Colbertism

Colbertism is an economic and political doctrine of the seventeenth century, created by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French minister of finance under Louis XIV. Colbertism is a variant of mercantilism and is more a collection of economical practices than a true current of economic thought.

Colbert's central principle was that the wealth and the economy of France should serve the state. Drawing on the ideas of mercantilism, he believed state intervention was needed to secure the largest part of limited resources. To accumulate gold, a country always had to sell more goods abroad than it bought. Colbert sought to build a French economy that sold abroad and bought domestically.