Mercantilism
During the 17th and 18th centuries the emerging economic system of producers, traders, merchants and moneylenders challenged the old feudal system and began to replace the older institutions with new philosophies. These reflected vastly different attitudes toward natural laws, since they introduced the concept of one’s own inalienable right to pursue work and wealth as one saw it. Much of Charles Dickens’ work captures the turmoil of this age when even old Scrooge, the miserly representative of the right to acquire wealth in a usurious fashion, eventually realizes the equity of his clerk BobCratchit, and promotes him to partnership.