism began to be transmuted into industrial capitalism late in the eighteenth century in England when a series of new production techniques resulted in increased production at lower cost enabling Britain to "take off" into sustained growth as the leading manufacturing nation of the world. Mercantilism comprised a new set of concepts, policies, and behavior based on a worldview brought about as a result of the Renaissance, the great voyages of discovery, the centralization of power in the state, and the Protestant Reformation.
