"The only real objection here is that I am a firm believer in mercantilism and that there is a set amount of actual capital in the world."
ROFLMAO! That's a belief as real as the tooth fairy.
Ever hear of a guy named Adam Smith, who debunked that a mere 200 years ago?
"you can't deny that there have been very few times a nation has risen to economic power without bringing another nation down."
I deny it. What nation did US bring down in our 200 year rise?
Well let's see, shift in major areas of capital exchange from London to New York (then from New York to Tokyo and then back to New York again) Spain, though in that case we kind of helped it along militarily, and the general clusterfuck of the West's adventures in China during the 1800s are another fun example, though that really is more general US and European example and not exclusively U.S. Regional competition also comes to mind, say suffering of the cotton industry post-civil war, admittedly the North had already begun to industrialize- but if you consider the influx of blacks to Northern factories and the wayning effectiveness of sharecropping, well you get the picture.
lilliput