There are loads of ways of measuring human development. Literacy, educational attainment, life expectancy, etc. Measuring the effectiveness of laws and institutions to promote development and wellbeing is harder (and often would need to be indirect via outcomes as proxies). Deciding what to value isn't necessarily easy, sure, at least in detail and taking into account specific circumstance. Nevertheless, all manner of principles of good development will remain consistent.
Capitalism, mercantilism, socialism, and communism are not the same. The first refers to the process of manufacturing from the means of production, the second to the idea of saving and selling, the third to a arange of regulations, and the fourth to abolition of private property or the formation of communes.
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Well, that's not really true. But they are certainly different ways of organising economic production, trade, etc.
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Why?
I mean, arguably, mercantilism doesn't exist any more - economics has long since overtaken it. You might argue it sort of exists in the sense of comparable forms of government intervention in the economy. Intervention is within the boundaries of conventional classical economics and capitalism, for both left-leaning (social democracy / social liberalism) and right-leaning (paternalistic conservative) governance.