The Woolen-Goods Industry of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Eighteenth Century

In the eighteenth century, industry, though still a minor factor in the total economy of the Habsburg monarchy—over 80 per cent of the people lived on the land—was the object of special attention from statesmen and theorists. To them industry connoted progress and showed great promise of being the handmaiden to the evolving power of the modern state. The great teacher in this respect was Colbert, and since the late seventeenth century the rulers of the Habsburg monarchy, as those of other states, had at least paid lip service to his ideas. The static nature of society, however, all too often prevented them from putting Colbert's mercantilist principles into practice.