[This is part of the series: The Complete Guide To Economics 101.]

What is the law of increasing opportunity cost?

The Law Of Increasing Opportunity Cost says that one must give up larger and larger quantities of something, in order to get something else.

Vague, right?

Look at an example.

Take cotton. A nation decides it needs more cotton, ceteris paribus.

This means that land that was in the past not farmed will be now used to grow cotton.

At any rate, the cotton grown per acre will fall.

More and more land must be used to grow marginally decreasing amounts of cotton.

[This is part of the series: The Complete Guide To Economics 101.]

What is mercantilism?

Mercantilism is an economic system where the government endorses, protects, and assists, selected big businesses.

This is done to further the interests of the nation.

Many countries, knowingly or not, follow mercantilism in-part, or in whole.

The poster child of this sort of arrangement (a private company backed by public interest) is probably the East India Company, formed in London in 1600.