在现代早期，随着现代商业社会的浮现和逐渐成形，人们对于商业这种新型生产生活样式有了全新认知，并以"康小姐"的隐喻将这种认知固化下来。它寓指商业任性善妒、迁变无常的特性，尤其是指工商业资本所具有的全球流动性，以及这种无常性和全球流动性对于现代国家治理所提出的前所未有的挑战。而正是在应对"康小姐"所提出的严峻挑战过程中，作为一种新型知识样式和国家治理话语的政治经济学得以兴起。在其中，像荷兰、英国等新兴商业国家引人注目的崛起的原因得到了深入探讨，而商业与自由的关系也得到了系统的梳理和阐释。

The "commercial society" emerged and developed gradually in the early modern age. It was in the context that people had updated their understanding of commerce as a new mode of production along with a new life style. It was best captured and implied by the metaphor of "Lady Commerce". Being capricious, jealous and unpredictable, the nature of commerce lies in its direct association with the metaphor, especially in terms of the global liquidity of industrial and commercial capital, as well as the unprecedented challenges posed by "capriciousness" and "global liquidity" to the governance of modern states. It is in tackling the grave challenges brought by "Lady Commerce" that political economics has taken shape as a fresh pattern of knowledge and discourse of state governance. Emerging economies like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have come to the forefront and the reasons for their rise and shine are discussed in depth, while the relationship between commerce and liberty has also been systematically examined.