In studying Mercantilism and Physiocracy retrospectively, scholars figure out that the point of mercantilism putting labor outside of wealth while physiocracy putting labor into wealth resulting from an oversimplification of the two. Mercantilism does not consider the equivalence of wealth and money as its whole theoretical basis, On the contrary, based on the application of economic policies, manufacturing and industry are regarded as wealth-creating activities, and the Mercantilist view of wealth contains subjective elements.Although Physiocracy puts labor into the vision of wealth, for it places land in the first place of wealth and thus combines agricultural labor with wealth, it was difficult to attribute the essence of wealth to labor and labor is merely the subject composition of wealth and dos not constitutes its subject essence. A clarification as such helps us to further update the basic judgment of traditional history of political economy and to completely understand them in the early and late phases of Marx,  and also helps us to understand the diversified characteristics of the subject in those times and its future development.

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  LiuTingting

　　From: Journal of Renmin University of China.2025.No.1.