This created, at least in the northern states, a nation of shopkeepers and merchants born some 11 score ago. For this reason, the notion of a marketplace is central to nearly all aspects of American life. The market and its status has always been central to our analysis of how we are doing. This is not true of many other countries. Many other nations look to art, or religon, or sometimes just history as their raison d'etat.
Mercantilism is the heart of America, and among large nations, America alone.
The central aspect of a marketplace is not simply the exchange of goods for money. That has become our image of late, but it totally ignores a more fundamental aspect of the market, which is that it is an inherently public space. The possibly vulgar but certainly necessary commerce of a proper market occurs amid a central community gathering place, where gossip and ideas are exchanged, contracts are signed, and people get to just kick back and scope each other. Things have changed little since the Acropolis served the same functions. This notion of a market drives our economic descisions almost entirely.