c) would be the closest from what I know

The way I see it this Mercantilism much like capitalism is a system that finds its space between the cracks of established feudal social orders, but it finds this space because of a lack of technology on the part of the feudal ruler to effectively project their power across the same types of distances these merchant families could; whereas capitalism finds its toehold as the feudal social order starts to break down.

So I guess I would say they are parallels in-so-far as they both arose out of a (social? power?) vacuum left by the inefficiencies of the Feudal order, with those inefficiencies characterized by the differing historical circumstances of the two periods / geographic locations / loci of global power at the time (Mediterranean vs. North Seas)