In particular, the increasing inequality of wealth among merchants could haveundermined political support for the system.
Today, we are likely through the phase of moving to complete international laws and reliance on "impartial' laws - but these have become partial (idealogocally captured) and so the rich once again aim to escape (they have the means) so they can once again be subject to impartial laws. Protests around UK/US bias in judgement is evident currently.
it motivated the invention andenabled the use of such financial instruments as letters of credit, letters of exchangeand insurance contracts that became widely used in Europe during that time.
Massive financial upside from trust in the system, built slowly over time to allow creative freedom to invent various favourable "futures".
Ironically, the system seems to have undermined itself; theprocesses it fostered were those that increased trade and urban growth—the causesof its decline.
"A system is what is does" Stafford Beer