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Mercantilism suggested that a country's goverment should play an active role in the economy by urging more exports than imports, especially through the use of tariffs. A nations wealth, when it comes to mercantilism lays in its gold and silver amounts. Many physiocrats of the time opposed mercantilism because they saw it as exploition of business. The government collected substantial fees from guilds, and other groups. Therefore using them for their own profit. The government …

…activity and encouraged the improvement of cultivation. Because they considered land to be the sole source of wealth, they urged the adoption of a tax on land as the only economically justifiable tax. <Tab/>So essentially "Laissez-faire" and mercantilist are completely opposite in the sense that mercantilism is for the government, for restriction and monarchial control, and Laissez-faire is for the individual, the consumer, the masses, the good of the country.