Before the New World was founded, Europe was bankrupt from the religious wars that had been fought between the Protestants and the Catholics, and needed a way to fund both political and religious undertakings. Looking internationally, Europe began to trade with the New World, bringing both wealth and a new economical structure with them, Mercantilism. With this new technique of trade, Europe expanded and ascended. Asian societies did not know of this type of economy and kept their economies autonomous. Mercantilism was the main reason for the ascension of European society, funneling money from the New World into monopolies, while Asian societies concentrated on autonomous economies, leaving them to stagnate and left to their own fates.
    Before Europe had begun to invest in the wealth of the New World, they had problems dealing with religious wars between the Protestants and the Catholics. This fighting left Europe in great debt and left them to look for a new economic strategy. They traveled across the Atlantic on boats and discovered “The New World” as a place of wonder and wealth. Once the New World had been found by the Europeans though, they needed a way to get the wealth from the New World, to Europe. Hence, the idea of mercantilism was born. Mercantilism described a system in which “the world’s wealth was fixed and that one country’s wealth came at the expense of other countries,”. The Europeans then shipped more wealth over to the “mother country” to allow trade surpluses and royal treasury stocks to turn into monopolies. Thus, mercantilism was based on international trade and the merchants who ran the trade, because to gain wealth for your country, another’s wealth had to decrease. This made domestic trade less crucial, and “linked merchants and political rulers together,”. This international trade linked Europe to the world, and allowed them to manifest and grow beyond their borders. Despite the knowledge of mercantilism though, the Asian societies were determined to keep to their traditions and keep using autonomous economies, keeping them from ascending like the Europeans.
    While Europe and the rest of the world had begun to take on mercantilism as the center of economic ideas, Asian societies such as the Ottomans, Safavid, Mughals, and Ming failed to see the benefits of this new system. They instead kept the autonomous economies that they had already, leaving their economics to domestic terms. These domesticated economies “failed to expand, participate, and integrate in the dynamic system of mercantilism. They all fail to create and maintain this system. The governments are the reason for not allowing these systems to work,”. Because, while other countries are modifying and changing their ways of trade to further benefit them, these Asian societies keep their domestic economies, which means they can never ascend to anything greater, they can only stagnate or crumble.
    The Ottoman Empire started losing money when it started to lose battles and wars, which were its main source of income. Since they weren’t making money on the wars, they started to lose money trying to fund more wars. Without funding and with their economy being autonomous, the Ottomans were beginning to lose ground. With no international trade to bring in imports and exports, the Ottomans wealth could never grow. Black market trade started to grow in size and “merchants sidestepped imperial regulations,” to try to fund themselves. This led “to a shortfall in money to pay administrative and military expenses,”. With inflation, revolts, and needed wealth, the Ottoman Empire declined and was never to be the same again.
    Even though the Ming/Qing Empire was strong, it could not overcome the difficulties of its autonomous economy like the Ottomans, but for the Ming, it led to their demise and for the Manchus, they would never grow and prosper. The Ming dynasty relied on the usage of silver from the the New World and Japan to pay for Chinese goods. The Ming’s silver imports, “contributed at least eight times more bullion to China’s domestic stock of money,” which caused great problems before their empire was brought down and taken over by the Manchus making the Qing Dynasty. This dynasty, while improving many trading techniques such as putting in place the “Canton” trade system, and conveying legitimacy in their rulers, did not improve on their economical system. They too believed that an autonomous economy was perfect for the Qing. They thought that, “trading with the outside world was marginal to the overall commercial life of the Qing era,”. With the idea of mercantilism and the changing world economy, the Qing was in its own bubble of time moving at a different pace than the rest of the world. So while both the Ottomans and the Qing were gradually declining or stagnating, Europe thanks to mercantilism was flourishing because of the power of international trade.