The way a society makes distributes and consumes goods and services

The way a society makes distributes and consumes goods and services would be its "economy," which is a general term for such a thing. Economies can take many different forms, from command to market to "mixed" and more. 

In the late fifteenth century, a major world power that established colonies in the era of old imperialism was france or germany or spain. their colonial activity was mainly limited to america or africa or asia.