arisbe

To what extent do you suppose Juan de Mariana's thinking was a reaction to what he observed in the economic dynamics between Spain and her New World colonies? This issue is touched on briefly in the essay, but I suspect that ideas from any schools of thought in Europe opposed to imperial exploitation of the colonies must have made their way across the Atlantic... which leads me to speculate that perhaps these ideas were even more influential on the nation's founders than might have otherwise been supposed.