LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OP
CALIFORNIA
IRVINE
T?
r .
BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH AND SOURCE WORKS SERIES No. 43
THE
CAMERALISTS
THE
CAMERALISTS
THE PIONEERS OF GERMAN
SOCIAL POLITY
BT
ALBION W. SMALL
BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH AND SOURCE WORKS SERIES No. 43
BURT FRANKLIN
New York 25, N.Y.
Published by
BURT FRANKLIN
514 West 113th Street
New York 25, N. Y.
First Published
Chicago 1909
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PACE
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM ....... i
II. THE Civics OF OSSE 21
III. THE Civics OF OBRECHT 4
IV. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF .... 60
V. THE CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 107
VI. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 135
VII. THE CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD 175
VIII. THE CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 185
DC. THE CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER ....:. 206
X. THE CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 222
XI. THE CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 232
XII. THE CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 267
XIII. THE CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 285
XIV. THE ARGUMENT OF JUSTI'S " STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 315
XV. JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 394
XVI. JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 43^
XVII. JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES .... 459
XVIII. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS "INTRODUC-
TION" 48:
XIX. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS "POLICE Y" 505
XX. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS "HAND-
LUNG" 525
XXI. THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS "HAND-
LUNG UNO FINANZ' 542
XXII. SUMMARY 586
INDEX 597
PREPACK
Like its predecessor in this series, Adam S;w//// and Modern
Sociology, the present book is a mere fragment. It deals with
a single factor of the social process in the German States. It
finds this factor already effective in 1555. It does not attempt
to trace each link in the chain of continuity from that date.
It reviews the most important seventeenth-century writers in
the line of sequence, but the emphasis of the book falls in the
eighteenth century. I have carefully excluded the problem of
relations between this literary factor and other social elements,
and I have purposely refrained from estimating its ratio of
importance among the formative forces of the period. Con-
clusions of that order must come from a larger synthesis, for
which the present study supplies merely a detail.
To justify my belief that the labor which this book cost
was well spent, it would be necessary to prove first, that Amer-
icans have much to gain from better understanding of the
Germans; and second, that just appreciation of the present
social system of the Germans is impossible for Americans unless
they are willing to trace it historically. These propositions
must be left, however, without the support of argument, merely
as the author's profession of faith.
To readers of English only, cameralism is virtually a lost
chapter in the history of the social sciences. Although every-
thing now belonging to German polity has a part of its heredity
in that type of social theory, not every reputable student of
the social sciences in America could correctly define the term,
and few could name more than one or two writers to whom
it is properly applied.
In a word, the cameralists were a series of German writers,
from the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth
vii
viil THE CAMERALISTS
century, who approached civic problems from a common view-
point, who proposed the same central question, and who devel-
oped a coherent civic theory, corresponding with the German
system of administration at the same time in course of evolution.
To the cameralists the central problem of science was the
problem of the state. To them the object of all social theory
was to show how the welfare of the state might be secured.
They saw in the welfare of the state the source of all other
welfare. Their key to the welfare of the state was revenue
to supply the needs of the state. Their whole social theory
radiated from the central task of furnishing the state with
ready means.
For reasons to be mentioned later, allusions to the cameral-
ists in English books, whether original or translated, are more
frequent among the economists than elsewhere. If, however,
we consult the two handbooks of the history of economic theory
in most frequent use by students in this country, we find that
they barely allude to cameralism, and their historical perspec-
tive would be clearer if they did not mention the subject at
all. In the second edition of Cossa, 1 Klock, Becher, Hornigk
(sic), and Schroder are disposed of in a paragraph of about
seventy words, and another paragraph two lines longer, in
the chapter on the physiocrats (!), mentions the "Chamber Sci-
ences," as represented by Justi and Sonnenfels only. The third
edition of the same book, or the volume which took the place
of a third edition, translated under the title An Introduction
to the Study of Political Economy, mentions the same three
Austrians, and adds a couple of lines on Seckendorff in the
section on "Industrial Freedom;" it mentions Gasser, Dithmar,
and Darjes in the section on "Professional Chairs, Newspapers,
and Academies;" it gives a paragraph each to Justi and Son-
1 Translated under the supervision of Jevons, with the title, Guide
to the Study of Political Economy; original first edition, 1876, second,
1878, translation, 1880.
PREFACE ix
nenfels, in the section entitled "Bureaucratic and Professorial
Eclecticism;" and then, after a few statements thirty-four
pages later, about the "German Physiocrats," it for the first
time finds its bearings among German thinkers with Rau, who
began to write a generation after cameralism in the strict sense
had passed its prime. Ingram evidently abstracted from
Roscher, by some principle of selection which does not appear,
a dozen names of German "mercantilists" of the cameralistic
period. The summary way in which he disposes of them
shows that he had no first-hand knowledge of these writers, and
that he utterly misapprehended their place in the history of
German thought. If one were so fortunate as to learn the
names of the cameralists, and turned to Palgrave for more
information, little would be found beyond repetition of scraps
gathered from Roscher; and these so disconnected that
they would hardly pique curiosity to pry farther. All the
other English aids to knowledge of cameralism are so scattered
that an adequate introduction to the subject by means of them
would be out of the question.
During the last generation, American readers of German
appear to have relied, as a rule, for information about early
phases of German economic thought, chiefly upon two writers,
Kautz 1 and Roscher. 2
Of Kautz it is enough to say that he was of the rear guard
of the rhetoricians. His book is wonderfully plausible if not
lucid reading. Its early pages appear to express method <
logical conclusions which the maturest scholarship has not
superseded. Unfortunately, the author's own procedure, as
it appears in the body of the book, shows that for him these
1 Julius Kautz, Die geschichtliche Entwickelung der National-
Oekonomik und ihrer Literatur, Wien, 1860.
3 Wilhelm Roscher, Geschichte der National-Oekonomik in Deutsch-
land, Miinchen, 1874. In the following pages, if nothing appears to
the contrary, this work is referred to whenever the author's name is used.
x THE CAMERALISTS
imposing propositions had merely the force of impotent general-
ities. His actual method is first, derivation, by some occult
means, of certain general principles under which to subsume
the economists of the period; then, second, use of the writers
of the period as so many illustrations of the principles. When
projected upon this vicious circle, the course of thought in
successive stages falls into alluring symmetry. A little inquiry
into the facts, however, shows that these pleasing constructions
are mainly fictitious.
For example, Kautz locates the second of his three great
divisions of economic ideas "between the end of the Middle
Ages and Adam Smith." This second period he interprets
as that of independent investigation, "in which the national-
economic ideas and principles were no longer mixed and com-
bined with the political, legal, and religious systems of theory,
but were presented as a totality of peculiar special cognitions." 1
The truth of this generalization depends upon the standard
used for measurement of relative bondage to conventionality
and independence of it. Compared with the age of the school-
men the period from Martin Luther to Adam Smith was of
course intellectually free. On the other hand, if contempo-
raries of Kautz had gone back to the economic and political
theorists of the intermediate period, with no preparation but
nineteenth-century ideas, they would have been amazed at
the degree in which social thinking of all sorts was paralyzed
by dogmatic prepossessions. Even if Kautz's generalization
had been qualified in a way to make it valid, use of it as a
premise from which to deduce interpretation of the economic
theories of the period was like finding a sufficient explanation
of the course of American experience since 1776 in terms of
the mere negative condition of independence from England.
Anyone who can have patience with discursive essays upon
long-distance impressions of the development of economic
* Loc. cit., p. 25.
PREPACK XI
theory would find Kautz impressive. As a guide to critical
study of the actual process he is impossible.
Whatever our estimate, on the other hand, of the "histori-
cal school," and of Roscher's contributions to economic theory,
there can be no doubt about the value of his services to economic
history. The volume cited above, on the history of economic
theory in Germany, has served as an almost unchallenged
authority on the subject for a generation. Those who have
had most occasion to work in the field which this book surveys
will be most sincere in their gratitude to the author. The
present volume could surely not have been written if Roscher
had not blazed the way.
Nevertheless, the farther I went in the studies which this
book reports, the more my wonder grew that German scholar-
ship had not yet produced a work which would be as evident
an advance upon Roscher as he was upon Kautz. For obvious
reasons such a book must be written in Germany. At the
same time, comparison of the perspective of foreign scholars
may be worth something as an aid in establishing the viewpoint
from which the evolution of German social theories should be
reconsidered.
It is approximately true that knowledge of the cameralists
as a group has remained as it was left by Roscher. The most
general thesis of the present work is that the cameralists have
not yet come to their own in the assignment of historical values.
In other words, while acknowledging my debt to Roscher, I
find it necessary to impeach his authority.
In the first place, Roscher was essentially a collector, not an
interpreter. Yet, although his chief merit was as an assembler
of details, I have still been surprised at the number of times
in which I have found him apparently in error about matters
of fact. It was not my affair to find out whether these slips
were more his fault or his misfortune. At his time the evi-
dence which would have corrected the errors of detail may
xii THE CAMERALISTS
not have l>een accessil>le. At all events, the writers in Die
allgemeine deutsche Biographic almost invariably justify more
or less important modifications in Roscher's accounts of the
individual careers of the cameralists. My own study of these
writers has t>een confined to their books. For such biographical
introduction as was necessary I have relied throughout, unless
exception is noted, upon the work just named, whenever it
differed from Rose her.
But the chief issue with Roscher is much more radical.
For a generation the world's interpretation of the cameralists
has virtually been stereotyped in the form which he cast. The
more sj>ecific thesis of the present work is that his version of
the cameralists utterly misses their real meaning. It is a blur
produced by a combination of methodological fallacy and
historical nearsightedness. German scholars alone are within
reach of the means fully to reconstruct the history if the thesis
is sustained. I hope I am right, however, that the very dis-
tance from the bulk of the sources, which compels attention
to the main movement of thought, confers a distinct advantage
in making out the larger meanings of the body of literature in
question.
In order to justify this challenge of venerable tradition,
account must be taken of the immc-f liate antecedents of Roscher's
b(X)k. In 1858 Leopold Ranke submitted to the Bavarian
Royal Academy of Sciences a plan for a series of twenty-four
volumes on the history of the sciences in Germany. The sub-
jects of those volumes in the series which are most intimately
related to the present issue are: (i) Gesrhichte; (2) Kriegs-
ivisaensrhaft; (3) Jurisprudenz; (4) Allgemeincs Staatsredit
und I'olitik; (5) Nationalokonomie und kanieralistisrhe I-tit her;
(()) /^andunrthsrha/tslehre. For the convenience of the writers
available, and for facility of popular exposition, these subdivi-
sions were doubtless more suitable than any others that might
have been proposed. As a programme for critical resean h.
PREFACE xin
however, the standards of today being the criterion, that divi-
sion of labor surrendered the work in advance to preconception
and misconstruction. A precisely analogous fallacy would
be involved in a scheme today to parcel out among different
scholars, in accordance with present national boundaries, an
analysis of the political conditions of Europe at the time of
Charlemagne. The political map of Europe in the ninth
century was not as it is today, and analysis based on the con-
trary assumption would deserve rejection without a hearing.
But the inchoate social sciences, from the middle of the sixteenth
century to the end of the eighteenth, were no more homogeneous
and coterminous with scientific categories at the middle of the
nineteenth century than national frontiers of the ninth century
retain their places in the twentieth. In other words, the
Bavarian Academy did not undertake to find the centers in
the past from which the evolution of the social sciences could
be traced step by step and process by process. On the con-
trary, it sponsored a plan which called for a conventionalizing
of previous centuries in terms of nineteenth-century classifica-
tion. This scheme ruthlessly inverted the rule which had
been the first great historiographical commandment with
promise since Savigny and Niebuhr.
The result was a conspicuous vindication of the violated
principle. The sort of analysis which the present volume
reports very early unearths the fact that the conventional divi-
sion of labor in the series threw the data out of their relations
and retarded discovery of their meaning. In particular it
assigned the cameralists to Roscher, 1 while it estopped analysis
of them at their proper center within the scope of Bluntschli. *
Using the terms in the sense in which they are understood in
the United States today, the cameralists were not primarily
economists. They were primarily political scientists. This
1 Under title (5) above.
Title (4) above.
xiv THE CAMERALISTS
single perception demonstrates the unreliability of both Roscher
and Bluntschli upon the cardinal question of the meaning of
the cameralists for the evolution of the sciences in Germany.
The first critical question to be answered in an interpretation
of the cameralists is: What "was their specific purpose, the
center from which they proceeded, the interest which gave the
respective ratings to all their other interests ? Rarely is this
question answered as promptly and as decisively as in the case
of the cameralists. The answer exhibits in cameralism the
germination, not of an academic abstraction, but of a whole
civic polity.
Turning to the defect of historical nearsightedness, a typical
symptom may be taken from Bluntschli. 1 He says:
The Germans applied their attention tardily to general civic
science (Staatswissenschajt}. In the sixteenth century Italians and
Frenchmen, in the seventeenth Dutchmen and Englishmen, and
in the eighteenth Englishmen and Frenchmen were far in advance.
Only by degrees did the Germans overtake these leaders, and pres-
ently it was their fortune, through diligence and thoroughness of
investigation, through moral earnestness of endeavor, and through
the loftiness of their standpoint and the energy of their thinking, to
equal the foremost and to win general recognition.
In a certain sense the first two of these propositions are as
true as the last. At the same time, this conventional judgment
is in large part a mere survival of that obsession which filled
Germany, and to a certain extent the rest of Europe, during
the eighteenth century, with awe and fear of everything political
made in France. In effect Bluntschli follows Weitzel 3 in can-
celing the cameralists from the account, while he discusses
other Germans of much less real importance for civic science.
Von Mohl had meanwhile written, 3 and had really given the
' Loc. cil., p. xiv.
3 Geschichte der Slaalrajissenschajt, 2 vols., 1832-33.
J Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswisscnschajten, 3 vols., 1855-58.
PREFACE xv
cameralists more credit than Bluntschli allows, though he docs
not in principle vary from tradition. It is not necessary, if
it were possible, to cloud the title of other countries to respect
for their achievements in the political sciences. My conten-
tion is that the Germans were not as sterile in this field as it
has been their own fashion to suppose. In fact there was no
more virile political thinking in Europe in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries than that of the German cameralists.
I do not say that it was as profound, as abstract, as highly
generalized, as political works of the first rank produced by
other nations. It was suited to the occasions which set its
task. It was constructive. It was effective. As in the case
of all theory, in comparison with its practical counterpart, it
is impossible to demonstrate how much the cameralism of the
books was cause and how much effect of the cameralism of
the bureaus. I do not raise that question. The same dilemma
is at least as pertinent to Grotius or Locke or Montesquieu
as to the cameralists; and on the ground of probable influence
upon affairs the case of the latter does not on the whole suffer
by comparison with any political theorists whatsoever. More-
over, the plea that neither the letter nor the spirit of these
technologies in any great degree molded the actual political
practices of the time would, by parity of reasoning, exclude
every great human document from rank among the formative
forces of the period that produced it. This arbitrary measure
of meaning factors in history would leave among admitted
social forces not a single standardizing formutaTion -of human
conduct, from the New Testament to Magna Charta and the
last three amendments to the American Constitution.
At all events the cameralists of the books did their share
toward systematizing the polity which was most intensively
developed by the Germans. Their works contain in embryo
everything which has made the German system today the most
effective economizer of national energy in the world. If a
XVI THE CAMERALISTS
tree should be known by its fruits, scholars in general, and
the Germans in particular, have grossly blundered in slighting
the sturdy stock from which the mighty growth of German
civic theory and practice has developed.
There is a contrast between Roscher's method of approach-
ing the material and my own in another respect. Rose her
attempts in general to exhibit the cameralists in national groups,
in connection with the administrative policies of their respective
princes. That he is unable strictly to carry out this plan is
evident from the titles of his chapters, from the twelfth to the
twentieth inclusive, viz.: "The Dutch School and the Mercan-
tile System;" "The Conservative National Economics of the
Middle of the Seventeenth Century;" "The National Econom-
ics of the Last Great German Polyhistorian;" "The Austrian
National Economics under Leopold I;" "The Prussian
National Economics under the Great Elector;" "Leibniz
and the Beginnings of the Halle School;" "The National
Economics of Friedrich Wilhelm I;" "The National Econom-
ics of Frederick the Great;" "The Older Eclectics of the
Eighteenth Century."
My plan, on the contrary, ignored the merely national
relations of the respective authors, and treated them as nearly
as possible chronologically, and as phenomena of a coherent
tendency of thought. It can hardly be claimed that the last
word has been said by or for either of these methods. I would
simply point out that each has its advantages, and that the
employment of both, at their highest efficiency, and in co-opera-
tion with each other, will doubtless be involved in the pro-
gramme of future historians of this period.
There is nowhere between the lines of this book a wish
to glorify German bureaucracy at the expense of American
republicanism. The advantage to Americans of understand-
ing German institutions will not come from adopting or even
imitating them, but from adapting whatever may be learned
PREFACE xvn
from their workings to the improvement of our own institutions.
The aim of this book is accordingly to find a point of departure
for interpretation of German social theories and practices
through their own process of evolution. The Hegelians would
say it is a typical manifestation of the nature of things that the
German and American polities should lend to complete each
other. The one starts with the assumption of the state as t he-
social unit. The other starts with the assumption of the indi-
vidual as the social unit. Experience has shown that neither
assumption is the whole truth, that each assumption is part
of the truth, and that the social problem rests hard upon the
need of a reconstruction which shall organize these two phases
of the truth into a convincing basis for present social action.
I venture again to express my belief that a service may be ren-
dered to the American side of this assimilation by promoting
acquaintance with the spirit of German polity. Taking it
for granted that the best way to understand the German type
of society and of social theory is through their evolution, I
have undertaken to show that the trunk line of this evolution
from the Reformation to the French Revolution is marked
by the cameralists.
This book is not a contribution to the social sciences in
the sense, that it draws upon previously unknown sources.
The cameralists have been catalogued over and over again. 1
Additional sources will doubtless be assembled when German
scholars interest themselves in recovering this portion of their
history. My effort has been rather to determine a new stand-
point for explaining the sources. Nor is an attempt to put
the cameralists in their proper historical perspective new in
itself. Not to speak of interpretations attempted while the
1 Exhaustive study of the literature of cameralism should take, as
its base of operations, Baumstark, Cameralistische Encyklopddie, 1835.
The state of tradition about the meaning of the cameralists is ocular
proof, however, that it is a far cry from bibliography to interpretation.
xvni THE CAMERALISTS
cameralistic series in the strict sense was still incomplete, we
may date the beginnings of historical treatment of cameralism
from Rossig. 1 Almost without exception these reviews of
cameralism have been so indiscriminate that the meaning of
the movement has been obscured, if not positively misrepre-
sented. Thus, to take the most important instance, Roscher,
in consequence of begging the methodological question at the
outset, makes a hodgepodge of identities by jumbling together
survivals of mediaeval legalism like Besold, political scientists
of the obsolescent not the evolving type like Bornitz, political
philosophers of massive mold like Pufendorf, historical phi-
losophers like Moser, metaphysical philosophers like Leibniz,
Wolff, and Kant, and incidentally the cameralists. Not by
a valid process of analysis, but by sheer force, Roscher reduces
these unlike quantities to the common denominator "econo-
mist." In the same way, and perhaps even more fallaciously,
Bluntschli had joined together heterogeneous elements as a
continuous series in political science. I do not deny that every
type of theory reacts upon every other type; but it is juvenile
to assume that in any age the influence of a metaphysician and
of a historian, for example, upon each other's peculiar type of
thinking, is as direct and intense as that of two metaphysicians
or two historians. Sometimes such cross-fertilization is more
fruitful than in-and-in breeding. Again it is not. Neither is
it to be assumed in a given case without proof. Nor can it be
taken for granted that propositions occurring casually in one
theory, but belonging primarily to another, may be carried
over at face value into the theory to which they secondarily
belong. For instance, a theologian might cull from every
economic author of the last fifty years passages which carry
some sort of theological implications. Those implications
might or might not have been apparent to the authors them-
1 Versuch eincr Ceschichte der Oekonomie und Cameralwissenschajt,
2 vols., 1781.
PRKFACK xix
selves and intended by them. In any event it would be absurd
to make a history of theology for the last fifty years by patching
together such passages with others which were immediately
theological in their premises and purpose. Before a truthful
expression of one type of theory can be made in terms of another
the mental latitude and longitude of each group of theorists,
and even of each individual theorist, must be accurately deter-
mined, and corrections must be made accordingly in the pre-
sumptive force of their formulas. Neither Bluntschli nor
Roscher properly recognized this principle. It is a marvel
therefore that German scholarship has permitted the books of
these authors so long to hold their place as standard accounts
of the process of evolution in the German social sciences. The
following pages are devoted to determining the group equation
of the cameralists only.
Meanwhile the little book of Marchet 1 deserves much more
attention than it seems to have received, either in Europe or
in this country. Indeed, I could not have expressed myself
as above about the persistent authority of Roscher if I could
trace in recent German literature any considerable tendency
to countenance Marchet's secession. The chief reason for
the neglect will doubtless be found in the tacit assumption that,
since Bluntschli and Roscher, German social theory previous
to the nineteenth century is to be considered as a closed incident.
I must acknowledge that Marchet has very largely anticipated
my conclusions, particularly upon the fabulous character of
tradition with respect to German mercantilism as a theory,
and as to the doctrine of population. Any competent scholar
was bound to reach similar results if he analyzed the sources
instead of repeating hearsay.
1 Studien fiber die Entwickelung der V erwaltungslehre in Deulschland
von der tweiten Hdlfte des IJ. bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhundcrls. Von
Dr. Gustav Marchet, o. 6. Professor an der k.-k. Hochschule fiir Boden-
cultur in Wien. Miinchen, 1885 (pp. viii 4-437).
XX THE CAMERALISTS
Until I had reached my own conclusions from examination
of the original writers, I deliberately ignored the commentators
as far as possible. Marchet was accordingly merely a name
to me until I had completed my manuscript. This was for-
tunate, because if I had been familiar with his work I could not
have been sure of the independence of my own judgment. Tn
matters of detail Marchet notes particulars which I had omitted,
others which I had not discovered, about Seckendorff, Becher,
Hornick, Schroder, and Justi. His estimate of Hornick is
especially notable, as he had the advantage of access to his
book and other evidence which I could not obtain. On the
other hand, comparison of my own method, and its resulting
interpretation, with Marchet's tends to confirm my belief that
I am on the right track. In the first place, the extent to which
Marchet relies on the generalization eudaemonism to explain
the political philosophy of the time too closely resembles the
method of Kautz. In the second place, Marchet is not suffi-
ciently free from the prime fallacy of Roscher. He does not
perceive that he has to deal with several distinct types of theo-
rists. These must be analyzed in turn, with reference to their
respective centers of attention, before a valid synthesis of their
unlike doctrines is possible. That is, the same sort of analysis
to which this volume subjects the cameralists must be performed
upon several distinct groups of thinkers, e. g., the general phi-
losophers, the political philosophers, the moral philosophers,
etc. Since this particular analysis has not been applied rigor-
ously by Marchet to the cameralists as such, or to either of
the other groups included in his survey, his book, with all its
merits, leaves these theorists still not properly differentiated,
and not interpreted strictly by the functional meaning of each,
in the whole process of developing a system of social doctrines.
Schmoller has rescued the method of Roscher from futility
by projecting the large survey within which all details of civic
development, particularly in (icrmany, must be located. In
PREFACE xxi
his more intensive historical work Schmoller has dealt imme-
diately with industrial and administrative development more
than with the growth of theories. Analysis of the cameralists
therefore explains one of the systems of communication, so
to speak, that penetrated the territory in which Schmoller's
primacy among explorers is secure. His monograph, Mer-
cantilism, is the best introduction that can be recommended
for the present volume. The relation of his more extended
and technical treatment of the subject to the present study is
indicated in the first chapter of this book.
In the following pages I have tried to present a digest of
everything in the writings of the leading cameralists which is
necessary to an impartial conclusion about their meaning for
the German social sciences. Accordingly I offer in this volume
a source book containing the most pertinent evidence about the
real significance of the cameralists. These sources put each
reader in possession of the means of testing my conclusions, and
of estimating the cameralists for himself. The only precon-
ception which I carried to the study of these theorists was the
historical commonplace that they must be allowed to speak
for themselves, and from their own standpoint, whatever that
migjit prove to be. This commonplace has had at best fitful
respect among social theorists or historians of social theory.
My chief interest in the cameralists is least of all antiquarian.
I want to know what can be learned from them that is of per-
manent use for sociological methodology. My suspicions were
early aroused that the fate which had befallen them would
turn out to enforce certain primary methodological laws in
application to the social sciences; and first of all the law that
every historical actor must be judged primarily with reference
to his immediate purposes, not as though his purposes were
those of the moment at which the judgment was passed. I
suspected that some of the non sequiturs \\ liich are epidemic
in the social sciences would be found undisguised in a com-
xxii THE CAMERALISTS
parison of the cameralists as they really were with the tradition
of them in the histories. It seemed to me that, if this turned
out to be the case, exposure of the bad logic, in an example so
far in the past that it enlists no partisan prejudice, would do
more to promote valid reasoning upon current questions in
the social sciences than possible direct refutations of contem-
porary argument. I therefore undertook a laborious historical
search, not chiefly from historical interest, but for specifically
methodological purposes. If historical valuations of the
cameralists had mistreated them, I wanted to ferret out the
precise flaw in the process, as a concrete warning against paral-
lel miscarriages of judgment at present.
All that I knew about the cameralists, when I began this
study, I had learned from Roscher. On the general grounds
indicated above, I decided that if Roscher's composite picture
of so many different types did justice to each, and to the syn-
thesis of them, it would be an amazing coincidence; and I
determined to find out for myself whether such a phenomenon
had occurred. I first studied Justi, and at once made out
indications which had not appeared in Roscher's report. It was
evident moreover that there were more intimate relations than
a mere chronological before-and-after between Justi and other
writers. Following this clue, I abstracted from Roscher's
heterogeneous collection of men who had more or less directly
affected economic ideas a group with like marks of species.
German civic theory in general so evidently proceeds from or
at least through this type of thinkers that the finding marks
forthwith furnish the fixed points from which to interpret
the whole evolution of German social science. Whether the
record proves to contain exhibits of methodological principles,
either in the breach or in the observance, is discussed in the
concluding chapter.
I have intentionally disobeyed the rules of good writing
by retaining in the text many German words, instead of trying
PREFACE xxin
to propose English equivalents. This was for two chief rea-
sons: first, that translation unavoidably interprets, and in
the present connection it almost certainly interprets anachro-
nistically. Any terms by which we might translate leading
concepts of the cameralists, unless they might be careful cir-
cumlocutions, would impute to them shades of meaning which
would really be ours, not theirs. In another class of cases I
have gone still farther in retaining German terms or even con-
siderable quotations, when I judged that the matter in hand
would have value only for readers somewhat familiar with
German. This was both for the sake of precision and to retain
local color.
With the same purpose in view I have deliberately chosen
awkward renderings of many German expressions. By so
doing I have most accurately indicated the ideas of the various
authors. In many ways their thought was not as our thought,
and it is a falsification of history to make them speak as men
would now. American conceptions of the growth and mean-
ing of German social theory have been confused by neglect
of translators to count with this elemental fact. This has
been amply emphasized in the body of the book, but I add a
typical instance from a different source. , While writing this
preface I had occasion, in another connection, to consult the
English version of Heeren's Geschichte des europiiischen Staa-
tensy stems* Of European states from the beginning of the
sixteenth century, Heeren is made to say:
At first, therefore, the royal authority in these kingdoms was
everywhere much limited. Without the aid of the nobility no
important war could be carried on; without the consent of the
cities no taxes could be levied. Without standing armies (a small
1 Originally published 1808-9. I re ^ er to ^ e ^h edition (1830),
Vol. IX of the Historische Werke, p. 16. The English translation appeared
in 1864 under the title, A Manual of the History oj the Political System
oj Europe and Its Colonies. The passage is on p. 1 1.
xxiv THE CAMERALISTS
beginning excepted), without political economy 1 (for no art was
known but that of getting money), there existed, in reality, at this
time no power, in the present acceptation of the word.
In the first place, Heeren's own proposition about Staat.s-
U'irthschaft was a generality which would not bear rigorous
criticism. In the second place, whether the author had a
correct idea in mind or not, the term Staatswirthschaft itself
has to be credited with a different content for every period of
which it is positively or negatively predicated. It did not even
have the identical connotations when Heeren's last edition was
published which it had carried when the book first appeared;
and never and nowhere had it meant precisely what writers
or readers in England in 1864 understood by the phrase "polit-
ical economy." Still further, as the following clause stands
in the quotation it furnishes a second illustration of the need of
paraphrase fairly to represent the original. The author's
real meaning would be conveyed by the substitute: "the
financial administration of states did not go beyond pro-
grammes for raising revenues." Standing by themselves,
these particular instances are not of firstrate importance. They
are merely samples of thousands scattered through English
literature of the social sciences. The aggregate effect of unhis-
torical renderings of German terms, added to the unsatisfac-
tory condition of the German tradition itself, is a state of regret-
table misinformation among English readers about the actual
course of development in German social theory and practice.
I have tried, therefore, to report the cameralists in language
that reflects the partial analysis actually in their minds, and
which does not represent them as using nineteenth- and twen-
tieth-century concepts of Germans, still less of Englishmen
or Americans.
1 The italics are mine, and the author's word is Staatswirlhschajt.
The next clause in parenthesis reads: man kannte nur die Kunst, Geld
au/iubringen
PREFACE xxv
It has been my intention also to retain all archaisms and
other peculiarities, even to obvious typographical errors, in
quotations, titles, etc., in order to represent the exact state of
the texts used. My notes, however, were reorganized several
times, and were recopied by several hands. Moreover, space
limits compelled me to omit an appendix which would have
occupied 150 pages. It was to contain the tables of contents
of the principal books cited, and other illustrative material.
The retrenchment compelled frequent alterations in the body of
the book. At the time of revising the proof most of the volumes
used had necessarily been returned to libraries in this country
and Germany. I have not been unmindful of the duty of
verification, but it was thus not strictly within my power. I
fear therefore that, although I have fortified myself as well as
circumstances would permit against material errors, in matters
of form the citations contain inaccuracies which might have
been removed if the sources had been longer at my disposal.
The capitalization, spelling, punctuation, etc., must accordingly
be taken as illustrating rather than precisely transcribing the
passages cited.
My most grateful thanks are due to the Konigliche Biblio-
thek at Berlin for the loan of a large number of the cameralistic
works without which this book could not have been written.
My obligations are equally real for similar assistance from the
libraries of Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell and for important
information from the British Museum.
ALBION W. SMALL
January i, 1909
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM
Every theory, system, science is in some way a reflection
of the prevailing purposes of the time in which it developed.
No hypothesis about the precise nature of the cause and
effect concerned is concealed in this commonplace. We need
not raise that question. Enough that in some way or other,
which it is not necessary to discuss at this point, our philosophies
echo the dominant purposes of the time that produced them.
If we attempt to detach a system of thought from the whole
scheme of activities impelled by the prevailing systems of pur-
poses, and if we try to set forth the meaning of that thought as
though it had no connection with those purposes, the result is
inevitable misinterpretation.
The same effect follows unintentional not less than delib-
erate separation of a body of thought, in which we are especially
interested, from the surrounding circumstances of its develop-
ment. It is like abstracting a plant from the soil and atmos-
phere which are the media of its existence, and then expecting
it both to grow and to reveal the abstract process <f its previous
growth.
Speaking particularly of the social sciences, their crudeness
at present is in part the result of arbitrary dismemberment of
the process of which science is an interpretation, and consequent
substitution of fictitious processes, more or less remote from one
another and meaningless for one another. We have then,
so far as we depend upon these sciences for knowledge, a col-
lection of ghosts stalking abroad in defiance of all known laws,
and apparently tending less and less to explain reality.
A single instance in \\hich this has occurred on a rather
large scale furnishes the primary motive of this book We are
2 THE CAMERALISTS
to deal with cameralists and cameralism. A history of neither
is to be attempted. At most this book may be called a brief
of the argument which a history would have to complete if it
were to satisfy sociologists.
An authentic interpretation of cameralism necessarily
gives the most prominent place, in the center of the picture,
to Justi. In order however rightly to estimate Justi, the work
of other cameralists before and after his time must be analyzed
and compared with his system. For the purposes of this survey
then we shall regard cameralism as beginning with Seckendorff, 1
and ending with Sonnenfels. 2 A history of cameralism would
have to begin more than a century before these pioneers. It
would trace beginnings earlier than the time of Elector August
of Saxony (1553-86) and Landgrave Philipp of Hesse (1518-
67). It would follow changes of form, content, relations, and
name, and it would be obliged to show, finally, that present
differences between German and English institutions must
be stated partially in terms of the persistence in the one case
of a cameralistic tradition which was never naturalized in the
other.
Lexis, in Conrad's Handivorterbuch, under the title " Kame-
ralwissenschaft," states that the emperor Maximilian I estab-
lished several Reichskammer, e.g., the Kammergericht, 1495,
and that in the course of the sixteenth century the type of admin-
istration began to be developed in the chief states of the Empire.
If we refer to this infancy of the system and of its technology,
we are obliged to set our boundaries back so as to include among
the writers Melchior von Osse, whose Testament was written
in 1555, and Georg Obrecht, whose Funf unterschiedliche
.Secreta Politica appeared in Strassburg in 161 7. These authors
will presently be discussed at some length.
Readers who use English only know cameralism chiefly
1 'I eutscke Fiirslenslaat, 1655.
3 Urundsdtie der Poiicey, Handlung und Finant, 1765.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 3
through the historians of economics. The interpretation of
cameralism in English tradition arbitrarily wrests the thing
and its science from the setting in which it is intelligible. Exag-
gerating almost to paradox, we may say that cameralism was
not a theory and practice of economics but of politics. Came-
ralism was a technique and a theory of administering a peculiar
type of state in a society constructed out of peculiar types of pur-
poses. To be sure, economic conditions and purposes formed
their share of the circumstances to which cameralism was an
adaptation. The argument which will follow is not an attempt
to turn the flank of the economic interpretation of history. No
issue is raised with those who insist that the ultimate elements
of all factors of social situations are economic. Be that as it
may, the actors in a given social situation think of the elements
with which they are dealing as different in kind, and they
construct their systems of theory and practice accordingly.
Cameralism raised, directly and deliberately, no fundamental
questions of pure economics. It was primarily a theory and a
technique of government. Solution of proble'ms of the nature
and laws of wealth is logically antecedent to governmental
institutions, to be sure, but until the last quarter of the eight-
eenth century the principle had been generally ignored.
Governmental theory dealt with economic problems of course.
Instead of formulating these separately as economic problems,
however, it recognized no economic problems of the degree of
generality familiar since Adam Smith's time. It dealt with
economic relations as merely incidental to the application of
governmental principles, and the latter, as proclaimed at the
time, were in many respects narrowly provincial.
The situation which actually existed in Germany in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a resultant of pur-
poses which were conditioned first by these chief objective
factors, viz., the soil and climate of the country; the state of
the arts required for using natural resources; the domestic
4 THE CAMERALISTS
industrial structure, and the foreign trade relations; the eccle-
siastical organization; the Holy Roman Empire ; the character
of the states within the Empire, and outside of it in Europe
including nearer Asia; the prizes for national competition in
the wealth of the Americas, the Levant, and the remote East;
and the personal equation of the citizens. Then, second,
there were firstrate subjective factors, which may be scheduled
as the contemporary science, the theology or philosophy, the
legal tradition both from Roman and Teuton sources, the
political philosophy, and the rule-of-thumb conclusions which
passed as wisdom in the conduct of life, from individual habit
to the policies of states.
In this situation, as a matter of fact, the idea of the state
and of government dominated all the other factors. So far
as interests of the state could be distinguished, they settled the
relative importance of everything else. The purposes of the
state were paramount. The cameralists were servants of the
state. Cameralism was the system elaborated by the chief
agents of the rulers, partly as mere classification of practices
which rulers had already adopted; partly as ways and means
of accomplishing more of the purposes which the state proposed.
But in order properly to prepare for intelligent interpreta-
tion of cameralism still simpler elements of the situation must
be called to mind.
In the first place, we must remember that the German ter-
ritorial sovereignties in the period of the Reformation were
essentially more like a typical Virginia plantation, in the most
flourishing days of the Old Dominion, than like any political
unit with which modern Americans are familiar. Even if the
prince controlled territories which it would not be extravagant
to describe as big farms, it was long before the operations of
management were transformed from the primitive type of the
big landed estate to a definitive civic structure. The adminis-
tration of German states developed by a process which it does
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 5
not fall within the scope of this book to trace, from the status
in which the consort of the prince presided in person over the
revenues of the principality, almost as directly as the New
England farmer's wife managed her dairy. The advisers and
chief functionaries, who gradually acquired the meaning which
we find them possessing in the cameralistic period, were ge-
netically differentiations of this proprietary relation and policy.
The lord of the estate was to their minds, whatever their par-
ticular philosophy, a fixed term in the equation of life. They
were powerless to think of a social order as rational which did
not revolve about him as a regulator.
The great majority of the people in the German states,
the peasants and artisans particularly, were regarded by the
wisest men of the time as incapable of successful initiative.
As an estimate of actual conditions the judgment was undoubt-
edly correct. The people were accordingly held to be dedicated
by dispensation of Providence and the laws of nature to the
condition of wardship, and to be fit for action only under
authority. The fallacy of this generalization need not concern
us. It is a historical fact and force. The ruler and his gov-
ernment were quite consistently seen in the most plausible light
when they were contemplated as fulfilling the duties of guardian-
ship over these industrially and politically incompetent masses.
Under the circumstances paternalism was not an arrest of
development; still less in principle an abuse of power.
Whether in operation or in theory, it was the ideal expression
of the situation.
Again, from the beginning, the German states were involved
in a struggle for existence. With the kind of necessity here
concerned we have now nothing to do, beyond recognizing
it as a factor taken for granted by the statesmen of the period.
In fact the most importunate problem for every German state
was, in its own calculation, that of self-maintenance, and
especially by control of an adequate military force.
6 THE CAMERALISTS
The cameralists of the books, as distinguished from the
cameralists of the bureaus, although the former class was
usually recruited from the latter, were the men who worked
out for publication, and especially for pedagogical purposes,
the system of procedure in accordance with which German
governments were supposed to perform their tasks. As a
rule these men were employed in administrative positions of
some sort, and spoke to a certain extent from experience. They
were not mere academic theorists. We may characterize these
cameralists of the books as the group of writers distinguished
from tlteir contemporaries and from earlier and later theorists
by constructing a "science" or group of "sciences" around the
central consideration of the fiscal needs of the prince. We might
coin the name "fiscalists" and it would be more appropriate
to their actual character than either of the terms by which
they have been known. Under the circumstances to which
we have referred, the most constant and pressing need of the
ruler was ready money. The men who elaborated the theory
of government for these German states had virtually to
answer this question: What programme must a wise govern-
ment adopt, in order first and foremost to be adequately supplied
with ready money, and thus able to discharge the duties of the
state in their various orders of importance ? The most typical
of these men expressed this paramount consideration very
positively and frankly. One of the reasons why later cameral-
ists used superficially different formulations of the same essen-
tial regime, was that the fiscal systems had become relatively
fixed, and could be taken for granted. The less convention-
alized portions of the system, and especially the idealized
versions of its aims, could then come in fpr a larger share of
attention ; and there was more room for speculative excursions
into the wider political philosophy or the deeper metaphysics
by which later writers hoped to buttress the system.
In the rough, the chronic condition of the European nations
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 7
during the cameralistic period was war, and the primary task
of governments, especially in Germany, was creation of readi-
ness for war. The fiscal policy which was the rule in Europe
during the period is known as the mercantile system. 1 This
policy, as a cardinal political fact, is a datum presupposed
by the present study. As Schmoller says (p. 57) :
If we pause for a while to consider this foreign and external
policy of the European states of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries which it has hitherto been the custom to regard as the
essential feature of the mercantile system it is not, of course, our
purpose to describe the details of its several forms. The general
features of its regulation are well enough known. Difficulties were
put in the way of the importation of manufactured goods; and their
production and exportation were favored by the prohibition of the
export of raw materials, by bounties on export, and by commercial
treaties. Encouragement was given to domestic shipping, to the
fisheries, and to the coasting trade by restricting or forbidding foreign
competition. Commerce with the colonies, and the supplying of
them with European wares, was reserved for the mother country.
The importation of colonial produce had to take place directly from
the colony itself, and not by way of other European ports; and
everywhere an attempt was made to establish direct trading relations
by great privileged trading companies, and by state aid in manifold
ways The general features are known; the details have
even yet not been subjected to due scientific investigation. Our
only purpose here is to grasp the fundamental ideas of the system;
which, naturalfy, found varying expressions, here in high duties,
there in low, here in the prevention, there in the encouragement of
the corn trade. The thought pursued everywhere was this: as
competition with other countries fluctuated up and down, to cast
the weight of the power of the state into the scales of the balance in
the way demanded in each case by national interests.
1 Vide Schmoller, The Mercantile System and Its Historical Sig-
nificance (Macmillan, 1902). Translated from the Studien iiber die
wirthschajtliche Politik Friedrichs des Grossen (1883), published in the
first issue of Schmoller's Jahrbuch (1884).
8 THE CAMERALISTS
We have accepted Schmoller's general hypothesis in expla-
nation of the mercantilist system. His view must be taken
as representing, in its main features, the consensus of present
historical scholarship. He epitomizes it in this form: 1
Our purpose was to show by a particular example, that of Bran-
denburg, that during the course of the period from the fifteenth to
the seventeenth century, the creation of the German territorial state
was not merely a political but also an economic necessity We
have to do with a great historical process by which local sentiment
and tradition were strengthened, the social and economic forces of
the whole territory consolidated, important legal and economic
institutions created; by which, further, the forces and institutions
thus united were led to a battle of competition with other territories,
involving numerous shiftings of toll, confiscation of goods and ships,
embargoes and staple-fights, prohibitions of importation and expor-
tation and the like; while, within the country itself, old antagonisms
softened and trade became more free.
To so powerful and self-contained a structure and so independent
and individual a policy as the town had reached in an earlier age^
the German territory scarcely anywhere attained .... yet this
very time the second half of the sixteenth century, and the seven-
teenth century was an epoch which gave every inducement for an
economic transformation. The way was already clear, out of the
narrow circle of the small territory into the larger union of forces
jx)ssible only in the great state These forces all converging
impelled society to some large economic reorganization on a broader
basis, and pointed to the creation of national states with a correspond-
ing policy Everywhere, save in Germany, economic bodies
were stretching out and becoming political; everywhere new state
systems of economy and finance were arising, able to meet the new
needs of the time. Only in our Fatherland did the old economic
institutions become so petrified as to lose all life; only in Germany
were the foreign trade, the manufacturing skill, the supply of capital,
the good economic usages, connections and traditions, which the
country had possessed up to 1620, more and more completely lost.
1 Loc. '/., pp. 43 (I.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 9
And it was not simply the external loss in men and capital which
brought about this retrogression of Germany, during a period of
more than one century, in comparison with the Powers of the West;
it was not even the transference of the world's trading routes from
the Mediterranean to the ocean that was of most consequence; it
was the lack of politico-economic organization, the lack of consolida-
tion in its forces. What, to each in its time, gave riches and supe-
riority first to Milan, Venice, Florence, and Genoa; then later to
Spain and Portugal; and now to Holland, France, and England,
and, to some extent to Denmark and Sweden, was a state policy in
economic matters as superior to the territorial as that had been to
the municipal. Those states began to weave the great economic
improvements of the time into their political institutions and policies,
and to bring about an intimate relation between the one and the
other. States arose, forming united, and therefore strong and wealthy
economic bodies, quite different from earlier conditions; in these,
quite unlike earlier times, the state organization assisted the national
economy and this the state policy; and, quite unlike earlier times
too, public finance served as the bond of union between political
and economic life. It was not only a question of state armies, fleets,
and civil services, it was a question rather of unifying systems of
finance and economy which should encompass the forces of millions
and whole countries, and give unity to their social life. There had
always been great states; but they had been bound together neither
by traffic nor by the organization of labor nor by any other like forces.
The question now was with a great society divided into social
classes widely different from one another and complicated by the
division of labor to bring about, as far as possible, on the basis
of common national and religious feelings, a union for external
defense and for internal justice and administration, for currency and
credit, for trade interests and the whole economic life, which should
be comparable with the achievements, in its time, of the municipal
government in relation to the town and its environs. This was no
mere fancy of the rulers; it was the innermost need of the higher
civilization itself that such enlarged and strengthened forms of
social and economic community should come into existence
The whole internal history of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
io THE CAMERALISTS
tunes, nut only in Germany, but everywhere else, is summed up in the
opposition of the economic policy of the state to that of th^ town, the
district, and the several Estates; the whole foreign history is summed
up in the opposition to one another of the separate interests of the
newly rising states, each of which sought to obtain and retain its
place in the circle of European nations, and in that foreign trade
which now included America and India
Only he who thus conceives of mercantilism will understand it;
in its innermost kernel it is nothing but state making not state
making in a narrow sense, but state making and national -economy
making at the same time; state making in the modern sense, which
creates out of the political community an economic community,
and so gives it a heightened meaning. The essence of the system
lies not in some doctrine of money, or of the balance of trade ; not
in tariff barriers, protective duties or navigation laws; but in some-
thing far greater, namely, in the total transformation of society and
its organization, as well as of the state and its institutions, in the
replacing of a local and territorial economic policy by that of the
national state. With this accords the fact lately 'pointed out with
regard to the literary history of the movement, that what is peculiar
to all the mercantilist writers is not so much the regulations of trade
which they propose for the increase of the precious metals as the
stress they lay on the active circulation of money, especially within
the state itself. 1
The last sentence in this quotation from Schmoller suggests
the peculiar relation of the cameralists to mercantilism upon
which we shall try to show that their writings prove tradition
to be misleading. Mercantilism, the instinctive national
policy of states in the process of evolution, while at the same
time in miscellaneous struggle with other states, was the most
prominent objective reality in the civic life of the time. On
the other hand, later writers about mercantilism have created
1 For Schmoller's later views on this main theme, and especially
for bibliography of the various phases of the subject, vide Grundriss,
Index, title "Mercantilismus," etc.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 1 1
a grotesque mythology of the, political and economic theory
supposed to have been held by the supporters of the policy.
The present study does not extend to mercantilistic theorists
outside of Germany. While we are prepared, in the proper
place, to challenge the credibility of this mythology as it applies
to other countries, our propositions in this book refer not merely
to German theorists alone, but to the cameralistic group
among those theorists. The cameralists are generally reputed
to have been typical mercantilists, in the sense that they are
alleged to have taught certain economic doctrines implied by
the mercantilistic policy. One of the results of appeal to the
cameralistic books themselves is proof that mercantilism in the
supposed sense, that is, as a specific system of false economic
generalizations, cannot be found in these sources.
Adam Smith did much to create belief in this mythological
mercantilism. When we analyze his chapter on "The Prin-
ciple of the Commercial or Mercantile System," 1 we find that
it produced its effect in this direction more by innuendo than
by precise assertion. The chapter begins with the sentence:
That wealth consists in money, or in gold and silver, is a popular
notion which naturally arises from the double function of money,
as the instrument of commerce, and as the measure of value.
The poison in the sentence gets its venom in part by asso-
ciation with the title of Book IV, "Of Systems of Political
Economy," and with the subtitle of chap. i. The reader under-
stands Smith to imply that there have been systems of "politi-
cal economy" based on the idea that "wealth consists in money,
or in gold and silver;" and that there was a "commercial or
mercantile system " which posited this principle. It turns out
in the first place that Smith did not distinguish, in this part of
his work, between " political economy " as a theory, and eco-
nomic policy. He asserts that interested parties have succeeded
1 Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap. i.
12 THE CAMERALISTS
in persuading nations to act as though money were the only
wealth, and thereupon he indulges in a homily upon the absurd-
ity of that idea. Nevertheless, he concludes 1 that a system
of "political economy" which rested on this absurdity widely
prevailed. Thus he says:
The two principles being established, however, that wealth con-
sisted in gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought
into a country which had no mines only by the balance of trade, or
by exporting to a greater value than it imported ; it necessarily became
the great object of political economy (sic) to diminish as much as
possible the importation of foreign goods for home consumption,
and to increase as much as possible the exportation of the produce
of domestic industry.
A history of the growth of this mercantilistic myth would
be instructive, and it is to be hoped that it will some day be
written. We may content ourselves with a single comparatively
modern and somewhat more full-grown version of the same
fiction, this time by a writer who may fairly be presumed to
have included the Germans more directly in his generalization
than was probably the case with Smith. 2 This historian of
political science says:
The Mercantile System, then, or Colbcrtism, was the first attempt
to put the fundamental principles of the theory of management
[H'irthschajtslehre] on a scientific and orderly basis. The central
point <>} the same was the attribution o] exclusive value to the precious
metals.'* Consequently the effort in every possible way to acquire
gold and silver, and to retain the same: hence also the anxiety for
a favorable balance of trade. The means relied upon were: exclu-
sive (sic) promotion of the transforming industries, and of foreign
trade, especially attainable through privileges, advances of capital,
precise regulations for industries, monopolies, favorable commer-
1 Bax e<l., Vol. I, p. 450.
3 Von Mohl, Gesehichte und Literatur der Staatsu-issenschajten, III.
Brl. (1858), p. 296.
3 Italics mine.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 13
rial treaties and exclusive relations with colonies; then prohibition
of the export of the precious metals, and of raw materials fit for
domestic manufacture.
Nothing is easier than to show conclusively the incorrectness
of the fundamental idea, as well as the impropriety of the means
employed. It would therefore be a waste of time to stop for discus-
sion of the absolute truth of the system. At the same time, the ques-
tion of its relative value for the times and circumstances is not to
be disposed of in the same way. It has long since been observed
by others that this first system of political economy (sic) was not a
product of minds exploring truth with 1 a distinctly conscious pur-
pose. It was rather the generalization of the actual programme of
certain eminent statesmen, particularly Colbert. 1 It is equally easy
to prove, however, that the essential fundamental idea of these
statesmen, and therewith of the system built upon it, emerged neces-
sarily from the economic condition of Europe after the middle of
the seventeenth century. The accumulation of great sums of money
for defraying the costs of war and supplying the luxury of courts
was the involuntary task of the officials intrusted with the manage-
ment of states. This task could be discharged easiest, not to say
solely, by constant increase of the export of goods. These were
wanted in the newly accessible parts of the world, and would be paid
for in gold and silver. Of a basing of popular welfare, and therewith
oj the income of the crown, upon more prosperous agriculture, not a
word could be said; partly because of the lack of all rational knowledge
of agricultural economy on the part of the landed gentry, together
with the utterly suppressed condition of the peasantry, partly because
the development of this source of wealth could not keep pace with
the above-mentioned need.
Such mixtures of Wahrheit und Dichtung are the substitutes
for objective interpretation of the cameralistic period which
our generation has inherited, and we have accepted them almost
1 Von Mohl fails to discover, and consequently helps to add vogue
to, the fallacy of the whole generalization. He does not perceive that
the generalizers put into the system what they thought it should be made
responsible for, instead of finding out what its followers actually thought.
14 THE CAMERALISTS
without question. How far from the truth was the last sen-
tence in the quotation may be inferred from the bibliography
of agriculture published by Zincke. 1
Now the fact is that "mercantilism" as political economy,
in the sense at present associated with that term, in contrast
with political policy, did not exist among the cameralists.
This was, first, because political economy was not born till
after their time, and second, because such material for political
economy as was contained in their theories was wonderfully
sound, as far as it went, on the meaning of money and the
precious metals. It is as absurd to charge the theorists of
the mercantilistic period with the economic vagaries of which
(by inference from the opportunistic policies of the governments
which they served, and which they themselves to a certain
extent approved) our modern logic might prove them construct-
ively guilty, as it would be to charge the economists of England
today with dogmas which might be deduced from generaliza-
tion of British policy in the Boer war. Mercantilism, the
policy, was war more than it was philosophy. It was the prac-
tical answer to the practical question, What is the practical
thing for our state to do under present circumstances ? A situa-
tion might easily be imagined in which, with a war to be fought
at a distance with a strong nation, the people of the United
States, irrespective of party affiliations or economic principles,
might afford a certain type of reasoners all the evidence they
would want for the assertion, "The people of the United States
all believe that coal is the only wealth." The conclusion would
have essentially the same sort of logical support, and would
have the same degree of validity, which examination of the
sources discovers in the case of the cameralists and their alleged
1 Vide below, p. 242; cf. p. 256. The blurred view of the cameral-
ists given by Cohn is still more notable, because Cohn's book has prob-
ably influenced the thinking of many times more students than von
Mohl's. Vide Grundriss der Nalionalokonomie, 1885, pp. 99, 100.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 15
mercantilism. They certainly believed in a mercantilistic
policy. They certainly did not believe in the mercantilistic
political economy which has been charged to them by an age
that does not understand the meaning of the policy.
Tradition has dealt quite as uncritically with cameralistic
beliefs about population. They have been represented as
directly contrary to the Malthusian principle. The cameralists
have been supposed to believe unlimited increase of the number
of citizens both possible and desirable. In reality the Malthu-
sian problem never distinctly appeared above their horizon.
Their beliefs about population were substantially the same
beliefs which the traffic managers of our western railroads,
and the farmers of the prairie states act upon every year of
abundant crops. They assume that hands enough are not
to be had for harvesting. The cameralists knew as well as
modern economists do that there was a limit beyond which
more mouths could not be fed. They did not qualify their
statements about population quite as carefully as men must
who have in mind the Malthusian chapter in economic theory.
Substantially, however, they held tenable views of the subject
as far as they went, and their efforts to promote population
would propably be duplicated today, under parallel circum-
stances, by the most convinced Malthusians in the world.
Perhaps the most radical misunderstanding of the cameral-
ists, especially on this side of the Atlantic, is in connection with
their theories of absolutism. To Americans, absolutism is
so unthinkable as a principle of political philosophy, that
nothing tolerable can be credited to theories in which such a
postulate is a factor. But Americans would have become
much profounder political philosophers than they are, if they
had been patient enough to learn a little more about the part
which the fiction of absolutism has performed in the process
of civic evolution. They might have become more docile if
they had perceived that the European superstition of the abso-
16 THE CAMERALISTS
lutism of rulers differs more in degree than in kind from the
American superstition of the absolutism of the constitution.
The truth is, each of these illusions was a legal fiction which
promoted social control by expressing in the most vivid way
practicable the enormous value of obedience to the accepted
authorities. Each of these fictions was the idiom in which
an age said, in its most impressive way, "The law must be
obeyed." Americans have been taught so exclusively the dark
phases of absolutistic regimes that they resent suggestion of
factors in the case which they have not considered. While
absolutism as a principle is indefensible, it has been of incal-
culable service as a makeshift; and sometimes, notably in the
case of most of the cameralists, the absolutistic element which
occupied the place of honor in the formal philosophy of the
state was subordinated in effect by the moral force of judgments
which made steadily in the direction of more authentic civic
principles.
But we must indicate the central motive of the cameralists
in a positive way. Apart from all details, whether on the
credit or debit side, the salient fact about the cameralistic civic
theory was its fundamental assumption of the paramount value
of the collective interests, or in othtr -words the subordination
of the interests of the individual to the interests of the community.
The absolutistic state, of which cameralism was the theory,
used means and methods which are out of the question for
democracies. That same absolutistic state maintained cer-
tain scales of social value, and arrived at certain types of con-
crete result, to which democracies thus far have not attained.
Whether we will or no, human experience is social. The type
of association is more important to the continuous process of
human achievement than the choices of individuals. Whether
any society has found the just balance between social ascend-
ency and individual liberty, the principle that social ascendency
must practically outrank private preference is vital to civiliza-
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 17
tion. Whether the Germans have overemphasized the col-
lectivistic principle, future centuries must decide. Even if
Americans are unprepared to concede that our democracy
has given individualism too much license, it will be the part
of wisdom for us to inspect the achievements of German col-
lectivism without deciding in advance that they contain nothing
from which Americans can derive instruction.
Whether the collectivistic principle is ever beneficially
to modify democracy or not, there is hardly room for debate
upon the proposition that in sheer economy of social efficiency
Germany has no near rival among the great nations. Whether
the method of this achievement costs more than it is worth, is
an open question. That, in view of what it has accomplished,
it is worth understanding, is beyond dispute. The explanation
of the German type of success cannot be reached without cal-
culating the significance of the cameralists.
It has passed into a world's proverb that the German school-
master won the campaign of Sedan. It would be a superficial
version of that approximate truth, if the schoolmaster in the
case were supposed to be the pedagogue who taught the men
in the three columns that crossed the Rhine. The school in
which the wonderful proficiency of modern Germany was
trained was its whole civic system. No part of the machinery
of modern history has been regarded more contemptuously
by the rest of the world than the petty German principalities.
They were ignoble and obstructive enough, to be sure, but this
is not the complete account. Each, with its minute cameralis-
tic organization, functioned like the drill sergeants with the
raw levies. The incapable masses of the German people
were divided into squads, and disciplined for civic duties, and
after the dull drill of centuries were delivered over to the united
nation as the most completely socialized citizens in modern
European history.
Without attempting to determine the precise degree of
1 8 THE CAMERALISTS
influence which each theorist, or the government behind him,
exerted upon the development of cameralism, we may begin
with a rapid sketch of the more prominent text -writers. In
general it is needless to bring into this account biographical
material in addition to that to be found in Die allgemeine
deutsche Biographic. While it is necessary to base our work
upon the presumption of familiarity with Roscher, 1 ' the argu-
ment of this book is a direct challenge of the correctness of
Roscher's interpretation. 2 We shall go to the writings of the
cameralists themselves for direct evidence of the presump-
tions, the content, and the sociological significance of their
system.
The term Kammer, derivatives of which have been trans-
literated into English to denote' a theory and practice for which
Englishmen have no exact equivalent, is itself a variant of the
Latin camera, in turn from the Greek Ka/*apa. 3 Cameralism
was the routine of the bureaus in which the administrative
employees of governments, first of all in the fiscal departments,
did their work; or in a larger sense it was systematized govern-
mental procedure, the application of which was made in the
administrative bureaus.
Roscher distinguishes in the second half of the seventeenth
1 Geschichte der Xalional-Oekonomik in Deutschland.
* While Rosrher partially corrects an error, yet he rehabilitates it
at the same time in another form: 7.nr Ceschichle der englischen Volks-
'U'irthschajlslehre, p. 122.
' Liddell and Srott: "anything with a vaulted roof or arched cover-
ing;" Heyse, Fremdu'drterlmch: "'camera or Kammer in the more restricted
sense is the apartment where the counselors charged with administration
of the revenues of a principality assembled: then the persons them-
selves, Kammerrdthe and Kammer- A ssessoren." Cameralia, or Cameral-
Wistenschajten, were the theories on which administration of the revenues
proceeded; in a wider sense the term was applied to the sciences of the
state in general. A cameralist was one who understood these sciences
either theoretically or in practice.
INTRODUCTION TO CAMERALISM 19
century three principal tendencies among the German national
economists: 1
first a practical-conservative tendency, which had its chief seat in
the small territories of middle Germany and was best represented
by Seckendorff. Then a purely scientific tendency, belonging almost
wholly in the north of Germany, where as typical contrasts Pufendorf
and Conring loom up. A third group, viz., the practical-progressive,
attaches itself most closely in part to Austria, in part to the great
Electors.
It begs the question at the outset, to use the phrase with which
Roscher begins detailed discussion of these tendencies. To
speak of "the conservative national economics" 2 in the second
half of the seventeenth century in Germany is to imply that
there already was a systematic economics in the sense in which
that phrase was understood two hundred years later, when
Roscher wrote. It is certainly not true that an economic
theory existed in Germany at that time in the sense carried
by the phrase in England since Adam Smith. It would be
1 Geschichte der National -Oekonomik in Deutschland, p. 237. I shall
urge later (p. 49; cf. pp. 195, 196) that it is necessary to supply English-
speaking students with a commentary on this term, if they are to be pro-
tected against misconceptions of historical facts. The term "National-
okonomik" corresponds with what existed in Germany in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, only if it has the force of the phrase "national
management." This management included morals, education, religion,
politics, diplomacy, war, and finance, much more directly and intensively
than it concerned itself with economic questions as understood in
England and America. It is an anachronism therefore to credit Ger-
many, before Adam Smith's critique of economic relations was imported
and domesticated, with an economic science in the British sense. The
men in Germany who theorized about civic interests before the close of the
eighteenth century were political scientists after their kind. They were
political economists only in a secondary and incidental sense. This
distinction is crucial for the interpretation of all the social sciences in
Germany from this point.
Loc. cit. t p. 238.
20 THE CAMERALISTS
less difficult to support a claim that economics in Germany
in the second half of the nineteenth century was merely a more
highly developed form of the theory which constituted the social
science of the cameralists. This would however at best be a
misleading version of the facts. Economic science in Germany
was merely a subordinate and subconscious factor in the came-
ralistic theory of governmental management. It had not
gained independence as a science of wealth relations, irre-
spective of the forms of government under which they exist.
The economic presumptions of the cameralists, whether
essentially sound or not, were at first merely the folklore of
homely thrift, not critical analyses of general economic rela-
tions. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the center
of social interest was civic, not economic. With this theorem
as our point of departure we are bound to arrive at a revised
version of the economic theories of the period. 1
1 Readers who want the author's conclusions, but who are unwilling
to examine his evidence, may pass from this point to the last chapter.
CHAPTER II
THE CIVICS OF OSSE
If the purpose of this book were to trace minutely the
evolution of cameralism, our problem would lead back into
investigation of generations of men, princes and their servants,
of whom Osse was in many ways typical. Such an inquiry
would take us far beyond the scope of the present study. It
would be rather an investigation of the history of German
political institutions in general, especially after the Reforma-
tion, than interpretation of a single quasi-academic factor in
that civic development. It would bring to the center of atten-
tion quite different types of evidence from that to which this
argument is restricted. Osse functioned chiefly as an agent
of princes at a time when the territorial sovereignty of the Ger-
man rulers was still undecided, and when the administration
of German states was in an early formative stage. His activity
as an author was relatively accidental, yet his influence in this
character was incomparably more lasting than in any other.
He is cited here, however, rather as a means of marking the
relativity of the writers to be noticed more at length, than as
properly within the bounds of the present survey.
Osse was born in the hamlet of Ossa, near the obscure
town of Geithain, in 1506. He studied law at Leipzig, was
"scholarly, conscientious, laborious, gentle and deeply pious." 1
He served. for a time in the army; for several years he occupied
the chief lectureship in law at Leipzig; in 1537 he was men-
tioned by Zarncke as consiliarius Misnensis; he remained a
counselor of Herzog Georg till the death of the latter; passed
to the service of Herzog Moritz, 1541; the same year was
released by Moritz to enter the service of the elector Johann
1 Diestel in Allgemeinc deutsche Biographic, title "Osse."
31
22 THE CAMERALISTS
Friedrich, where he remained as chancellor for six years.
There are confusions in dates at this period, but after employ-
ment of uncertain length at Meiningen, Osse was in 1547 made
Hofrichter in Leipzig. In 1550 he represented the elector
at the Diet of Augsburg. On account of ill health he with-
drew from his judgeship in 1555, and composed the document
which is his chief title to a place in history. He died in 1556.
A more searching inquiry into the personal record of Osse
is unnecessary. In spite of the author's own usage, and that
of his editor Thomasius, which we follow, Roscher uses the
form "Ossa," corresponding to the acepted spelling of his
birthplace.
It appears further that, in spite of his prestige at Leipzig,
Osse was not in full favor with the Saxon theologians. The
complete story of this phase of his career would take us far
afield, in the general culture-history of the period, and we must
pass it with a mere hint. Philipp Melanchthon soundly berated
Osse and five other advisers of Herzog Moritz, and he embel-
lished one of his denunciations with the couplet :
Hiengen die Sechs an einen Strick.
Das war Sachsen und Meissen Gliick. 1
The editor, Thomasius, implies that the reputation thus referred
to made Osse uncomfortable at the court of Johann Friedrich,
and accounts for his resignation. Thomasius protests, how-
ever, that he can find no adequate ground for Osse's bad
repute with the elector. While declining to enter into the
merits of the case, he submits this consideration, viz.:
Philipp Melanthon (sic) was no angel himself, and there are
proofs enough that not everything which came from Melancthon
as a judgment of other men can be taken as a divine truth or an
infallible gospel.
At bottom, the case against Osse appears to have been
that his break with traditional religious ideas was not as com-
Testament, ed. Thorn., 1717, "Vorrede," p. 10.
CIVICS OF OSSE 23
plete as the Lutherans demanded. He was accused of
being still at heart a papist. In commenting upon this charge,
Thomasius furnishes the interesting item that Osse's copious
quotations from the Vulgate, instead of the Lutheran version,
were among the most damaging evidences of his guilt.
We turn directly to the Testament, the document which
entitles its author to rank as a forerunner of the seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century cameralists. 1 It is a monograph
written in the last year of its author's life, and by command
of his prince, and was intended, both by prince and his emeri-
tus adviser, to serve the purpose for which Adam Smith later
invoked the hypothesis of "the impartial spectator."
The form in which the document is now most accessible
is the edition of Christian Thomasius, the man who is reputed
to have been the first in Germany to introduce the innovation
of academic lectures in the vulgar language. At the time of
his discovery of the document, he was an important factor in
the influence of the University of Halle, of which he is called
one of the founders. We shall have occasion to refer to him
again in his proper chronological place. At present we need
to cite only a few details in which he has thrown light upon
Osse.
1 D. Melchiors von Osse "Testament." Gegen Hertzog Augusta
Churfursten zu Sachsen. Sr. Churfurst. Gnaden Rdthen und Land-
schaffUn. 1556. Anitzo zum ersten mahl vollig gedruckt. Auch hin
und wieder durch nutzlicke A ntnerckungen Erldutert. Nebst einer Vorrcde
und Anhang von einen Versuch kleiner " Annalium" den damahligen
Zustand so wohl bey Hofe als auf Universitaten desto deutlicher sich cin-
zubilden. Zum Gebrauch des Tliomasischen "Auditorii." Halle im
Magdeburgisch. A. MDCCXVII. A portion of the author's special
title-page to the body of the document reads: " Welchergestalt eine
Christliche Obrigkeit ingemein, in ihrem Regiment mit Gottes Hulffe eine
gottselige, weissliche verniinfftige und rechtmassige Justicien erhalten
kan. Darum auch Erwehnung geschieht von dem Regiment. Gericht-
barkeit und Policey der I6blichen Chur- und FUrstenthum Sachsen,
Thiiringen, und Meissen, Hochermeldtem Churfursten zustandig."
24 THE CAMERALISTS
In the first place, Thomasius says, in the Preface to the
document, that he was first shown the imperfect manuscript,
(apparently in 1707) in the Furstfiche Bibliothck at Wolffen-
biittel. He adds that up to that time it was unknown to him,
and he had not even seen the portions that had been printed.
Later he bought the full manuscript at an auction. Thomasius
appears to have recognized in Osse a man after his own heart.
Replying to the supposed challenge, Why publish the book
of a man about whom so many suspicions existed ? he says
(Vorrcde, p. 16):
The author is the first of those counselors known to us who
gave their opinion as to the way in which the judicial system is
to be improved. The first usually breaks the ice, and cannot accom-
plish all, but he leaves the rest to his successors.
The document as we have it occupies, with the editor's
notes, 548 pages. In the same binding, and filling 264 pages,
is Thomasius' collection of materials on the history of the Uni-
versity of Leipzig. The title of the collection is Ein kleincr
Versuch von Annalibus. The editing of Osse's work was in
Thomasius' mind a propagandist measure, and as he regarded
improvement of the educational system as the key to the whole
problem, it was appropriate to issue the seemingly unlike docu-
ments together. It appears that Thomasius wanted to publish
a treatise on political reform, with reference both to the Roman
and the Canon law. The difficulties proved too great, and
he chose to make Osse's document the vehicle of some of his
ideas. His notes on the text number 271. The Testament
itself contains only 118 sections. Although the notes are in
much smaller type than the text, a rough estimate shows that
they fill, in the aggregate, about one-half the whole space. If
we should fully analyze both text and notes, we should find
in them two separate monuments, of two stadia of development
in political philosophy, previous to that marked by the most
complete form of cameralism. For that reason we shall not
CIVICS OF OSSE 25
undertake here a detailed account either of Osse or of Thoma-
sius. Their determining purpose was not identical with that
of cameralism proper. On the whole, they had their center
in other groups, with which this book does not attempt to deal.
We may simply note in these two writers certain germs which
must be examined in more developed form in later theorists.
One who knew nothing of the history of the German lan-
guage, or of its geographical variations, who assumed that its
growth was in a straight line, and who drew conclusions from
literary form alone, would promptly place Osse's Testament
much later than Obrecht's Secreta Politica; 1 perhaps even
later than Becher. 3 Of course the use of Latin by the side
of German in the Obrecht collection strengthens the impres-
sion of age. Osse's syntax, as well as his vocabulary,
approaches closer than that of either of these writers to modern
usage. According to Thomasius' statement (Vorrede, p. 33),
this is not to be attributed to the editor. He says that he
changed little or nothing in the style, with the single exception
of substituting the word oder in frequent cases for Osse's word
aber. Osse's own statement of his reason for writing in Ger-
man is as follows:
The motives which have moved me to set down my opinions
in the German language, are not for the sake of His Electoral Grace,
who, God be praised, was in his youth thoroughly instructed in the
Latin tongue and good arts, but rather the consideration that this
memorial might come to the knowledge of laymen, untaught in the
Latin language, and the desire that they might not be hindered in
reading it by the intermixture of many Latin words. 3
Osse begins the Testament with a paragraph which we
translate as closely as possible :
It is among all wise people beyond dispute, that every magistracy
(Obrigkeit) may prove and make evident its virtue and aptitude in
' Vide pp. 40 ff. below. 3 Zuschrifft, pp. 8 ff.
a Vide pp. 107 ff. below.
26 THE CAMERALISTS
two ways. First, in time of war, through manly deeds, good sagacious
projects, and protection of their lands and subjects, second, in time
of peace, through ordering and maintaining of good godly righteous
government, judiciary, and Policey. 1 For with these two every
magistracy should necessarily be adorned and supplied, in order that
in every time of war and peace they (sic) may be able well to govern,
protect, control and defend their own.
Osse then enlarges briefly upon the duties which belong
to the ruler in time of war; but he dismisses this side of the
case as beyond his competence. As to the other class of duties,
he continues (p. 33):
As to what concerns the government in times of peace, I will
write, as much as God vouchsafes me grace, for He is the ground
on which all must be built which is good, and wherever such ground
is lacking there follows no permanent building.
The author promises to set down truly all that he has
observed in the service of five electors of Saxony, the fifth then
living. He frequently repeats that he is doing this not of his
own motion, but at the command of the elector. We may
safely assume that the passage immediately following represents
Osse's fundamental opinions as well as they could be pictured.
He says (p. 33):
Such a command I am not at liberty to disregard, and for this
reason I lay down first of all the following ground. All that I here-
after write will be built upon it. It must also be observed with
special diligence.
Government over men is such a high, precious and wonderful
thing, that no human being, no matter how excellent in understand-
ing, reason and wit, is to be intrusted with exercising it according
to his own will, caprice and opinion, for such government is a higher
thing than that the exercise of it could belong to one over others who
by nature are of one origin with him, which same may be known
from all races of animals, since a flock of sheep does not allow itself
1 The reasons for allowing this term to stand in its German form
will appear later.
CIVICS OF OSSE 27
to be ruled by a sheep, nor a drove of horses or cattle by one of their
own kind, but rather for such government something else is necessary,
which is higher and better than the other beasts. Now man, who
in many ways surpasses the other animals, for the like reason, since
man must be governed, he must be governed by something higher
and more excellent than man himself, if the government is to be
stable. Since now nothing more excellent can be found in this world
than man .... who is yet fallible, and has much in common with
the beasts, .... and even in case a man were found who could
be moved from the right by no irregular affections, he would be sub-
ject to mortality, and no one would know what would happen with
his successors, therefore almighty God, out of special grace to human
kind, has ordained the means of the common written "aw [der ordent-
lichen beschriebenen Recht und Gesetze] whereby to keep the temper
of magistrates and judges in the right way, in order that the same
may govern others and render justice without any hindrance of inor-
dinate inclinations and affections, and when one considers the use-
fulness of such a divinely given means, one finds that this ordination
of rights and laws is one of the highest benefits and gifts with which
God has blessed men here in this life, for such laws and rights were
in the beginning ordained by wise honorable people after necessary
consideration, not from friendship, love or hate, but in general with-
out all inordinate affections and inclinations When now
such common right and law is ordained, even if those who act con-
trary to it are punished in accordance with it, .... no one has
occasion for complaint, but everyone is satisfied, since we know that
justice has been done to one as well as to another, and that so impa-
tience and uproar of the subjects is avoided. 1
A little later (p. 37) the conclusion is drawn still more
distinctly:
1 The uneasiness of Thomasius over the traditional doctrines alxnjt
"beschriebene Gesetze" (vide Roscher, in re Thomasius) begins to show itself
in the note in this passage, viz., "the written laws are by no means to
be preferred to the customs" (Gewohnheiten). The naive reasoning
which Osse represents was an effective means of control so long as people
accepted it at face value. Revolution was certain wherever it was repu-
diated without substitution of a constructive theory.
28 THE CAMERALISTS
Hence follows that it is a human duty to hold the common rights
and laws in honor, to esteem them high, and to subject oneself to
them with patience, as the means whereby common peace, repose
and welfare are maintained. And that also the established magis-
tracy is under obligation to protect such right and law, to enforce
it and to govern according to it, not oppressing anyone by acting
contrary to it. For there can be no doubt that as the powers that
be are ordained of God (Ad. Rom. 13) likewise also human rights
and laws by the powers that be, so that they flow from the providence
and special destiny of almighty God Accordingly everyone
should remember that if he disobeys the magistrate and escapes
punishment, yet he is not assured of escaping the punishment of
almighty God. 1
At the opening of the second part, Osse says that, in order
rightly to understand his reflections as a whole, it is necessary
to read what he has said in the first part about all Christian
governments. As to electoral Saxony in particular, he adds,
it has been the object of special divine favor. He specifies
as a fundamental blessing, that the government is not elective
but hereditary, and exclusively in the male line. 2 The con-
sequence is (p. 204) that the best people in the country are
retained in the service of the court, and the good customs and
laws continue undisturbed. The country has therefore grown
in power, resources, public buildings, and otherwise. Then
follows this passage:
And since every government in temporal affairs is of two partr
\auj zweyerley stehet], namely government (sic) and Policey, and
then the judiciary and justice, it is in order that the aforenamed
1 Entirely aside from the familiar dogmatic basis of this argument,
Osse's use of the terms " beschriebene " and " geschricbene Rechte"
apparently without variation of concept plainly shows that the argu-
ment got some of its plausibility from a peculiar form of the ambiguous
middle hidden in the logic, i. e., the ecclesiastico-theological associations
of the terms "heilige Schri/t," " geschrieben," etc., were carried over
to all written laws.
3 Thomasius at once challenges this dictum, on the ground that
debates over " the best form of government" are mere pedantries.
CIVICS OF OSSE 29
land in this respect also should l>e blessed of God before many other
lands. For, in the first place, as respects the government, "hochcr-
meldeter Churjurst" ordered his court with many dignified people,
with counts, nobles, doctors, etc., who hear the causes presented,
reflect upon these matters, weigh and consult, and with timely advice
render true and right decisions. "Seine Churjiirsjt. Gn." has also
filled the civic offices with functionaries, with orders that each shall
receive what is due, and that justice shall always be rendered to
the subjects. For in this country, God be praised, domestic peace
is maintained, and many wholesome publications appear against
oppression and irregular administration. Moreover, in this land
there is a good and proper coinage, whereby the people are impelled
to trade with one another in all the things which they need, whereby
the revenues of the prince from commerce increase [Zoll und Gfleit],
etc For where there is good coinage there is much trade,
and where is much trade and people .... the land in general has
improvement and prosperity, etc.
This passage may be used as a way mark. In the German
states at the middle of the sixteenth century, there were officials
and administration enough, but measured by the cameralism
of the middle of the eighteenth century the officials were unor-
ganized, and the administration unspecialized and unsystem-
atized. Men of Osse's time were in contact with rudiments
of all the governmental activities which have developed since,
but these were relatively inchoate and confused. We have
distinctly disclaimed the purpose of venturing into study of
the evolution of cameralism, either theoretical or applied. Our
composite picture of the academic side of it merely draws in
a few lines from this embryonic period.
Osse enumerates as another blessing of the country the
founding of "drey Fursten-Schulen, als Meissen, Pforten,
Grimma, 1 und zwo treffentliche Universitiiten und hohe
Schulen." 2 The author refers to these schools as particularly
1 The two first in 1543, the last 1550 (Thomasius).
3 Leipzig, i-joq. Wittcnlierg, 1502.
30 THE CAMERALISTS
to prepare men for official positions and to give them training
in legal knowledge. Thomasius comments to the effect that
the papacy was influential enough largely to nullify the benefits
of these foundations. Then mention is made of the two
Hojfgerichtc held by the elector, the one at Leipzig, the other
at Wittenberg, and the Schdppen are also praised as beneficent
institutions, 1 and besides the other higher and lower courts
held by prelates and nobles on their estates, there are many
hundred Land-Gerichte, "so that, by the grace of God a praise-
worthy justice is present in these lands." Moreover the coun-
try possesses a specially fine Policey,* and all affairs are
arranged in good order, and we meet fine, courteous, affable
persons in all stations. 3 In addition many natural and acquired
advantages are enumerated which contribute to the happiness
of the country.
Yet in spite of all these blessings, the author finds that
it is possible for abuses to creep in. He finds this danger first
in the administration of justice. His earliest attention is given
then to the means of avoiding these evils. The caution with
which he approaches the subject is again outspoken in prot-
estations of obedience to the command of the prince; and the
author refers besides to the demands of the common welfare
(gemeinen Nutz) of all classes in the country, and of many
1 These courts were supposed to secure justice in minor cases by
a fair combination of official and lay persons. Thomasius has an impor-
tant note (p. 210) on the quarrels in the law faculties over Schdppen-
stuhle. Vide pp. 208 and 310.
'Thereupon Thomasius tartly comments, "I will not undertake
to judge what sort of a thing a fine or a nasty Policey may be." We shall
not go into Osse's discussion of Policey in detail, because it suits our pur-
pose to deal with the maturer form of the system particularly as reflected
in Justi. Vide below, p. 436 et passim.
3 Americans receive no more elementary impression in Germany
than that the concept gute Ordnung fills the place in German life-philoso-
phy which the notion "freedom" occupies in ours.
CIVICS OF OSSE 3 1
surrounding countries, as justifying attempts at improvement,
in spite of the opposition of those whose selfish interests are on
the side of things as they are.
Osse finds the root of all the difficulties which he has in
mind, in the lack of properly taught and trained men to take
the places of responsibility in the state. This fundamental
opinion accounts for the extent to which his argument turns
upon improvement in the universities. He recurs to the three
reasons which he had assigned in sees. XCIV-XCVI of Part I,
for unsatisfactory conditions in public life, viz.: (a) defective
training of children, (ft) omission to admit young men to the
councils of their elders, (c) frequent changes in office, and he
adds a fourth, viz., favoritism to relatives and friends. This
excludes men of more talent from public careers, or from the
places which they would be more competent to fill. The first
means suggested for correcting the evil is a system of secret
representatives of the prince at the universities. Their duty
should be to pick out young men of promise, and to recommend
them for appointments. Thereupon follow all the propositions
for the improvement of schools and universities. With respect
to the latter, Osse restricts himself almost exclusively to the
"arme betrtibte undfast gefallene Universit&t Leipzig" because
he professes ignorance of the facts at Wittenberg (pp. 258 ff.).
As a source of information about conditions within and around
the University of Leipzig at the middle of the sixteenth century
the succeeding chapters are highly important. In this con-
nection Thomasius' Appendix of 264 pages must again be
mentioned. 1 As will appear however when the systematic
cameralists are before us, the principal questions around which
1 Bin hleiner Versuch von Annalibus von Anno 1409 bis 1629. Eine
etwas genauerc Einsicht in die Historie von Ursprung und Fortgang
der Univcrsitdten in Deutschland, sonderlich der Universitdt Leipzig und
Wittenberg, und denen in denenselben entstandenen Zanchereyen unter-
schiedener Facultdten ingleichen des eingefilhrten langweiligen Processes,
und was vermittelst dieser Zdnckereyen vor Unruhe an den Chur- und
32 THE CAMERALISTS
cameralistic theory was built up had not yet risen upon Osse's
horizon. His document is useful for our purpose merely as
a picture of undifferentiated confusion, with which to compare
the highly articulated system of two centuries later. The
Table of Contents is worth consideration. The titles of chap-
ters must be understood to stand for a series of indictments
of everything which might be classed under those heads at
Leipzig, and enough evidence appears to create a prima-facie
case in favor of the author's substantial correctness. Here
then was a single group of symptoms which impressed men
of Osse's type as calling for correction. In later chapters
the reasons will appear why we must be content with a bare
reference to this earlier type of social theory.
This first chapter on the specific subject of justice (chap,
xiv) is a fine and typical specimen not merely of Osse's style,
but of the moral valuations which were current among the
more academic thinkers. The contrast between the objective
facts of institutions and conduct on the one hand, and frequent
and almost proverbial formulations of abstract moral standards
on the other, is perhaps nowhere more evident than in this
period. We may simply record in passing that citations might
easily be made from the literature of this period, which would
compare favorably in moral import with generalizations of
the same order in any subsequent generation. The essential
demands upon justice, as presented in this chapter, are that
it shall be (i) unpartisan, (2) impersonal, (3) incorruptible. 1
To this particular chapter on justice Thomasius adds a
long note (p. 435) to this effect:
Fiirstlichen Sachsischcn Hojen vcrursacht warden, zu erlangen, zu desto
bessern Ver stand des von D. Melchior von Osse auj Churjiirst Augusti
Alter gnddigslen Bejehl A. IS55 verjerligten und 1556 ubergebenen Recht-
lichen Bedenckens. Zum Gebrauch des Thomasischen Audi tor ii.
1 The first half at least is a rather notable apostrophe to Justice,
and the remainder shows that lofty ideals of practical application were
not without witnesses.
CIVICS OF OSSE 33
The author has, to be sure, said much that is good and useful
about justice. He has however forgotten the best and most necessary,
namely, that for good and righteous justice it is necessary that the
same shall be administered as promptly as possible, and that justice
shall not be tediously suspended.
In fact, Osse expresses himself with sufficient clearness
on this point in the seventh and eighth sections of the same
chapter.
Then follows an account of the evils actually existing in
the Saxon courts, and suggestions for their correction. The
same general scheme is followed in the succeeding chapters
in the division on justice. Distinguishing the chapter on
Policey from the latter for purposes of emphasis, and because
the subject occupies such a unique position in the cameralistic
period, we must give our attention to the editor, although, as
we have intimated, he ought not properly to be considered
in the series of writers with whom we are chiefly concerned,
and although the chronological order is disarranged by atten-
tion to him here. Osse begins the chapter on Policey with
a remark to this effect: Aristotle and the greater part of the
ancient wise men have held that a good Policey of a land or
a city requires four "pieces," viz., "Princeps," "Concilium,"
" Praetorium ," and "Populus." These the author translates,
"a ruler or overlord; good wise counsel; unpartisan, good
judicature, and a pious obedient people." 1 As in the case of
an earlier reference to Policey, Thomasius at once takes the
cue, and his note is an important symptom. Beginning with
bibliographical references which form one of the lines of
evidence by which we trace the influence of authors to be
discussed later, 2 Thomasius continues (p. 500):
1 " Ein Regent und Ober-Herr; guter weiser Rath; unparlheyische
gute Gerichtbarkeit, und fin jromm gehorsam Volck."
3 He first calls to mind the note referred to above (p. 30), and then
rites: "aus dem ersten Theil die relation und indicium von Clapmarii
34 THE CAMERALISTS
This very year there appeared at Franckfurth am Mayn a book
entitled Entwurff einer wohleingerichteten Policey. It contains seven
sheets. The author, who does not give his name, assumes that the
flourishing condition of the financial system of a state must rest
upon four chief pillars, namely Policey, fiscus, commerce, and taxa-
tion. The Policey has to do with the internal and external con-
dition (Verjassung) of the state. 1 The internal condition consists
in part of a vigorous society, namely, (i) in a vigorous growth of
the inhabitants, partly in a joyous life, both of the soul, namely,
(2) in a religious worship, (3) in virtuous conduct, and (4) praise-
worthy education; and of the body, in its sustenance, and satisfac-
tion, through (5) abundance of necessary, useful, and superfluous
means-of-life, (6) robust health, and (7) peaceful security. The
external condition consists (8) in the good order of people, things,
and places, and (9) in a convenient ornamentation of city and coun-
try. On the contrary, every state is disintegrated and disordered
through (i) decline of population, (2) disregard of religion, (3)
vicious life, (4) neglect of education, (5) lack of sustenance and
increase of the pauper class, (6) epidemics and plagues, (7) turbu-
lence, revolts, and private quarrels, (8) irregular confusion of social
strata, affairs, and places, (9) uncultivated lands and badly ordered
towns. For promotion of the different kinds of good works, and
removal of the evil, the author proposes in general the establishment
arcanis rerumpublicarunt, von Faust's consilits pro aerario, von Obrechts
Politischen Bedencken, von Klokii de Aerario, von der Furstiichen Macht-
kunst oder unerschdpfllchen Coldgrube, von des Freyherrn von Schrotern
Filrst. Sckatz und Rcnt-Cammer (nota 39, p. 81; nota 41, pp. 96 ff., nota
76, pp. 152 ff.) ingleichen von der Einjaltigkeit der Haushaltungs-Regeln
(nota 40, p. 95).
One of the anachronisms in English interpretation of German
thought has come in through premature translation of this word Ver-
jassung by our modern term "constitution." Unless direct evidence
to the contrary appears in. rare cases, the word should never be under-
stood to mean "constitution" in the modern sense, until the beginning
of the struggle for constitutions. I believe I fairly represent what the
word meant to the author cited and even to Thomasius by the vague
word "condition." The remainder of the quotation supports this view.
CIVICS OF OSSE 35
of a Policey bureau, the members of which should be charged with
(i) giving their earnest attention to the above points, (2) averting
harmful occurrences, (3) controlling disorder, or (4) bringing com-
plaints before the proper tribunals, (5) maintaining reliable watch-
men and detectives, (6) conducting unexpected visitations and
inquisitions, (7) keeping a watchful eye on peaceful persons, things,
and places in the state, (8) to that end drawing useful ordinances
relating to persons and things, (9) responsibility for observance of
the same. Thereupon the author enlarges upon each of these nine
points of good Policey, especially upon the population, religion,
virtuous conduct, good kinds of education, riches, health, security,
order and adornment of a state, especially upon the means of securing
these things, and of avoiding the opposite. Now the author deserves
praise, in the first place [continues Thomasius], for attempting to
treat of political things in a brief and very well-connected and rather
clear didactic fashion, in contrast with the condition of which I
have so often complained, viz., that there has been scarcely an attempt
in universities at such pedagogy in political things. Indeed everyone
who reads this writing will find in it much whose truth he will com-
prehend, and the introduction or abolition of which he will agree
with the author in finding highly desirable for the state. He will
accordingly be pleased that in a few hours' reading he has learned
from the author more well-connected truths than if he had spent
two years with political works written according to the Aristotelian
method
Thomasius then refers to a second monograph of the same
author, another tract also published by him this year, viz.,
Politische Gedanken, welcher gestalt Monarchen und Konige,
Republiquen und Fiirsten, nebst ihren Reichen, Ldndern und
Unterthanen, durch eine leichte methode mdchtig und reich
seyn oder werden ko'nnen; and he continues:
In this connection much remains to be said in order to make
such a tract complete. I will attempt, however, to mention only
the principal things, as suggested by this brief introduction, (i) It
is to be wished that the author had explained somewhat more clearly
how the Policey system should be distinguished from the fiscal,
36 THE CAMERALISTS
commercial and taxing systems. He observes at the outset, to be
sure, that the fiscal system should deal with the Oeconomie 1 of the
country and the domains of sovereigns; the commercial systems
with trade and business [Handel und Wandel], with the appertaining
occupations and professions; the taxing system with the arrange-
ments for contribution to the state, and he promises to expand his
thoughts upon these three neighboring pillars. After he thereupon
announces, however, that the Policey has charge of the internal and
external condition [Verfassung] of a state, one is not without reason
for the opinion that, because the fiscal, commercial and taxing
systems also belong to the internal or external condition of the state,
these three pieces must also be counted as parts of the Policey system.
And if one should say that the Policey system is here understood
in a restricted sense, namely, so far as the same takes account of
the well-being [Wohlseyn] of the subjects, since on the other hand
the fiscal and taxing systems aim at the well-being of the rulers, this
difference might have been announced at once without circumlocution
by the author, but on the other hand it would then not be clear how
the commercial system is distinguished from the Policey system,
especially as everyone understands that the same belongs to the fifth
chapter, and the author also there recommends the commercial
system as a necessary part of the same. (2) It is very serious
that the author regards all these four pillars not as the ground
of a peaceful and virtuously reasonable state, but as a ground
of the increasingly prosperous fiscal system, and that at the beginning
of the second tract he lays down this rule as a basis: "All considerable
rulers must attend to their sole ultimate purpose [eintzigen Endzweck]
and highest interest, viz., to become powerful and (supplying from
the title the words carefully omitted in this passage) rich."* For
although in the present tract he chatters about religion and virtue,
1 The reasons for not translating this term will appear later. Vide
Index, title "Economy and Related Terms."
' A part of the reason for introducing Osse at all in this book is the
value of these editorial notes upon his monograph in throwing light on
contemporary estimates of the cameral system. Thomasius here puts
his finger upon the central trait of cameralism, and it is astonishing that
later writers have so far lost account of this clue to the whole theory.
CIVICS OF OSSE 37
it is on the other hand very suspicious when, at the beginning of the
second chapter (p. 18), he announces that he will not inquire whether
religion is an invention of the clergy and statesmen, who introduced
it for spiritual or secular purposes, but it will be enough that the
same furnished the chief foundation of a state. In the same spirit
(on p. 5), in reciting the satisfactions of the body he places riches
first, and gives precedence to the same not only over health but also
over peaceful security. Indeed, in chapter i, 6, p. 9, he recom-
mends polygamy as a serviceable means of increasing the population.
Again he refers to regulation and limitation only of houses of prosti-
tution, where they are to be tolerated for reasons of state, etc., etc.
Who the author is, I will not disclose, although I discovered his
identity a short time after I had read his two tracts and had made
these notes. Meanwhile he has sufficiently betrayed himself when,
in the tract, How Great Lords May Become Rich (p. n), he cites a
Discurs published by his father in 1655
It is evident that after writing note 105 above referred to
(p. 30) Thomasius saw a great light, partly through the eyes
of this unnamed writer, on the place of Policey in the adminis-
trative system. So much of the note is quoted, however, not
primarily for its connection with Thomasius, but because the
resum6 of the document will be useful for comparison later.
At the same time a few sentences should be added from the
paragraph in Osse to which Thomasius' note is appended. 1
They continue his reference to the different divisions of admin-
istration. Osse says:
Everything should be directed toward keeping these four parts
in good condition, if one is to maintain a good Policey, for a lord and
ruler is in three respects under obligations to the people divinely
intrusted to him; namely, that he should maintain the same in good
prosperous circumstances, which occurs when the people [das Volck]
lives virtuously, and some among them are promoted to learning,
and to good arts, and many wise and learned people are in their
number, from whom the rest may receive good instruction, and they
1 Vide above, p. 33.
38 THE CAMERALISTS
are not left to wander in the darkness of ignorance, and everything
through which such promotion of things useful to the community
is hindered is either prevented or averted by the ruler.
The foregoing is of firstrate importance when we generalize
the civic assumptions of the cameralists.
It is to be noted that Osse could say, "Praise God, this
land is already provided with an honorable, good, and praise-
worthy Policey" (p. 506). * He could offer only certain very
cautious and vague suggestions about details. For instance,
he calls attention to conflicts of interests between rural and urban
populations, which tended to injustice toward the former,
through the tendency to concentrate certain rural occupations,
such as brewing, in the towns (p. 509). Thomasius comments
on the justice of his position, in spite of the foolishness of the
grounds on which it is based, viz., that in Roman law trade was
prohibited to the nobility. Again, Osse denounces the inhu-
manity of many of the nobility toward the widows and orphans
of their dependents, and calls upon the elector to appoint a
supervisor to act as a guardian of such dependent persons, and
to secure their rights against conscienceless nobles. In the
third place, he urges upon the elector correction of practice in
the criminal courts, and especially prevention of illegal resort
to torture. Increase of the amount of light and air in prisons;
certain sumptuary reforms, on the ultimate ground (p. 516)
that luxury drains money from the country; attempts to pre-
vent rise in the price of meat; appointment of trustees to keep
heirs from squandering their estates, are substantially all the
further changes which Osse was able to recommend.
The Testament proper closes with these considerations.
An appendix of seventeen pages, including the editor's notes,
is added, with the title, Additio Gemeine des Heil. Reichs
1 As evidence that this part of the administration was well guarded,
he cites the Policey- und Landes-Ordnung, published by Elector August
in 1555, "in Corpore Juris Saxonici, torn. I, pp. 31 biss 59 zu lesen."
CIVICS OF OSSE 39
Wohlfarth belangende. It replies to the hypothetical question,
Supposing the conduct advised in the Testament were strictly
adopted in Saxony, would it not all be in vain, because of the
disorder in the Holy Roman Empire at large ? The unhappy
condition of the Empire was attributed by Osse to three causes :
(i) the religious quarrels, (2) the weakening of the judicial
authority of the Empire, (3) disregard of Landfrieden within
the Empire. In discussing the situation he puts the emphasis
almost entirely on the first point. The whole matter is pri-
marily political in another sense from that in which the came-
ralists are to be considered, and it is not therefore material to
our inquiry. 1
Although Thomasius' Versuch von Annalibus is not directly
germane to our purpose, its presence in the same volume with
the Testament is excuse for alluding to it again. It is profess-
edly an attempt to stimulate the neglected study of history.
It is a collection of data principally concerning education
in Saxony. It covers the period 1409-1629. To the student
of Saxon history, and especially of the University of Leipzig,
it would be an extremely valuable secondary source.
1 Thomasius insists (p. 532) that Osse's omission to mention in this
connection the Religious Peace of Augsburg (September 25, 1555)
strengthens the suspicion that he was not a good Lutheran, but at heart
a papist. As the Testament was dated December, 1555, and as the
Additio was written later, failure to mention it, the editor thinks, points
to the author's lack of sympathy with any arrangement in the nature
of a modus Vivendi between the contending forces. Osse's own profes-
sions do not tend to confirm this hypothesis.
CHAPTER III
THE CIVICS OF OBRECHT
The only writer whom it is necessary to mention between
Osse and Obrecht is Georg Engelhard von Lohneyss (some-
times written Lohneis, Lohneissen, etc.). Although his name
frequently occurs in the cameralistic books, there is no reason
to regard him as an important contributor to cameralistic
science. Thomasius (Vorrede zum Testatnent, p. 25) intimates
that Lohneyss borrowed much without credit from Osse. I
have been unable to obtain any of his writings. Inama says
of him : '
He was of an aristocratic Palatine family. He was first Master
of the Horse at the court of Elector August of Saxony. In 1583 he
entered the service of Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfen-
biittel, first as Stallmcisler, then as Bergkauptmann. At both courts
he had rare opportunities for training in the practical administrative
technique of the time. Each court was supposed to have a model
administrative system. August was an eminent and tireless admin-
istrator, Heinrich Julius the best trained jurist among contemporary
rulers. At the same time these courts were noted for their display.
From his purchased estates Lohneyss bore the title "Erbherr in
Remlingen und Neundorf." For a while he had his own printing
establishment, particularly to secure proper publication of his own
writings. His three chief works were printed here.* The latter
part of his life is without traces in the confusion of the Thirty Years'
War. His printing establishment and the stock of his books were
' All. d. Bib., in loc.
1 Viz., d) Delia Cavelleria. S. de arte equitando, exercitiis equestribus
el torneamenlis, griindlicher Bericht von allem was zu der loblicken Reiterei
gehorig, und einem Cavalier zu u'issen von Nothen, auch Chur und War-
tung der Pjerde und wie man dieselben au) allerhand Manier abrichten
und zdumen soil, 1609, 2<\ cd., 1624; (2) Bericht vom Bergwerk, wit
mandieselben bauen und in guten Wohlstand bringen soil, 1617; (3) Aulico-
40
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 41
destroyed in the course of that 'struggle. Seckendorff, in his Vorrede,
praised the Ho)-Staat- und Regierungskunst; yet like the rest of
the author's writings it has no special scientific weight. Still his
chief cameralistic work stands, in riches of content and enlightened
judgment, as well as practical insight, far above the mass of theoreti-
cal political products, and forms an immediate preparation for the
flourishing period of German cameralistics inaugurated by Secken-
dorff 's Teutscher Fiirstenstaat.
The biography of Georg Obrecht is best epitomized in
Eisenhart's sketch: 1
Obrecht was bom in Strassburg in 1547, and died in the same
city in 1612. As a young man he studied in Paris. After escaping
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, which cost the loss of his library,
he went to Basel and obtained there the degree of Doctor of Laws
in 1574. In 1575 he was made Professor of Law in Strassburg,
and he retained the position to the end of his life. As the fleeting
glory of Wittenberg began to fade, Strassburg assumed the spiritual
leadership of Protestant Germany. Along with Giffen and Gotho-
fredus, it was chiefly Obrecht who founded the fame of the Strassburg
academy. He held various offices and dignities besides his professor-
ship. In 1604 he wa made a noble of the empire, and in 1609 he
received the title of Palgrave.
For the purposes of this book Obrecht is important as the
author of a single volume. 8 The chief significance of the five
politica oder Ho j -Stoats- und Regierungskunst, 1622-24, republished
1679. Apparently the last was identical with the book often referred
to under the title Teutscher Regentenstaat (vide Roscher, p. 116). There
are good reasons for the suspicion that Lohneyss has been mentioned by
many writers who neglected to state that their knowledge of him was at
second hand.
' All. d. Bib., in loc.
* Fiinff under schiedliche Secreta Politica, von A nstellung, Erhaltung
und Vermehrung guter Policey, und von billicher, rechtmassiger und
nothwendiger, Erhohung eines jeden Regenten Jahrlichen Gejallen und
Einkommen. Allen Hohen und Nidern Obrigkeiten, besonders dess
Heiligen Romischen Reichs Standen, in diesen letzten und hochbetrangten
42 THE CAMERALISTS
monographs which make up the volume is disclosed at once
in the Preface by the author's son, Joannes Thomas Obrecht
("J. C. et Comes Palatinus Caesareus"). As editor he gives
an account of the origin and purpose of the different mono-
graphs. Attention is piqued at once by the statement, "I
printed the book at my own expense, and secretly." 1 Accord-
ing to the editor's explanation, the essays are the outgrowth
and development of a central purpose, which is stated in con-
nection with the account of the first document. In a word,
the wars with the Turks had made the question of money to
pay expenses importunate. In the year 1590 Obrecht Sr.
had publicly discussed certain theses de principijs belli. In
that discussion he had maintained, among other things, that
in order to carry on successful war, and to defend their lands,
governments (Obrigkeiten) must be provided with an abun-
dance of money (mil einem starcken Gelt Nervo). He had also
announced that he would be ready, on a more favorable occa-
sion, to go into detail as to the ways in which this Nervus belli
might be obtained "through Christian, righteous, and proper
means."
A single remark of a relatively obscure writer would be
of little weight in supporting a general hypothesis. If there
were any doubt that this problem of ways and means for the
maintenance of military operations was desperate in every
German state, it would be necessary to set down this item for
what it is worth, and to go into the political records of Germany
for evidence of the fiscal conditions. This has been done so
Zciien zum besten. Hiebevor gestellet durch Ceorgium Obrechtum, J . C.
Sacri Palatij Comitem, Reipub. Argentinens. Advocatum, 6^ Academiae
Antecessorem. Hernacher im Jahr 1617 zum Truck befdrdert, und biss
ankero ingeheim gehalten: Nunmehr aber zu mdnnigliches Nutzen publi-
cirt, und mil nothwendigen Register -n verbesscrt. "Lectio lecta placet,
decies repetita placebit" (351 pp. with indexes).
1 "Auf mcincn Costcn, in geheim und sub secreto," Vorrede, p. i.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 43
fully, however, by German historians that no question remains
about the main facts. Our problem is to interpret the phe-
nomena of cameralism as one of the outgrowths of the times
in which these facts existed. Here then was a single theorist.
He confronted a situation which vexed all types of men theoret-
ically or practically concerned with questions of civic polity
in Germany. The key to the situation, as he saw it, was the
need of more money to strengthen the state for war, in particu-
lar, as well as for other purposes. With this as his clue, he
reasoned to the best of his ability, and the result was a scheme,
on paper, which may fairly be called a respectable first draft
of a programme which was later worked out in detail, and
quite in the same spirit, by the cameralists. Without pre-
judging the theories of later writers, and without generalizing
at this point about the extent to which the object of subsequent
thinkers was identical with that of Obrecht, we must define
his purpose clearly, and make it the explanation of his pro-
posals. In a word, he wanted to show how civic authorities
might solve their most importunate problem of command-
ing the sinews of war, and of providing for the more ordinary
expenses of government. His whole discussion centers about
this theme.
The son does not tell why it was thought necessary to keep
the monographs secret. Apparently the essential reason was
that such subjects were thought to be matters for the rulers
and the learned alone, and that either the monographs them-
selves were not sufficiently matured for publication, or that no
public existed, outside of a select circle, intelligent or respon-
sible enough to profit by reading them. So far as evidence
appears in the volume itself, Obrecht's theories contained
nothing calculated to arouse governmental hostility. At the
worst they might be regarded as well intended but visionary.
On the contrary, as the editor further states, Rudolf II
called for Obrecht's opinion on the fiscal problem, and he
44 THE CAMERALISTS
accordingly wrote the first monograph. This document con-
tains 59 pages, with an index of 6 pages, and is chiefly in Latin. 1
It is not clear whether the editor means to imply that his
father's further opinion was demanded from high quarters,
or whether the above occasion spurred him to further study.
At all events the account continues to the effect that Obrecht
diligently searched the Politicorum scripta, so far as they were
available, and tested them by the Word of God, in order to
learn which doctrines were to be rejected, and which, as pre-
cious pearl and gems, should be loyally retained, and by
the grace of God so set forth and applied that no one could
have a grievance against them. The outcome of this study
was the second monograph. 2
Of this Bedencken the editor affirms that it was calculated
to inspire confidence, both in rulers and subjects, on the one
hand that the proposed means would be sufficient, and on
the other hand that the demands of the government would not
be unreasonable.
Obrecht, however, did not fully trust his own judgment
about such important matters. He did not venture to call the
1 Its special title reads: Georgii Obrechti, etc. Discursus Bellico-
politicus. Imictissimo et A ugustissimo Principi ac Domino, Dn. Rudoipho
Laudatissimae Memoriae. II Romanorum Imperatori, Anno M. DC.
I V. ab A uthore humilima animi devotione oblatus, in quo quomodo advur-
sus Turcicum Tyrannum bellum commode geri possit, quant jelicissime
ostenditur.
2 Beginning with the initials of the ascription, "Auspice Deo Triuno
Optimo Maximo," the title-page reads: " Politisch Bedencken und Dis-
curs: Von Verbesscrung Land unnd Leut, Anrichtung guter Policey. Und
jurnemblich von nutzlicher Erledigung grosser Aussgaben, und billicher
Vermehrung tines jeden Regenten und Oberherren Jdhrlichen Gejallen
und Einkommen." This monograph occupies 135 pages, without index.
Its main propositions are in German, and they are fortified by copious
quotations in Latin from the Politicorum scripta, the same ranging from
legendary sayings of Servius Tullius, to dicta of contemporary authorities
in canonical and civil law.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 45
proposal complete until he had consulted, either in person or
in correspondence, during several years, "under pledge of
silence," eminent theologians, "and highly experienced states-
men." With this assistance the Discurs was finished in 1609.'
The third document in the series is in form an independent
monograph, but the editor says it was drawn from the Bedencken
and was intended to show more plainly how the ideas in the
former treatise could be applied. It was finished in 1610.
It contains 46 pages. 2
1 There is a discrepancy of no material importance for our pur pose, be-
tween the younger Obrecht and Thomasius with reference to this mono-
graph. The latter states (Osse, p. 87) that the Politisches Bedencken was
printed at Strassburg in the year 1606; that is, three years earlier than it
was completed, if the former is correct. Thomasius adds that a copy of
this first edition was in his possession. This appears to make him a com-
petent witness so far, especially as he quotes enough of the remainder of
the title to make the identity of the monograph rather certain. From
the context, however, it is plain that Thomasius had never seen the edition
of 1617, in which the document in question was virtually the second
chapter. Of that edition he says, upon the authority of Deckher, "descrip-
tis Adespotis, p.m. 335 The other, presumably somewhat enlarged,
appeared in the year 1617." He further states that copies of the latter
edition, at some date which he does not mention, sold for one hundred
Gulden, To account for this he quotes that writer as follows: "Testata
est Republ. Argentinensis, adferendo omnis exemplaria suae Cancellariae
nolle se consilia civis fui, quae illi in proxi pessime cessere, omnibus palam
fieri." Thomasius concludes that this "confiscation" was the reason
for the scarcity price. The inference is plausible enough, but the only
reason that can be surmised for calling in the book is similar to parents'
motives for keeping some books which they find profitable for themselves
out of reach of their children.
A little later in the Preface, the editor says of the third document
in the volume, the Aerarium Sanctum, "so biss data niemanden communi-
ciret worden." The date referred to must mean that on which the collec-
tion was published, 1617.
3 The title and general outline indicate its scope, viz., Constitutio
von nothwendiger und niitzlicher Anstellung eines Aerarij Sancti. Durch
welches jurnemblich die Bejorderung und Erhaltung gemeiner Wohljahrt
46 THE CAMERALISTS
Having gone SP far in his studies, Obrecht discovered
that something more was necessary. He concluded that the
entire life of sovereigns and subjects must be conducted in
accordance with the dictates of thrift and morality, or the means
would still be lacking to provide the necessary revenues. Accord-
ingly he harked back to Roman exploitation of "Censum et
Censuram," and he elaborated a scheme of Policey, partly
prompted by his conception of the Roman system, partly
appropriating contemporary police arrangements, and partly
a speculative proposal. The significant point is that the animus
of the whole undertaking was the proposal to devise meam
by which adequate revenues might be assured to the stale. At
the same time, and this is a trait that runs through the whole
cameralistic regime, the total morale of the people was to be
improved, primarily to be sure for state purposes, but none the
less improvement of the physical, mental, and moral life con-
ditions of all the people was an avowed and prominent part
gesucht und erlangt wird; Beschrieben und angeslelll von Georgia Obrechlo,
etc.
I. Ein sondere Constitutio und Ordnung, dc ludiciario Vectigali.
II. Von sechs Ordnungen, in welchen die bona Fisci, dem Aerario
Sanclo zugeeignet werden: i. Ordinalio, von oedcn und uncrbuwten
Giitcren; 2. Ordinatio, de Bonis Vacantibus: 3. Ordinalio de Bonis
perditis, &* proderelicto habitis, item de bonis peregrinorum, er* Thesauris;
4. Ordinatio, de Bonis Ereptitiis; 5. Ordinatio, de Bonis Damnatorum
ct P rotcriptorum; 6. Ordinatio, de Bonis incestas Nuplias conlrahentium;
III. Von vier Ordnungen, durch welchc ralione bonorum subditorum
das Aera.ri.um Sanctum mit vielen starcken Jahrlichcn Gefallen, und
Einkommen versehen wird: 7. Ordinalio, de Bonis subditorum in ultima
aliqua voluntate Aerario Sancto relictis; 8. Ordinatio, de Bonis Subditorum,
qui in ultima aliqua voluntate, extraneis personis aliquid reliqucrunt:
9. Ordinatio, de Bonis subditorum, qui :ine herede lineae ascendentis 6*
descendentis decedunt, 6 in Linea collaterals tantum ultra septimum
gradum heredes post se relinquunt: 10. Ordinatio, von eincr nothwen-
digen, und hochnutzlichen Fewr-Ordnung.
IV. De Fine huius Constitutions, und wahin obcrkliirte red it MS
konnen, und sollen verwendet werden.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 47
of the programme. It was not stated by the cameralists (Justi
possibly excepted) as an end-end. It was emphasized with
cumulative insistence as a means-end, and this factor became
one of the distinguishing elements in German polity. 1 The
fifth and last document or "secretum" in the series is referred
to as the Aerarium Liberorum. Ostensibly it was a plan of
savings and endowment insurance for children. The author
avows quite frankly, however, that in essence it is a detail in
his fiscal scheme. In a word, parents were to lay by, in the
hands of the government, certain regular amounts, to receive
interest at 6 per cent., and to be paid to the children named
1 The so-called "Constitution," in which this scheme of Policey is
outlined, contains only 31 pages. Its title-page is as follows:
Ein sondere Policey-Ordnung, und Constitution, durch ivelche ein
jeder Magistrates, vermittels besonderen angestellten Deputaten, jederzeit
in seiner Regierung, eine gewisse Nachrichlung haben mag, I. Wie es
gleichsam mil seiner ganzen Policey, als eines Polilischen Leibs, und alien
desselberen Gliederen, den Underthanen beschaffen. II. Wie gemelter
Policey, derselben Gliederen, und Administration, auff: und zunemmen
zubejurderen, ab: und undergang zuverhuten. So dann zunt III. Wie
(inch die gemeine Wolfarth, so auss vorgedachten drey en Stilcken herkompt,
zuvermehren, und zu crhalten seyen, Allen Oberheiten, in diesen letzten,
verhehrten, und gejahrlichen Zeiten, hochnotwendig, und in viel Weg
niitzlich samt einer kurtzen Information, und Erhlttrung, auch eineni
A ppendice.
The "Information" and " Erkldrung," together with the Appendix,
occupy 32 pages. The inscription of the former reads: "Kurtze Infor-
mation und Erkliirung. In welchen die Precia Inscriptionum bestimbt,
und die Nutzbarkeiten welchc auss den inscriptionibus, inscriptionnm
Document is 6* Albis, wie auch aus Anordnung der Deputaten, sowol
privalim, als publice zucrlangcn seind, kiirtzlich deducirt werden, Zu
bcsserem Verstand, unnd Nachrichtung, voriger Policey Ordnung, und
Constitution angestellt." The special title of the Appendix is: "Von
underschiedenen Inscriplionum Documentis."
The passage in which the editor accounts for the writing of the
Constitution contains so many side-lights upon the impulses of the docu-
ment, which would disappear in a translation, that it would have been
quoted in full in an appendix if spare had permitted.
48 THE CAMERALISTS
as beneficiaries on arrival at a certain age. If, however, a
child died before reaching the specified age, both principal and
interest should belong to the government. Since, however,
this forfeiture would occur only in consequence of "a special
dispensation of God," the editor seriously argues that the
scheme, for which he might have quoted Italian precedents,
ought not to be considered inequitable, but rather on the whole
as favorable to parents as to the government. 1
Beyond this general analysis of the book, our purpose calls
merely for a few notes about incidentals in its contents. Con-
sidering the volume then as an exhibit of a coherent scheme of
fiscal administration, we may abstract certain items of evidence
bearing upon tendencies in fundamental political theory which
the scheme exhibits.
After a brief address to the emperor, the chapter " Billico-
Politicus" opens the discussion with a highly pedantic intro-
duction upon the topic : Quae ad Constitutionem Belli Turcici
necessaria sint. This is like stopping when the house is afire,
to settle the metaphysical question, What is necessary to
constitute a house afire? The author nevertheless gravely
enumerates as the elements in the situation: "Jus; Summus
Magistrates; Hostes; Justa Causa; et Legitima Belli Sus-
ceptio" In ten pages these implications are expanded, and
through brief discussion of the "mature deliberation" which
must precede war, the way is paved for the actual problem of
the tract, viz., enumeration of all available sources of revenue.
Without entering into any of the technical details scheduled,
1 The monograph contains 56 pages, including an Appendix of 10
pages, and in addition an Index of 8 pages. The title-page reads:
Constitutio und Ordnung. Von eincm Hochniilzlichen Aerario Liber o-
rum, in welches, von den Elteren, allerhand Sum-men Celts, jurnemblich
ihren Newgebornen Kinder en, und in eventum ihnen selbs, auch der Obrig-
keit, und Gemeiner Wohljahrt turn besten angelegt werden: Sampt aller-
hand Erblarungen, und sweyen Kinder Rechnungen. Beschrieben unnd
angestellt von Georgia Obrechto etc.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 49
we may notice that the sources of revenue named are classed
under two general heads: first, those which impose a burden
upon the persons supplying the revenue; second, those that
impose no burden. 1 This distinction often reappears in the
cameralistic books. In general it does not correspond with
the ideas which would be attached to the terms today. A
" burdensome" tax was one which impaired the citizen's means
of maintaining his standard of life. A "non-burdensome"
tax was one which left the means of livelihood intact, but might
theoretically absorb all increments of profit. 2
A single observation will suffice in connection with the
second class of resources. The author names first among
the fiscal means which impose no burden upon the persons who
supply the revenue, "bona oikonomia." In the text he uses
the Greek form otKovofjitav. He explains that he means by
it good administration in general. That is, all functionaries
are to exhibit fidelity and diligence, they are not to incur need-
less expenses, they are to exercise frugality and parsimony,
and thus to have in hand the means with which to meet unfore-
seen demands. This observation is necessary, because a
cardinal datum for interpretation of the cameralists is that they
did not have the idea, and consequently did not have a word
1 I. De necessariarum rerum comparatione: &c. praecipue de modis,
quibus cum onere subditorum pecunia comparari possit. II. De modis
quibus sine onere subditorum pecunia compariri possit: et praecipue de
bona Oeconomia et de venditione vel oppigneratione bonorum.
9 We may merely name the four classes of resources which the author
mentions under the first head, viz., (i) imposition of taxes; (2) extra-
ordinary taxes; (3) "51 annul reditus atque census, sique porloria et vecti-
galia augentur" (and without entering into the question of the precise
connotation of these terms at the date of the book, the author's illustrations
permit us to render them in general, income, property, and poll taxes,
customs and excise); (4) certain ordinances (constitutiones) which may
yield something to the treasury. In a sense the second monograph, and
in a much more literal sense the third, fourth, and fifth papers are elabo-
rations of the author's meaning under this head.
50 THE CAMERALISTS
for "economics" in the sense attached to that term in nineteenth-
century English usage. In this early instance, "bona oikonomia"
evidently contained the rudiments, but only the rudiments,
of the concept later represented by such a term as Staats-
haushaltung. In the second half of the eighteenth century,
as we shall see, the Greek term was often reserved for agricul-
tural management only. In the intermediate period its mean-
ing was unprecise. Our concern at this point is merely to
indicate the inchoate condition of the stage of administrative
theory represented by Obrecht, and in particular to put on
record this early use of a term which, in translations into English,
has been the innocent occasion of cardinal misjudgments of
essential factors in the development of German social theories.
The remaining titles in the monograph refer to details of
the fiscal resources of the time which yield nothing for our
purpose. 1
The second document opens with a series of specifications
which picture most vividly the desperate financial straits of
contemporary German rulers, from the emperor down to the
minor princes. Incidentally the author furnishes cumulative
evidence that the "biological analogy" was as serviceable a
working tool for him as for some of the nineteenth-century
sociologists. 2 The exhibit and the estimate of money as the
1 This will be evident from headings of the remaining subdivisions:
viz., " DC novorum Acccptorum et rcdituum constitutione: et praecipue
de modis quibus mediante justitiae administratione accepta augeri
possunt."
44 De modis quibus sine lustitiae administratione accepta atque
reditus absquc onerc sulxlitorum augeri possunt."
44 DC Commeatu Pabuli et Krumcnti, item de armis, ct dc ijs rebus,
quac ad arma pertinent comparandis."
" De Praccedentibus ad ronstitutioncm belli accommodandis."
2 Thus, "Sintemal wie in einem Natiirlithen Lcib, die nervi prima
animalis sensus et motus instrumenta, auch causa actionum seind: also
in carport civili, oder in einer Refiublica, als in einem Ftirstenthumb,
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 51
vital force of governments lead to succinct statement of the pur-
pose of the pamphlet, viz., to call the attention of rulers and
governors to the necessity of diligent reflection about these
things, and of adopting the means to be proposed, or better
ones, in the interest of themselves and their subjects. The
terms in which the author further urges these claims first reflect
very plainly the inchoate, undifferentiated, and unorganized
stage of civic administration in German states, and secondly,
they contain a touch which marks an early form of a moral
consideration not at that time very effective, but later of co-or-
dinate rank with the requirements for offensive and defensive
strength against external enemies. In a word Obrecht argues
that without money properly to pay civil employees, rulers
cannot protect the people against the injustices of their own
servants. He observes in this connection that "although there
are to be sure many magistri, as Bodinus calls them," who
are always well equipped with means of raising money, yet
usually these means tend not merely to burden the subjects
but completely to strip them. No one appears to point out
means which would be just and lucrative, and at the same time
serviceable for all sorts of improvement. He proposes, there-
fore, to present a scheme which would satisfy these require-
ments.
The body of the essay is divided on the lines drawn in the
previous paper, viz., first, means for raising revenues by bur-
Graffschafft, Herrschafft, und in fiirnemmen Statten, seind Gelt und
Gut gleichsam die nervi, und instrumenta, ohn wclche kein Respublica,
angericht, gebessert, und so wol zu Friedens Zeit, als in Kriegs Empc-
rungen, unnd anderen hochbetrangten Zustanden, erhalten werden kan,
etc." A little later the figure continues: "Dann welcher gestalt Gelt
und Gut nit weniger Reipublicae von nohten seind, als im Menschlichen
Leib seind die nervi senlienles, welche von dem Him entspringen sollen,'
ebner massen Gelt und Gut gebiihrlicher weiss zuerlangen, gehort einer
jeden Oberkeit zu, die gleichsam in Republica, als in corpore civili,
anstatt Hirns ist, und hat soldi corpus vollkommlich zu regieren, etc."
5* THE CAMERALISTS
dening the subjects ; second, means which would not burden
the subjects. This whole range of governmental problems
is put under the head, "Oeconomica administratio." In gen-
eral the scheme is merely an amplification of ideas contained
in the earlier essay. The specific propositions do not concern
us, but the conditions which were to be met and the status of
reasoning about them may be somewhat more approximately
understood by reference to the titles of chapters. 1
If this were a history of administrative technique, or of
administrative technology, Obrecht's book would furnish many
details which would mark a stage in the process. As we are
in search of the fundamental conceptions and ultimate pur-
poses of cameralism, these details are interesting only in so
far as they bear testimony about those conceptions and pur-
poses. Not because they immediately yield much information
on these points, but for use later in connection with other evi-
dence, we may note a few items of more than merely administra-
tive significance.
In the first place, Obrecht seems to have understood in a
general way the impolicy of debasing the coinage. Thus he
says (p. 108):
That today certain mammon brothers, in search of selfish gain,
seek all sorts of private advantage with the different coins, that they
diminish and weaken the same in weight and value [Schrott und Korn]
is directly contrary to all laws, also to various edicts of the Holy
Empire with respect to coinage, and brings with it beyond all doubt
the curse of God and temporal punishment.
In the second place, Obrecht represents a stage and type
of political thinking in which the traditional taboo of commerce
and trade as pursuits for members of the nobility began to be
called in question. Thus, after citing a number of opinions
on the conventional side, he asserts (p. in):
1 These were to have appeared in an appendix.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 53
I however regard commerce as in a way necessary for a republic;
and so necessary, indeed, that it cannot be separated from the body
of the republic. For merchants are in the body of the republic, as
it were, attendants, carriers, feet, etc consequently, I hold it
as more honorable than despicable when noble and high persons
GMTy on trade for the sake of lightening the burdens of their subjects,
and of discharging public obligations with the least difficulty.
To this item should be added a later passage, viz. (p. 122):
A ruler and overlord should make it an object of diligent atten-
tion that in his towns and country regions, so far as opportunity
allows, all sorts of traders should be located. For the traders not
only bring into the country all sorts of necessary wares, at their own
cost and risk, but they also draw out of the country those wares of
which the country has a superabundance But a ruler should
look out for the following four points: I, that the merchants should
carry on no forbidden traffic, nor should they bring forbidden wares
into the country, nor carry them out to forbidden places; II, that
no scarcity, nor hindrance of the subjects in disposing of their wares,
should be brought about by the merchants; III, that they should
make no harmful and usurious bargains but their transactions should
all tend to the common advantage, and not to the injury of their
neighbors; IV, that the merchants should be protected against all
unjust violence, for this is to the advantage not only of the merchants
themselves, but of the subjects in general.
In the third place, Obrecht schedules encouragement of
navigation as a means of enlarging a state's revenues. He
seems to have no suspicion of questions about "balance of
trade," but pleads artlessly for "provision of vessels tha* may
bring all sorts of goods and wares from foreign ports, that the
same may be sold again."
Fourthly, he proposes advances from the princely chest,
to merchants who bring in foreign goods. The chief reason
for this proposal seems to be that the interest on the advances
would be a considerable source of profit to the prince.
Fifth, Obrecht recommends purchase by government of
54 THE CAMERALISTS
certain food stuffs, wine, etc., to be held as a resource against
possible scarcity prices, and then to be sold at reasonable rates,
to the advantage both of government and subjects.
Promotion of artisanship is also urged, and for similar
reasons. At the same time dangers from improper combina-
tions of hand-workers are suggested, and severe punishments
for misusing such organization are recommended. In connec-
tion with the advice that, to promote trade and crafts, fairs
and markets should be arranged, a bare hint of the later popu-
lation doctrine appears, viz. (p. 127):
And it is beyond all doubt that when all the above is set in opera-
tion with zeal, it will be to the advantage of rulers and overlords in
this respect further, that they will have more populous and belter
appointed towns and territories, and that in consequence the various
revenues will be strongly increased and improved.
Disapproval of debts to foreigners, which later became a
cameralistic dogma, appears here as a mild preference: thus
(p. 129):
If a ruler is burdened with many and heavy foreign interest
charges .... it is advisable that he raise the amount from his
subjects who have loanable money, and pay the interest to them
rather than to foreigners, for in this way expenses and losses may
be avoided.
The first paragraph of the chapter, "Constitutio Aerarij
Sancti," furnishes another direct testimony, the stronger
because it was inadvertent, as to the central purpose which
was molding administrative theory and policy. It is a pas-
sage which distinctly locates the moving springs of cameralism.
Translated according to the spirit rather than the letter it is
as follows:
Since it is known to all of good understanding, and an open secret,
and attested by daily experience, that in these last troublous times
there is scarcely a government whose ordinary resources are not
daily and hourly exhausted, and therefore scarcely one can at all
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 55
times be happily administered and maintained in constant security
by means of the ordinary revenues; but on the contrary unless by
the side of these customary revenues a government institutes, with
the utmost care, through all sorts of just and righteous means, a
special and extraordinary treasury, such a government and Policey,
at a time of unforeseen war, revolts, and other dangers, will stand
unprotected and open to pillage and enemies, and in the presence of
such danger and violence it can neither be protected nor administered.
And although by extraordinary efforts under such circumstances
money may be raised, yet if the money is collected, and the imminent
danger is averted, yet another danger immediately follows, namely,
that the growing burden of interest charges will ruin the state, as was
the case with the Greek republics, and especially Lacedaemonia,
which were ruined by borrowing from the Persian and Egyptian
kings. Hence it is necessary to show how these dangers may be
overcome by an extraordinary treasury.
As we shall attempt to show, this problem of ways and
means to cover the expanding fiscal needs of the state was the
central purpose which gave peculiar character to cameralism.
All the incidental tenets of this technology, whether they were
the opinions of exceptional writers or substantially the con-
sensus of all, must be interpreted by their connection with
this main interest.
This particular Constitutio is partly in the form of an ordi-
nance to be promulgated by rulers: partly in the ordinary
essay form on the merits of certain fiscal propositions. It
contains nothing further in principle necessary for our purpose.
In the fourth document, Policey Ordnung, Obrecht displays
foresight which entitles him to higher rank in the rolls of Ger-
man political writers than the historians of his own country
have assigned. In general, subsequent events conformed
to his views, and the Policey system afterward developed, to
which we must give so much attention in later portions of this
book, was entirely contained in principle in his proposals.
Without attempting to prove this in detail, we may briefly note
56 THE CAMERALISTS
the standpoint from which his suggestions issued and the aims
which he had in view.
In the Introduction the author points out that all publicists
have had regard for two considerations, and have urged them
upon magistrates, viz., first, the census and censorship, "the
fulcra and pillars of politics, and the supports on which all
Policey must rest;" second, "reliable information and sufficient
science possessed by every magistrate concerning the structure
and organization of the Policey."
As to the first of these points, Obrecht states that existing
administration makes use of census and censorship, yet in
no adequate fashion; indeed, he holds that if it were possible
the forms in use should be altogether abolished, and more
adequate systems substituted. He concedes that such abrupt
change would be impracticable, and in the case of the census par-
ticularly recommends that the methods now in use be retained.
With reference to the censorship, however, he declares
that its policy may be essentially either preventive or punitive.
Just here Obrecht's foresight is exceptional. He declares that
police programmes of his time know nothing of preventive
policies. The chief emphasis of the document falls therefore
on the outline of a police policy calculated to improve the
morale of the people, and thus not merely to diminish vice and
crime, but to raise the general efficiency of the population.
Without asking the question here whether this is a proper
function of governments, we have to observe at the outset that
(icrman political theory progressively assumed that such
guardianship and promotion of public morals formed a neces-
sary part of governmental responsibility. Obrecht was accord-
ingly a pioneer among post-Reformation thinkers in striking
out a path which became one of the trunk lines of later
administrative theory. 1
1 The introduction is such a vivid reflection of the situation within
which Obrecht wrote that it would have been reproduced in full if space
had permitted.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 57
The Preface to the proposed Constitution, which is drafted
in the form of a royal rescript, reiterates the underlying pur-
pose of the proposition in terms which a translation cannot
properly represent, but the substance is approximately this:
The following Police Order and Constitution, with its seven
Sanctions [Sanctionibus] is ordained by us especially that we may
every year, and as far as practicable at all times, have reliable infor-
mation how matters stand with all our subjects, young and old, rich
and poor, in all parts of our jurisdiction and territory, and also how
matters stand with our whole Policey, and all of its branches, and
how, in this later wholly perverted time, they may be protected
against ruin, and may be sustained in constant integrity; and how
we may bring it about, after ascertaining all the facts, that our sub-
jects may rightly, well and usefully bring up their children, and
themselves lead a Christian, worthy life, and thus so conduct
themselves that they may be to their children, to us their divinely
appointed rulers, to their neighbor, and to the common weal, a
blessing and an honor, to their own temporal and eternal advantage.
The first Sanction covered a system of registration of births,
both legitimate and illegitimate; the second, registration and
guardianship of orphans and widows; the third, registration
and supervision of young men "nearer their twentieth than
their twenty-third year;" the fourth, registration and con-
tinued observation of all other male persons, above the twenty-
third year, "in order that we may have direct knowledge
of the character of all these persons under our whole govern-
ment:" the fifth, registration of marriage intentions; 1 the
1 For the reason parenthetically assigned: Because " Matrimonia"
are "von den Politicis recht und wol principia Urbiunt, seminaria Rerum-
publicarum, et jundamenta Rei familiaris genandt werden." In this
connection the plan contemplates the appointment of officials who should
censor the wedding customs, particularly with reference to extravagant
outlays. One of the ends in view was to prevent squandering of the
savings with which housekeeping must be set up. The word here used
for that idea is worth our notice. The phrase is: "auss welchem sie
ihre Otconomi anstellen sollen."
58 THF CAMERALISTS
sixth, registration of intentions of immigrants to become citi-
zens, and of other cases of change of residence by strangers
or subjects; seventh, registration of deaths, including certain
related details, particularly concerning surviving heirs.
The explanations subjoined to this third paragraph, or
chapter, take up in turn the seven "sanctions," and propose
details, beginning with the price to be paid for each type of
registration, and including arguments intended to show the
benefits that would accrue, first to individuals, then to the pub-
lic, from adoption of the programme. For example, we find at
>nce (p. 215) the suggestion that each child registered under
the first "sanction," should receive ein Geburtsbrieff; obviously
an early, if not the earliest proposal of a detail of police tech-
nique which later became a matter of course.
On the side of the public advantages of the proposed pro-
gramme, Obrecht urges, still under the device of a supposed
ordinance or rescript (pp. 229 ff.), that, at all times, both in war
and peace, governments would be able to administer more in-
telligently; they could maintain the common welfare (Gemeine
Wolf art) with more intelligence and energy; they could also
come to the assistance of the subjects more directly and effi-
ciently; they could, fourth, through the fidelity of the various
sorts of Deputaten contemplated in the programme, in many
ways promote the common advantage (Gemeinen \utz) better
than without such organization.
It cannot be said that this final schedule of reasons for adopt-
ing the programme is likely to affect the modern reader as very
convincing. The underlying fiscal purpose, viz., the collection
of fees from the different registrations, is too obvious, while
the advantages urged are both vague and problematical. The
same is more evidently true of the insurance of children pro-
posed in the last document, on which further comment is
unnecessary. 1 These things do not, however, diminish the
1 Vide above, p. 47.
CIVICS OF OBRECHT 59
evidential value of such a writer as Obrecht. Whether he
actually exerted much influence or little, either upon adminis-
trative organization or upon academic theory, his book reflects
beginnings of theoretical and practical tendencies in ways
which make their essential impulses much more evident than
they appear in their later more complex variations.
CHAPTER IV
THE CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF
Veil Ludwig von Seckendorff was born in 1626 and died
in 1692. His most persistent influence was exerted through
two books, Der Teutsche Fursten Staat, and Der Christen
Stoat. 1 For our purposes, these books, rather than details of
Seckendorff 's life, are all-important. Enough of his biography
may be noted, however, to indicate the interests for which
he spoke. In childhood, Seckendorff was taught at home,
while his father was most of the time in the wars. He was
later sent to school in Coburg and Miihlhausen. In 1636 he
went with his mother to Erfurt, where the foundations of his
more mature knowledge were laid. He is said to have com-
posed Latin orations at the age of eleven. He was a companion
of two Wlirttemburg princes in 1639. He attracted the atten-
tion of Herzog Ernst of Gotha, who sent him to the Gotha
Gymnasium in 1640. Soon after this his father was beheaded
on the charge of intended defection to the emperor. The
family was provided for, however, in recognition of the father's
previous services. The son went the same year to the Univer-
sity of Strassburg, where for several years he studied philosophy,
jurisprudence, and history. In 1645, on his way to continue
study at Erfurt, he visited the court of Gotha. This was the
turning-point of his life. The duke gave him 200 Thaler for
a visit to the Low Countries, and on his return appointed him
Hof junker and superintendent of the ducal library. In these
positions his chief duty was to summarize selected books and
recite their contents to the duke in his leisure hours, on Sundays
1 Instead of reducing the various forms of these titles to a single
style, the usage of the passages from which they have been cited has
been followed.
60
CAMERALISTICS OF SKCKEXDORFF 61
or during journeys. In 1652, in his twenty-seventh year, he
became Hof- und Justitienrath. The first of his important
books, the Fiirsten Stoat, was written in 1655. "It may be
regarded as a sort of handbook of German civil law, and was
valued as such; on the other hand, it had the special approval
of contemporaries, because it contained a systematic arrange-
ment of rules and prescriptions for a well-regulated govern-
mental administration, based on the model of the existing
government of Gotha." Seckendorff was soon promoted to
the position of Geheimer Hof- und Kammerrath im Verwaltungs-
dienst, and in 1664 to the highest dignity in the duchy, that
of chancellor. His services were especially valued in finance,
but he was also a power in political, ecclesiastical, and educa-
tional reform. He collaborated (1666) with the scholars Arto-
poeus and Bockler on a Compendium historiae ecdesiasticae,
intended primarily for the Gymnasium in Gotha, but after-
ward widely used. In 1664 he accepted the call of Duke
Moritz of Sachsenzeitz, as Kanzler und Consistorial-Prasident.
He retained the position till the death of Moritz in 1681, then
resigned all his responsibilities except that of Landschafts-
director i~on Altenburg, and retired to his estate, Menselwitz,
near Altenburg. The Christen Staat (1685) did much to pro-
mote the tendency toward pietism, although the author was
not himself strictly a pietist. In reply to the Jesuit de Maim-
bourg (Histoire du Lutheranism, Paris, 1680) Seckendorff
wrote in an incredibly short time a work which must still be
consulted by all historians of the Reformation. 1 He arrived
at Halle, as chancellor of the new university, October 31, 1692,
but died December 18 following.*
1 Contmentarius histori'.us el apologeticus de Lutheranismo sen de
reformatione, 1688-92.
Th. Kolde, in AU. d. Bib , title "Seckendorff," and Roscher, inloc.
This account should be compared with Se< kendorff's own recollections
in the dedication of Der Chrislenstat.
62 THE CAMERALISTS
Seckendorff s close relations with Duke Ernst of Gotha
were prime factors in his career. Ernst was eminent among
the petty princes of his century. His reputation for piety
was popularized in the nickname "Praying Ernst," and he
was later known as "Ernst the Pious." His ecclesiastical
laws have been called a complete course in pastoral theology.
He was the father of twenty-two children, and in the manage-
ment of his household and of his state he was regarded as an
edifying example. Seckendorff systematized Duke Ernst's
scheme of life. He virtually composed Ernst's practices as
a manager into a didactic treatise. According to the Preface
of the second edition of Der Fursten Slaat, his original intention
was to treat only of rules for a single German principality,
evidently Gotha, but his plan was afterward extended to include
all German states of the secularized Protestant class.
Roscher regards it as a second cardinal fact in Seckendorff's
career that, shortly before his death, he gave up the life of
retirement upon his estate, to accept the chancellorship of the
new University of Halle. The reasons for Roscher's opinion
that this change was significant are not apparent. It was a
generation after his most important book appeared, and six
years after publication of the volume next in importance. Such
migrations were by no means exceptional, and in this instance
nothing can be inferred from the incident which has the slight-
est bearing upon Seckendorff in the only relation in which he
was significant for Roscher's professed purpose, viz., inter-
pretation of the history of German economics. This emphasis
upon a merely personal detail is characteristic. Roscher's
service to science was principally in assembling details. He
was much less successful in estimating their value.
Seckendorff is classified by Roscher as conservative, in the
sense of adhering to the old ways, while he was liberal, in the
sense of thinking freely, if the phrase may be accommodated
to the rigors of his time. He was not attracted by the innova-
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 63
tions in the Zeitgeist of his period, but clung to the traditions
of the generations before the Thirty Years' War. In this
respect he was in nearly the same antithesis with leading pub-
licists and mercantilists of his time, that is, to the theories
of Leopold I and of the Great Elector, in which Sully stood to
Colbert, or in the eighteenth century, Justus Moser to the politi-
cal scientists of the time of Frederick the Great and Joseph II.
Moreover, Seckendorfl was attached to the Reformation
type of piety, and in spite of the tendency of the time in the
other direction, he gave his political doctrines a strong religious
shading.
Roscher further characterizes Seckendorff as "in civic life
no more an absolutist than in court life he was a sycophant."
This is true in the sense that he dared to regard the will of
God as paramount to the will of the prince; but it is not true
in the sense that he believed any power on earth was justified
in holding the prince to account for his acts. In other words,
political theory had virtually outgrown the conception that the
will of the prince was the highest moral law, but it still retained
the conception that the will of the prince was the ultimate
civic law. Seckendorff was consequently the mouthpiece of
the type of German state in the middle of the seventeenth
century in which the assumption was fundamental. We shall
speak of this as quasi-absolutism. Absolutism in the strictest
sense it was not. From the point of view of modern democracy
it was virtual absolutism. That is, it was a theory that no
one but God had a right to discipline the prince, because he
was responsible only to that divine power by whose grace he
had been made sovereign over a defined group of men. 1
We have then to deal, not with the first, but with one of
the early doctrinaires and officiating administrators of the type
of state thus indicated. Their task was to systematize the
1 For confirmation of this judgment vide below, pp. 73 ff.; cf. doc-
trine of Schroder, pp. 137 ff.
64 THE CAMERALISTS
administrative routine of that type of state. The theory and
the application were not so sharply distinguished as they have
been in later times. The work of the cameralists was so to serve
their quasi-absolute lords tjiat the power and efficiency of their
states would be developed, and that their purposes with refer-
ence to competing states would be promoted. All the doc-
trines of the cameralists were in fact centered about this main
purpose, and all their theories and judgments must be under-
stood accordingly. 1
As a side-light upon the foregoing propositions, scarcely
anything could be more illuminating than the dedication of
Der Fursten Stoat. Because our language makes an exact
rendering of the ceremonial titles and phrases impossible, we
quote the form of address in the original, viz.: Dem Durch-
lauchtigsten, Hochgebornen Fursten und Herrn, Herrn Johann
Gear gen Erb-Printzen der Chur- und Hertzogen zu Sachsen,
Julich, Cleve und Bergk, Landgrafen in Thuringen, Mark-
1 For the conditions of the Peace of Westphalia which furnished
the general setting within which the problems of the several states of
Germany are to be explained, vide Tillinghast's Ploetz, p. 316, following
K. F. Eichhorn, Deutsche Starts- u. Rechtsgeschichte, IV, 522 ff. The
most useful outline of the condition of Germany in the period in which
Seckeodorff wrote is in Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, chap. xx. Vide
Tillinghast, loc. cit. t p. 371. "The Emperor was Leopold I, 1658-1705.
After 1663 permanent diet at Regensburg, consisting of the representa-
tives of the eight electors, the sixty-nine ecclesiastical, the ninety-six
secular princes, and the imperial cities. (A miracle of tedious legisla-
tion, often degenerating into a squabble for precedence. 'A bladeless
knife without a handle'.) Corpus Catholicorum and Corpus Evangeli-
corum (the corporate organizations of the Catholic and the evangelical
estates, the latter being the most important. This organization of the
Protestant estates had existed, fn fact, since the latter half of the sixteenth
century, but it was legally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia, when
it was decreed that in the diet matters relating to religion and the church
should not be decided by a majority, but should be settled by conference
and agreement between the Catholic and Protestant estates, as organized
corporations.)."
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 65
gra/en zu Meissen, auch Ober- und Nieder-Lausznilz, Graf en
zu der March und Ravensberg, Herrn zu Ravenstein, crv. Afei-
nem gnddigsten Hcrrn, &c. Durchlauchtigster, Hochge-
bohrner, Gnddigster Fiirst und Herr, 6rY.
The quaintness of expression in the extremely adroit and
non-committal dedication itself cannot be reproduced in
English. The translation can convey only the substance of the
thought, the most obvious peculiarity of which is the rhetorical
device of suggestion, instead of direct statement. It is as
follows :
The wisdom, through which kingdoms, principalities, and lands
are happily governed, is in its origin divine, in itself it is lordly and
incomparable, and comprehends in its scope and generality all that
which is found piecemeal in other sciences. It is within the circum-
ference of each land the indispensable sun, through which everything
is illuminated, warmed, and nourished. It is to be compared with
an inexhaustible sea, into which all other wisdoms and arts flow,
and through high and occult art, for the common welfare, is again
discharged and distributed through the whole land. It is an ever-
green of Paradise of all the most beautiful and useful plants, of the
virtues and good ordinances, each of which in its turn and place
boars grateful fruits. This wisdom King Solomon prayed the All-
'vise to grant for his royal office, with which he received also the great-
est treasures and riches of the world as an additional gift. Foolish
therefore those who would penetrate into the secrets of governments
without the attendance and favor of this goddess. All those fall
into gross sin who, apart from the divinely appointed and by n;uure
sanctioned way, instead of such excellent royal and lofty science,
in the name of the state and of politics, offer perverse and crafty
counsel which plunges themselves and whole lands into ruin. For
what reasons and occasions, Most Gracious Lord, I was moved to
the publication of the present little-worthy work, in which, according
to the slight measure of my feeble powers, I sought to bring together
a few beams of this bright illuminating sun, certain drops from this
great sea, and certain fruits from such a general world-garden, and
according to opportunity to make them useful for the lands and prin-
66 THK CAMERALISTS
cipalities of our German fatherland, is to a certain extent set forth
in the Preface, wherein also, with humblest apologies to your most
illustrious highness, it is explained through what motive I allowed
myself to seek, under your eminent name, protection for this very
imperfect book. May it please you most graciously to accept this
public expression of my most submissive zeal, as I hereby in humility
and highest veneration most obediently profess it, and with your
gracious permission I remain
His Most Illustrious Highness'
Most Submissive
VEIT LUDWIG VON SECKENDORFF
According to the standards of the time, this wretched stuff
was not fulsome, it was merely conventional. Something of
the sort, often much more extravagant, occurs in the dedications
of most of the cameralistic books. We shall allow this sample
to stand for all. It is turgid of course, but in that respect it
fairly reflects the stage of thought which it attempted to express.
The style was appropriate to the confused thinking which pre-
vailed about everything pertaining to social relations. But
this is merely incidental. The main thing is that these forms,
dictated by tradition in one respect, yet artfully artless in another,
fairly represent the attitude of the cameralists toward the
interests of men in civic society. It was fundamentally an
attitude of worship toward a supposed superior personage
endowed with a prerogative of control over a group of inferior
and subject persons. The social science of the time was an
effort so to mobilize the attitude that the states which counted
upon it as their chief asset could prosper.
In order to provide ourselves with a background for the
doctrines which we are to analyze, we should from step to step
parallel with this analysis unroll the general picture of German
and European politics. For this part of the process recourse
must be had to the historians. We can merely in passing
make note of the dependence of such a study as this upon their
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 67
larger work. Of the situation just before our time of depar-
ture Bryce writes:
To all parties alike the result of the Thirty Years' War was
thoroughly unsatisfactory to the Protestants, who had lost Bohemia,
and were still obliged to hold an inferior place in the electoral college
and in the Diet; to the Catholics, who were forced to permit the
exercise of heretical worship and leave the church lands in the grasp
of sacrilegious spoilers: to the princes, who could not throw off the
burden of imperial supremacy: to the Emperor, who could turn
that supremacy to no practical account. No other conclusion was
possible to a contest in which everyone had been vanquished and
no one victorious: which had ceased because, while the reasons for
war continued, the means of war had failed. Nevertheless, the sub-
stantial advantage remained with the German princes, for they
gained the formal recognition of that territorial independence whose
origin may be placed as far back as the days of Frederick the Second,
and the maturity of which had been hastened by the events of the
last preceding century. It was, indeed, not only recognized, but
justified as rightful and necessary. For while the political situation,
to use a current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred
years, the eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more.
Never by their fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by Popes
or Lombard republics in the heat of their strife with the Franconian
and the Swabian Caesars, had the Emperors been reproached as
mere German kings, or their claim to be the lawful heirs of Rome
denied. The Protestant jurists of the seventeenth century were the
first persons who ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the
world, and declare their empire to be nothing more than a German
monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence need
prevent its subjects from making the best terms they could for them-
selves, and controlling a sovereign whose religious predilections
bound him to their ecclesiastical enemies
The Peace of Westphalia is an era in the history of the Holy
Empire not less clearly marked than the coronation of Otto the
Great, or the death of Frederick the Second (1250). As from the
days of Maximilian I (1493-1519) it had borne a mixed or transitional
character, well expressed by the name Romano-Germanic, so hence-
68 THE CAMERALISTS
forth it is in everything but title purely and solely a German Empire.
Properly, indeed, it was no longer an Empire at all, but a Federation,
and that of the loosest sort. For it had no common treasury, no
efficient common tribunals, no means of coercing a refractory mem-
ber; its states were of different religions, were governed according
to different forms, were administered judicially and financially with
out any regard to each other. The traveller by rail in central Ger-
many used, up till 1866, to be amused to find, every hour or two, by
the change in the soldiers' uniforms, and in the colour of the stripes
on the railway fences, that he had passed out of one and into another
of its miniature kingdoms. Much more surprised and embarrassed
would he have been a century earlier, when, instead of the present
twenty-two, there were three hundred petty principalities between
the Alps and the Baltic, each with its own laws, its own court (in
which the ceremonious pomp of Versailles was faintly reproduced),
its little army, its separate coinage, its tolls and custom-houses on
the frontier, its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic officials, presided
over by a prime minister who was often the unworthy favorite of his
prince and sometimes the pensioner of a foreign court. This vicious
system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature and the political
thought of Germany, had been forming itself for some time, but
did not become fully established until the Peace of Westphalia, by
finally emancipating the princes from imperial control, had left them
masters in their own territories. The impoverishment of the infe-
rior nobility, and the decline of the commercial cities caused by a war
that had lasted a whole generation, removed every counterpoise to
the power of the electors and princes, and made absolutism supreme
just where absolutism is least defensible, its states too small to have
any public opinion, states in which everything depends on the mon-
arch, and the monarch depends on his favorites. After A. D. 1648
the provincial estates or parliaments became obsolete in most of these
principalities, and jwwcrlcss in the rest. Germany was forced to
drink to its very dregs the cup of feudalism, feudalism from which
all the sentiment that once ennobled it had departed. 1
If then we disregard on the one hand the theologians, on
1 Lot. cil., p. 389; vide Lowell, Governments and Parties in Continen-
tal Europe, Vol. t, pp. 231-36.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 69
the other hand the legists, each group in its way acting rather
as ballast or as a brake in the several states than as a propulsive
force, the positive social science of Germany from the Peace
of Westphalia to the Napoleonic peril was the theory useful
in the administrative bureaus of these quasi-absolute states.
Our purposes will draw a sharp line between the technical
details of this theory and the general social ideas which the
theories implied, on the one hand as their basis and on the
other hand as their aims. The technical details we shall
ignore, except as they are necessary for making out the more
important general ideas. Our principal question is, What
conceptions of social relations were peculiar to the cameralists,
and what bearing have cameralistic theories upon the problems
of social science in general ?
To assist in fixing landmarks, we may say that Seckendorff
was the Adam Smith of cameralism. The evidence now in
order is first and chiefest in the two volumes already named.
We shall first examine Der Fiirsten Stoat. 1
The Preface, in archaic and bungling fashion, indicates
that the purpose of the book is not to discuss general political
ideas, nor forms of government in the abstract, but to furnish
an account of the operative machinery of a typical German
state. Of this preface, we may note, first, that it indicates
knowledge of only one previous writer in precisely this field,
viz., "an experienced courtier, Herr Lohneisen." 2 Secken-
dorff states, however, that he did not have the book at hand
when he wrote, and that only a dim recollection of its contents
was in his mind. His book was rather the result of his own
1 Herrn Veit Ludwigs von Seckendorff, etc., Teutscher Fiirsten
Stoat, nun zum fiinfftenmal ubersehen und au/gelegt, Auch mil einer ganz
neuen Zugabe. Sonderbahrer und unchtiger Materien urn ein grosses
Thett vermehret Anno MDCLXXIIX. In my revision of this
chapter I have been able to refer only to this fifth edition.
* Vide above, p. 40, and Roscher, p. 116.
70 THE CAMERALISTS
observation. Second, the author thinks that his description
of a medium-sized state may easily be adapted either to the
largest or the smallest members of the German civic family.
Third, the author deliberately excludes consideration of the
abuses which occur in the management of states. He con-
fesses that so many of them are within his knowledge that it
is difficult not to write satirically about government, but on
the whole he thinks it better to describe administration as it
is intended to be, rather than as it really is. Fourth, the
author protests that he has not consciously or intentionally
said anything in the book which invades the sanctity of imperial
or princely prerogative. The fact that such an explanation
could be thought of at all is a cardinal symptom of the arbi-
trariness of the regime which it reflects. Fifth, the Preface
ends with a devout invocation of the divine blessing upon the
emperor and all the members of the imperial system. Nothing
in this petition could be construed as a direct assertion that
these governments are peculiarly sacred. The mixture of poli-
tics and piety, however, is quite in character with what is other-
wise in evidence about the dominant civic conceptions.
The book is divided into four parts. The first and shortest
(22 pages) is merely a demand for a description of the external
characteristics of a state, from the geographical and typo-
graphical features, the condition of cultivation and improve-
ment, to the governmental and social structure. The second
part (278 pages) approximately includes the subjects which
Justi afterward assigned both to Staatskunst and to Policey,
i. e., it treats "of the government and organization \VerJassun l \
of a land and principality in spiritual and secular affairs."
The third part (266 pages), on the properties and revenues
of a ruler, corresponds with the Finanzuissenschaft, or Catneral-
' The translation "constitution" is avoided because it carries
associations which would be largely anachronistic if referred to the quasi-
absolute type of state. Vide p. 34 above.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 71
wissenschaft in the restricted sense, of the later cameralists.
Instead of a fourth part, co-ordinate with the first three, 198
pages are devoted to a more specific scheme of organization,
in accordance with the foregoing discussion. The editions
after 1664 contain an appendix of 208 pages, consisting of
notes upon various passages in the body of the book.
While the contents of Seckendorff's system should be rear-
ranged in another form, to show most distinctly their relations
to cameralism as a whole, we must be content to sketch them
in brief, so far as they are important for our purpose, in the
order in which they appear in Der Fursten Stoat and Der
Christen Stoat.
Seckendorff begins the former book by calling attention to
the unreliability, for purposes of precision, of most previous
attempts to exhibit in print the exact conditions of German
states and the consequent need of accurate accounts (pp. 30-
32). These accounts should contain precise descriptions not
only of the form of government of the state in question, the
particular subject with which Seckendorff proposes to deal,
and for subsequent treatment of which he hopes his book will
serve as a model; but they should also describe the external
conditions of the country, to which all rulers and magistrates
must accommodate their policies. Because the present book
does not refer to a specific country alone, he says, it can offer
on the latter division of the subject only a tentative (unver-
Jangiick) model or scheme in accordance with which the neces-
sary description of the external conditions of each country
may be worked out (p. 33). The scheme proposed is in brief
as follows:
First, an account of the name, origin, and circumstances of
the principality; viz., (a) whence the designation is derived; (&)'
how the sovereignty over this territory arose; (c) the geographical
and topographical peculiarities of the territory; (d) the need of maps
which shall show these facts (pp. 33-35). Second, an account of
72 THE CAMERALISTS
the subdivisions of the country and dependencies; i. e., (a) according
to natural boundaries; (6) according to various artificial arrange-
ments; (c) the distribution of the territory among various officials;
(d) the subdivisions of magisterial and judicial jurisdictions in the
country; (e) more specific description of each subdivision of the
country under this scheme; (/) streets, bridges, and passes (pp. 35-
41). Third, an account of the qualities and fertility of the territory;
i. c., (a) the fertility of countries in general; (b) varieties of produc-
tivity of countries; (c) special topics to be treated in the description
of the fertility of particular countries (pp. 41, 42). Fourth, an
account of the inhabitants of the country; viz., (a) the uncertainty
of the natural disposition of people; 1 (6) class divisions of the inhabit-
ants; 2 (c) somewhat more essential marks of difference; 3 (d) per-
sonal and peculiar qualities of the sovereign* (pp. 49, 50). Fifth,
a roster of the servants of the ruler and of the government (p. 50).
If the present purpose were to write a history of cameralism,
it would be necessary to analyze these beginnings of a tech-
1 It appears that amateur social psychologists had already brought
rash generalizations about the character of peoples into disrepute. Sec-
kendorff demands that judgments of that nature shall be based on adequate
examination of the facts, instead of accidental and fragmentary evidence.
He also points out that many characteristics of people which are attrib-
uted to their "natural traits" are due rather to their bringing up and
their food supply (Aufferziehung und Nahrung); a decidedly farsighted
paragraph (p. 43).
1 The criterion in mind here is essentially that of civic and eccle-
siastical structure, on the administrative side.
3 Here the reference is to social differences which reflect group inter-
ests not primarily official, but the analysis suggested is very crude. It
names differences of religion, differences connected with differentiation
of a learned class, differences between the imperial and the local nobility,
differences between the status of burghers in free cities and those of other
cities, etc.
The specifications under this head concern chiefly the traditions
which hedge about the succession. They are of an entirely different
order, according to modern methodology, from those with which the
chapter began: i. e., they are political, constitutional, legal, not physical.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 73
nology, in order to trace, first, the development of consciousness
of the problems, administrative and theoretical, to be solved,
and second, the development of the technique for dealing with
those problems. Our concern, however, is not with these
details. Our object is to visualize the relation which cameral-
ism bore to the problems of social science in general. The
first book of Der Fursten Stoat has no bearing upon this pur-
pose beyond its use in confirming the theorem that cameralism
was essentially a phase of the quasi-absolutism which was the
central factor in the machinery of the social process in Ger-
many from the Reformation to the French Revolution. There
was nothing in the programme of description marked out in
this book except the fourth and fifth categories which would
not be equally in place in a democratic country. As it stands
in Seckendorff 's scheme, however, it is a plan for taking account
of the stock with which a quasi-absolutism has to do business.
The second -part directly addresses the task of planning
the administration of the state, and it still more directly con-
firms our theorem of quasi-absolutism. Chap, i deals with
the government, sovereignty (Hoheif), and authority of ruling
princes in general. 1 Under this head the analysis proceeds:
First, The government of a country is by no means an autoc-
racy (eigenwillige Herrschaff). The distinction, as Secken-
dorff saw it, between an autocracy and the typical German
1 I do not think it is necessary to enter into any of the constantly
recurring questions about theoretical relations of the princes to the Empire.
In practice, from this time on, the titular head of the Empire was virtually
only one of the most powerful among the scores of rival quasi-sovereign
princes in Germany, the ruler of Prussia looming up more and more as
his most formidable competitor. The political plot, down indeed to
the Franco-Prussian war, turned in the first instance upon the fluctuating
success of these principal actors in controlling the lesser princes. I take
the liberty of using the term sovereignty in connection with these rulers
and states, because in relation to their subjects it was so nearly an unqual-
ified fact that the modifications of the fact through relations to the Empire
were relatively trivial.
74 THE CAMERALISTS
state of his time, which we describe as a quasi-absolutism, may
best be indicated in a translation of his own words. He says
(pp. 52 ff.):
In German lands, God be praised, we have no knowledge of a
power exercised by a single man in the country, who regards himself
as the highest, and who, with or without right, uses the greatest
power upon all the others for his profit and advantage, according
to his will and caprice alone, as a master is in the habit of domineering
over his chattel men servants and maid servants. On the other
hand the princely government in the German principalities and
lands, as in almost every rightly and wisely ordered Policey, is nothing
else than the supreme and highest dominion of the properly ruling
territorial prince or lord, which is enforced and exercised by him
over the estates and subjects of the principality, also over the land
itself and its appurtenances, for the maintenance and promotion of
the common profit and welfare, and for the administration of justice.
If ideals were realities, German states at this period could
not be classed as absolutistic in spirit and in essence, whatever
they were in form. The fallacy which it required the Revolu-
tion to expose was that this type of pious statement of the pur-
poses of government was not protected by effective safeguards
against the arbitrariness of rulers on whose talent and virtue
the realization of the ideal depended. In other words, the
rulers were to such an extent the final judges of what was
involved in "profit and welfare," and they had so large liberty
to decide that whatever was "profit and welfare" for themselves
was identical with the good of the people and the state, that
the regime which cameralism represented was qualified autoc-
racy, from the modern point of view. We shall see what
some of the qualifications were, and we shall see that the came-
ralists in general were opposed to any further qualifications
which would tend to make the ruler more responsible to the
people. The cameralists did much to raise the standards
which a benevolent despot should adopt. They did virtually
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKEXDORFF 75
nothing directly to raise the standards of the citizens' rights
to insist that their rulers should adopt them. Within limits,
to be sure, but with a scope which developing civic conscious-
ness presently found intolerable, the princes were the sole
judges of what was good for their peoples and states. Cameral-
ism was the technique and the philosophy of states in which
this situation was taken for granted.
In the second place (p. 53) Seckendorff brings the sovereignly
of the prince into stronger light by comparing it with the subject
condition of everybody else in the state. "When we thus ascribe
this supreme authority to the person of the territorial lord alone, or
thereby set aside all other persons in a country, whom we have already
described in the first part, although they also are empowered with
certain lordship and authority either by the prince himself and his
ancestors, as well as by other foreign governments All these,
however powerful and rich they are, in comparison with the prince,
are to be regarded severally and collectively as mere subjects."
In the next paragraph (p. 54) the author bases this doctrine on
(i) the ancient tradition, (2) the feudal concession of lordship by
the emperor to the territorial prince, (3) the recognition of the
supreme authority of the prince by the other estates and subjects
of the country by taking the customary oath of allegiance to him.
Confirmation of the claim is found further (p. 56) in the fact
that other high personages, even of the rank of count, no longer use
the form with reference to themselves, "by the grace of God," nor
does such a person speak or write of himself as "we." The prince
uses that form, and therewith he expresses his tenure of the supreme
governing station, by the will of God, and his preferment over his
subjects.
On the other hand, as previously asserted, the government of a
principality consists fn achieving and maintaining the common
advantage and well-l>eing, in spiritual and wordly things (p. 56).
Thereupon Seckendorff moralizes: "The final purpose of all human
actions and deeds is the honor of God, for which the human race was
especially created. Particularly however is it seemly for those high
authorities who are God's deputies on earth to see that the honor of
76 THE CAMERALISTS
their sovereign heavenly overlord is sought in all things, etc."
(]> 57)-
In further commentary on the sacred functions of the prince,
the argument continues: "In former times the clergy deprived princes
of large parts of their sacred prerogatives, hut since a large part
of Germany, more than a hundred years ago, turned to evangelical
religion by adopting the Augsburg Confession, the princes have
resumed those sacred offices which belonged to them."
In the third place, the prerogative of the prince in worldly admin"
istration may be specified under four heads (p. 58): First, in
establishing his own power and dignity, so that he will be able to
suppress disorders, and will have prestige enough to make his govern-
ment efficient in gaining its ends; second, he has to establish power,
good laws and ordinances in the country, by which righteousness,
peace, and repose, and the means 1 of the country and of the people
will be brought into being, and maintained, the evil punished, and
the good promoted; third, the supreme jurisdiction in the country
belongs to the prince, that is, to pronounce the law between his
subjects in case they quarrel, and to enforce the findings according
to the desert of each; fourth, it is his duty to establish and use all
the means whereby the foregoing institutions may be set in motion
and administered in case of need against disobedient subjects or
foreign enemies and aggressors.
Chap, ii treats of the qualification of the sovereignty of the prince
by his relations to the Empire. In sec. i, on the " Reichs Hoheit"
over the German principalities, Seckendorf! continues in substance:
"In order that the opinion may not be inferred from the previous
chapter that any German Landes-Herrschajt is absolutely free, we
have to call attention to the fact that we are speaking of countries
within the Roman Empire o) the German Nation, of which the impe-
rial majesty is the supreme head. It follows that each German
country is under the emperor and the Empire. This involves the
1 The word Vermogen is an extremely loose term in camcralistic usage.
We shall have to call attention to it frequently. It may mean "wealth,"
oftener it means wealth plus everything else, from Ixwlily strength to
the arts and sciences and a strong army, which is a civic resource. The
rolorless term "means" is therefore chosen as a rendering.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 77
consequence that a German prince or Landes-Herr is not responsible
alone to his conscience toward God the Almighty for his government
and actions, but that he is also under obligations, and in many ways
bound by his sworn duties to pay the due respect and obedience to
the regularly chosen ruling Roman emperor and to the Empire, and
to all that the imperial majesty, with the electors, princes, and estates
of the Empire have ordained and may ordain" (pp. 60, 61).
This section, with the remainder of the chapter, is ample
commentary upon Roscher's judgment cited above (p. 62; vide
Roscher, p. 243), that Seckendorff was a champion of the old
order. To him the Empire was still a vital reality. There can
of course be no valid interpretation of German history, not
merely in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but even
to the present moment, which does not trace the actual work-
ings of this survival among the other factors which complicated
the collisions of interests after the Empire became more a theory
than a fact. It is as unnecessary for our present purpose as
it would be impossible to compress into a brief formula the
incalculable variety of modifications which the increasingly
spectral reminiscence called the Empire wrought upon the
changing political situations of the period in which cameralism
developed. The most essential consideration is this: On the
score of absolutism there was no essential difference for the
masses between the graded feudal type of sovereignty repre-
sented by the Empire, and the quasi-absolute type represented
by the would-be independent German princes, with slowly
increasing modifications, down to the Franco-Prussian War.
Democracy made progress directly or indirectly toward its
own by collisions of interests among which, sometimes for
weal and sometimes for woe, the imperial interest was a factor.
If our present task were to enter upon analysis of the forces
which played upon one another in Germany from Seckendorff
to Sonnenfels, the imperial factor would constantly be a mean-
ing term in the equation, though with a steadily diminishing
7 THE CAMERALISTS
coefficient. For our present purpose the perception suffices
that however power and authority were divided between princes
and emperor, the net result for the people of Germany was
quasi -absolutism as the foundation course of their social struc-
ture. The quarrels between the shadowy imperial sovereign
and the matter-of-fact territorial sovereigns, whether of major
or minor importance in their immediate effects upon the evo-
lution of constitutionalism, as the next species of political order
in Germany, were in principle negligible from our present
point of view. They were merely details in the administration
of control, which was quasi-absolutism, however it was dis-
tributed. To the ordinary German citizen the presence or
absence of the imperial factor in the political situation simply
meant one privileged player more or less in the game in which
in any event he was only a pawn. We may therefore cancel
Seckendorff's imperialism from our calculation, for it was of
no significance for our main consideration, viz., the essential
relation of government to citizens, which was the major premise
of cameralism.
For parallel reasons we need not concern ourselves with
the class of questions which Seckendorff raises in chap, iii, viz.,
the relation of the prince to the hereditary or customary rights
of certain other persons, particularly agnates of the princely
house. These rights may vary from claim to petty prerogative
to presumptive share in the sovereignty. However these items
are arranged, they are, as it were, family matters among the
quasi-absolute few, and the political tutelage of the many
remains unaffected.
In chap, iv on the other hand we come upon limitations
of quasi -sovereignty which were in the last analysis of a more
democratic character. One of the most constant difficulties
of the modern student of conditions under the rdgime of "benev-
olent despotism" is to understand how there can have been
an irreducible minimum of law for the individual and for
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKFXDORFF 79
non-privileged groups which the quasi-autocrats were bound
to respect. Of course the explanation is that the equilibrium
of controlling and of controlled groups at any moment is a
resultant of forces which have previously passed through many
other forms of adjustment. In the conflicts of interests out
of which German civilization of the seventeenth century took
shape, a great body of tradition defining the rights of citizens
had been accepted as settled. In the cameralistic period this
body of tradition represented a mass of social inertia, compared
with which imperial claims were merely casual grit in the polit-
ical running gear, while the prerogatives of territorial princes
were to a considerable extent recent acquisitions. These cus-
toms, which insured a great body of relatively satisfactory
private rights, were in a large degree inconsistent with the auto-
cratic type of sovereignty which the princes represented. Yet
the customary laws were often more firmly established than
the sovereignties, and whatever the theories of divine right,
respect for ancient private rights was the price which the quasi -
absolutisms had to pay for tenure of their balance of power.
The critical fact in the quasi-absolutisms of this period, from
our present point of view, was that the people, in the modern
sense, had no initiative in legislation, and a minimum of influ-
ence upon public policies which might at last decide whether
their ancient private rights were worth having. At the same
time there was a body of law which in general amounted to
much more of a real limitation upon the conceivable autocracy
of the princes, from the democratic side, than the shadowy
remainder of the older re'gime exerted from the imperial side.
In the passage next in order (pp. 72 ff.) the nature of these
limitations of absolutism is briefly indicated.
In the first place "the subjects in a country are not slaves." The
alternative description of what they are is formulated in syntax as
cloudy as the idea which it attempts to express. Its substance is
that "subjects are under the righteous government of authorities
8o THE CAMERALISTS
divinely appointed to guard the welfare of their bodies and souls
according to Christian, Godly, natural and imix/rial law, and that
they are always to be protected and cherished by this government
according to the cardinal principles of a commendable form of gov-
ernment, according to the circumstances of the German principali-
ties, as will be set forth in the remainder of the book."
Thus there are particular rights and powers [Bejiignisse] of sub-
jects which the ruler is bound to respect, not merely because they
are matters of conscience and of ultimate accountability to God,
but because of certain externally binding obligations. For instance,
either the ruler or his predecessors may have promised or conceded
something, or it is incumbent upon him because it is involved in
general German laws and principles, or it is in accordance with
ancient tradition. 1 Thus the prince must, in the first place, have
a care for the maintenance of religion, according to both custom
and usage of the country. In the second place the prince must
listen to the complaints of subjects against one another, and must
execute justice between them. In the third place the subjects may
rightfully claim that the ruler may not act in a tyrannical manner
toward their possessions. In the fourth place, if he has entered
into agreements with the estates or subjects of his land, the ruler
may not act contrary to his promises, without the consent of said
estates or subjects. If it becomes necessary to change the traditional
order, as will often be the case in matters of taxation, it is proper
that the ruler should grant a hearing to the estates, and that he gain
their consent, in order to avoid serious complications. Besides
these chief points there are many others, with reference to which
the ruler, "although not from obligation, yet from praiseworthy
1 II should be observed that while SeckcndorfT probably thought
he was thus defining freedom, from our angle of vision he was simply
drawing the outlines of quasi-absolutism. The ruler was relatively
free to deride for himself whether and in what particulars he would
respec t these limitations, and what spec ific actions respect for them
demanded. The subjects were not free to hold him strictly responsible
to the law, or to take part in making new laws. They were thus at the
mercy of the caprice of the prince to such an extent that their ancient
liberties might at any moment virtually be nullified.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 81
and excellent custom, takes council with the estates, and hears their
loyal opinions, although he is not immediately bound thereby"
(p. 76).'
Chap, v enters upon analysis of the secular administration.
The first theorem is that the prince should himself administer the
weightiest affairs of his land and not leave them to his servants
(p. 84). The fulfilment of this condition consists first in the effort
of the prince to obtain a thorough acquaintance with the circum-
stances of his land (die eigentlichc Beschaflenheit seines iMndcs
nmbstandlich zu utrissen).*
Chap, vi enters into particulars about organization of a chan
cellcry, but it contains nothing that contributes in principle to our
inquiry. It continues the impression however that its specifications
1 A general description of a Landtag follows (pp. 77 ff.). The
whole discussion is typical of a state of things already referred to, and
to be emphasized later, viz., that during the cameralistic period there
was growing dcriniteness of opinion about the things wanted of govern-
ments. Very little appears in the writings of the cameralists to show
that their eyes were opening to the need of some reinforcement of these
wants beyond the irresponsible will of the rulers. In other words, the
cameralists formulated governmental standards which involved more
and more consideration of the wants of the people. They do not come
out into the open with any theories of effective sanctions for these popular
demands.
2 The context elaborates the proposition by making it equivalent
to a demand that the prince shall know all that is in the programme of
the cameralists a naive way of reiterating the supreme importance of
cameralism ! The astonishing thing, to the modern mind, in the elalx>ra-
tion of this theorem is that its tone is that which we might expect in a
tutor toward a prince in his early teens. One wonders whether the author
was really addressing rulers, or was actually attempting to make the read-
ing public believe that his picture of what a prince ought to be was a cor-
rect likeness of rulers as they were. One wonders too whether the theorems
alx)ut the selection of the servants of the prince (pp. 80-02) could have
l>een intended as exhortations. They are so axiomatic that no one at
all acquainted with government could be expected to express any other
views for public consumption. The fact that they were usually disre-
garded at will by the quasi-absolute rulers was a large part of the social
logic which ultimately alx>lished absolutism.
82 THE CAMERALISTS
about the qualifications and duties of civil servants constitute a highly
idealized picture of the desirable, rather than a literal analysis of
actual, official traits.
Chap, vii recurs to the first cardinal division of governmental
functions 1 "which consists in maintaining the sovereign power and
dignity in themselves" (p. 102).
At this point we come upon the plainest exhibition of that
peculiarity of cameralism which for the purposes of this inter-
pretation is fundamental. Cameralism posited the dignity
and power of the government as the foremost consideration.
Whether this is a tenable position we are not now concerned
to inquire. Our primary object is to make plain that, this
being the fundamental principle of cameralism, all the sub-
sequent contents of the system must be understood strictly
in their relations to this center. If they are detached from
this base, and treated as though they were taught as universals
by the cameralists, or with the same emphasis in relation to
some other center, the whole meaning of cameralism as a
phase of social science is radically misinterpreted. Suppose
we say that Abraham Lincoln's "government of the people,
for the people, by the people" means that the foremost aim
of the state is what the people want, because they want it.
Whether this would be a tenable principle we are also not now
concerned to inquire. It is obvious at a glance, however,
that the latter formula taken as a major premise of soial theory
would tend to arrange institutions and policies in a system very
different from that which would follow from the cameralistic
assumption. The cameralistic principle tended to exalt gov-
ernment to the rank of an end in itself. The alternative sug-
gested would tend to subordinate government to the rank
of a means, to be employed in one way or another according
to circumstances, and to be respected much or little in propor-
tion to what it proved to be worth. Meanwhile, all sorts of
1 Vide above, p. 76.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKEXDORFF 83
variations of judgment would occur between people who
reasoned from one and the other basis, about almost everything
with which governments have to do. It might turn out that from
the one standpoint it would appear, in given circumstances,
that taxes should be high, armies large, governmental employees
many, individual initiative distrusted, commercial policies
exclusive, etc., while from the other standpoint the opposite
conclusions would be equally plausible. If we are interpreting
incidentals of a theory, it makes all the difference in the world,
therefore, what the basic presumptions of the theory are.
Roscher taught his generation to interpret the cameralists
as economists, or at least English-speaking readers and imita-
tors have understood him so to teach. As we have said above, 1
that interpretation is a cardinal error. The cameralists were
primarily political scientists, and with a theory which pre-
judged economic questions that had not yet arisen in abstract
form, but which came later into the center of debate. The
judgments which the cameralists passed on such matters as
population, money, taxes, trade, were dictated by the particu-
lar type of political preconception which they adopted. That
is, they were estimates of political expediency under certain
assumed conditions, among them being the presumption of
the paramount worth of the government and its incarnation,
the ruler. These cameralistic judgments were not passed
upon economic questions in the shape in which they arose
when economic problems were abstracted and generalized,
instead of being treated as details subordinate to political pre-
conceptions. In so far as we find economic theory in the
cameralistic systems at all, therefore, we have to understand it
as virtually an answer to the question, What, in the given case,
best promotes the purposes of the quasi-absolutism which is the
main consideration ? Whether the cameralists judged sanely
on that question or not, the answer was not intended by them
1 Vide Preface, p. xiii.
84 THE CAMERALISTS
to fit the primarily economic questions which were later
raised ; and it is a historical fallacy to summon them as witnesses
on questions which never came within the range of their
reckoning.
The chapter (vii) in which maintenance of the sovereign
power and dignity is discussed occupies, with its prefixed
summary, eighty-two pages. This is a natural and propor-
tional allotment of space to correspond with the prominence
which the theory assigns to the subject. It is altogether incon-
sistent with the supposition that the book was attempting to
frame a social theory in which economic problems, as under-
stood since Adam Smith, should receive due attention. We
need to notice the chapter only enough to illustrate what we
have said about its character as a symptom of partiality for
a type of political structure.
In the first place, the chapter deals very largely with details
which a modern democrat would lightly waive aside as mere matters
of ceremonial, and good form. On the other hand, the first impor-
tant stipulation is of another kind, viz., that the prince must annually
verify the boundary lines of his territories to make sure that his
neighbors are not encroaching (p. 116); and the next follows natu-
rally, viz., that as a last resort force must be used to end the aggression
(p. 117). The specifications under the head of protection of the
princely dignity with respect to the emperor (pp. 119 ff.) are largely
ceremonial pedantries, but if they pertain to matters of importance
they touch the location of authority, not the principle of authority
itself; that is, they refer to balance between the imperial and the
princely prerogative. The insistence (p. 123) upon stickling about
the terms of treaties, hereditary dispositions, primogeniture, etc.,
betrays systematic cultivation of princely self-consciousness, more
than care for more important interests which might be endangered
by laxness about precedents and technicalities. Specification of the
regalia, the revenues, etc., would belong under this head in any
system which made room for government at all, and Seckendorff's
treatment of them here is in no respect peculiar. The political type
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 85
for which he spoke becomes conspicuous, however, when he turns
to the means which must be used to maintain the person and dignity
of the prince himself (pp. 129 ff.). The safety and comfort of the
chief magistrate will always be of importance in a civilized state-
but Seckendorff raises details of the most trifling sort, like matters
of petty etiquette, or the kinds of amusements proper to the prince,
to a degree of prominence which would be possible only under arbi-
trary preconceptions about the relative values of political persons
(c. g., pp. 175 ff.). Parts of the chapter are prolegomena to a plan
of mental and moral education for young princes (e. g., pp. 136, 137,
and 138-164). No doubt all this is pertinent to the author's purpose,
but the pathos of it is that it is exhortation to which no power in the
state was supposed to be justified in compelling the prince to listen.
Other parts of the chapter (e. g., pp. 135, 136) are appeals to the
piety of the prince, and rather broad hints that if his intelligence is
not equal to his responsibilities, he may by prayer and consultation
with wise advisers obtain from God the necessary guidance. This
is also very sound advice under the circumstances, but it all empha-
sises the crucial presumption that government by a prince relatively
irresponsible to his subjects must be taken for granted. The prin-
ciples and policies and working rules of such a government were the
matter in hand. No question was admitted which would go behind
this presupposition of the divine right of such a type of government
and ruler. All the subdivisions of the cameralistic system turned
around this primary reservation.
Nothing in this interpretation of Seckendorff is a reflection
upon the loftiness of his views or upon their value as a formu-
lation of the ideals which might make benevolent despotism
tolerable. On the contrary his theory was on a plane so high
that a modern reader is bound to suspect him of secreting
between the lines of his treatise conclusions which he does not
state. One can hardly doubt that these conventional formu-
lations, whether intentionally or not, actually were elements
of the social dynamics steadily making for more equitable
distribution of political power. On the surface, however, no
hint of the moral appears that if princes do not observe these
86 THE CAMERALISTS
counsels of righteousness and prudence their occupation will
presently be gone. Whether or not such men as Seckcnclorff
and Justi, not to say Sonnenfels, had any premonition of the
lest awaiting quasi-absolutism, their high ideals of government,
and of the character which rulers should maintain, must have
been factors in sharpening the perception of citizens that the
reality was too often in glaring contrast with the standard.
The cameralists must thus be scheduled as among the factors
which contributed indirectly to the political reconstructions
of the nineteenth century. Our present business, however,
is to show just what cameralism was, in theory and in practice,
in order to find the explanation of the changes in theory and
in practice which impended. In a word, the best elements
in the camcralistic theory were essentials of good government
for which the system of quasi-absolutism furnished no suffi-
cient guarantee. A reversal of the camcralistic presumptions
was therefore inevitable. Instead of starting with the para-
mount value of the quasi-absolutislic type of government, and
making political and social theory a technique of maintaining
it, post-camcralistic philosophy posited certain popular pur-
poses as paramount, and then proceeded to adopt the govern-
mental means by which their ends might be attained.
Chap, viii approaches the classes of subjects which for the
rrxxlern mind must be central and essential in political prin-
ciples and programmes, viz., "the establishment of good order
and laws for the welfare and common benefit of the Father-
land." ( Vide above, p. 76.) That is, Scckendorff is now occupy-
ing the standpoint indicated by the preamble of the Constitution
of the United States. In this chapter he begins to outline the
things which in his judgment would make for ends correspond-
ing with the later specifications, "form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 87
essential difference in the two situations was that cameralism
gave hostages to quasi-absolutism before it entered upon this
division of the inquiry. Its answer, therefore, was foreordained
to be in terms of the interests of the type of government assumed
as paramount; while the American constitution-makers ima-
gined themselves free from all political preconceptions; they
supposed they were judging questions of popular welfare upon
their merits, and they believed that they were acting upon the
principle of framing political institutions solely for their prob-
able utililty as means to popular ends. However actual bias
may have vitiated the American presumption of political
impartiality, there was a distinct contrast in principle between
the republican attitude and that of the cameralists. The
latter, as we have said, formulated their problem as principally
a question of the welfare of the preordained quasi-absolutism,
thus at the outset making the government primary and the
people secondary. The latter formulated their problem as a
question of the welfare of presumably equal citizens, thus at
the outset making the people primary and the government
secondary. Only so far as the welfare of equal citizens and
the welfare of quasi-absolute governments involve identical
relations could correspondence be expected between systems
starting from such contradictory principles.
Because our inquiry makes the history of administrative
technique merely incidental, our plan does not require analysis
of Seckendorff's cameralism on its administrative side. We
are trying to discover the relation of the cameralists to general
problems of social science. In so far as Justi proves to be
representative of the cameralists, his system will presently
be exhibited in considerable detail, as typical in spirit and
purpose, while at the same time more highly elaborated in
structure than the schemes of his predecessors.
Seckendorff begins his outline of the governmental pro-
cesses by which the peace and prosperity of the land are to
88 THE CAMERALISTS
be promoted, by repeating that "the power and authority to
establish such ordinances pertains to the territorial lord and
ruler alone, and it is his duty to promote them according to
his best understanding and knowledge" (p. 192). At the same
time he declares (p. 193)? "The object of such ordinances in
general is that by means of them justice, peace and prosperity
[Auflnehmen], or the welfare of the land and of the people,
may be sought."
We shall have occasion frequently to point out that, during
this quasi-absolutistic period, inchoate ideas of popular welfare
were expressed side by side with formulas of the paramount
importance of the government. The solution of the problems
of adjustment thus presented is simply this: In effect, the ideas
of the primacy of governmental and dynastic interests pre-
vailed until the democratic period changed the balance. Pre-
vious to the democratic revolutions, popular welfare was
always construed, in case of conflict, as a phase of governmen-
tal welfare. Meanwhile expression of popular interests in
more and more distinct form must have weakened the force
of the governmental presumption long before the consequences
of the change were visible in more democratic institutions.
In general Seckendorff represents the perspective of political
desirability as follows:
Peace, or the internal concord of the country, and security against
enemies, are the consequence of justice, and this in turn will be
promoted by peace and concord, so that it is true, according to the
teaching of King David, that the two kiss each other, and the one
without the other does not exist. Finally, prosperity and welfare
are established chiefly upon these two precious gifts of God, but
they are manifest especially in abundant sustenance and growth of
the number of the people, and in their means, conduct and manners.
The supreme purpose (sic) of all these is the salutary maintenance
of the Policey or of the whole government, in its honor, power and
sovereignty, and the last aim is the honor of God, as we have else-
where shown (p. 193).
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKEXDORIT 89
Accordingly Seckendorff regards it as the task of govern-
ment, and so of cameralism, to provide an organization and
a technique which will not only secure peace and order, but
the good morals of the citizens (p. 195). An extended discus-
sion follows of details in which the state, partly through the
secular administration, partly through the ecclesiastical and
educational system, must curb vice and plant the seeds of
virtue in the people.
If it were a part of our purpose to weigh the merits and
defects of quasi-absolutism or paternalism as compared with
democracy, this might be the proper point for undertaking
the process. Instead of that, the occasion may be taken for
a single remark by way of caution and qualification, viz. : Our
constant appeal to democracy in contrast with paternalism
does not imply disregard for the historic mission of paternalism.
Certain national groups have reached a stage of development
after which persistence of paternalism would have involved
arrest of progress. Other groups have at the same time pro-
gressed more securely and rapidly under the guidance of pater-
nalism than would have been probable or perhaps possible
with any other form of control. German populations in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were unquestionably
illustrations of the latter situation. We are not impeaching
German quasi-absolutism in its character as a stage of evolu-
tion. We are trying to expose its fallacy when proposed as
an a-priori principle.
Resuming the problem of securing peace and concord, Secken-
dorff indicates as means thereto (pp. 201 ff.): good organization of
justice and the use of wholesome laws; (2) strict prohibition of
self-enforcement of suppressed rights; (3) good organization and
readiness for action of the personnel of civic control.
On the means of guarding the health and increasing the numbers
of the people, Seckendorff indicates a governmental programme
extending from the maintenance of midwives and nurses, the support
9 THE CAMERALISTS
of orphans, the subsidizing of physicians and surgeons, 1 to inspection
of foods, of water supplies, measures for cleaning and draining
towns, etc.
Passing to problems of securing to the people means of support,
SeckcndorlT's programme includes (pp. 204(1.): d) the intention
on the part of government that no subject shall lack means of secur-
ing the necessities of life, "except as a special punishment and provi-
dence of God, or by his own fault;" (2) that the surplus or special
products of the country shall be specially conserved as a means of
securing in exchange from other countries their necessary and useful
products. Details under this programme are scheduled to the num-
IKT of twelve, viz., (i) the fundamental provision, i. e., the good
education of youth; (2) adequate ordering of all means of making
the land yield support; 2 (3) special attention to those goods which
are most generally necessary, i. e., the products of the field, of graz-
ing, of forestry, of the iron, spinning, weaving, and wool trades;
(4) proportional attention to the more vulgar occupations, i. e., of
day-laborers and common servants; (5) ordinances regulating prices;
(6) abolition of usury; (7) regulation of weights and measures; (8)
certain classes of sumptuary laws, i. e., feasting and celebration;
(9) other types of sumptuary laws, i. e., clothing, etc. ; (10) discourage-
ment of use of foreign wares as clothing and food; (u) suppression
of various classes of parasites, e. g , gamblers, fakirs, fraudulent
bankrupts, etc.; (12) just management of income-producing prop-
erties belonging to communities.
Thereupon follows a similar outline, under five heads, of measures
to foe employed in getting the most advantage from a country's
surplus products, viz. (pp. 214 ff.): (i) Special account is to be
made of the peculiar products of the country, and special provision
made for their encouragement; (2) the influences of government
must be exerted to maintain the zeal of the people for continuing
these specially advantageous occupations; (3) encouragement must
1 The use of the word Balbierer tells its own story of the degree ot
differentiation which the professions had then attained.
2 The sertion suggests a curiously unassorted mixture of physical
and moral devices, from compulsion of each industrial class to stick to
its traditional occupations, to moral discipline of apprentices and artisans.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 91
be given to traders from other countries to purchase these goods;
(4) special attention must be given to regulation of subjects who
want to carry on foreign trade in these goods; (5) the people must
be protected by regulation of domestic trade against various kinds
of fraud.
In these two series of categories we have in embryo the
Policeywissemchaft worked out in so much greater detail, and
with so much more orderly arrangement, by a succession of
writers up to Justi. Seckendorff's schedules call for two
comments only: first, they show farseeing discernment of
factors which must always be rather elementary in the pros-
perity of communities; second, they are crude judgments about
wise ways and means for securing these desirable details. In
other words, Seckendorff's technology was a collection of very
premature conclusions about social causes and effects. The
^situations to which such judgments were supposed to apply
had not been generalized, and the validity of these rough and
ready judgments had not been adequately tested. That is,
Seckendorff's embryonic Policeywissenschaft, from the view-
point of our present analysis, was merely a collection of pro-
visional working rules, one effect of which was presently (in
the time of Adam Smith) to produce an effective demand for
radical reconsideration of the presuppositions on which govern-
mental relations to ail economic activities had been based.
In comparison with Justi, Seckendorff formulated these rules
in a very loose fashion. They reflected the fundamental poli-
cies of quasi-absolutism plainly enough, however, and progress
in systematizing these policies merely intensified their abso-
lutistic character.
Chap, ix (pp. 218-39) deals with the organization of the
courts. There is no question of principle between quasi-
absolutistic and democratic theories of government, as to the
fundamental conception that the government must administer
justice. In this respect there is nothing peculiar to cameralis-
92 THE CAMERALISTS
tics which calls for our attention. If we were making a study
of comparative juridical institutions, the systems of courts in
Germany during the cameralistic period would of course occupy
an important subdivision of the treatment. The purposes of
this book neither require nor permit an attempt to consider
that branch of German administration.
For similar reasons we may neglect chap, x (pp. 240-59),
which deals very summarily with the means of executing the
decrees of courts and with the war powers of governments.
Chaps, xi-xiv (pp. 260-328) deal with the general subject of
the relation of the ruler to ecclesiastical administration, under
which rubric educational administration is included. Here
again details are not material for our purpose. We may observe
that, so far as space is an index, Seckendorff makes these sub-
jects six times more prominent in his general theory of the state
than Justi does in the same connection. 1 This difference
probably corresponds with the emphasis actually placed by
the two men upon the ecclesiastical side of government. Sec-
kendorff appears to have had no doubts whatever that the
divine order of the universe necessarily worked through divinely
ordained princes, in whom secular and religious prerogatives
were indissoluble. Justi had no other views for publication.
He accepted the ecclesiastical organization as he found it, and
though he expressed a good deal of contempt for some of its
workings he did not venture to offer a theory of its place in
the governmental scheme essentially different from that assigned
to it by Seckendorff.
Reference to the Table of Contents and comparison of
Parts III and IV with the corresponding portions of Justi's
system* will afford all the evidence it falls within our purpose
to cite about the place of Seckendorff in the development of
the technique of the subject. We may pass, then, from this
1 Vide the corresponding passage in Staatswissenschaft, i. e., pp.
122-32.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 93
outline of the more important of his two books to a brief analy-
sis of Der Christen Stat.
Our account of Scckendorff would be incomplete without
examination of the version of his views published thirty years
later than the volume just described. This book would be
more properly classified primarily as a religious exhortation
than as a political treatise. Since the relations between religion
and politics were more in evidence at the time of its composition
than they are at present, more may be learned from a disquisi-
tion of this type, about the shadings of contemporary political
doctrines, than could safely be inferred from a similar book
today. So far as possible, we shall confine our notice to cer-
tain features of the book which throw light upon the author's
cameralistic theories. 1
An incidental touch in the dedication, all the more signifi-
cant because it was casual, yet at the same time conventional,
was the assumption that the descendants of the prince to whom
the book was dedicated would continue to exercise his pre-
rogatives "to the end of the world." If there was any specu-
lation in the mind of cameralistic authors to the effect that the
structures of states might be changed in the course of time,
such vain imaginings were kept below the surface. The strong
1 The title-page reads: Herrn Veit Ludwig's von Seckendorff Chris-
ten-Stat. In Drey Bucher abgetheilet. 1m Ersten wird von dem Chris-
tenthum an sick selbst, und dessen Behauptung, wider die At heist en und
dergleichen Leute; 1m Anderen von der Verbesserung des Weltlichen,
und 1m Dritten des Geistlichen Standes, nach dem Zweck des Christen-
thums gehandelt. Darbey unterschiedliche merckliche Stellen, aus alien
und neuen Autoribus, in besonderen Additionen zur Bekrdftigung und
Nachdencken angehdngt zu befinden. Leipzig, verlegts. Joh. Friedrich
Gleditsch. M.DC.XCIII. This second edition (first dated April 18,
1685) is the only one that I have seen. It is apparently a reprint of the
first, without change. Nothing appears in it to show whether it was
given to the printer by the author, or by an editor after his death. The
body of the book, after a dedication, preface, etc.. occupying 38 pages,
consists of 719 pages. The Additiones and Index occupy 570 pages.
94 THE CAMERALISTS
probability is, in Seckcndorffs case at least, that no such fancy
had ever disturbed conventional reflections.
The Preface recites that, twenty years earlier, when the
author was in service at the court of Moritz of Saxony, that
prince, his consort, and some of the younger members of the
family were greatly disturbed by symptoms of "atheism"
among persons who were regular or occasional visitors at court.
The impulse of Pascal's writings led Seckendorff to attempt
a refutation of atheism, and this constitutes the substance of
the first part of the present book. As the author describes this
portion of his work, it was purely theoretical. It found such
a favorable reception at court, however, that he was encouraged
to expand it, and especially to show "how the many and great
evils in all classes were best to be remedied, if the ground of
Godliness were rightly considered, and its chief aim were kept
in sight as the guide of all human actions." In order to carry
out this idea, "the three so-called chief strata [Haupt-Stande]
and their doings" were taken into particular consideration,
with especial reference to the requirements of Christianity
upon them. While this reflection was still in progress (1681)
the death of the elector so changed the situation that the author
was able to retire and give more time to writing. He mentions
Philipp Jacob Spener of Franckfurt as among those who read
parts of his manuscript and made useful suggestions. The
pains which he takes to excuse the failings of the book, on the
ground that he had always been a man of affairs and not a
scholar, savor more of vanity than of modesty. They affect
one as the pettiness of an amateur who was not too zealous
about the substance of his message to be fussy about the impres-
sion he would make with respect to immaterial details of form.
The first book of Der Christen-Stat contains nothing which
need occupy our attention. 1 It is simply a layman's apolo-
' The reasons are obvious from the title, viz., Das Erste Buck, Von
dem Chriitenthum an sich selhst, wie es wider die Atheisten, Deisten und
CAMERALISTICS OF SKCKFADORFF 95
getic for religion as formulated in the Augsburg Confession.
Seckcmlorff states in his Preface that belief in this body of
doctrine was handed down to him from ancestors who gave
their adherence to it during the lifetime of Luther. It has its
chief interest not as an interpretation of Lutheranism. For
that we should go to the theologians. It has merely a second-
ary value as a statesman's attempt to commend Lutheranism
primarily to men of his own class. It is a document of more
significance for the religious than for the cameralistic side of
German experience. '
The second book sets forth the ways in which true religion,
as expounded in the previous book, should be applied in the
reform of civic conduct. 2 Seckendorff recurs to a division of
citizens which he often employs, viz., the spiritual, the secular,
and the domestic strata. 3 He admits that in a way the third
of these strata includes the others. For this reason he discusses
it first.
Heuchler, durch ausserliche Griinde zu behaupten, und worinnen es inge-
mein bestehe. Of course this whole theological background must have
its full reckoning in a calculus of the various social factors of the period.
It must be kept in mind as the ultimate sanction to which the principles
of statecraft were referred by the cameralists in Lutheran states, as a
parallel sanction was appealed to in states which adopted other confes-
sions. We simply cannot consider it here in detail.
1 Among the curiosities of this chapter is an argument for the exist-
ence of God based on an ad hominem appeal to the current belief in the
existenreof ghosts. "Whosoever admits the existence of spirits, must
also admit God as the supreme and highest spirit." The plausibility
of the argument was also derived in part from the double meaning of
the word Geiat.
3 Das Andere Buck, Von der Verbesserung der Stdnde nach dem
(,'rund des Christenthums und dessen Haupt-Zwecks, nemlich der wahren
und ewigen GlUckseligkeil, insonderheit aber von Verbesserung des Haus-
Slandes, wie auch des weltlichen Regiments.
3 "Den Geistlichen, Weltlichen und Haus-Stand" The problem
which the word "Stand" in this sense always presents to the English
translator is only partially solved by the rendering "stratum."
g6 THE CAMERALISTS
He distinctly formulates the purpose of this second book
in this way: "To show that all strata would be most surely
reformed according to the rule of Christianity and its chief
purpose." His initial aim is to show that if this reform should
first take place in domestic life it would make all other civic
improvement easier.
The argument proceeds from this premise (p. 188):
The happiness of the domestic stratum, or of each separate human
being, regardless of accidental social status, is to be sought approxi-
mately in this, that one may have health, food, clothing, and other
comforts and necessities of life; then further, according to circum-
stances of age and time, that he may marry well, beget children,
live long, and come to no exceptional end. To this must be added
the common civic well-being [bttrgerliche Wolfarth], the freedom or
right to associate with his own, to be thereby in appropriate respect
or honor, also to enjoy peace and protection against wrong and
violence.
One is reminded that certain familiar traits of human nature
are not modern inventions, by a reflection which follows this
schedule, viz.:
Most people seek to fix the blame and to locate the cause of evils
and misfortunes at the wrong point. Each is more ready to blame
another than himself. Hence arise envy, hatred, hostility, resistance
and embitterment against those who live in better fortune, especially
against government.
All sorts of impotent complaints, the author adds, are
accordingly lodged against rulers, and at last against God,
while people ought rather to ask themselves whether they are
themselves in any way the authors of their own troubles.
Then follows homely exhortation, in the name of religion, to
observe commonplace rules of prudence in connection with
body and estate. These rules are urged as having a peculiarly
Christian content and force, to be sure, but that fact does not
affect the essential purport and tendency of the argument.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 97
The fundamental prudence of good bodily habits, of temper-
ance, of frugality, are presented in their proper relations to
subsequent conditions of happiness.
Then follows an equally judicious chapter on the domestic
virtues. With mere changes of detail in the illustrations, it
would serve fairly well as the syllabus of a lecture, or indeed
of a series of lectures, in a modern sociological course on the
family.
The argument then passes to the second of the "strata,"
but it would be more in accordance with later usage to say
that the rest of the book amounts to a treatise on practical
Christian ethics in the social as distinguished from the individ-
ual phases of conduct, and of course with the theology of the
Augsburg Confession as the constant presupposition. With
very crude grouping and analysis of the kinds of activity treated,
the discussion in a way covers the whole range of conduct in
the state, as it presented itself to Seckendorff's understanding.
The first main proposition is to the effect that all the difficul-
ties encountered in civic life come from spurious Christianity.
Beginning with enumeration of types of petty neighborhood
quarrels, and pointing out their departure from Christian pre-
cepts and ideals, the author treats in a similar way the grosser
vices and crimes. Incidentally, and by departing rather
obviously from his text, he introduces in the fifth chapter an
excursus of more interest for our purpose than his proper argu-
ment. It is an observation bearing on the doctrine of popula-
tion, and seems to have only a forced relation to the context.
He says:
When one however undertakes to speak of the common means
of support and the freedom of citizens, and of the measures necessary
for improving their condition in these respects, a considerable differ-
ence must be taken into account between countries: for the situation
is of one sort in the case of those which derive their ordinary support
from agriculture, and of another sort with those that are devoted to
98 THE CAMERALISTS
trade and commerce, particularly to navigation. Because less of
the latter exists in Germany, than in other regions, we have the more
occasion to speak of the other sort. We must know, therefore, that
under ordinary circumstances each region can properly maintain only
so many people jrom its own resources as can gel their means of support
jrom its yield. For example, if we consider a village which has only
arable land enough for the cultivation of ten plows, no more than
that number of peasants or teamsters can profitably live there, but
the others must get their living by artisanship, or get a chance to
work outside the boundaries of the locality. If this does not occur,
each hinders the others, or there is a scarcity of support. There
can also be no more handworkers in the locality than these peasants
need, etc. (p. 243).
In this paragraph the author seems to be distinctly on the
trail of the law of diminishing returns. He certainly does not
squint toward the conception of population which has been
attributed to the cameralists of the following century. We shall
see that his successors were also much more intelligent on this
subject than tradition has testified.
After expanding the propositions quoted, Seckendorff ap-
proaches the moral which he wishes to enforce, in this way:
Where the Christian doctrine has been accepted, and ecclesiastics
and especially monks have been introduced, from the better culti-
vated and improved countries, Italy, France, England, etc., also
the police, or the more comfortable and at the same time more expen-
sive mode of life, a change has taken place in all localities which could
not be properly supervised or controlled, especially because of the
many magistracies, but it was allowed in many respects to take its
own course. Accordingly no one understands why a given occupa-
tion flourishes in a given locality, whether from some particular
natural advantage, or from special skill on the part of the inhabitants.
The present purpose is to urge that the people chose their course of
life almost entirely without reflection, and as a consequence they
do not succeed in spite of diligence Christianity comes in
to improve this state of things, by laying down certain rules about
livelihood, and especially about moderation.
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKEXDOR1-T 99
The point of interest about this argument, for our purpose,
is not the strength or weakness of the reasoning, but the evi-
dence it contains as to the views of the official class at this
period about the appropriate aims of government. However
practical men or theorists arranged their aims in the relation
of means and end, the physical and moral well-being of the
population governed was a definite and positive purpose. In
the minds of the same men, religion was also both an end and
a means with reference to individual as well as governmental
welfare. It is not our affair to criticize the crudeness and the
confusion in their reasonings about religion, and about its
relation to morals and government. The main thing is that
they actually recognized desiderata, with some common sanc-
tions of religion, of philosophy, of prudential and political
expediency, which positively prescribed moral ideals both for
governments and for individuals. These standards of moral
value and obligation, which stood for partially developed
interests in German populations, were factors, weaker or
stronger, in shaping both official and popular programmes
throughout the cameralistic period. While other interests
were in a sense paramount, these elementary, and in a sense
ultimate, human interests were always perceptibly or imper-
ceptibly in the balance along with other considerations of state,
and their actual importance, as compared with the interests
of rulers as a distinct class, never long at a time ceased to gain
an increasing ratio of influence.
It is characteristic of the lack of system in social ideas at
Seckendorff's time that from the remarks just quoted he passes
immediately to discussion of the sin of tax-dodging, as we now
phrase it, and of evading military service in the just wars which
Christianity does not disapprove. This leads to discussion of
the Christian ethics of conduct in war, and evils both govern-
mental and individual are enumerated and condemned in
considerable detail.
ioo THE CAMERALISTS
In the sixth chapter of this book, the author, with a slight
departure from the classification which he made at the outset,
enters upon discussion of the ethics of the governing stratum.
He at once acknowledges the delicacy of the subject. He says:
This is a dangerous and difficult matter: partly because inborn
human perversity provides that no one hears the truth more impa-
tiently than those who have the power to ignore it, and to insult
those who present it; partly because, on the other hand, it is a duty
to avoid speaking of the failings of rulers in such a way as to stir
up hatred and scorn and even rebellion among citizens toward those
rulers who try to act as true Christians (p. 255).
The wise suggestion is made in this connection that preach-
ers would often do better to send to rulers in writing their
complaints about bad government, than to utter them in the
pulpit, in the presence of those who least need to hear them,
and in the absence of those who should be concerned with them
most. At the same time Seckendorff betrays very plain symp-
toms of the prevailing tendency to demand that true Christian
subjects shall renounce all claim to a right of bringing direct
pressure to bear on rulers if their government is oppressive.
The only recourse which his philosophy and theology fully
sanction is prayer to God, that He might soften the heart and
instruct the mind of the delinquent sovereign. On the other
hand, the appeal which Seckendorff makes to rulers to observe
the obligations of religion in their conduct of government, puts
the final emphasis not on considerations of justice, and the
rights of the subject, but on the rulers' hopes of eternal happi-
ness (p. 259).
However we may appraise the force or validity of the sanc-
tions upon which Seckendorff 's political ethic relied, he cer-
tainly outlined a relatively exacting standard of governmental
conduct. It began with the obligation of setting a Christian
example to subjects, in personal habits, on the principle of
noblesse oblige, and covered the whole range of governmental
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 101
activities. Seckendorff plainly asserts (p. 266) that Christian-
ity puts the origin of ruling authority beyond question. Thus:
The ruling class is ordained of God, although in certain places
human means, such as election or investiture, are instrumental in
attaining that position, and the specific duties of government arc to
be learned from the light of reason, and cannot be found in revela-
tion or the Holy Scriptures. When a sovereign therefore according
to custom writes "by the grace of God," that is no vain title. It
shows rather in part the sovereignty [Hoheit], and in part the duty:
the sovereignty because of sitting in the place of God, and having
to conduct the office according to the divine order. Hence rulers,
as such, are accountable first of all to God, and may also hope for
his protection. This their sovereignty they may use for the suppres-
sion of seditious thoughts of subjects, when the latter presume to
override the rulers. The duty may be learned from the considera-
tion that, because they are ordained by the grace of God, rulers are
bound to conform to the divine law, and thus to promote the welfare
of the people committed to them, and also to observe and fulfill
what is promised according to the ancient usage of the land and
people And although in the fewest places external means
of compulsion are to be practiced, and thus a ruler, if he disregards
his capitulary or his promise, sins before God alone, and is liable
to no investigation by his subjects, yet the fear of God will sufficiently,
and more than any external compulsion, restrain him, and he will
regard those who advise him in a contrary way, and would release
him from all laws, as wicked counselors, yes, as tools of the devil.
What is true of these high magistrates, who are subordinated to no
other human power, is true also in its degree of subordinate rulers, etc.
In the following chapter (vii) the author expands the above
theorems about the authority of rulers by going elaborately
into the biblical and especially the Pauline doctrine of the
relation of rulers to other Christians. In chap, viii, however,
he returns to the other side of the case, and argues with equal
energy that
At last rulers attain salvation in one and the same way as other
Christians, i. e., by Christian faith, the fruits of which are love and
102 THE CAMERALISTS
a pious life. There is only one, and that the straight and narrow
way, through which is the entrance into life Just as the poor-
est peasant, so also the greatest king, must attain salvation. Every-
thing which people of high degree claim for themselves as emancipa-
tion, exemption, and privilege, is sheer deception, and those who
help them to these imaginings are their guides and companions
toward destruction.
Upon this doctrinal basis, exhibit of specific duties is con-
tinued; thus, further duties of setting worthy examples to
subjects, for instance, in checking drunkenness and neglect
of attendance at divine worship by members of the court;
duties of the positive sort, such as promoting the progress of
true religion among the subjects; in particular the duty not
merely of protecting the institutions of religion but of laying
down rules of church government. Christian rulers should
reform evils in the church and the clergy.
This duty belongs especially to those Protestant princes who
took upon themselves the prerogatives of Episcopus in externis,
and who administer the other jura Episcopalia, which the bishops
alone previously administered, either in person or through their
Officiates, through certain appointed and sworn persons called
Consistoriales or Superintendents (merely other names for bishops).
On the other hand, it is urged as the duty of rulers to refrain
from prescribing articles of faith for their subjects, even when
the bishops agree thereto; the duty of abolishing unnecessary
display in church worship is expounded; the importance of
sound learning and the reading of good books by rulers is
emphasized. At the close of the chapter, subjects are exhorted
to observe the duties of true Christians in all these matters,
even if rulers fail in any of these respects.
Chap, x develops the author's ideas of Christian duty with
respect to all sorts of situations before, during, and in conse-
quence of war. It begins with the premise that peace is a
good much to be desired, and its preservation is the first work
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 103
of government. Nevertheless, righteous war being permissible
and necessary, it is the duty of governments properly to prepare
for it and to carry it on as far as possible in accordance with
the behests of religion. The implications of this doctrine are
developed with considerable detail. The evils of war are
frankly admitted, and remedies pointed out in better observance
of Christian precepts. It is urged that "true and right bravery
in war must spring from Christian courage, by reason of the
assurance of a good conscience, and of a better life after death"
(p. 346). Eleven clauses from the imperial articles of war are
quoted, to show that Christian principles are recognized as
part of the law of the land for soldiers. 1 The chapter contains
also an argument for the reinstitution of universal military
duty; an essay, in twenty-seven sections, on organization and
discipline of a military establishment so created; and concludes
that the proposed scheme would lead to successful ending of
war with the Turks, and efficient conduct of all necessary
minor wars.
Chap, xi applies the test of Christian doctrine to the duties
of magistrates in administering justice; chap, xii, to miscel-
laneous relations of government to subjects, as in excessive
taxation, in infringement upon proper liberty, in luxurious
living at the expense of subjects, in experimenting with alchemy
and other magic arts, in manipulating the coinage, in traffic
in public offices, and in establishing monopolies.
The last chapter of this second book returns to one of the
initial presumptions of German civic theory, namely, that
the government is bound to -perform the functions of a presid-
ing genius over the general welfare of subjects. At the same
time it reiterates a theorem which in some form and force or
other plays its part in all the cameralistic systems. The chapter
begins with a brief expression of both these ideas to this effect :
1 1. e., from "des Heil Romischen Reichs Reuter-Bcstallung, Anno
S7o" (p. 330.
104 THE CAMERALISTS
From Christianity, or from Christian love, flows the provision
of God-fearing rulers that their subjects shall have all possible encour-
agement and success in their livelihood and occupations, that their
numbers shall increase rather than diminish, because the greatest
treasure of the country consists in the number of well-nourished
people; and to that end not merely external peace and the moderation
of the governing power in collecting taxes, etc., are useful, ....
but every other good institution which governments may adopt
whereby means of livelihood may be assured to the people, and
multiplied in reliable ways, for the more important Christian pur-
pose that they may have something to give to the needy and thus
may be and remain able to provide for the support of the community
[Gemeinen Wesens] and the care of the poor and the needy.
In the spirit of this introduction, the chapter concludes
this division of the author's system of ethics with brief reference
to the duties of rulers toward vagrants and other forbidden
types, such as gypsies, beggars, etc.; toward promotion of
profitable occupations through good police organization;
toward moderation of duties and imports; toward encourage-
ment of manufactures and commerce; toward selection of
competent officials for dealing with these subjects: and two
closing sections contain further warnings to subjects about their
own delinquencies in commerce and artisanship, with praises
of peasants, artisans, and soldiers for their relatively faithful
observance of Christian duty, and a final appeal to the self-
interest of rulers to guard the welfare of these lower classes.
The third book hews much less closely to the lines of the
original plan than the other two. Its title is On the Spiritual
Stratum and Its Reform in Particular. The author's treatment
of the ethics of his two other divisions of activity leads to the
expectation that he will follow the same model with reference
to the clergy. Instead of this, the book deals with every sort
of question which could concern people with ecclesiastical
interests at the period of its publication. It has sections which
would have to be classed in turn as exegesis, church history,
CAMERALISTICS OF SECKENDORFF 105
dogmatic theology, homiletics, pastoral duties, clerical ethics,
religious pedagogy, the theory of missions, and church polity.
It deals briefly with the education of women. In so far as it
touches clerical ethics, it is on the same general basis as the
earlier books. The most notable fact is the degree to which
the relation of the church to the secular government is slurred
over. If one knew nothing of Seckendorff's writings beyond
this book, the most obvious inference would be that he had in
mind an ecclesiastical organization practically identical with
that of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, and
as independent of the civil government. There are passages,
e. g., pp. 705 ff., from which one familiar with his previous
writings would immediately supply the necessary connections
of these details with his whole theory of government. I have
found no other passage in the whole succession of came-
ralistic authors which treats of ecclesiastical questions with so
little reference to the relations with the political administration. 1
A more general comparison than that of one cameralist
with another may help to interpret the authors in this group.
In one particular not yet referred to Seckendorff was typical
of all the cameralists. It may be stated by contrast with Adam
Smith. The latter was plainly a philosopher first, and inciden-
tally an economist. 2 The cameralists were first and last theo-
retical or practical administrators. They betray almost no
consciousness that their technique runs back to problems of
a fundamental philosophy. The exceptions to this rule are in
the form of barkings back to religious premises. According
to their ecclesiastical connections, they pay more or less per-
functory tribute to popular Catholic or Protestant religious
1 Seckendorff's Vier und vierzig TetUsche Reden, and PolUische und
moralische Discurse uber dreyhundert auserlesene lehrreiche Spriiche des
Lucani, I have not been able to obtain.
3 Vide Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, pp. 9, 27, 32, 65,
et passim.
106 THE CAMERALISTS
doctrine. The allusions hardly go deeper, however, than to
phases of doctrine which might have been derived merely from
their pre-confirmation instruction. In short, cameralistics
was primarily a system of and for the bureau. It had only
indirect and remote affiliations with the academy. We shall
find that this fact was a very serious obstacle to the progress
of cameralism as a university subject. Dithmar and Stisser
will furnish typical evidence.
In this sketch, then, we have presented first of all the con-
ception of a ruler by divine right, and of the government which
he should maintain, as it was put into literary form by one of
the men best entitled to speak for the system. The sketch
is of chief value for this initial element. The secondary fea-
tures of the regime, although in the germ in Seckendorff's
doctrines, will appear in more mature form in the descriptions
of later cameralists.
CHAPTER V
THE CAMERALISTICS OF BKCHER
The cameralistic series next includes three men, Becher,
Hornick, and Schroder, whose chief contribution to the theory
was on its mercantilistic side. To the first and third of these
men a chapter will be devoted. Since it has proved impossible
to make a first-hand study of Hornick, his place in the develop-
ment of cameralism will be indicated more briefly.
Johann Joachim Becher was born at Speier in 1635. He
died in London in 1682. He was the supposed originator of
the chemical "phlogiston theory." In the midst of the
material and spiritual ruin which followed the Thirty Years'
War, struggling against great difficulties, he became a self-
taught man of no mean attainments in several directions. He
is said to have supported himself, as well as, for a time, his
mother and two brothers, by serving as an informer. At the
age of nineteen he published a monograph, De lapide tris-
megisto; six years later, a Metallurgia; in 1661, a L'niversal-
sprache, etc. Then he entered into negotiations with the
Palatine elector about establishment of various factories in
Mannheim; later, with the elector of Bavaria about founda-
tion of a German colony in Guiana, a West Indian colony, etc. ;
further, about the introduction of a Commercien collegium, and
other administrative devices. In 1666 he was teacher of medi-
cine and body physician of the elector of Mainz, but in the same
year went to Vienna as Commercienrath. He was sent to
Holland on an imperial errand, and in 1667 wrote in ten days
(?) his Methodus didactica; and soon afterward, Regeln dcr
christlichen Bundesgenossemchaft, his chief cameralistic work,
if it may properly be so designated. Meantime he had an
appointment as body physician and chemist in electoral Bavaria
107
io8 THE CAMERALISTS
and here appeared his Physica Subterranea sen Acta Labora-
torii Monacensis. In the same year he acquired a feudal title
for the Count of Hanau to 3,000 square miles of land between
the Oronoco and the Amazon, and published a Griindlicher
Bericht in description of the region. The plan was to form
a "High German West Indian Company." Nothing ever
came of it. In 1670 Becher was called to Vienna in connec-
tion with a silk company and other enterprises, tncidentally,
while his personal affairs were developing poorly, he dashed
off a programme for setting the world to rights, in the mono-
graphs Psychosophia and Einladung zu einer psychologischen
Societal. A location for a demonstrative experiment under
the latter head was expected from the bounty of the duke of
Giistrow (1674). In 1675 Becher wrote Theses chemicas
veritatem trans wntationibus metallorum evincentis, and experi-
mented in Vienna on extracting gold from the sands of the
Danube. His most practical occupation seems to have been
at this period as head of a so-called Manufacturhaus in Vienna,
an institution supported by the government. He fell into
disfavor, went to Holland, sold to the city of Harlem a machine
for winding silk, and tried to get the Dutch government inter-
ested in his attempts to get gold from sand. The enmity of
Count Zinzendorf, which had cut short his stay in Vienna, still
pursued him, and he went to England in 1680. The imperial
ambassador tried to obstruct his plans here, but the body
physician Dickinson gave him money, and he went to Scotland
to study mines for Prince Ruprecht von der Pfalz. It is said
that he wrote his Narrische Weisheit und weisse Narrheit in
the twenty-eight days (?) while he was on the water making
this trip. He returned to London in 1682, and died in
October of that year. 1
While Becher's influence upon cameralism was somewhat
indirect, it was actual, and must therefore be duly credited.
1 Vide Oppenheim, in All. d. Bib., in loc.; vide Roscher, pp. 270 ff.
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 109
He cannot be called in the full sense a cameralist. It is even
doubtful if he ever regarded himself in that light at all. 1 This
matter of labels, however, is not important. Whatever may
have been the differences between Becher and the more typical
cameralists, he added something to the content of a theory
which at last had a recognized place for his type of interest.
While Becher's title to classification as a cameralist is
questionable, his moral rating is still more dubious. Some of
his vicissitudes were more his misfortune than his fault, to be
sure, as for example when he was ostracized at Wiirzburg for
dissecting the body of a woman who had been executed. He
was nowhere in the favor of the clergy. The merchants
disliked him for his activities in promoting the theory of the
organization of trading companies. He lost his standing in the
Palatinate by the failure of a perpetual-motion scheme, and
he made himself ridiculous among scholars by a book which
promised to teach all Haushaltungskunst in twenty-four hours. 2
Taken in connection with odious personal traits, Becher's
individual and professional equation has simply the permanent
value for our purposes of a factor in establishing a technical
tradition.
Becher's most memorable cameralistic work was published
in i668. 3 Its place in the cameralistic series is entirely different
from that of Seckendorff. Indeed, as we have seen, it can only
by accommodation of terms be said to have had a place in the
series. Each petty German state had its little army of func-
1 Vide Dixcurs, p. 38, 11. 23, 24.
1 " Kluger Hausvater, verstdndige Hausmutter, vollkommencr Land-
Medicus, wie auch erfahrener Ross- und Vieharzt."
3 D. Johann Joachim Bechers von Speyer, Rom. Kiiyserl. Majcstiit
Commercien-Raths Politische Discurs von den eigentlichen Ursachen des
Auff- und Abnehmens der Stddt Lander und Republicken. "In specie:
Wie ein Land Volckreich und Nahrhafft zu machen, und in eine rechte
Societatem civilem zu bringen. Auch wird von dem Bauren- Handwercks-
und Kauffmanns-Standt derer Handel und Wandel, Item, von dem
no THE CAMERALISTS
tioning cameralists, the hierarchies of the bureaus. Few of
them wrote books, but in some particulars such a sorry sub-
stitute for a book as this miscellaneous collection of Bee her
better reflects what they were doing and thinking than the
more systematic treatises. Becher's Discurs contains no direct
internal evidence that the author had ever heard of Seckendorff .
It seems to be the record of the impression made upon an unsys-
tematic mind by contact with the workings of bureaucracy
in various capitals. 1
In the dedication to the emperor Leopold, dated September
i, 1672, Becher asserts that his reasons for the dedication were
three: first, that the book was largely written while the author
was on the imperial civil list, and that the material was largely
collected in the course of that service; second, because enemies
had scattered the slander that the author was of no visible
use in the imperial service, and the book would be an answer
to the charge; third, because enemies who were identical with
the enemies of the German Roman Empire and of the imperial
house had attacked the author for addressing the common
German Fatherland in plain vernacular German, instead of
academic Latin.
Monopolio, Polypolio uml Propolio, von allgemeinen Lanrl-Magazinen,
Niedcrlagen, KaufT-Hiiusern, Montibus Pietatis, Zucht- und Werck-
Hiiusern, Wechselbancken uml dergleichen ausftihrlich gehandelt.
Dritte Edition, mit vier Theilen vermehret, worinnen viel niitzlichc,
wi( hligc und curiosc Sachcn begriffen. Franckfurt M.DC.LX-
XXVIII." I have used only this third edition. The first is dated 1668.
1 As a sample of judgments passed upon Becher in less critical scien-
tific periods than ours, we may cite estimates quoted by Rose her from
Zinckc's Leipziger Sammlungen (1758). Becher is spoken of as "the
first reformer of German systems of artisanship, manufacture, trade,
Polizei, and finance." Of the Discurs, the same author says: "almost
to the present time the only fundamental book which can be used in a
certain degree as introduction to Stadtwirthschaft and its Policei system"
(Roschcr, p. 435).
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 1 1 1
Becher adds that he may be reproached for the presumption
of dedicating to the emperor a hook which contains discussions
of commercial affairs, with which nobility has nothing to do.
The reply is that his majesty is not expected to concern himself
directly with such subjects, but the book is designed to bring
more clearly before his eyes the fact that the commercial
classes are contributing to the population and wealth of the
country, and that ways and means of establishing a populous
and self-sustaining community are the most suitable subject-
matter of a political policy.
In the Preface to the second edition Becher refers to the
contents of the book as Commercien Materien. He must be
interpreted, therefore, in contrast with Seckendorff, as making
the interests of trade his point of departure. While Becher
was thus concerned only secondarily with the theory of admin-
istrative organization in general, it is no less true of him than
of the other cameralists that the test to which he would bring
all commercial questions was their relation to the interests of
the state as represented by the government.
Becher goes on to say that, although the first edition found
many enemies, and was in several places forbidden by the
clergy, yet it was soon entirely sold. It appears that the imme-
diate cause of the enmity of the clergy was an innocent quotation
upon the title-page from the jurist Calvinus. It was assumed
that John Calvin was the author quoted, and that the book
must contain Protestant poison 1
Perhaps the most significant clause in this preface is that
in which the author anticipates charges of partisanship. The
implication is that the book contains, perhaps the author would
even have said it is, a commercial programme. Such a pro-
gramme is open to misconstruction or to disapproval from
many sides. It will wholly please no party. To the non-
Catholics it will seem to be too strongly imperial or Spanish
in its leanings; to the Catholics it will appear too favorable
112 THE CAMERALISTS
to Holland, etc. Bccher protests, however, that he has intro-
duced d(K.-umcnls into the collection rather as samples of vari-
ous sorts of instruments, than because he approves the policies
in the course of which the documents were executed. He
continues: "The sole end of this new edition is on my part
to give the reader a formulary of various transactions and politi-
cal concepts which serve the welfare of the state " (des gemeinen
H'Mcn.v). 1 Further expressions in the Preface emphasize the
fact that the hook was written in an atmosphere thick with petty
political strifes. Prejudice and suspicion would construe it
as a party pamphlet, whether it was so intended or not. Under
such circumstances, neither the author nor his public could
take an objective and critical attitude toward the abstract
questions involved. The book attempted to deal with public
policy, primarily commercial, as a matter of pure theory. It
was in spite of itself to a large degree a discussion of immediate
policies. In drawing conclusions about its contents, caution
must accordingly always be observed against generalizing
specific conclusions into universal doctrines. Becher did not
undertake to present a complete social philosophy. His pur-
pose must be gathered from his own professions. " It is enough
for me to have done what belongs to an upright German man,
namely, conscientiously and faithfully to have served the Ger-
man Fatherland and its head, the Roman Imperial Majesty."
Becher begins the first section of his introduction with this
preamble and definition:
Since I am now to make a beginning of showing wherein the
prosperity of a land or of a state consists, I must necessarily at the
outset call to mind that man, as the material of the Republic, is an
animal sociabile, and seeks society, as the sacred text itself says, "It
is not good that man should live alone." In order that he may have
a society, other and more men are necessary, and that these may be
1 Reasons for this rendering will be assigned in connection with
Justi's employment of the same phrase. Vide below, p. 299.
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 113
born God has created the female sex and ordained marriage, the
end of which is to be fruitful and replenish the earth. I must call
to mind further that, next to reason, human society alone distinguishes
the life of man from that of the beasts, which society is solely and
alone the fundamental cause, beginning, means, and end of all laws
and ordinances which men, both pagans and Christians, have made
for the preservation of this society If then I were rightly
to define a state I should call it a populous, sel) -supporting community
[eine volckreiche nahrhajte Gemein}.
The two chief elements in the concept are then expanded
in turn, to the effect that, on the one hand, unless a community
is populous it cannot defend itself, but must be the prey of every
enemy; and on the other hand, that a populous community
is impossible unless sufficient means of support are at command.
The idea is also emphasized that the people in a community
furnish one another mutual support. They live on one another.
"When the members of a community arrange their affairs so
that the one lives from the other, the one can earn his piece
of bread from the other, yes that the one plays his support into
the hand of the other, that is the right community." 1 Becher
accordingly concludes that the community is the third person
of a trinity, people, sustenance, community :
For where the latter exists, there will be no lack of people and
sustenance; where this is disturbed \yerstimmt}, however, there will
be nothing but hatred, enmity, persecution, oppression of the poor,
exaltation of the rich, rebellion, and finally impoverishment and
total ruin. Accordingly, just as when one is to play on a violin one
must first examine and tune each string, so when its sustenance is
to be assured to a community, attention must certainly be paid to
every sort of human being that is there, and nothing appears to me
more remarkable than that in many places no thought whatever is
given to these most difficult points. Each is left to get his living as
1 It would be unkind to ask Socratic questions of this wisdom.
Why not let such simplicity alone and not invent the historical fiction
that it is to be understood as political economy I
114 THE CAMERALISTS
he may; whether he is ruined and ruins a hundred others with him,
or he prospers, with the common gain or loss, prosperity or adver-
sity, no one asks any questions. Because this is the crucial point,
however, I will do my best to consider and dissect [anatomiren] the
members of the community ^ in respect to the way in which they
should work with each other in the matter of support, I will try then
to put them together, and to form them into a political skeleton
[sceleton politicum],
In the second section the analysis continues:
There are necessarily two sorts of people in a community: the
first, the majority, the second who are the servants of the former,
and here is included the magistracy [Obrigkeit], which is a servant
of the community, and holds the people in good order and social
regulation, so that one may live by the side of another, because the
community is not for the sake of the magistracy, but the magistracy
for the sake of the community. .Also the clergy are the servants of
the community in protecting the soul, the learned who protect the
mind [Gemiith], the physicians, apothecaries, barbers, bathers, who
guard the health, the soldiers who guard the body and the whole
state and land. All these are servants of the community, and
although they help to increase and maintain the societatem civilem,
they are still not the community itself, but as stated only servants
of the same, who must be paid and supported by the community,
and hence, in order that they may not become burdensome to the
community, they should be made proportional by the community,
that they should be neither too many nor too few. For if there are
more Bur germeister than citizens in a city, more preachers and con-
fessors than hearers and penitents, more schoolmasters than pupils,
more doctors than patients, more soldiers than citizens and peasants,
more nobles than subjects, that land is in bad shape The
other sort of people, who essentially constitute the civic society
[societatem civilem essentialiter constituirn], are those of whom the
society most consists, because there are most of them in the society.
Such men now, whose servants the former are, may properly be
divided into three orders. The first is the largest, namely, the peas-
ant order, the second is the handicraft order, the third is the trades-
CAMERALISTICS OF BECHER 115
man's order. The last is the smallest order While the peas-
ant order is the most numerous, it is also the most necessary
In the peasant order there are various classes Hence the
infallible rule, Where there is no peasant, the handicraftsman has
no material to work over, and where nothing is worked over there the
tradesman can have nothing to sell; moreover, while the peasant
cultivates the field, he cannot be at home, and while the handicrafts-
man works at home, he cannot run about and sell his wares, and
while the tradesman does this he cannot be a peasant or a handi-
craftsman. Hence follows the undoubted conclusion, These three
orders should not be mixed together, but it should be possible for
them to stand close together and to make a real community; that
is, to support each other, for where this occurs, .... the object
of a proper Policey is attained, i. e., a respectable and necessary
human society.
Referring not to the cameralists in general, but to Becher in
particular, I cannot refrain from pointing out the resemblance of
the first part of this remarkable passage to a pearl in a swine's
snout. If we accept the gem as genuine, we must confess that
its occurrence at just this point is an unexplained sport of
nature. It seems to shed almost pure light of insight into
the vicarious character of human society. It is an ungrateful
task to inquire in this case if things really are as they seem,
but I find myself unable to accept these appearances at full
value. The evidence hardly warrants a theory in explanation
of ideas which seem to be so at variance with the conceptions
of the time. If I were to propose an explanation it would be
that this was merely imitation of pulpit conventionalities, and
repetition of a stilted form which was not vital with new insight
and had not even retained the spirit of the New Testament
doctrine of which it was a hollow echo.
I will add but a single query. If Becher actually saw that
society is a system of reciprocal services, if he saw that the
performance of functions for one another is that which makes
desirable citizens, and failure to perform such functions makes
n6 THE CAMERALISTS
the undesirable citizen, if he used the term "servant" as a digni-
fying epithet for citizens of the former class, by what reasoning
or association of ideas did he draw the line between the few
whom he classed as servants of society and the many whom
he left in the ignominious company of the served ? Until we
are instructed by what right the tiller of the soil and the artisan
and the tradesman are rated as essentially less serviceable
to their fellows than those who carry on the relatively non-
essential occupations, we must conclude that Becher's apparent
penetration must be held under suspicion as tawdry rhetorical
embellishment.
We come then to the body of the book, the first part of which
treats of "the form of the government, that is, of those who
rule and of those who assist them therein." We may repeat
that it is not our purpose to investigate the evolution of cam-
eralism. We are not attempting to make out the stages in the
elaboration of the system. We are not drawing specific com-
parisons between the programmes of administration outlined
by the successive writers, nor are we trying to appraise the
relative merits of their proposals as a governmental technique.
We are studying them in turn in order to be justified in present-
ing what they have in common as a typical attitude toward
social problems. We shall present that attitude as it seems
to be most characteristically defined in Justi. Our use of the
other writers is rather for the purpose of assembling features
which belong in a composite picture, than to distinguish degrees
of theoretical completeness or variations of technical detail.
We refer therefore to his table of contents for more specific
indications of Becher's analysis, and we confine our further
observations to a few items which may serve as shadings for
the picture. For this purpose we find the opening paragraph
available, viz.:
As concerns the first point, namely the kinds of civic authorities
[Obrigkeilen], five sorts are to be distinguished, first spiritual or
CAMERALISTICS OF BECHER 117
secular. The proverb runs, "where parsons rule, there is no good
in the end." Because their government is not hereditary, their
aim is only to enrich their own, el fit pax in nostris diebus. If a war
comes, they make themselves scarce, after the manner of the hireling
in the gospel. A secular lord does not do this, for the sheep belong
to him, and since there is a succession, such rulers strive much more
for the conservation and the improvement of the land.
Here speaks the partisan, and he reflects one of the sharpest
contrasts of his day. The issue was in some respects more
acute in Catholic than in Protestant states. In the former,
the Reformation had agitated and modified, but had left the
social structure externally unchanged. There was accordingly
quite as much restiveness under clerical influence, and some-
times even more, than in the Protestant states, where the politi-
cal power of the clergy was assumed to have been broken. In
Catholic and Protestant states alike, the struggle between state
and church was not ended, but merely changed in detail.
Neither Catholic nor Protestant clergy were by any means
cured of their lust for power. Whether openly or covertly there
was almost everywhere antagonism between the two types of pre-
tension. In nearly every German state the antithesis between
the temporal and the spiritual power was as real if not as
evident a political factor as it had been when the immediate
form of the issue was Papacy or Anti-Papacy. So long and
so far as this conflict was undecided, the cameralism of a given
German state was in part one of the military arms of that secu-
larism which was still in battle array against ecclesiasticism.
With entire sang-froid as to co-ordination of categories,
Becher follows tradition in naming as the other types of gov-
ernment: third, aristocracy, fourth, democracy, fifth, a mixture
of these.
The basic theorem of Becher's cameralism is in the
proposition:
Monarchical government has the advantage over all the others,
n8 THE CAMERALISTS
and is the most usual. Indeed it is, so to speak, a duplicate of the
divine government, established in the Holy Scripture, accepted of
all nations, and very profitable for the community (p. 14).
The claim on which Bcchcr chiefly relics to support the
theorem is this:
A lord who has a succession is more concerned for his land and
people, and makes their interests more his own [halt bey ihncn slich]
than a government to which the sheep do not belong (sic). Con-
sequently a monarchical government is when a ruler has his own
land and people, and governs over them according to his own will
without interference and limitation [Einredcn und Massgebcn], but
has such rule in heredity. 1
In discussing the merits and demerits of the different types
of governments, Becher assembles a list of counts against
monarchy and aristocracy which modern democrats have
judged to be decisive. A sample of his quality may be cited
from the paragraph in which he disposes of democracy:
Namely, where the officials arc under obligation to account to
the subjects for their government, and the subjects, if they please,
are present in council, and contribute their best observations, also
see and hear the business that is transacted. But the lacks above
found in aristocracies arc also found in democracies. In addition
to those it must be mentioned specifically that in the democratic
government (sic) there is no respect for the authorities [der Obern],
by reason of the multitude there is no secrecy, by reason of the num-
ber of voices there is often an unskilful consultum, in a word, in this
sort of government occur too often factions, seditions and rebellions.
Having considered the pure governmental forms, Becher
discusses mixed forms under the two heads Monarchal (sic)
1 The parallel should be noted, for further use in other connections,
between the argument from succession in the case of monarchy and the
similar argument today in the case of property. The first stand taken
today against possible modification of our institutions of inheritance is on
essentially the same ground as that chosen by the defenders of monarchy
of the "benevolent despot" type. Is the ground more tenable in the
one case than in the other ?
CAMEKALISTICS OF BECHER 119
and Aristocratic (pp. 16 ff.) and reaches almost the identical
judgment in favor of mixed monarchy which he expressed
four pages earlier in favor of pure monarchy, viz. :
Among all sorts of governments this mixed form retains the
preference, and is most in vogue in Europe. Indeed the Roman
Empire itself consists at this moment of such a government. The
Roman emperor is the supreme head, and presents a monarch.
The eight Electors are the Seniorrx Imperil, el Patrcs conseripli,
the princes, estates, and cities present as it were a democracy. All
these three parts secure themselves against one another. Thus
the electoral princes require of the emperor the capitulation, while
on the other hand they must take the oath of allegiance to him.
Princes, estates, and cities of the Empire also co-operate in both ways,
and enter into both the above forms of obligation This
mixed form of government then is the sole conscn-ation of the Roman
Empire, the guarantee that it will never be an absolulum purum irl
aristocraticum, or a Democraticitm Imperium, for if this should hap-
pen the remaining freedom would be at an end The mixed
form is thus the best, but it should be in supcrlath'o monarchical,
in comparative) aristocratic, and in positivo democratic. Hence it
is evident that the Roman emperor in this mixed government should
have the most to say, and that it would not be well if the imperial
sovereignty were too strictly held down by capitulations
One who had read Seckendorflf would instantly decide that in
this chapter he was dealing with an inferior order of mind.
There is no such discrimination here as that which we found
in Der Fursten Stoat between the king and the tyrant, although
we must confess that the earlier writer was as much in the dark
as the later about means of eliminating the one type and secur-
ing the other. I cannot believe that responsible statesmen,
or even strong thinkers of the academic type, could have
regarded this chapter seriously. It bears no marks of deriva-
tion from evidence which would have been likely to carry
weight with experienced men, even in that less exacting period.
It is a jumble of judgments about confused and unauthentic
120 THE CAMERALISTS
statements of fact. It shows no evidence of insight into the
contemporary meaning of the Roman Empire. It speaks of
government as though rtb more personal interests were con-
cerned than those of rulers on the one hand, and princes, estates,
and cities on the other. It is in short a schoolboyish essay on a
subject of which the elements were not comprehended by the
writer. It had approximately the same relation to the more
respectable contents of the book which we shall discover below
between the historical survey at the beginning of Justi's Staats-
wissenschaft and the portions of which he was competent to
speak from pertinent evidence. It was the perfunctory work
of a man retained by a type of government which he was bound
to support.
The second chapter (pp. 20 ff.) treats of the "qualities and
correlations of those who rule and those who serve the ruler."
The style suggests the hearsay quality of the so-called "society
novel," written by an author whose ideas of society are gained
through other novels or the newspapers and observation of
supposed representatives of society in public places. One
can hardly imagine that the ruling class could have had any
use for the book, except to promote its circulation among
those in whom rulers and their courtiers would like to inculcate
the notion that their superiors consulted such oracles.
For example, the first specification is ttyat a ruler
.... must before all things consider whether he has come legiti-
mately or illegitimately to his station, for upon this foundation he
may infallibly rest all his future weal or woe, and easily guess that
he who seizes at government by violence will also usually be expelled
by force and he whose cause is just will have God's help, though
all the world should be opposed.
A most edifying doctrine, but hardly likely to strike the
ruling classes as a novel variation of the stock formulas of the
preachers, or to exert great influence against the esoteric prac-
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 121
tices of their kind. The second specification is a similar
platitude, viz.:
The magistracy must preserve order in its affairs, and must
observe a strict routine: i. e., not write letters when it is the time to
go to church, not hunt when a session of the council should be held,
etc., etc.
The third detail is one which a Louis XVI, for instance,
found it difficult to arrange, viz. :
A ruler must be sagacious, and himself understand the art of
governing, in order that he need not always believe the doctors.
There are sometimes rulers who are not sagacious, others are too
sagacious. The first do not know how to discriminate between
counsels, and must therefore follow all their advisers. The others
will never follow advice, and resort to compulsion whenever they
are opposed.
It does not seem to have occurred to Becher that, under
the regime in which he was employed, it would be just as logi-
cal for a writer on farming to specify the sorts of weather to
be desired. The specifications would have had as much com-
petence practically in the one case as in the other.
Fourth, some rulers are too diligent, others too indolent
Fifth, there are rulers who in their action and character are either
too deliberate or too hasty Sixth, sometimes rulers have too
short memories, and sometimes they remember grudges too long.
7i;' r i . Seventh, a ruler should be neither too credulous nor too incred-
ulous Eighth, in all these things it will be very helpful if a
ruler has a care for his authority, does not make himself too common,
but is heroic, brave and resolute: but he must not be too distant,
arrogant, and proud Ninth, a ruler, government, and land
should seek the same consideration among neighboring states as at
home, but to that end should not be quarrelsome, etc Tenth,
a ruler must find the mean between prodigality and parsimony
Eleventh, a ruler should be neither too communicative nor too
reserved Twelfth, the cardinal virtue of great lords and
rulers is, finally, that they should be just and merciful. Too severe
is tyranny, too sympathetic is womanish.
122 THE CAMERALISTS
There follows, in similar style, a series of ten propositions,
which Becher calls "the ten commandments" for the use of
rulers in relations with their servants. The illustrations by
which the several specifications in the two series are enforced
contain rich material for the culture history of the period.
They show that the abuses which at length doomed
quasi-absolutism were evident enough, even then, to those
who cared to observe them. But they show more plainly
that they had hardly begun to make for modification of
the fundamental political presumptions held by cameralistic
theorists. The inference from them is merely, "the wise
ruler should do so and so." The fact that the presumptions
of quasi-absolutism provide the people with no way of requiring
the ruler to observe these precepts had not yet weakened these
presumptions in the minds of the cameralists. We shall find
that this continues to be the case, with no acknowledged modi-
fication, and so far as decisive evidence goes with no great
modification even in the private opinion of this type of theorist,
until the movement for constitutionalism had won its right to
recognition.
On the other hand, the total impression of the collection of
commonplaces in the chapter before us is that of a rather strong
appeal to the self-interest of princes to observe the rules of
prudence and justice in the treatment of their people. There
is surprising directness in the hint contained in such words as
these:
A great lord must know that he must deal cautiously with soldiers
and learned folk, for sword and quill are two sharp and glorious
instruments. The sword has often marred the master whom it
had previously served, and the quill can praise and blame, it can
write panegyrics and satires, it can also write those things which
find their way to the ends of the earth, and no one is exempt from
its influence. Hence it is well for great lords to be more careful
with their servants and subjects than with their closest kin (p. 27).
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 123
The bearing of the material prosperity and moral well-
being of the subjects upon the strength of the state and of the
prince is repeatedly urged, and indeed is seldom entirely out
of sight in the cameralistic arguments. The intimate history
of the court of each German principality would have to be
investigated in connection with the cameralistic doctrines
current from generation to generation in each, if we were to
know how actual government and the theories of the cameral-
ists reacted upon each other as alternate cause and effect.
In chap, iii, on "the form and order of a good government,"
Becher attempts to set forth "the universal political laws by
which land and people are conveniently and well governed."
He regards it as necessary, however, to begin the chapter with
"a short digression, and as a preliminary to show how and
whence magistracies and laws are derived, how they must be
constituted [bestellt] and how far they extend."
The origin of governments is explained upon the traditional
dogmatic basis, and there is nothing to indicate that the stilted
thought and expression contained anything more than prudent
reflection of prevailing orthodoxy. Thus:
Government is said to be the means by which man is enabled
to live according to his nature, which is created in the divine image.
This nature is made up of five elements [Stiicke], each corresponding
to one of the cardinal elements in the nature of the divine being.
These latter are, (i) his existence, (2) his perfection, (3) his omni-
science, (4) his omnipotence, (5) his eternity. Accordingly, after
"the fall," by which man had lost the ability to realize the divine
image in himself, God instituted government, and gave laws to bind
men to the laws of nature. Since the laws of nature are of five
sorts, so there are now in the world five strata [Stande], laws and
governments, (i) The spiritual stratum and its laws affect religion.
(2) The moral laws affect honor, virtue, good conduct, and the nobil-
ity (sic!). (3) The doctrinal stratum and its laws affect the learned
and sciences. (4) The civil courts pertain to possessions, sustenance,
and goods. (5) The criminal court has to do with body and lift-,
124 THE CAMERALISTS
under which may be included the maintenance of health, and defense
by force and war. The exposition continues:
"Since in these five points all is included which belongs to the
maintenance of the human condition, in order to govern these five
kinds of laws and their subjects, that is, to hold men in the state of
humanity and the natural laws, God has ordained magistracy [Obrig-
keil] which should be obeyed as God himself. As has been said,
it is the office of the rulers by good laws to maintain, protect, govern,
and control their subjects in the true religion; love and knowledge
of God; in good morals, discipline, honor and integrity; in good
and various sciences; with respect to their support and honorable
earnings, their health and life, also legitimate increase. In these
five points consists the origin of all laws and the foundation of author-
ity and obedience. 1 .... Hence arises an important double ques-
tion, namely, in what form princes, lords and the nobility in their
government receive an hereditary succession and complete power
over the subjects ? Is it that they should make them chattels, and
sell them at will to others, incidentally with no respect for the above-
mentioned welfare of the subjects; i. e., that they should act con-
trary to all the five points above indicated; and can subjects with
good conscience obey rulers of this sort ?"
Becher's attempt to answer the latter question throws still
stronger light upon the obsession of quasi-absolutism which
is the determining factor in the thought of the time. He had
no difficulty in entertaining the supposition that a ruler might
be oppressive. The possibility does not appear to have shaped
itself in his imagination that the oppressed might conceivably
govern themselves. When the hypothetical question is put
in terms which make obedience to an oppressive ruler intoler-
able, the only alternative which Becher is able to consider is
recourse to another ruler. Thus he says:
Here arises the most difficult question, Who shall pass on the
errors of the government? For it is not seemly 'for the subjects
1 For further expansion of this theme, Becher refers to his tract,
Bilanx humanae Jelicitaiis et infelicitatis.
CAMERALISTICS OF BECHER 125
themselves to censor their government. I say therefore they should
lay their complaints before their neighbors 1 or other unpartisan
judges, and urge their government to answer, and much rather intrust
the matter to strangers, than attempt to carry it out themselves
(P- 45)-
Immediately following this passage, Becher distinguishes
between pagan and Christian slavery. He calls the former
tyrannical; he pronounces the latter conducive to the good of
the subjects. He urges accordingly that peasants have no
right to resist their lords, when the latter coerce them for their
own (the peasants') good ! Thereupon he adds the judgment
that rulers will be condemned by the heavenly powers to tem-
poral misfortune and eternal punishment if they are utterly
regardless of their subjects' good.
Having thus satisfied his conscience by warning rulers of
the supposed consequences of misusing their power, Becher
turns to the positive question, By what means are the five
departments of government above indicated to be carried on ?
The reply is that a ruler who purposes to govern with regard
to what has been said, should organize five distinct collegia,
each to have in charge one of the five sorts of laws and admin-
istration above scheduled.
The first collegium should have charge of the souls of the sub-
jects, their religion, worship, fear of God, etc. The second should
care for the moral discipline of the subjects. The third should be
charged with the education of youth, promotion of the sciences, etc.
The fourth is civil, and attends to ordinary questions touching tem-
poral prosperity of the state, property, outlays, and income. The
fifth might be called collegium i4tale, for its duties are with the health
and protection of the subjects, against both secret and public enemies.
The further exposition of the duties of these bureaus con-
sists more of incoherent complaints about evils which need
correction in the different groups of activities than of technical
1 That is, neighboring governments.
126 THE CAMERALISTS
details. The inference is that most of this organization, so far
as the author was informed, was not yet in existence. There-
upon follows in the fourth chapter a sample scheme of Policey.
It is a plan approved by the bishop of Mainz for adoption in
his episcopal city, but apparently not actually put into execu-
tion (p. 60). It is a code of city ordinances, and it is a first-
rate source of information about municipal conditions in Mainz
at the middle of the seventeenth century.
The speculative and academic character of this first part
of the Discurs leaves the impression that it was in effect rather
hortatory than responsible. The inference which it suggests
throughout is that, so far as Becher was acquainted with the
facts, provision for all these details of administration was incom-
plete and inefficient.
Part II proposes an analysis of "the material of the republic,
that is, of those who are governed, namely the subjects." In
comparison with the first part, this portion of the book seems
to reflect less certain conventional forms of thinking, if not of
acting, and more of the author's own individuality. Although
this second part is amateurish enough, it bears evidence of
closer approach to the affairs discussed than is visible in the
earlier chapters. The inference that the author was not pri-
marily a cameralist is strengthened. That is, in the course
of his occupational mutations he had now become interested
in promoting trade. Under the circumstances of the time,
the only hope of accomplishing much in this direction was
through governmental initiative. Becher accordingly patched
his appeal for attention to the promotion of trade into a sort
of general cameralistic scheme. It does not appear, however,
that the aim to strengthen the government was as distinctly
central and paramount in his thinking as in the programmes
of the more typical cameralists. Indeed, we may say that,
so far as this book is concerned, he was in rather striking con-
trast with them. His chief purpose could not be called eco-
CAMERALISTICS OF BECHER 127
nomic in the scientific sense, but it was primarily commercial
and secondarily political. If Rose her had not ranked him
with the cameralists, the perspective of the literary history
of the period would be more accurately indicated by passing
him over with a much briefer notice than the undue prominence
given to him by Roscher will permit.
This second part of the Discurs may be described as an
account of the state of trade in Germany. The subject is
approached through a characterization of the three strata that
make up the bulk of the population the traders, the artisans,
and the peasants. Because this was more nearly fallow ground
as a literary theme than the subject of government in the abstract,
Becher could appropriate less in the way of current generaliza-
tion, and the result is a painful exhibition of untrained powers
of expression. The style is hopelessly involved. The sen-
tences run distractedly from one predicate into another, and
their relation to their subjects is left so largely to the discretion
of the reader that the precise affirmation intended by the
author is always open to doubt. So far as distinct steps in
the argument are discoverable, the following is the main line
of thought (pp. 98 ff .) :
1. These three strata should be under one administration, not
three, else confusion will result.
2. The main end to be aimed at for these strata is increase of
their numbers.
3. Consumption is the center and source of the well-being of
these strata. The fundamental aim of governmental policy there-
fore should be to promote consumption. In a word, consumption
maintains these three strata. Consumption is their soul. Con-
sumption is the only means of binding these strata together, and it
enables them to live upon one another. For promoting consumption,
indeed, the trading stratum is necessary in the community in pro-
portion to the size of the peasant stratum. The latter increases
the population, but the former nourishes it (sic), for as I shall pres-
ently show, the sole consumption of these three strata, and thus their
128 THE CAMERALISTS
sustenance, depends on the merchant, for the artisan lives on him
and the peasant on the artisan. I am best acquainted with such of
this stratum as are wholesalers [Verlager]. 1 .... These wholesalers
must truly be regarded as the foundation pillars of the community.
4. Trade in foreign goods, when the same could be produced
at home, makes for the destruction of the community. Instead of
favoring men who enrich themselves by bringing in foreign goods,
we ought to deal with them as the meanest criminals (p. 106). On
the other hand, those merchants by whom the state gains in money
and sustenance are, next to nature, the nursing-mother that makes
the desert to bloom.
This theme is elaborated with a zeal that the earlier sections
did not betray.
5. These three strata have three dangerous and highly harmful
and destructive enemies: the first checks population, viz., Monopo-
lium; the second limits means of support, Polypolium; the third
divides the community, Propolium.
In a following section these three abuses are considered in turn;
the first being described as "when one member alone in the com-
munity has that in the way of support upon which otherwise many
others could live." The term Polypolium (unrestricted competition
for employment) is defined by the statement:
"In order to remedy the evils of monopoly the Dutch have
abolished all 'Ziinfite,' and have admitted Polypolium, in that
everyone is at liberty to earn his living as he may, on which account
people flock thither in great numbers and rob one another of work
.... by which the traders and wholesalers keep the artisans in
constant poverty and toil."
Propolium is not directly defined, but Becher evidently uses the
word in the sense of the old English terms "forestalling" and
"engrossing."
From this general introduction Becher passes to his specific
and technical material, the state of trade, and wise methods of
* Becher applies the term to the type in the industrial system of the
time which combined the processes of the modern manufacturer and
jobber. They not only kept large stocks of goods, but they furnished
capital to those who produced the goods (p. 103).
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 129
promoting it, through a general account of trading companies,
as devices by which the evils of monopoly and of Polypolium
may be avoided. Having specified the general conditions
under which he would have the privileges of such companies
restricted, Becher divides trade into fourteen types, "to which
all others may be reduced." For each of these branches of
trade he proposes the organization of a trading company under
governmental patronage and control.
This then completes the theoretical part of the book. The
remainder is occupied, first, with a survey of the condition
of each of these fourteen branches of trade, second, with a
miscellaneous collection of documents illustrating commercial
and other transactions more or less properly governmental,
with which in most instances Becher claims to have had some-
what intimate connection.
We may append all that it is necessary to say about the second
of the three men named in the opening paragraph of this chapter.
Philipp Wilhelm von Hornick (sometimes written Hornigk,
Homeck, etc.) was born in 1638. He sjjent his early years in Vienna,
studied law at Ingolstadt, and obtained the Doctor's title there in
1661. He lived a considerable time at Vienna, visited the German
courts on a political mission in the company of the Spanish Fran-
ciscan and Bishop of Croatia, Christopher Rojas, and about 1690
entered the service of Cardinal Lamberg, Prince Bishop of Passau,
as Privy Counselor. He died in 1712. His first political publica-
tion was Hippophili Galeadi de Corneliis Francopolitae wahrer
Bericht von dem alien Konigreich Austratien, in which he argued
for political consolidation of the estates of the German Empire, and
support of a common army to resist French attempts at annexation.
The book which appears to have made most impression appeared
in 1684, with the title, Oesterreich iiber alles, Wann es nur will. Das
ist: Wohlmeinender FtirscMag, Wie Mittelst einer Wohlbestellten
Landes-Oeconomie, Die Kayserl. Erb-Lande in kurtzem iiber die
andern Staaten von Europa zu erheben, und mehr als einiger derselben,
von denen andern independent zu machen.
130 THE CAMERALISTS
From all the allusions to the book which I find in the cameralistic
series, as distinguished from later commentators, I discover no
reason for crediting the author with firstrate constructive influence
upon the theory. Roscher quotes the publisher of the edition of
1784 to the effect that "Austria owes to this book the greater portion
of its well-being." If this is not gross exaggeration, it is very strange
that the theorists betray so little sense of debt to him. Since I have
been unable to examine the book, my opinion is of little value, but
all the indications which the succeeding cameralistic books contain
lead me to classify Hornick with his brother-in-law Becher by the
modern commercial term "promoter." Apparently Hornick made
an impressive argument for industrial and commercial development.
If he did more than this for cameralistic theory, I have been unable
to trace it. (Vide Inama, All. d. Bib., in loc., and Roscher, pp. 289 ff.)
The following paragraphs contain the substance of Roscher's
account of Hornick's book. 1
This book was written under immediate influence of impressions
made by the frightful experiences, of Germany, and especially Aus-
tria, in the eastern and western wars between 1680 and 1684. I
recall only on the side of Louis XIV "the Chambers of Reunion,"
1680, the conquest of Strassburg and Casale, 1681, the French inva-
sion of the Spanish Netherlands, 1683, the seizure of Luxembourg
and Trier, 1684: all as humiliating as the contemporary siege of
Vienna by the Turks was horrible. "The cunning of the French
has brought almost everything into such chaos, that one can reckon
one's dates from nothing except God and oneself," says Hornick
(chap. ii). But the author hopes for "decisive war with that arrogant
nation" which "will find its way into France" (25). The thing to
do is to make economic preparations for that alternative, especially
as France bases its predominance quite essentially upon economic
things. "Would to God we might take the general French pro-
gramme [allgemeine Lands-Oeconomie] in many particulars as a
good model (23). No state in Europe can look to its policy, without
either in much or in little thereby breaking with hated France"
(33). There can be no more dallying in Austria. The might of
1 Op. cit., p. 290.
CAMERALISTICS OF BI-X'IIEK 131
a jK'oplc depends essentially upon the ratio of its means to those
of its neighbors. \o\v Germany, as compared with the mighty
advances made by France, Kngland, and Holland in the last hundred
and fifty years, has not only stood still (7) but through war, Refor-
mation, loss of population, etc., it has even absolutely declined (17).
The greater the necessity of its rise, and especially through the same
programme which has made Holland and France so rich, in spite of
all the wars, which at this moment is followed by the English against
France (24). The state must prevent "loss of our best blood, the
very marrow of our strength, our good gold and silver, by the million,
by purchase of useless wares from our hereditary enemies."
It cannot be said that Hornick identified possession of money
with wealth. On the contrary he made this definition: " The power
and excellence of a land is its surplus of gold, silver, and all other
things necessary or convenient for its subsistence, and so far as pos-
sible derived from its own means, without dependence upon others,
and including the appropriate cultivation, use and application of
the same" (9). Quite special worth must be attributed to the inde-
pendence of a land, which to be sure can never be complete, but
must always be aimed at as an ideal. Everything pertaining to the
thrift of a land falls into two classes: Gold and silver, and indeed
copper, "which in their worth and use equal all other things, and
on account of their civic use are in a class by themselves;" then the
means of food, clothing, shelter, etc. A land that had only gold
and silver would be rich, to be sure, but very dependent, since gold
and silver can neither feed nor clothe people. A land that has all
other things except gold and silver is somewhat more independent,
to be sure, but yet not sufficiently so, "because gold and silver are
somewhat necessary in the most of human circumstances, while in the
rest they are indispensable." A land with neither of the two species
of goods in its own resources, like Holland or Genoa, is insecure,
even in the most splendid development of its commerce. Most
independent is the land which is rich in both classes of goods, for
example, China (8). The comparison of gold with the blood leads
Hornick to the thought that the princely treasure may play the role
of the heart (22). Yet he is not consistent. His views on mining
and on foreign trade are rather quite mercantilistic. "It were
132 THE CAMERALISTS
better, no matter how strange it may appear to the ill-informed, to
pay two Thaler for a ware if they remain in the country, than one if
it is to leave the country" (9). It also sounds paradoxical, but it
is true, that mining should be continued even when its cost is much
in excess of its output. "The outlay remains in the country; what
is extracted from the earth remains not less in the country." Accord-
ingly the scale is as much richer from the so-called Freibauzechen
as a merchant who gets 100 per cent, on his capital (31).
Homick bases these views on the difference between the thrift
of individuals and that of countries, or as we would say, between
private and public economy: and he even makes the fine observa-
tion, somewhat in advance of his time, that the so-called cameral-
management (as we say, Finanziuirthschaft} is " particular manage-
ment," thus maintainable only on the basis of the general thrift of
the country. This latter is the chief reason why the attention of the
state to the general thrift cannot be rated as a mere parergon of the
treasury (2, 32).*
Quite in the spirit of the mercantile system are the "nine chief
rules of public economy," which Homick offers as "a merchant's
or cameral alphabet" (9): (i) Precise investigation of a land,
also through experiments, and full use of its productive capacity,
especially of precious metals; (2) transformation (Verarbeitung)
in the country itself of all raw materials not fit for use in their natural
state; (3) utmost increase and useful employment of population;
(4) no export nor useless hoarding of gold and silver; (5) so far as
possible, restriction to use of home products; (6) necessary foreign
wares should be exchanged at first hand, and not for money, but
for home products, and (7) so far as possible (they should be bought
[?]) in unmanufactured form; (8) greatest possible export of "super-
fluous" home products, and preferably for gold and silver; (9) no
importation to be permitted, if enough of the same goods, and of
tolerable quality, can be furnished at home.*
1 Vide the chapter on Schroder, for more explicit development of
essentially the same view.
Roscher adds the note: "If we compare these rules with the still
very unsystematic mercantilism of a Bornitz, a Resold, and a Klock,
CAMERALISTICS OF BECKER 133
To the author these rules seemed such an obvious version of "eyes
open and hands ready to take hold," that he thought "their reason-
ableness must be evident to everybody. Only a peasant might not
be able to understand them" (24). Whoever contradicts them,
sit nobis velut ethnicus et publicanus et patriae hostis (3).
The bulk of Hornick's book is an attempt to furnish proof that
Austria, more than any other European state, possesses the natural
endowment for economic independence and wealth. It has at once
productive veins of the precious metals (and not so far off as Spain's !)
and abundance of the chief necessities of life (10-14). Everything
to be sure is still in the highest degree undeveloped. There is no
enterprise or venture, the richest natural treasures are allowed to
lie unused, raw materials are exported to be brought back at doubled
price in manufactured form, the population is sparse, their luxury
seeks mostly foreign products, etc. (16-18). Still the inhabitants
are by no means lacking in mental equipment for trade and industry
(15). It occurs here, as usual, that the raw material countries are
poorer than those where manufactures flourish, that the former,
if they will, can supply the lack "by proper use of their raw materials,"
and then can be more secure than the latter (8). Hence there is
need in Austria only of earnest grasping of the situation from the high-
est quarters down, and Hornick urges that this programme should
take the form of total prohibition of imports in case of silk, woolen,
linen, and French manufactured articles (22). Violations should
be punished as treason (23). Then, in his judgment, all the incon-
veniences of the transition period would be passed in a few years at
most. Many foreigners, who have hitherto supplied our market,
will settle in the country and continue their industry (21). The
necessary amounts of capital will be created of themselves, through
discontinuance of the outflow of money. Inordinate rise of prices
for domestic goods could be prevented by the government, by estab-
lishing scales of prices (24).
Hornick urges further that artists and great Verleger should be
more honorably treated by the state (28) ; and he argues that a mari-
who were already acquainted with the great Italian mercantilists Botero
and Serra, we get an idea of the meaning of the practical impulse which
Colbert also gave to the theory."
134 THE CAMERALISTS
time country without naval strength cannot be powerful; while
naval power without sea commerce is impossible (30). On the utility
of means of exhibiting the resources of the state, on the harm of guild
abuses, the classification of traders into the publicly useful and
the harmful, he is quite in accord with Becher. Privilegia private
are to be regarded with suspicion; their reasonable purpose, namely,
control of consumption in the public interest, may be better secured
through prohibition of imports, and then free domestic trade (28).
CHAPTER VI
THE CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER
The third of the group mentioned in the preceding chapter
was Wilhelm Freyherr von Schroder. 1
No writer in the cameralistic series has been portrayed in
more conflicting colors. On the one hand, he has been repre-
sented as an oracle of cameralistic wisdom, and a model of
civic righteousness. On the other hand, so long as his influ-
ence was apparent, equally extreme depreciation of his character
and doctrines was uttered. This latter estimate is typified by
the remarks in a private letter by Seckendorff (quoted by
Roscher, p. 294). Speaking of Schroder's book, Seckendorff
says: " stdtissimus liber, et prams repletus opinionibus ....
a homine perverse; et hos tamen homines foment principes"
In a certain sense this second type of appraisal of Schroder
gives him an importance which he would not have obtained
if he had always been treated judicially. In spite of his
admirers, he occupies on the whole the place of a suspicious
character in the literature of the subject. To express it
melodramatically, he is the heavy villain, whose shadow ever
and anon falls athwart the plot. Even if later writers do not
refer to him by name, ideas which were rightly or wrongly
attributed to him, and which were not indorsed by cameralists
in general, constantly recur. They not only furnish many
texts on which the cameralists delivered homilies against
tendencies to which they might have given the name Schrbder-
1 The title-page of the first edition of Schroder's chief work does
not contain the author's name. It reads: Furstliche Schatz- und Rent-
Cammer, ad Augustissimunt & Invictissimum Imperatorem Leopoldum
I. Principem Triumphantem. Cum speciali Privilegio Sacr. Goes.
Majest., .... 1686. Unless otherwise specified, the references are
to this edition. I have also used the edition of 1744.
'35
ltf> THE CAMERALISTS
ismus, but perversely enough, these more or less imaginary
faults of Schroder have come down to our time as peculiarly
characteristic of cameralism. The perversion, the exaggera-
tion, the exception have thus been reported as the rule. In
order to reach an objective judgment of cameralism, therefore,
it is necessary to form a correct estimate of the man who has
been used more than any other to prejudice its reputation.
With the help of the article by Marchet, the necessary biblio-
graphical details about Schroder may be summarized. 1
There has been much inaccuracy in accounts of his life, especially
through confusion of his career with that of his father. The latter
represented Gotha in the negotiations for peace at Osnabriick in
1643. In 1654 he took a prominent part in the Diet at Augsburg;
he became Kanzler and Cekcimratk, and died, 1663. The younger
Schroder with whom we are concerned, is known only from the time
of his entrance into Austrian service. Possibly as early as 1663,
not later than 1673, e became a member of the English "Academy
of Sciences," and he maintained rather intimate relations with
England throughout his life. One of the faults in his writing was
his failure precisely to indicate the English sources which he freely used.
Schroder succeeded Becher as director of the Manujacturhaus
at Vienna. Becher had lost favor, partly because of his irascible
temper and arbitrary manner, partly because he was accused of
conducting his office with an eye primarily to his own, rather than
the public, interest. Two years before Becher was removed, Schroder
was called upon to make a report to the emperor on existing manu-
facturing conditions in Austria, and he took the opportunity to
make propositions about expanding industries and making them
profitable for the treasury. Marchet says:
" With Becher and Homick, Schroder composed the triple con-
stellation which from the seventh to the ninth decades promoted
the industrial advance of Germany and especially of Austria. I
should arrange the series in the order Homick, Becher, Schroder.
They used approximately the same means, viz., opposition to guild
abuses, especially through destruction of the guild monopolies, and
All. d. Bib., in loc.
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 137
the establishment of a Manujadur Haus, high tariff on foreign
industrial products, especially French goods, the attainment of a
favorable balance of trade, etc. Hornick was most aggressive, and
did not stop to think of his own interests; Becher and Schroder
acted more cautiously, and with more consideration for their own
advantage. The means for attaining these purposes was for all
three the absolute prince. Schroder was in the most advanced line
in this respect, and swayed between the interest of the prince and that
of the people without a fixed point of attachment, although he always
affirmed that the prince can be happy and prosperous only when the
subjects themselves are well situated. With this conception of the
paramount character of the princely power, Schroder takes a rank
far behind Seckendorff, and occupies the standpoint of Horn
In spite of his subservience to princes, Schroder must count as one
of those persons who helped to lift Germany from that economic
depression and national decline into which the Thirty Years' War
and the predominance of the territorial lords had plunged it."
A study of Schroder's writings without previous prejudice
leads to conclusions somewhat different from either of those
cited. We shall try to present a completely objective judgment.
In the first place, Schroder took the doctrine of divine
right, with an extremely absolutistic interpretation of the right,
literally, seriously, and as compared with most of his successors,
consistently. That is, instead of clinging to the essential
doctrine, while glossing it over with all sorts of disguises to
conceal its extravagance, Schroder frankly accepted conclusions
along with premises. On the whole, we are bound to feel a
certain respect for this rugged type of intellectual integrity,
in contrast with the perplexed philosophy which insists upon
primary theorems but balks at their logical consequences.
It would be difficult to find in the whole literature of
"divine right" a more compact and uncompromising profes-
sion of the faith than in Schroder's Disquisitio Politico, Vom
absoluten Fiirstenrecht. 1 In substance his position is this:
1 Vide pp. 552-69 of ist cd., Furst. Schatz- und Rent-Cammtr.
138 THE CAMERALISTS
II is the common madness of scholars to assume that all govern-
ments, the monarchical included, are based upon certain compacts
between chiefs or rulers, and their subjects. They assume that the
rulers arc consequently bound to observe these compacts rigidly.
For my part, I fail to see who shall have bound this yoke on the
neck of monarchical government, since the same had its beginning
not in a compact between the prince and the people, because Saul
was made king by the immediate declaration of God, who also
caused him to be anointed by his prophets before the people knew
the least thing alx>ut it. Moreover God had the jura and praero-
gativ of this king and his successors put on paper and proclaimed
and published by the heralds (I Sam. 8:9). And in order that such
jura might not in the course of time be obsolete or weakened, the
same had to be put aside and guarded in the archive for the Lord
(I Sam. 10:25). Moreover the Holy Ghost himself was so careful
about this whole matter, that with his own fingers he wrote the
whole history and the first origin of the kings, with their rights and
prerogatives, in the great book of the unchangeable truth of God,
commonly called the Holy Bible, and he saw fit to substantiate the
memory of the same to the end of the world. Moreover the people
voluntarily abandoned all further pretensions, when God the Lord
ordained such Jura regia, and thereby made plain that when the
king was once chosen, they would no longer be heard (I Sam. 8:
18, 19).
Such princely right now as God dictated to the pen of Samuel
may be read in plain and clear words, namely:
Details (Puncta) oj the Right oj the Prince 1
"This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:
"i. He will take your son-s, and appoint them for himself,
for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before
his chariots, and he will appoint him captains over thousands, and
captains over fifties.
1 Under this sub-title Schroder quotes I Sam. 7:11-19 as a divine
code defining princely prerogative in general. The Lutheran rendering
is even more drastic than the King James version in the text. For
example, we cannot fail to trace an effect of the Zeitgeist upon Luther
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 139
"2. He will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest,
and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots
"3. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and
to be cooks and to be bakers.
"4. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your
oliveyards, even the best of them, and give to his officers, and to his
servants.
"5. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vine-
yards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
"6. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants,
and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his
work.
"7. He will take the tenth of your sheep; and
"8. Ye shall be his servants."
With the puerilities of the exegesis and application we have
no concern, beyond recognizing the fact that Schroder simply
voiced a certain contemporary orthodoxy, both in the general
practice of grotesque construction of biblical material into
evidence to support preconceptions, and in the particular
doctrine of the divine origin and ^wasi-absoluteness of princely
authority. This latter datum itself, however, must be put in
its true relations with Schroder's reasoning, and with cameral-
ism as a whole.
Schroder does not mince words in stating his inferences.
He declares that, in consequence of Saul's appointment, all
Christian princes and potentates derive their position and
right to rule immediately from God. Besides that, "most
princely governments and monarchies" have in the course of
time "conquered and maintained their prerogatives with the
sword, and I therefore see no way in which this contradiction
in the gloss which he forces upon the passage, thus turning the episode
from its historical meaning, by translating the first sentence: "Das
wird des Konigs Recht sein, der iiber euch herrschen wird." In the
quotation above, the King James version is adapted to the same liberties
which Schroder takes with the Lutheran text.
THE CAMERALISTS
that rulers are under obligation to some one or other, of which
the learned write, can have any basis whatsoever." The
author concedes:
There are few monarchs to be sure, who are not involved in a
thousand Capitulationen, transaclionen, and recessen, but such
arrangements cannot be cited as a basis of royal rule. They are
rather mere limitations to which rulers were compelled to consent
by force of circumstances. They can in no sense be regarded as
subtracting from the right which inheres in the royal office, and which
is conferred upon the prince by God, not by the people. They
cannot prejudice the title "by the grace of God," since, as we have
seen, God left the people no freedom by which they were entitled
to dispute with kings, or to hamper them with restrictions. Con-
sideration of misuse of royal power is reserved to the divine majesty,
and God has already announced the decision that the people's
complaint will be rejected, according to the decree published by the
prophet Samuel (I Sam. 8:18), "And ye shall cry out in that day
because of your king, and the Lord will not hear you in that day." 1
Consequently, although, through many successions, princes and
their posterity have consented and sworn to many things, no jus
has been thereby created, and no prince can be bound thereby, as
though he had lost his original divine right. Hence a sovereign
prince is authorized, without violation of a good conscience, in
re-establishing himself, so soon as he has opportunity, in possession
of his princely right, in spite of previous compacts, oaths, prescrip-
tions or whatever the limitations may be called. This does not
mean that a prince is released in his conscience from all laws, and
that he is not bound as a private person to his private contracts,
' It is characteristic of this exegetical method that it had no com-
punctions about falsifying the very evidence on which it relied. What-
ever the bearing of the episode referred to, on its face it lends more
countenance to the social compact conception than to Schroder's inter-
pretation. It pictures the people as taking the initiative in demanding
a king, and God as reluctantly acquiescing. Schroder not only expur-
gates this part of the record, in his original statement, but in this clinching
passage he omits the clause "which ye shall have chosen you," which
would be a sufficient ad hominem argument to refute his main contention.
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER Mi
and that he may at will practice all sorts of tyranny without regard
to God, and justice and Christian love, for he is a man and has to
deal with men, and like his subjects he is a member of the body of
Christ. In short, the prince must have respect to the rule (Eph.
5:9), "know that your master is in heaven."
The prince must recognize two great obligations as appertaining
to his prerogative; first, that he must administer justice among his
people: to wit, according to Christian love, and the principles and
fundamental doctrines of Christianity; second, that he must be
the leader of his people in war, and expose his body and life to
defend them against foreign enemies.
The monograph concludes with this summary:
These two obligations of a prince are truly hard matters, since
a prince, without violation of his conscience, cannot disregard them.
And just as a people, or the subjects, may under no pretext pre-
scribe laws to their prince and king, and as those which are thu
de facto made have no validity, and do not bind the prince; so on
the other hand a prince must so conduct himself in his government
that he may be able one day to give account to God alone; as David
says, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned" (Ps. 51:4). And a
prince must well reflect with what a rigid law and severe tribunal
he must deal, where the judge himself is the accuser, and his own
conscience must be the witness against him, where no exception and
no excuse can be made, but where no other penalty will be decreed
than eternal woe, torture and pain.
In the Preface of the Schatz- und Rent-Cammer, 1 the rela-
tions of the prince to the state, and thus the landmarks of the
theory to be expounded in the book, are still more tersely
indicated. Having recapitulated the arguments of the pub-
licists on the question how a prince may best establish his
1 I refer to the edition of 1744. The Vorrede does not appear in the
first edition. It purports to have been written by the author of the
body of the book, and the fact that it did not appear in the original
edition is the only reason I have for suggesting that there is a possible
question of authorship. The internal evidence leaves little room for
doubt that Schroder was the writer.
T42 THE CAMERALISTS
power, viz., he must either (a) pin his hopes to the powerful
class; or, (b) he must make friends of the masses; or, (c) he
should rob and plunder, i. e., he should be a tyrant; the author
cancels the last theory from consideration, on the ground that
it is essentially un-Christian, and of the remaining two doctrines
he siys:
Between the two views it is not for me to decide, for each prince
will know best where to find support in his own case. For it seems
to me that those- people are very thoughtless who imagine that a
prince can do anything he pleases l>ecause he is a prince. Those
who talk in this way do not understand the difficulties of government.
They judge only from outward appearances. They do not know
how many small and large wheels belong in a clock To cope
wiih these difficulties of government the statesmen rely upon four
means, viz.: (i) sapientiam summam in constituendo leges; (2)
xiimmfim a uctorit i tent nt eliam vita religiosa sit; (3) vitae diumi-
tnteni; (4) bonam jortunam. If I might take the liberty, however>
I would trust myself to hit the mark with two arrows: first with
a stnndinff army, second with plenty oj money in the chest
The army may be left to others, but I have undertaken to write in
this little book of the ways in which a prince may get money. I have
tnken for granted throughout that the interest of the prince will be
join -d with the interest of the subjects, and accursed be he who
intentionally separates the one from the other, because they cannot
prevail unless they are united, and those who rightly examine the
chain by which the members of a state are bound together must
acknowledge, in accordance with sound reason and experience,
Ih-it the prosperity and wdjare oj the subjects is the foundation upon
n-hirh all h'ippinrss oj a prince as ruler oj such subjects is based.
.... The common man is not satisfied with words. He wants
good subsistence, cheap times and protection. I have accordingly
shown in general all possible means and ways by which a prince may
make his subjects or his land rich and prosperous. In order how-
evr that a prince, in exacting tribute and in ordering institutions,
may make no mistake, I have advised that he make his demands
where there is something to take, and where he who must pay can
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 143
afford it. To that end it is necessary that a prince shall be informed
about his land and his subjects, their occupations and their gains.
I have accordingly proposed the necessary schedules.
SchrSder is half apologetic about his proposals (Vorrede,
p. 14) and describes his book as a Utopia. Apparently he does
not use the word in quite the usual sense. He means by it
that while his scheme does not profess to correspond with
actual administration in Germany, it is on the other hand not
impracticable, and should be set up as an ideal to be attained.
He reiterates his general idea in this way:
I think I have shown how the happiness of a prince is conjoined
with that of his subjects, and the prince himself may be made rich
by ways and means which are opposed neither to God nor to virtue,
and that all Machiavellian maxims which are based upon jealousies,
mistrust, secret subtle tricks for oppressing the subjects, and other
tyrannies, should be avoided in all Christian governments, and in
their stead should be introduced, to the advantage of both prince and
subjects, mutual confidence and love that would be pleasing to God
and would give peace of conscience, and at the last great day of
judgment would obtain for prince and subjects the divine blessing.
Those who, after the common fashion, with Adoram who was
over the tribute of Rehoboam (I Kings, chap. 12), are accustomed
to suck the life blood of the people, may scoff as they will, and may
think to gain by it; to me they are like the geographers who measure
off the whole world with their circles on paper, without the least
concern whether the surface of the earth is made of wood or straw,
nor how long it can last, Latronum, non principum est, omnia auferre.
A robber strips off my shirt. A prince does not even demand my
coat.
With this preliminary survey of SchrSder's general con-
ception of government, we may attempt to do justice to the
main argument of his book. The opening passage was seized
upon by later writers as containing a sinister meaning, and
the whole book was prejudged accordingly. The paragraph
reads:
144 THE CAMERALISTS
A prince who has no treasure in the chest, hut plans to rely upon
the good will of his subjects and lands, is walking on stilts: for the
tempers of subjects are lame dogs, with which one can catch no
particular hares. Consequently I cannot agree with those publicists
who so far neglect care for a full treasury and for accumulating a
common fund, that they believe, if a prince only puts himself in the
good graces of the subjects by great liberality, or by waiving all
gifts, he will always in case of need find abundant treasure among
them.
Instead of finding a cause of offense in this passage, the
historian who has any sense of social values must give Schroder
credit for wise prevision of the necessity of a well-defined fiscal
administration. The German states at his time were not yet
fully through with the process of evolution from the household
to the civic type. The publicists with whom Schroder took
issue evidently preferred a regime of hand-to-mouth patri-
archalism to an orderly impersonal system of creating govern-
mental revenue. There was no issue between the two types
of theorists about the fundamental relations of prince and
subjects. The question was simply whether the relation
should proceed upon the basis of a sort of happy-go-lucky
plantation improvidence, or whether there should be an
attempt to anticipate fiscal needs by organizing an adequate
system of supplying governmental wants. It would be self-
stultifying for anyone in our generation, who believes neither
that the social process should have halted with the big-farm
type of rural civilization, nor that philosophical anarchism
pictures the structure best adapted to secure the utmost devel-
opment of diversified civilization, to decide against Schroder
and in favor of his critics. If he was a king-maker, he was
more a Samuel than a Warwick. He cannot be made respon-
sible for the abuses of governmental power by arbitrary rulers.
The things which the people of the period most wanted required
responsible and capable governments. These governments
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 145
depended upon relatively fixed sources of income. The
creation of such sources of income gave to rulers in turn power
to oppress the people. The exercise of this power presented
problems with which subsequent stages of civic experience
had to deal. Meanwhile it would be hysterical to blame
Scrhoder for his meritorious work in planning the sort of civic
machinery without which the main purposes of the German
peoples of his time could not have been promoted. His
critics were of the type who demand the miracle of arriving at
ends without use of the necessary means. While we cannot
accept as general truth all the reasons which Schroder assigned
for his dissent from the policy of relying upon extemporized
popular generosity for governmental supplies, we must judge
them in connection with the state of opinion to which they were
addressed. In other words, the whole issue between him and
his critics resolves itself in the retrospect into balancing of
ad hominem arguments. Briefly, the issue reduces to this: a
(/Mast-absolute ruler being by common consent assumed, and
quasi-absolute rulers being inclined to aggression upon other
states than their own, thus constantly jeopardizing the peace
and security of all states, and each state assuming that its own
ruler is more devoted to its own interests than other rulers are,
is it wise or not that the ruler should have control of regular
fiscal resources, so that he might act promptly and efficiently
for the general weal ? In this connection it would be irrelevant
to criticize these premises. Whatever their merits or demerits,
they were the presuppositions of all theorists who had an
appreciable influence upon the passage in political experience
which we are considering. None of the subsequent cameral-
ists so much as hinted at a theory of government which essen-
tially modified these assumptions. 1 That being the case, we
I do not mean that no betrayals of views pointing to reconsidera-
tion of political philosophy are to be found in the cameralistic books.
Instances of contrary impulses, if not insights, may be found between the
146 THE CAMERALISTS
are bound to conclude that those cameralists who affected to
regard Schroder as a wicked partner impeached either their
own mental competence or their sincerity. Whatever room
there was for difference of opinion about details, we can have
little respect for his contemporaries, or his successors for the
next century, who failed to give him credit for foresight and
service upon the constructive side of the issue a fiscal system
vs. no system.
It has often been repeated to Schroder's discredit, for
example, that he made it a part of the right of a prince to
prefer his own welfare to that of his subjects, if they came into
collision. The fact is, however, that not a single man in the
series, from Osse to Sonnenfels, ever stated a fundamental
theorem about the rights of rulers of which Schroder's proposi-
tion would not be a consistent and necessary corollary. Some
of them gave pathetic evidence of an unreconciled conflict
between judgment and sympathy, in opinions about specific
acts or types of acts. To a modern man some of these opinions
would be utterly irreconcilable with an absolutistic theory of
government. In this connection the cameralists did not have
the courage of their sympathies, however, and they held to
their absolutistic theories in general, while incontinently utter-
ing more democratic opinion about particulars. Even the
free-thinking Justi never ventured to deny in print the essential
theorem which Schroder put in the most uncompromising
theological form, viz. (p. 7):
For that is the right of the prince in the empire of Christ which
the prophet David describes, when he says: "He has given thce the
heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession," 1 whence it is seen that the prerogative of kings
lines of almost every one of them. So far as they were willing to state
their basic presumptions, however, the cameralists all adhered to sub-
stantially the view above indicated.
1 A.^ain by changing the tense from future to past Schroder alters the
text just enough to make it suit his purpose better than the actual language
(I's. 2:8).
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 147
is a hereditary right [jus hacreditarium], that it is a complete and
proprietary right [vollig und eigenthiintlich Recht], and not as it is
called by the Cromwellians in England, a royal office [officium
Regium]. It does not say, "he has given the heathen a king," but
"he has given thee the heathen for a possession," whereby the
absolute government of princes is evidently established. Accord-
ingly it is impossible that the interest of a prince will not sometimes
differ from the interest of the people When therefore a
prince, in order to conserve his monarchical, not his private interests,
must often use means not agreeable to the people, he can in such
cases surely look for little help from them, and consequently it is
not to be hoped that a prince must rely upon his subjects. '
The discussion which follows, of the advantages of absolute
over limited monarchy, differs in no essential from the views
expressed at length, or implied, by all the later cameralists.
It is of course less finished in form than the identical philosophy
a hundred years later, and it has less sense of shame to hide
under palliating phrase. It is more frank than the same
doctrine in later and sophisticated types, but no more justly
chargeable with subornation of oppression. The man who
believed in the divine origin and absolute right of kingship,
and who tried to show what was necessary to sustain such an
institution, cuts a much more respectable figure in history than
men who still professed allegiance to the premises of the doctrine
but hedged on its conclusions. Even a democrat, to whom the
dogma of the divine right of kings is a childish superstition,
but who prefers logical consistency to mental confusion, must
find something to admire in the Bismarckian ring of Schroder's
ultimatum (p. 12):
In order now that a prince may be independent of his subjects,
and absolute in himself, I regard it as safest and most profitable that
' Although this is a literal rendering, the last sentence must be
understood as referring to the alternatives presented above, and it means
"he cannot rely upon mobilizing the good will of his subjects whenever
occasion demands, but must have a regular system of revenue."
148 THE CAMERALISTS
he should have the hilt in his hand and money in his chest, whereby
he may put his demands into effect, and prostitute neither himself
nor his reputation, nor be obliged to put his subjects off with fine
words, because he is unable to act from lack of means. As Demos-
thenes said, "Opus sunt opes." .... With gold and silver we
can work miracles.
If we fairly consider the civic problems of German states
in the second half of the seventeenth century, and if we give
Schroder the benefit of his own explanations, we can no more
join with those who treat him as the black sheep of the camera-
listic flock than we can pass a similar judgment upon Alexander
Hamilton for trying to lay a firm foundation for American
finance. On the contrary, we must number him among the
sane and wise builders upon the structure of German fiscal
administration. His second chapter, on the directorate of the
income of a reigning prince, begins with a keen analysis of the
prevalent unwisdom of European governments in committing
both disbursements and the creation of revenues to the Cammer.
The consequence is, according to Schroder, that when the
prince needs money, the tradition-bound Cammer knows no
other way than to hunt out some new objects on which a tax
has not been levied; or to grant some new monopoly; thus
causing the subjects to sweat blood because more of their
support is taken away; or to exact a new loan; or to demand
the ox that has grown fat while working on the lord's estate;
or to sell the claim to some future lucrative service for a large
sum of money, or some such device. By these means the
cameralists have made themselves so hated and suspected in
the land that they have frequently been excluded from assem-
blies of the estates. "Moreover," continues Schroder, "this
point, so far as I know, has never been touched. I must there-
fore dwell upon it, and express my unauthoritative opinion
about it." The substance of this expanded opinion is that
raising the princely revenues calls for quite other persons and
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 149
talents from those engaged in the work of disbursement.
Schroder accordingly elaborates work for a comprehensive
system of Policey, although it is not as definitely classified under
that title as in most of the other cameralists, and he does not
draw sharp distinctions between measures that other writers
distribute between "Handlung," "Policey" and "Finanz" 1
A glance at Schroder's table of contents would disclose that
he was interested in a wide range of industrial development,
which would make both prince and people richer. He simply
concludes (p. 21):
It consequently seems highly necessary that cameral affairs,
at present so called, should be divided into two separate Collegia,
the one of which, as aforesaid, should have the income and the dis-
bursements, the other should be a Collegium which should have
nothing else to do but to raise the revenues of the reigning prince.
The remainder of the book is devoted to showing the
different kinds of work which such a bureau could do.
As Schroder saw the situation, the treasury officials, from
preoccupation, or ignorance, or both, rather than from evil
intentions, were effective smotherers of new industrial ventures
An independent organization should therefore be established
by the prince, with the special duty of attending to the very
enterprises for which the treasury had no competence. More-
over this Collegium ought not to be hampered by other bureaus.
Hence it is properly to be called "summum 6r* absolutum
Collegium." The members should have large salaries, in
order that they need not be forced by their own pecuniary
necessities to prefer their private interests to those of the prince.
Moreover a certain fund should be at the disposal of this
Collegium, so that it might carry out its plans (p. 23). Schroder
cites, as an illustration of what he has in mind, the "Courts of
augmentations of the revenues, of the King's crowone" (27
Hen. VIII). He anticipates opposition to the plan on the part
1 E. g., Sonnenfels. Vide pp. 481 3. below.
150 THE CAMERALISTS
of the existing court functionaries, but he sees promise of
accomplishing the establishment of the proposed bureau in the
beginnings made "some years ago" by a minister, who is not
named, but presumably an Austrian official, whose untimely
death postponed the undertaking.
The only plausible hypothesis which remains to account
for Schroder's dubious reputation among the cameralists is
that the reactionary officials set a fashion of misrepresenting
his proposals. A reader of the present day, who should examine
his book without knowing the worst that had been said about
it, would pronounce the author first and foremost a zealot for
establishing a stable fiscal system, but at the same time, and
with practically equal earnestness, a champion of popular
interests against official greed. The argument is, in the first
place, a most judicial analysis of the workings of previous
systems of taxation. Schroder admits that the traditional
forms of taxation are necessary, and that in extreme cases the
rate of the same must be temporarily raised. He declares that
they are inadequate for the needs of the state, and that they
can never be applied with impartial justice (pp. 29 ff.). The
people who rely on them are simply like tenants of the soil,
whose only interest is to strip it, regardless of those who must
depend on it for their living afterward.
This is well illustrated, in the case of artisans, by the closing
paragraph of chap. xcii. The subject under discussion is the
reasons for the deplorable depression in German manufactures.
The last reason assigned is:
. VJ'. the greed of the ruling classes and the consequent bad treat-
ment of laborers and artisans. For no sooner does a foreign or
even a native handicraftsman by his science, and art, in the sweat
of his brow, earn a better piece of bread than others can ordinarily
gain, than the government falls on him like crows on garbage, and
tries to take all it can. For it says such a fellow ought not to have
more. He should know that he owes his earnings to me as his ruler,
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 151
who favors his trade. He should divide with me. Oh! the great
foolishness of such magistracies! They have no idea what it means
to have prosperous subjects. All that they accomplish is to drive
such people out of the country, and at the same time to prevent
others from entering.
In the chapter on "Saving as the Second Customary Deiice
for Enriching the Treasury" Schroder shows that he had
thought much ahead of most of his comtcmporaries in tracing
out certain economic relations. His exposition of the false
economy of hoarding leaves nothing to be said on the essential
principle, and his exposure of the penny-wise and the pound-
foolish policies of certain penurious types of officials is as
merciless as it is just. Incidentally Schroder cites an unnamed
"world-renowned publicist" who blames the untimely parsi-
mony of a treasury chief, and adds that he "should distinguish
between Oeconomiam Rusticam 6 Oeconomiam Politicam."
The latter phrase is notable as apparently anticipating the
nineteenth-century conception of economic science. The
context shows, however, that the expression must not be taken
in its full modern sense. It apparently connoted only an
undefined perception that rural management could not be
taken in all respects as a model for civic management. This
part of the argument concludes with the resume:
Although frugality is a great virtue, it should be exercised with
a certain discretion, and indeed with a prudenlia politico,. Other-
wise it will be called greed or senseless miserliness. If it is greed,
it is the root of all evil and misfortune, and is more destructive than
all prodigality. If it is unreasoning miserliness, not only the reputa-
tion of the prince, but also his interests will be sacrificed, for always to
take from the country, and in turn to consume nothing, makes the
land waste and barren, the subjects useless, and consequently the
prince poor instead of rich (p. 39).
The argument turns at once to an aspect of the situation
which has greater interest for its connection with another
152 THE CAMERALISTS
element in cameralism, viz., the so-called mercantilist theory,
of which more must be said later. The author continues:
Sound judgment shows also that when a prince without great
reason takes much money from his subjects, and locks it in his chest,
and guards it as a treasure, both prince and land must finally be
ruined and impoverished The result would be that the
country would be stripped of money to fill the chest of the prince,
and that not a Groschen would be left for him to take from the country
as revenue. This would be reckoning without the host. Whence
it follows that if money, which is the pendulum of the state, which
brings all inequality in the life of the state [Handel und Wandd]
into regular movement, is lost, commerce must collapse, and the
people must become poor and needy, and because the means [Ver-
nuigen] of the country must then grow only from the soil, the fraction
of the people, however, who really support themselves from the soil
and its produce is always the smallest and poorest portion [Haufjen]
in a country, the majority of the inhabitants of the country, from
lark of support, will depart, and there will remain a barren land and
a jxxir prince; for although the prince has all that money stored
in his chest, and alone preserves what was otherwise divided among
so many, he still cannot be called a rich prince, although he is called
a rich man For common people are rich in money: a
prince, however, is to be regarded as rich only when he has rich
subjects (pp. 42 ff.).
This last passage calls for further preliminaries on the
subject of mercantilism. In no respect has tradition so grossly
failed to understand the cameralists of the books, in distinction
from the cameralists of the bureau, as in this connection. The
cameralism of the bureau was a policy with reference to the
paramount interests of the princely treasury. The cameralism
of the books was a theory and a technology of government,
with the needs of the treasury taken for granted as the norm
of judgment.
It would be useless to question the notorious fact that the
policy called mercantilism prevailed in Germany during the
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 153
cameralistic period. It would be fatuous to question the
equally familiar fact that promotion of commerce, with cal-
culation upon a favorable balance of trade, was the most
prominent factor in this mercantilist policy. It vould be quite
futile to question the further fact that the cameralists of the
books were virtually unanimous in approving this policy.
Our interpretation must take issue with tradition, first, upon
the precise meaning of this mercantilist policy, and, second,
upon the place which the policy occupied within the whole
cameralistic theory of politics.
In the first place, then, mercantilism was a policy, not a
philosophy. Speaking for the cameralists of the books only,
because this investigation does not go into the evidence about
the cameralists of the bureaus, there was a political philosophy
after its kind within which the policy had its setting; but the
interpretation of mercantilism as a philosophy has the marks
of a fixed idea in the modern literature of the subject, and that
interpretation is sheer misrepresentation of the cameralistic
theorists. The most urgent problem which the cameralists
had to solve was that of raising revenues for the prince. In
their judgment, the line of least resistance, in cases where it was
practicable at all, was through development of commerce.
Almost all the literary cameralists, consequently, put more
emphasis on the fiscal importance of a favorable trade balance
than upon any other single factor in governmental calculation.
Incidentally, their arguments treated money in a way which
it has proved very easy to distort into a dogma that money is
the only wealth. They no more believed, nor intended to
assert this, than writers on the financial pages of today's
newspapers believe and assert that the bank balances of the
money centers are the only wealth of the world. There is
rather more prima-facie evidence that the congressional and
other debaters of the Aldrich-Fowler-Vreeland propositions
believed in 1908 that an "emergency currency" is the only
154 THE CAMERALISTS
wealth, or that the political economists of the United States
since the Civil War have believed that a protective tariff is the
only means of creating wealth, than there is to warrant the
historical fiction that the German mercantilistic theorists held
gold and silver to be the only wealth.
In fact, not one of the cameralists generalized the concept
"wealth" much more than the ordinary man on the street does
today when he uses the phrase "making money." To make
the term Reichthum, as it was used by the cameralists, equiva-
lent to the term wealth in nineteenth-century abstract political
economy, is an arrant anachronism. The term was virtually
a synonym of the more technical cameralistic phrase, bereitestes
Vernwgen, or "ready means." Instead of giving to gold and
silver the final and paramount place which tradition makes
the cameralists assign to them, these thinkers were rather
remarkably clear in treating them as means to happiness, and
under the circumstances the most decisive means, but they
did not raise the larger and deeper problem. The whole
cameralistic experience was an unconscious preparation for the
abstract question, What is wealth ? It was a progressively
searching analysis of the sources from which the people of a
state may procure the means of subsistence, and thus be in a
position to turn a part of the output of their gainful occupations
into treasure for the support of government. The inquiry
was on the whole so concrete in its impulse that there was no
apparent tendency to extend abstraction beyond the range of
practical transactions. Schroder is nearer than most of the
cameralists to the concept "wealth" in Adam Smith's sense,
however, when he uses the term surplus (Ueberfluss). Thus
chap. Ixviii begins with the paragraph:
Respecting the surplus, whence it is derived, the same consists
either in rebus naturalibus, or rebus arlificialibus, that is, first, it
comes from the natural fertility of the land; or, second, from the
diligence of the men which we make use of in trade when we bring
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 155
something from one place, and sell it to advantage in another place
and thus make trade in all sorts of foreign wares in our country;
or third, from the art of men, which is included under the general
title manufactures, each of which must be treated in particular.
Developing the idea of the former source of "surplus,"
chap. Ixx proceeds in this vein:
Since then so much depends upon the fertility of the land, a
prince should pay good heed to the Curam Rei Rusticae, in order
that the land may be well cultivated, and the inhabitants may not
only derive from it their food and drink but also something to sell.
.... By agriculture (sic) is to be understood not merely that which
serves for eating and drinking, but also the other things that grow
out of the earth and belong to manufactures or to trade.
The proposition is elaborated by citations of the experience
of other countries, by specification of particular products,
which are profitable articles of cultivation, by reference to the
book Oesterreich uber alles 1 for additional particulars, and by
special emphasis upon silk-culture (Seiden-Oeconomie) as
likely to be as valuable to Germany as it had already begun
to be to France. The paramount factor in the calculation,
namely, the conversion of resources into ready means, reap-
pears in the summary (xii):
Here, as in the case of all other surplus which we desire, this
principle is to be observed, that the same shall be sought in products
which our neighbors need, and which we can best and with greatest
gain convert into money. Otherwise the surplus is of no advantage
to us, but is often even harmful, since from the same an abuse of the
same may arise.*
1 Vide p. 129.
3 The discussion then passes to certain political considerations which
should govern the policy of states with respect to promotion of specific
kinds of cultivation. The necessary methods of promoting trade, and
the value of the same as a source of "surplus" are discussed in chaps.
Ixxi-lxxix, and the subject of manufactures as means of procuring a
"surplus" is treated in chaps. Ixxxviii-cv.
156 THE CAMERALISTS
Schroder must be given credit for dealing with the rela-
tively concrete problem of putting to most discreet use the
opportunities at hand for acquiring ready means. He must
not be judged as though he had anticipated a century and had
devoted himself to the underlying problem of wealth in general.
In the rough, the same proposition applies to all the cameral-
ists included in this study. To confirm this in the case of
Schroder, we must notice one of the passages which the tradi-
tional interpreters of cameralism always find a conclusive
proof-text, viz., chap. xxix. The title reads: "Whence a
Prince May Learn Whether His Country Is Gaining or Losing
in Riches" (Reichthum). Now it would be a waste of time
to defend the chapter against the charge of superficiality,
if philosophical economists should prefer the charge. The
whole aim of the cameralists was on the superficial plane of
practical efficiency, not on the deeper level of economic philos-
ophy. Their problem was the development of a programme
which would supply the prince with ready means. The general
tendency of thought which Schroder represented, and in winch
presently all the cameralists more or less consciously joined,
assumed that ready means for the prince either caused or was
caused by ready means for the people. Without analyzing
these alternative phases of the idea, we must allow Schroder
to speak for his own practical interest, and must not hold him
to account for the meaning which his words might have if he
were discussing Adam Smith's problem of the sources of wealth
in general. When the modern railroad president studies the
problem of increasing the net earnings of his road, he may use
language which hypercriticism could distort into expressions
of belief that freight charges are the ultimate sources of wealth.
No one would take seriously an attempt to prove that a rail-
road president could see no farther, if he should turn from
practical business to economic theory. The cameralists were
not interested in wealth as a general concept, but they were
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 157
intensely interested in ready means as an efficient tool for
everyday purposes. It goes without saying that their theories
would have been much more adequate if they had gone deeper
into economic philosophy; but our present purpose is to rescue
ourselves from the errors of that tradition which has treated
them as though they did pry into that antecedent philosophy
and consequently propounded fantastic doctrines. The expres-
sions which have been distorted into the dogma that gold and
silver are the only wealth are no more properly liable to that
construction than our railroad presidents' judgment that more
freight is necessary for more dividends could fairly be con-
strued into the dogma that freight rates are the only source
of wealth. Schroder says:
By the different gainful occupations [Handel und Wandel\ in the
country a country supports itself, to be sure, and becomes powerful
[machtig], but it does not necessarily thereby increase in riches
[Reichthum; that is, in the sense of "ready means"). For such
traffic with itself can properly be called only a commutation
Hence the country becomes richer only in the degree in which
money and gold are brought into the land either from the earth,
or from some other source, and poorer in the degree in which
money leaves the country. For since by common consent of nations
gold and silver are the universal price of all things, and the value
of the same is everywhere in the world reckoned according to the
value of gold and silver, for which everything can be bought, we
must estimate the riches of a country according to the quantity of
the gold and silver in the same. Hence we shall name in order the
means by which a land acquires riches, and then those practices
through which a land becomes poorer, in order that a prince may
promote the former and obstruct the latter (chap. xxix).
The present argument is by no means an attempt to prove
that the cameralists had thought out precise economic concepts.
They most certainly had not. It is absurd, however, to hold
them responsible for use of certain terms in the exact technical
sense fixed upon them much later, and thus by forcing an
158 THE CAMERALISTS
arbitrary interpretation into their concepts to convict them of
errors of which they were innocent. It is in principle as unjust
to the cameralists to infer from such language as that just
quoted that they regarded gold and silver as the only wealth,
as it would be to interpret writers in the London Statist as
believing that the bank balances are the only wealth, while
corn and cotton and iron are not wealth. Schroder was talking
about the species of wealth which presented the most immediate
problems to men who were primarily interested in supplying
the treasury. The very fact that he prefaced the passage with
the reservation about the occupations by which the country
supports itself and makes itself powerful shows that his appar-
ent error about what is wealth and what is not is largely a
verbal matter. Not having thought through the concept
denoted by the English technical term "wealth, " he used a word
(Reichthum) which we most naturally translate "wealth" for
the one species of wealth in which he was peculiarly interested.
Thereupon we charge him with identifying his specific con-
cept, most justly represented by the phrase "ready means,"
with the generic concept "wealth," which he had never found
occasion to use at all.
Nor is our argument an attempt to show that Schroder,
and the cameralists in general, actually had a perspective
of the relation of "ready means" to other wealth, which ade-
quately generalized the facts for all times and places. They
certainly had not. The point to be made is that we must
abandon the myth that they attempted such generalization.
They were not economists in the nineteenth-century sense.
They were political theorists dealing incidentally with rela-
tively concrete fragments of economic relations. Those
fragments called for generalization later. Meanwhile the
cameralists must be interpreted by the conditions of the exact
technical task which they proposed, not by the conditions of
the subsequent philosophical task which they did not propose.
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 159
It is very true also that Schroder did practically nothing
to develop the theory of extractive industries. This fact has
been cited against him over and over again. It has been
interpreted to mean, first, that he did not regard agricultural
products as ''wealth;" second, that he had no sympathy with
the agricultural population, and did not care how miserable
its condition might be. However this misrepresentation of
Schroder may have come into circulation, a historian who
should today assert that his book confirmed this judgment
would thereby prove either that he had not read it (e. g., the
passages cited above, pp. 152 ff.) or that he was incapable of
reading it understandingly.
In the face of his explanation above (p. 142) Schroder
might as properly be accused of caring nothing for an army as
a governmental recourse. The task which Schroder undertook,
in the volume upon which his reputation chiefly rests, was
not unlike that which Professors Winthrop M. Daniels and
Henry C. Adams had in mind when they wrote their books,
The Elements of Public Finance, and The Science of Finance.
Because neither of these modern authors included in his
volume on finance a treatise on the improvement of agriculture,
it has occurred to no one that they should be accused of omitting
agriculture from the sources of wealth, or of heartlessness
toward the agricultural population. The charge is equally
absurd in the case of Schroder. He evidently knew much
less about details of agricultural conditions on the operative
side than the majority of the cameralists. So far as he betrays
his state of mind on the subject, he seems, it is true, to have had
no idea that much could be expected in the way of improving
agriculture. Indeed he expressly says as much of manu-
factures and commerce, and by implication of agriculture, at
the close of chap. Ixix:
For the fertility of a country brings about cheapness of living,
which is the spirit of all trade, and for the reason that cheapness in
i6o THE CAMERALISTS
eating and drinking causes cheap wages for labor, and consequently
makes manufactures and wares cheap, so that they can be sold at a
lower price than others offer, and hence the market can be held by
underbidding others, because everything follows after cheapness.
From the examples cited is to be seen what Austria could do, and
how rich and powerful it could be if through a good Policey it would
combine the surplus of nature, with which more than all other lands
in the wide world it is endowed, with the diligence of men, and
through establishment of splendid manufactures and commerce
would apply the bounty of nature to its profit. Details on this
subject are to be found in the little book, Oestcrreich uber attes wenn
es nur unit. I despair of anything adequate in manufactures and
commerce in this country however. My reasons I have resolved
to set forth in a special tract entitled Oesterreichs entdeckte Wunden.
At the beginning of chap, xcii Schroder declares explicitly
that Germany has both the materials and the skill to excel
England, France, Holland, and Italy in manufactures, if the
will were only present. With reference to agriculture as a
source of revenue, he was not so wrong as to general theory
as he was incredulous about feasibility of improving prevailing
conditions. This would in part explain away the traditional
inferences from such a passage as the following (chap. Ixxxviii) :
The third surplus comes from manufactures, and the latter, if
conjoined with commerce, must be much preferred to the fertility
of the soil, whence we see that unfertile countries where manufac-
tures and commerce flourish are richer than the fertile countries,
which have no manufactures. The matter is in itself as clear as
the sun. If we appraise a pound of iron in the mine where it origi-
nates, it will have very little value. If however a watchmaker or
similar skilled laborer takes this pound of iron in his hand and works
it according to his art, the pound of iron is worth a hundred times
as much as before, etc., etc.
It would be difficult to find in modern political economy
a basis for impeachment of the essential conceptions involved
in such language. Schroder plainly underestimated the
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 161
relative importance of the extractive industries; but this was
less from misconception of their fundamental nature than from
overestimate of the subsequent processes of securing ready
means which the endowment of nature made possible, and
especially from belief that it would be relatively easier to
stimulate necessary use of these latter agencies than to get
equivalent results from more intensive cultivation of the soil.
Schroder's position was that it would be unreasonable to
expect much more public revenue from the workers on the soil,
for they were already as miserable as they could be, without
being driven out of the country or out of existence. Without
taking up the problem of improving the condition of agricul-
tural populations, which was not his division of labor, he
insisted that a wise fiscal policy would drop the idea of further
exactions from this overburdened stratum, and would set
about developing more fruitful sources of supply.
On the other hand, the very expressions which have been
distorted into evidence that Schroder did not regard the soil as
a source of wealth, and did not care how much the rural folk
were oppressed, are evidently, in the light of the context, first,
acknowledgments that agriculture is the first and obvious
resource of a people and a state, and second, protests against
exhausting this resource.
It should not be necessary for an American democrat to
guard himself by repeating that he is not an apologist for the
doctrine of divine right. It is no longer necessary nor tolerable,
however, for Americans to caricature the doctrine as it was
actually held by men in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. In order correctly to interpret the cameralism of the
books, as a distinct movement in the development of a tech-
nology of the state, we must do justice to Schroder, especially
against endeavors, prompted by a surviving civic formalism,
to discredit his most worthy ideas.
For example, separated from their context, the opening
162 THE CAMERALISTS
sentences of chap, vii, "How a Prince May Have as Much
Money as He Will," are among the evidences which the
opponents of Schroder quoted to prove that he sanctioned
unlimited extortion by rulers. He says:
In a well-ordered state, neither metes nor bounds nor times nor
seasons prescribe to the prince how much money he shall raise from
his country nor how often. For the course of circumstances is
uneven, and there is no regularity about the gains of different
subjects Hence a prince must seek his interest with the
parties who are gaining, and are thus in a position to pay, and if a
prince always gets a share of the profits of those who gain, he will
have a daily source of supply, for someone always gains, and no one
can find fault, because only a tithe is sought by the prince of the
gains which are made under his protection (pp. 61, 62).
In this passage Schroder simply starts with the common
absolutistic premises of all theorists of his time, and as we
have said above, his cameralistic critics discredited themselves
by attempting to turn against him the very theory which they
themselves asserted. More than this, Schroder's use of the
absolutistic formula in this connection evidently meant just
what an expounder of the idea of eminent domain would mean
if he should say today, for the sake of emphasis, "in the last
analysis there is no limit to the right of the state to expropriate
the private owner of land, with due compensation, if the needs
of the state require." The latter expression in the mouth of a
modern lawyer would hardly be understood as committing
him to a general policy of expropriation. In the same way
Schroder first stated in its extremest form a principle to which
all civic theorists of his class assented ; but this statement was
merely to introduce the counterbalancing consideration that
it would be fatal to the prosperity of the state to carry the pre-
rogative to this extreme. The whole significance of Schroder's
book is in its attempt to show how the prince might get revenues
more successfully by promoting unexploited sources of supply
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 163
than by crushing the life out of the primary sources by extorting
the last fraction which they could be made to yield.
It would be disingenuous not to quote the most extreme
expressions in which Schroder seems to betray a quite different
spirit. Perhaps the most difficult case is chap, cviii, which
consists of a single paragraph. The title of this chapter reads:
"How a Prince May Also Seize and Use the Capital of the
Country, and Still Not Ruin the Country Thereby." The
following is the entire discussion under that head:
Although I have demonstrated that a prince may hoard in his
chest no more wealth than the country has earned [erworben], yet
I must say something further, namely, how a prince without ruin of
the country and of business may also go farther and employ [angrrif-
jen] the capital of his land. This takes place if a prince causes ihe
subjects to do business with his own capital. Since now this is one
of the secrets of a monarchy, I wonder that princes do not reflect
more upon it, because by this means they could gradually obtain an
absolute sovereignty, and could make the subjects virtually their
body slaves, when the latter in time would see their worldly goods
in the hands of the prince. 1
His language in an earlier passage (p. 66) may be cited as
a fairer index of the spirit of Schroder's theory and policy.
And this in my opinion is the inexhaustible treasure of a prince,
by means of which he may be a benefactor of the poor, a refuge for
the oppressed, a builder of fine cities, and fortifications, founder of
* I confess that I am unable to offer a plausible explanation of this
passage, beyond the. observation that it is too summary and too detached
from the rest of the author's argument to reveal his full meaning. On
the whole, I classify it as a vagrant concert which the author did not
regard as within the scope of practical politics. From the absolutistic
point of view, it was a counsel of perfection; a vision of the absolutistic
regime so realized that the prince would be a corporation sole, both
politically and industrially, while the subjects would have legal existence
merely as his agents. The passage, however, has the effect of a mere
fugitive suggestion, without significance enough of any sort to affect our
estimate of the author's general purpose.
1 64 THE CAMERALISTS
many churches and schools. This is the treasure with which a
prince may equip his capital city with qualified people, and may
sustain the magnificence of his court, with all of which the land need
not be ruined, as the common man thinks, but it will rather be made
prosperous. In all these things a prince has only to see that the
money so expended remains in the country. For in this way a prince
does only that which is fitting. Since he sees that gains in the
country are unevenly divided, he takes from him who seems to have
gained from others more than his social position or his merit justifies,
and gives it to another. In order, however, that the latter may not
enjoy his gains in idleness, he must in return do something which
will either contribute to the upbuilding of the land or to the pleasure
and magnificence of the prince. Thus I can with complete right
call a prince a great national Lord of Exchange, or as Aristotle
expresses it, Custodis et Dispensatoris communium bonorum
Accordingly a prince may use the whole capital of the country, and
as much more as the whole capital is worth (sic), if he only soon
consumes it and causes it to course among the people; fora prince
is the stomach of the country, the assessments are the foods which it
digests. If the foods are not digested in the stomach, and the
strength divided among the parts of the body, the members will lose
strength and die, but the stomach will die with them.
Since we have said, however, that the prince should take where
there is ability to give, and where it can be spared, it follows that a
prince must know the means of each person in the country, together
with his manner of support and his earnings, in order that he may
perceive how the money in the land is divided, and in what direction
it tends. This, however, appears to be an impossible affair, and
there is no practicable proposition to make it possible.
It is not necessary to notice all the naive economic con-
ceptions which this language implies. Our attention may be
confined to the main line of argument. The strategic point in
Schroder's calculation is indicated by the title of chap, viii,
"Whether a Prince Can Know How Much Each Citizen
Earns or Might Earn, in Order That He May Know How
the Money Is Distributed." Schroder does not profess to have
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 165
discovered a perfect method of answering the question, but
he thinks an approach may be made to it that would go far to
remove the existing chaos, and increase fairness in demands
for payments to the princely treasury. He begins by dividing
the population into nine sorts, each to be treated in accordance
with their relative abilities: (i) clergy; (2) nobility; (3)
peasants; (4) artisans; (5) merchants; (6) court or state
functionaries; (7) lenders; 1 (8) usurers; 3 (9) players. 3
The last section of the chapter presents a puzzle by naming
four ways which each of these classes have of gaining money,
viz.: (a) finding treasure, whether in natural deposits, or
hidden or lost goods; (6) conversion of the unripe or imperfect
metals (sic) into good gold or silver; (c) inheritance; (d)
presents. This schedule does not seem to correspond with
the subsequent analysis of the gainful occupations of the nine
classes. The clue to the discrepancy is, first, that the section
is not, as might appear at first reading, a re'sume' of the ordinary
sources from which these classes get their incomes. It is an
enumeration of extraordinary sources common to all of them.
The precise language is: "All these have still" (e. g., in addi-
tion to the resources peculiar to each) "four means of getting
money, or of becoming rich, which appertain to one as well
as to the others, viz.," etc.
The more one reflects upon the use of language in such
passages as this, the more clear it becomes that tradition has
forced into it associations which the words did not carry in the
minds of the cameralistic authors. As we have said above,
it is an unpardonable anachronism to make these authors
discourse upon the antecedent problems of wealth in the
abstract, when they were discussing merely the most available
> I. e., not of money but of other useful articles.
Not necessarily in the invidious sense.
3 Including not merely gamblers but purveyors of amusement, etc.
i66 THE CAMERALISTS
method of accumulating ready means for the individual or for
the state.
Schroder goes on immediately to cite the schedules in use
in the duchy of Gotha, for the twenty years previous to his
writing, for classifying the extractive industries within the
state, and for purposes of assessment. 1 It is not our affair to
pass on the skill or the wisdom displayed in Schroder's attempt
to outline a more complete industrial census either for rural
or urban taxation. The essential point is that what he did
in a relatively crude way became a matter of course with later
cameralists; and a large part of their work was devoted either
to explanation of the routine methods of assessment upon this
basis, or to elaboration of other schemes along lines partly
drawn by Schroder. It is impossible to decide from the sub-
sequent literature to what extent use was made in practice of
Schroder's calculus of the relative value to the nation of different
branches of manufacture (chaps, xv-xviii). At the least, it
was a serious attempt to understand a division of industry
which was rapidly assuming firstrate importance in the reckon-
ing of all German states.
Schroder's conception of the functions of Policey are by
means as farsighted as his fiscal perceptions. They do
t even seem to be as comprehensive as Osse's. They did
u.)t go beyond emphasis of the need of governmental inter-
1 These schedules are reduced to a conspectus which is numbered
as chap, xii, and appears as an insert in the edition of 1744. The insert
has been removed from the copy of the original edition which I have
used. The table is a complete answer to the irresponsible charge that
Schroder ignored the extractive industries as a source of wealth. It
should have estopped Sec kendorff's denunciation (vide above, p. 135).
If SeckendorfFs master, Krnst the Pious, was not an extortioner and a
villain in using this schedule for fiscal purj>oscs, surely Schroder cannot
be condemned for making it his point of departure in attempting to
outline a more: equitable system. Thomasius recorded a fairly judicial
estimate of Schroder, in the Testament, p. 152, n. 76.
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 167
ference to prevent neglect of duties by servants of all classes.
The phrase, however, which Schroder applies to Policey in
chap, xxviii, viz., "die Grundfeste upon which all that has
previously been said must rest," quite likely furnished the
suggestion which gave Justi the title for his most elaborate
cameralistic volume, on Policeywissenschaft. 1
If we reach a clear understanding that Schroder, and all
the rest of the cameralists, when treating of their central fiscal
problem, did not raise the later question of pure economics,
but were dealing primarily with problems of immediate appli-
cation of fiscal means to fiscal ends, and secondarily with
problems of adjustment of the people's activities to the need
of improved standards of life, whether principally in their own
interest or that of the treasury, this perception at once shows
that as pure economists or sociologists we have no immediate
concern with their conclusions about technological details.
Our interest is primarily in the part which they played in
developing a general philosophy of society, and the particulars
are of value to us only as indexes of their relation to larger
conceptions. Enough has been said, therefore, to establish
the position of Schroder in the cameralistic series. His main
object was to increase the ready means of the prince, while
incidentally lightening the burdens of the people. The general
scope of his conclusions may be gathered by reference to his
table of contents, especially to the titles of chaps, xxx-cv.
Our analysis of Schroder may be completed by a reflection
which has also some measure of relevance to all the cameralists.
We must distinctly note that the cameralistic estimate of
proportions between gold and silver and other goods, which
we have discussed, is less a vagary about economic principles
than an appraisal of civic values corresponding with con-
temporary judgments of relative civic needs. If Schroder had
been plied with Socratic questions about wealth, in Adam
Vide below, p. 452.
1 68 THE CAMERALISTS
Smith's sense, after getting the concept denned, he would have
been obliged to retract nothing in principle which he had
intended to assert before that more generalized term had been
brought to his attention. Maintaining his position, he might
have restated his views in this way: "I quite agree that we
may give a common name to all the material things which men
want to use, and which they may exchange. If we call these
wealth, the agricultural products which feed people, the manu-
factured forms of those products which clothe people, and the
other manufactured forms which satisfy people's demands for
convenience and comfort, are of course wealth, just as much
as the gold and silver which enable the prince to maintain the
government, and the people to make their exchanges. My
contention is, however, that the need of making the govern-
ment strong is so pre-eminent that the wealth which satisfies this
need is beyond all comparison the most important wealth, and
must be provided for whether there is increase of other wealth
or not."
Here would be a plain contrast between the cameralistic
and the modern scale of social values. It would assign to
money a higher ratio of value in the state than it has in modern
theory. The reason would be not that cameralism essentially
varied from modern theory on the economic principles of
wealth, but rather that cameralism varied from modern theory
on antecedent political philosophy. It posited an order of
precedence between governmental strength and popular
prosperity which democratic theory has inverted. That is,
the cameralistic theory was that popular prosperity depends
on strong government. Modern theory, at least in its demo-
cratic forms, holds that strong government depends upon
popular prosperity. Thus the cameralistic theory, which
systematized mercantilistic practice, did not so much assert
fundamentally incorrect economic principles as it transferred
emphasis from more to less ultimate principles, for the sake
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 169
of supposed immediate political expediency. The needed
correction of cameralism was less new knowledge of the sources
of material goods than new valuations of the scale of ends to
which material goods should be applied. Along with the
absolutistic major premise, "The fiscal needs of the prince are
the paramount needs in the state," went the minor premise,
"There is more to be gained for the princely fiscus by exploit-
ing other means of revenue than by depending upon further
exploitation of the primary natural resources." Thij was
not a false economic principle, but a specific judgment about
the relative availability of an economic principle in a particular
situation. The subsequent development of cameralism shows
a marked increase of relative emphasis upon the value of the
extractive industries. This change does not reflect a revolu-
tion in fundamental economic conceptions. It denotes on the
one hand increased attention to the technique of agricultural
management, with correspondingly enlarged ideas of the
maximum resources of nature; and on the other hand, expan-
sion of cameralistic science so that its fiscal division was better
balanced by variously classified divisions which brought some
of the neglected elements of the civic situation under equally
systematic analysis.
Of Schroder as a promoter of the practical economic policy
of Austria it does not fall within the scope of this book to speak.
Whether his judgment was the wisest under the circumstances,
and whether the commercial expedients which he advocated
were in the line of general technological prudence, are questions
which would be appropriate in a more special study than our
programme proposes. The foregoing analysis sufficiently
covers the most essential question about him. Objective
study permits us to accept the judgment neither of certain
interested contemporaries, who would have had Schroder
regarded as a prophet of evil, nor of the schematic appraisers
of mercantilism in general, who represent all its theorists as
170 THE CAMERALISTS
teaching grotesque doctrines. These vagaries appear to have
been imputed to them first by opponents of the mercantilist^
programme, and to have come down to us in place of the
authentic opinions of a group of thinkers whose economic
conceptions turn out to have been much more valid than their
views of political philosophy.
In this connection a few words must be said about four
writers who, by general consent of the historians, rank as
satellites of the principal group discussed in this and the
preceding chapter. We name first the otherwise apparently
unknown writer, von Klenck. 1 His book may be called a
shorter catechism of mercantilism. It contains 262 pages of
large pocket-diary shape. It can be inserted in the vest pocket,
and if printed on thin paper, with flexible covers, would be
conveniently portable. Roscher says:
A lxx>k in many respects enigmatical is the FursUiche Macht-
kunst .... which I have been able to obtain only in the ninth
edition, Frankfurth and Leipzig, 1740, under the title: Tractat
von Manufacturen und Commercio. It is said to have been published
in 1702 at Halle, or in 1703 at Weissenfels, by the well-known
Hcinrich Bode, professor of law at Halle. The author, a certain
Herr von Klenck, is said to have suppressed it, after it had been
severely attacked in 1704, in the monograph, Das Gold des publiquen
credits, welches der vornehme Autor der jurstlichen Machtkunst und
uncrschdpflichen Goldgrubcn durck Herrn G. B.'s Giitigkeit und
Vermittelung bcschauen lasscn, auj dem Probierstein der gesunden
Vernunjt zum Commercio untauglich bejunden von einem Lubecker
Kaujmann (p. 303).'
FursUiche Macht-Kunst, Oder Unerschopfliche Gold-Grube,
Wordurch tin Fursl sick kan mtichlig und seine Untertkanen reich machen.
Durch eincn in vielen Wisscnsthafften Erfahrnen Vornehmen Cavallier
entworffen, und mil dcssen Gutbefindcn heraus gcgeben Von Heinrich
Ikxlcn, Konigl. Preussis. Rath im Hcrtzogthum Magdeb. und Prof.
Jur. in Halle, Kditio III. The editor's preface is dated Halle, July 3,
1702.
The third edition, which I have used, is not dated. It appears to
be identical with the original.
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 171
Roscher also quotes the statement (p. 303, note), that
Klenck's book was republished in 1773 as an appendix to the
volume Klugheit zu leben und zu herrschen.
Although Roscher finds in Klenck some slight variations
from Schroder, and even improvements upon his teachings
(pp. 303, 304), they are not important enough to require our
attention. In his Preface the author expressly states that he
wrote the book in the hope that it would be more successful
in attracting the notice of young princes than the more pre-
tentious writings on the subject. He apparently had some
particular prince in mind. At the same time he expressly
disclaims the purpose of being original, and declares that he
has drawn his conclusions from the best authorities. The
book emphasizes and popularizes the best in the previous
mercantilists. It is especially clear and strong in its assertions
that the strength and riches of the prince must be based upon
the strength and riches of the people, and that the ancient
prejudice against industrial and commercial pursuits as
unworthy of the nobility must give place to pride in those
occupations.
Whether the author's hope of appealing to young princes
was realized does not appear. References to his book by
later and influential writers show that he actually did have a
share in winning respect for the views which he represented. 1
We need note simply that Klenck leaves no room for doubt
that he is a typical cameralist, as described in our general
formula.* He begins his Vorrede with the observation:
All the world knows that in a few centuries France, England,
and Holland, not so much through force of arms, as through a special
princely art and science, have advanced to such a high power, that
the gold and silver streams of the whole world seem to run into them,
1 For example, vide Thomasius on Klenck, Testament, pp. 99 ff.,
n. 41.
* Vide above, p. 6.
172 THE CAMERALISTS
as to an exhaustless sea. To reflect upon such princely power, and
with it to serve the Fatherland, is demanded of every true patriot.
I accordingly devote this study to the art of princely power, and I
feel at liberty to call it a Studium Magnificum quod Magnos jacit,
whereby in our beloved Fatherland hidden springs of gold may be
opened. I accordingly call this Machtkunst a science highly neces-
sary for princes, of so directing all gainful occupations that, ex
Bono Publico of the land, the princely treasury may be enriched,
and the prince may become powerful. The finis Primarius is
thus the Bonum Publicum, the riches and prosperity of the land,
quo Reipublicae bene fit; whence flows the Finis Secundus or Secun-
darius, the power and great might of the ruling prince, as from the
proper source and spring. If the same contains much water, the
prince can also have much. Hence the welfare of the prince is so
closely bound up with that of his subjects that the one without the
other cannot come into being, and still less be permanent.
The second of these lesser writers is Paul Jacob Marperger,
1656-1730. He made an impression by his much writing, but
he was the author of nothing of even second-rate importance. 1
The third in this minor group, "much less known by his
contemporaries, but intellectually much the superior of Mar-
perger, was Johann Georg Leib." a
While it is not certain that Leib added anything to the
theory of his predecessors, writers of his class are important
for our purpose. They furnish cumulative evidence of the
spirit of the doctrine which they tried to expound. The
Vorrede to Leib's book begins in this way:
There are many who have such a bad opinion of the Studium
Cameralis or Oeconomiae Principis that they think it impossible to
1 Roscher seldom packs as much into a few words as in his estimate:
"In der Hauptsache ist Marperger als ein Verwasserer des von ihm
bewunderten Becher zu charakterisiren. Ein entsetzlicher Vielschreiber,
der z. B. in seinem Ersten Hundert gelehrter Kaufleute (1717) 35 Biicher
aufzahlt, die er seit 1698 herausgegeben, und noch 71 andere, zum
Druck bereite Schriften." (Vide Roscher, p. 301.)
Von Verbesserung Land und Leuten, und wie ein Regent seint
Mackt und Anseken erkeben konne (1708).
CAMERALISTICS OF SCHRODER 173
raise the revenues of a great lord without adding to the tears and
sighs of their subjects. How mistaken this idea is may easily be
shown by the fact that the chief and only purpose of this study is
to put the whole body of subjects in a permanent condition of well-
being, and only from their surplus, and in a just manner, to increase
the income of the lord of the land, and to raise his power and repute;
.... I cannot deny that abuses which have entered into fiscal
administration as a common evil have been my sole reason for this
writing, out of love for the common good. Accordingly, I have
attempted to show how the welfare of the land, or the well-being of
the subjects, is inseparably bound up with the interest of the ruler,
and this is the true and sole principle of the whole cameralistic study.
Moreover, my chief rule for increasing the power of the land is to
retain money in the country, and to bring it from other countries.
If this rule is observed, it follows without dispute that the welfare
of the land will be thereby promoted, and the subjects will be made
richer. And if the subjects are made richer, then they can without
harm and embarrassment pay to the lord of the land, for the pro-
tection which is so profitable, an increased tribute. Then the
ampler treasure of the prince must put him in power and repute
with other rulers.
The whole book is an amplification of these propositions.
Whatever may have been the morale of the typical German
government in this period, these theorists represent the stand-
ards which the governments were supposed to respect.
Finally, we must select from others who might be named
in this connection Theodor Ludwig Lau. 1
If Lau was not personally a grievous ass, he went far out
of his way to misrepresent himself, not only in his dedication,
but in his garrulous and "kittenish" Vorrede. The one detail
1 Roscher refers to him (p. 379) as " Der kurldndische Hofrath und
Cdbinetsdircctor." His- book is entitled Aufrichtiger Vorschlag: von
Glucklicher: vortheilhaff tiger: bestandiger Einrichtung der Intraden:
und Einkunjften; der Souverainen: und ihrer Unterthanen; In welchen:
Von Policey- und Cammer-Negocien und Steuer Sachen: gehandelt nvird.
Entworffen Von dem HochfUrstlich-Curlandischem Hoff-Rath, und
Cabinets-Directeur, Theodor Ludwig Lau .... 1719.
174 THE CAMERALISTS
which is worthy of record about his book is that it made more
than any previous text of the classification of cameralistic
science into the divisions which were in general accepted to
the end of the cameralistic period. That is, the Aufrichtiger
Vorschlag was divided into four books, treating respectively
of (i) Policey; (2) finance (Entwurff einer woUeingerichteten
Cammer)\ (3) commerce (Entwurff wohlregulirter Negocien),
in which the first part is entitled "Von den Manufacturen"
and the second, "Von den Commercien;" (4) taxation (Entwurff
Wohleingerichteter Steureri). This main part of the volume
occupies 324 pages. There follows a monograph of 130 pages
treating in detail certain practical phases of the subject of the
fourth part of the text. The title-page of this tract is notable
for its reiteration of the idea of community of interest between
subjects and rulers. 1
A still more complete account of cameralistic literature
at this period would include such writers as Gleichmann, 3
Gundling,3 and a little later Schreber, 4 and J. A. Hoffmann. 5
1 Practische Vorschldge, Welcher gestalt Steuer und respective Con-
tribution zum Nutzen Eines Landes-Herren, und ohne Nachtheil der
Unterthanen einzurichten seye, Damit unter alien steuerbaren und Con-
trilmablen Dingen eine proportionirte Gleichheit, Nock Anleitung der
Reichs-Abschiede, gehalten, und kein Unter than vor dem andern graviret
werdt, Auch, wie alle Unter schleiffe und viele Kosten vermieden, Und der
Steuer- und respective Contributions-Stock in bestdndiger Richtigkeit
erhalten werden kan, Ausfuhrlich projectirt und turn Druck befordert.
Im Jahr 1721.
1 Kurtzer Begri/ von einer unbetrdglichen Furstlichen Machtkunst
(1711); vide Roscher, p. 377.
3 Einleitung zur wahren Staatsklugheit (posth., 1751); vide Roscher,
loc. cit.
* "Der Leipziger Professor der Oekonomie, Polizei und Cameral-
wisscnschaft." Hauptwerk: Abhandlung von Cammergutern und
Einkunften, deren Verpachtung und Administration (1743); vide
Roscher, loc. cit.
i Politische A nmerkungen uber die wahre und falsche Staatskunst,
worin aus den Geschichten alter Zeit bemerket wird, was einem Lande
zutrdglich oder schadlich sei (Latin, 1718; German, 1725); vide Roscher,
p. 3o.
CHAPTER VII
THE CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD
Gerhard is of value in the first instance as a witness to the
influence of Seckendorff. His book is a mere tract of seventy
pages. 1 It is notable for mobilizing the term Staatswissen-
schaft as a synonym of the term Staats-tehre used in the title;
and this fact evidently corresponds with an enlargement of
vision which was widening the outlook of German political
theorists, and at the same time giving their views a more coherent
content. The author declares that his intention in writing
the book is to introduce beginners to the subject, not to address
the learned. He also frankly states that he wants the book,
and the lectures based on it, to lead up to the study of Secken-
dorff's Teutscher Fursten Stoat. With the book and the
lectures on it as a preparation for his course on Seckendorff,
he hopes to give his students an adequate idea of "the whole
studium politicum in general." Gerhard was apparently a
member of the law faculty at Jena in 1713, and was among the
academic men who were smuggling the beginnings of camera-
listics into the universities before special professorships of that
subject were founded.
Gerhard's book consists of six chapters, with an appendix
on Seckendorff's political writings. If it were to be judged
by its size, it would be set down as a negligible factor in the
interpretation of cameralism. There is strong internal evidence,
however, that the author deserves more attention than he has
received. Roscher, for example, devotes to him less than a
whole sentence.' He was not a mere echo of Seckendorff.
In the first place, as a lecturer at Jena, he evidently did more
1 D. Ephraim Gerhards " Einleitung zur Staats-Lehre" Nebst ange-
kengten Discurs von des Herrn von Seckendorf Politischen Schriften.
.... 1713.
> Op. ci/., p. 238.
'75
176 THE CAMERALISTS
to prepare the way for admission of civics, as Justi understood
that concept, to good standing in the universities than that
writer imagined. 1 In the second place, he was a most instruct-
ive sign of the times with reference to currents of thought
about the whole range of subjects which we now refer to as
"the social science^" His prolegomena show that his general
conceptions of scientific relationships were far nearer those
which we hold today than were those which found expression
in some of the more pretentious books. Quite likely this
accounts for his inconspicuous place as an author. Apparently
he was a man whose insight and outlook surveyed wider
reaches of knowledge than he had the constructive power to
control. He seems to have had the talents of a scout rather
than of a commissary-general. He detected strategic points,
but was not qualified to conduct campaigns. Dropping the
figure, it seems likely that Gerhard lacked the force or the
equipment necessary for writing books which would have
accredited his methodological perceptions. It would have
required altogether exceptional genius and learning to com-
pose at that time treatises which would have filled out his
classification of knowledge. He has consequently left on record
merely evidence of a certain precocity which must have affected
his students as a liberalizing influence, but he lacked the
energy to make much impression upon the slowly developing
social ideas of the period.
Not because Gerhard's direct influence can be traced in
the later literature of the social sciences, but because he gives
expression to ideas which were gathering force among the
formative influences of his time, we must give him attention
out of proportion to the angle which his book subtends in the
literature of cameralism. 1
1 Vide below, p. 296.
In his preface to Stisser's Einleilung, Zincke throws light on Ger-
hard's influence by the remark that Stisser "sich nebst denen beriihmten
CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD 177
The first chapter deals primarily with very elementary
matters of terminology. The discussion turns upon the ques-
tion, What is properly to be understood by the name "Poli-
ticus" ? The value of the chapter for us is in the light it throws
upon the state of mind at that time, both in the general public
and among academic people, about subjects which have since
developed into the social sciences. The first misunderstanding
to which Gerhard addresses himself is that there is nothing
in common between scholars and Politici, and that there is no
room in universities for subjects in which Politici would be
interested. This error, he declares, is a part of the confusion
which has come in with the practice of using the words Politicus
and Staatsmann as synonyms. People at court declare that
politics can be understood by courtiers alone; the universities
should therefore at most explain languages and the Institu-
tiones inns.
Gerhard's reply is substantially the familiar academic
exposition of the utility of general training in theory as a
preparation for acquirement of technical knowledge and skill.
Attempting to show in particular what sort of knowledge may
be acquired in universities as a preparation for practical
politics, Gerhard distinguishes first between "the rules of
righteousness and love, and the rules of prudence." The
latter are usually regarded as the domain of politics, the former,
of natural and moral philosophy. Gerhard urges that this
division of labor is not wholly wise, because moral philosophy
must be the foundation of civic prudence (Staats-Klugheit).
He says further:
If I may speak to suit myself, I may be allowed to distinguish
between civic science [Stoats -Gelahrtheit] and civic prudence [Staats-
Mannern, Herrmanns, Stollens, Dithmars, Struvens, Kressens, Wild-
vogels und Schroders, sonderlich des Unterrichts-Hausses und Tisches
des Herrn D. Gerhards .... bediente, unter dessen Vorsiz er auch,
1711, eine Dissert, de crimine Lenocinii schrieb und vertheidigte."
1 78 THE CAMERALISTS
Klugheit], while at the same time I want to do justice to each. Civic
science is the affair of scholars, and shows the fundamental principles
upon which a proper civic prudence rests its observations. Civic
prudence, however, consists in skilful application of those rules which
are prescribed by civic science. Civic prudence must be learned by
grasp of affairs, civic science by appropriate reasoning. The latter
is as little the monopoly of the court as the former of the university,
although the one is more prominent at courts and the other at
universities (p. 9).
Gerhard goes on to say that he is not much concerned about
mere matters of words, such as Staats-Wissenschaft, Staats-
Klugtieit, Staats-Kunst, and Staats-Lehre. The main thing
for him is "that an upright teacher should not confuse distinct
disciplines, and that a right-minded statesman must not
despise learning, while he exercises a high degree of prudence
in his daily duties."
Advancing in the second chapter to more precise description
of civic science, Gerhard proposes at the outset the most com-
pact formula of civic science as he views it, viz. :
"A theory which presents in proper order of dependence the
rules of prudence, through which the community [gemeines Wesen}
is kept in a good state of welfare, and which have as their whole aim
the maintenance of the public state." In expanding this definition
Gerhard urges that " civic science is thus obviously a constituent
part of true science [Gelahrtheit] in general, since genuine science is
nothing else than a theory through which human thoughts are set
toward the attainment and retention of permanent happiness, and
moreover it places definitely before the eyes of each this appropriate
purpose." The courage of the author's convictions speaks further
in the assertion: "I conclude still more that no one has a right to
claim the name scholar who has not laid a reasonable basis of
scholarship in this very useful division of learning."
In further analysis of science Gerhard proceeds:
The happiness of men is to be sought either in this or in a future
life of which God's revelation gives us knowledge, and of which
CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD 179
reason itself gives us hope. In a word, it is either temporal or
eternal. To the latter we are led by die hochweise Erkennlniss der
Wahrheit zur Gottseligkeit, oder die Lehre der Gottesfurcht, which
therefore is called the science or knowledge of God. Temporal
happiness, however, may be sought partly in subjective contentment
of mind, partly in external repose and well-being, also health and a
competence; hence various treatments of these subjects have
become parts of practical learning (p. 15).
Accordingly Gerhard enumerates, with some indication of
their respective contents, the theory of virtue, the theory of
health, "which cannot be given over entirely to the art of
medicine, but is also closely related with the theory of virtue,"
the theory of justice or natural law, the theory of morals, and
the theory of the state, or of prudence. 1 He adds:
Prudence is accordingly nothing else than a theory which equips
man with the rational keys with which he may skilfully and system-
atically employ the means to his happiness which come in his common
life, whereby he may attain the indicated end.
And a little later he further explains:
Accordingly our civic science is chiefly concerned with finding
out good external and voluntary means, through which, without
harm or injustice to others, the welfare of the community [gemeinen
Wesens], that is, the permanence and security of the same, may be
properly maintained, promoted, and increased.
On the basis of this explanation the author goes into further
details about the various sciences he has named, and especially
their dependence upon one another. In this latter respect his
views approach much closer to those of methodologists today
than his notions of divisions of labor among the sciences.
He is especially definite and sagacious in showing (chap, iii)
how scholars in each of the faculties in turn, theology, medicine,
1 This schedule suggests the conceptions which Adam Smith appro-
priated from the philosophy in which he was trained. Vide Dugald
Stewart, Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith (Bohn ed.,
p. xvii). Vide Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, p. 32 et passim.
i8o THE CAMERALISTS
philosophy, and law, would profit by the study of social science.
It is hardly too much to say that these few pages read almost
like a vision of the development of sociological consciousness
which has been manifest during the past generation. Upon
chap, iv, on "Abuses of Civic Science," a similar judgment may
be passed. Although less sophisticated, it is very much in the
spirit of Herbert Spencer's essay, The Sins of Legislators.
Chap, v, "On the Purpose, Content, and Sub-Divisions of
Civic Science" begins with a proposition which in terms is
two centuries in advance of the scientific mediocrity of the
author's generation. Although we may not read into it all
that we should now imply by such language, we must not fail
to recognize the notable breadth of view which the most
grudging interpretation would have to concede. Gerhard says:
In order to realize the above indicated advantages, and to avoid
the contrasted abuses of civic science, it is necessary never to leave
the purpose of the same out of sight. The duty of every Politicus
is contained in the rule: "Whatsoever thou doest, so consider the
end and the outcome of thy devising, that thou shalt nevermore do
harm" (p. 42).
From the context we can hardly conclude that this precept
meant less in principle to its author than was contained in one
of Herbert Spencer's wisest sociological aphorisms: "The
question of questions for the politician should ever be 'What
type of social structure am I tending to produce?' But this
is a question he never entertains." 1 Gerhard's next paragraph
reads:
As above observed, all the care of civic science should be directed
toward the welfare of the state.* This consists principally in external
peace and satisfaction, so far as these can be maintained by natural
* "The Coming Slavery," in Appleton's edition of Social Statics;
The Man versus the State (1892), p. 312.
* " Wohlscyn des Staates. " Comments on this and related phrases
will be reserved until we reach Justi; vide below, pp. 404 3.
CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD 181
means, without illegal offense to others. It is not to be believed that
the first men who subjected themselves to a human scepter surren-
dered their freedom which belonged to them by nature, without this
intention. If now worldly governments are not to be repugnant
to the law of nature and the eternal decrees [RathsMdge} of Almighty
God, their counsels must also seek to maintain this intention. The
greatest emperors and princes have most laudably recognized that
subjects were not created for their benefit, but they for the subjects.
How much more must those who are appointed by them as servants
and watchmen of the common well-being [gemeinen Wohlseyns]
entertain no other thoughts?
In the next paragraph but one the author reduces these
generalities to somewhat more specific form in this way:
Everything which preserves, promotes, and makes permanent
common repose and peace with pleasing security in the Republique
in permissible and righteous ways, that must with all care and
attention be undertaken and put in execution. It follows, however,
that anything which is in any degree capable of hindering common
repose and peace must be omitted, prevented, and excluded. Who-
ever reasonably meditates these two rules, he may arrive in his own
head, if he will only at the same time open his eyes and look into
the world, at a reflection of all civic science. Indeed, means will
often thereby be put in his hand, without his special attention, for
putting this science into useful application.
Then follow still more specific reassertions of the ends of
civic society as represented by the quasi-absolutistic state, and
of the corresponding outlook of civic science as it was coming
to be defined in cameralism. Thus:
Since external assaults were probably the chief occasion for the
first raisonablen Republique, political sagacity must also make this
its first care. Hence it has come to pass that the principal attention
has been given to the power of a prince. The power however con-
sists in adequate strength to protect the lands which belong to a
state against assaults of its neighbors. Since now, in the judgment
of all, people and money are necessary for this purpose, it cannot be
1 82 THE CAMERALISTS
denied that where these things are in readiness the happiness of a
country is thereby quite visibly guaranteed (p. 45).
After referring at some length to the other side of the case,
viz., "where there is the greatest power, there it is easiest to do
wrong," Gerhard once more formulates the essentials of civic
policy as he sees it, in terms of "population, money, and
friends." 1
Returning to the subject of scientific method, Gerhard
concludes, quite sanely:
If one is right on these matters, then it will amount to one and the
same thing whether one divides civic science into two or two and
twenty parts There is no harm done if, for the sake of
grasping the concepts more thoroughly, one subdivides the matter
a little. One must however not imagine that the fate of the Holy
Roman Empire hangs on such subdivisions; and quarrels about
such arbitrary matters are ridiculous. Each is entitled to his own
way of dealing with the subject, and although it is well to fall in with
the prevailing fashion, yet there is no law to force such conformity
upon us; if there were, the fashions could not change so often. In
my judgment, there would be no harm in dividing civic science into
a general and a special division, for there are rules of prudence which
apply to all men alike. Each has on the contrary his own reasons
of state, and the special portion of civic science may have as many
varieties as there are orders of society in the world
If God should grant me opportunity and sufficient experience
to develop in an orderly written form the thoughts on civic science
which I have thus far only communicated orally to my students, I
would first set in order the general rules of treatment. I would then
discuss the most complete society of the Republique in accordance
with its purpose, and finally I would point out their duties to the
societies that occur in ordinary life, i. e., of married people, of
parents and children, of masters and servants, of intermediate rulers
and subjects. Especially would I picture to my dearly beloved
1 Thereupon he quotes with approval "D. Leib, in seinen vier
Proben." Vide above, p. 172.
CAMERALISTICS OF GERHARD 183
students an ideally organized student-state, and I should think that
in so doing I was discharging the duty of an upright teacher
As to the subdivisions of the second (special) part of the science,
they would require many sections. It is however not necessary to
anticipate them. Whoever understands the science of making the
subjects numerous, rich, and moral, in accordance with what has
preceded, will easily find out for himself an order for the means
thereto necessary. I will at present say only this much: that to
this end before all others the didactic method of the incomparable
von Seckendorff seems best adapted. In his Fiirstenstaat he affords
so much opportunity for profitable comment that I believe my
independent efforts in connection with this science may be long
deferred.
Not only in the breadth of comprehension which these
observations indicate, but in the detail of seeing a place for a
general and a special treatment of the science of the state,
Gerhard was well in advance of his time. Justi was most
successful among the cameralists in making use of this sug-
gestion. Gerhard deserves credit for perceptions about
scientific technique which men of his type did not fully appro-
priate until a century after he had put them on record. In so
far he anticipated the established practice of modern German
scholars in all the social sciences.
It is also not too much to say that, in his brief discussion of
the subjects which should be studied in connection with civic
science (pp. 53 ff.), Gerhard showed breadth of intelligence,
if not insight into detail, equal to that afterward exhibited by
Justi. Indeed, it is plain that the former had a much broader
foundation for his special programme of civic science than the
latter. Justi furnishes no clear evidence that his foundations
were as strong as those on which Gerhard rests when he says:
Accordingly it is right to say that civic science begins where
moral philosophy ends, and it sufficiently appears that the student
of politics, before he can become a statesman, must be a student of
moral philosophy. Whoever does this with reason and at the right
1 84 THE CAMERALISTS
time, while the tree is still capable of being inclined, and thereby is
properly molded in justice, good manners, honor, and the fear of
God: if he otherwise has good understanding, will not find any
portion of civic science difficult To sum up the whole
matter: Whoever will learn civic science to advantage, let him first
leam to understand other men, the forces of nature, and the estab-
lished institutions of the world. Then civic science can teach him
besides nothing but the ways in which he may best apply such
intelligence (p. 57).
Gerhard may also be observed to advantage as an index of
the extent to which there was at his time a recognized camera-
listic tradition in academic circles. Those who wish to pursue
the subject farther than our present limits permit, should read
the Appendix of Gerhard's syllabus. It is a fair index both
of the poverty and of the progress of German thought in this
subject at the opening of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR
In a period which discriminated more carefully between
dilettanteish and critical writing, the subject of this chapter
would hardly have attained prominence among specialists.
Because of the attention which was actually paid to him by a
considerable number of successors, he cannot be omitted from
our account. Intrinsically he does not deserve mention with
cameralistic writers of the first rank.
Inama 1 furnishes a biographical sketch to this effect:
Julius Bernhard von Rohr was the son of a country gentleman
(Riltergutsbesitzer), Julius Albert von Rohr. He was born in 1688
and died in 1742. His education was carefully planned. At the
age of seventeen he was sent to the University of Leipzig, where he
studied law, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and Oekonomik.
After ending his studies he went with his father to Hamburg, to
get acquainted with the business organization of that city. He
became an attache of the delegation sent to Frankfurt for the imperial
election of 1712. The death of his father and the embarrassed
condition of the estate presently put him on a very limited income.
He went to Halle to study mathematics with Wolf; in 1713 to Hol-
land; in 1714 he received a position as member of the Stijts- und
Erblands-Regierung at Magdeburg; in 1726 was transferred to a
similar position at Niederlausitz; in 1731 became herzoglicker
Landkammerrath; in 1732 Domherr zu Merseberg, but the position
seems to have secured his standing rather than to have furnished an
occupation. He had been on the waiting-list for this sort of eccle-
siastical preferment since he was two years old. He became a mem-
ber of the Landkammer at Merseberg, where he remained till his
retirement in 1738.
Rohr somehow managed to retrieve his financial fortunes to such
an extent that he accumulated a library for that time rather rich,
' In All. d. Bib., in loc.
'85
1 86 THE CAMERALISTS
and also in 1720 acquired a landed estate between Dresden and
Meissen, where he carried on wine culture, horticulture, and agri-
culture. He had troubled relations with a mistress, 1724-39. He
married another woman in 1739, and wrote his friends an elaborate
explanation of his domestic affairs. 1
Rohr is credited with the authorship of twenty-nine pub-
lished works, and of nine others left in an unfinished state. 2
According to Inama, doubtless because of the author's remark
on the second page of the Vorrede to the Haushaltungsbibliothek,
Rohr spoke of Hauswirthschajtskunst, on the basis of natural science,
as the chief task of his life. In his conception of political science
he was a devoted admirer of Seckendorff; in his more concrete
cameralistics he was equally attached to Schroder. " Under the
influence of Wolf's eudaemonism he advanced in many respects
beyond either." Under the same influence he escaped some of the
poverty of the old Hausvater litter atur, and on the other hand his
knowledge of natural science was a factor in promoting the develop-
ment of cameralism. In particular, he was of service in preparing
the way for academic cameralism, which Dithmar and Gasser were
permitted to introduce into the Prussian universities.
Roscher (p. 378) speaks of the Compendieuse Haushal-
tungsbibliothek as Rohr's "chief work." If there can be a
"chief" among mediocrities, that designation can hardly
1 In comparison with this account, it is surprising that Roscher did
not probe beyond the misleading contents of the note (p. 178): "Er
lebtc unvermahlt, mit vie! Biichcrn, Corresponclenz und Reisen, als
Domherr zu Merseberg." For our interests, Rohr's life ended before
this appointment.
* Zedler, Universallexicon, in loc. Chief among these wen-: (i)
Compendieuse H aushaltungsbibliothek (1716; 2. Ausg., 1726; 3. Ausg.,
J?:?. 1 )); ( 2 ) Physikalische Bibliothek (1724; 2. Aufl., 1754); Rohr pro-
jected a M ' athemalische Bibliothek, "since these three sciences are united
by an inseparable bond;" (3) Einleitung zur Staatsklugheil (1718); (4)
Einleitung zur Ceremonial-Wissenschaft der Privatpersonen (1728); (5)
Einleitun% zur Ceremonial-Wisscnsckaft der grossen Herrn (1729); (6)
O hers fie hxisckes Haurwirthschaflshuch (1722); (7) H auahaltungsrecht
(1732, 1734; 2 Bande; 2. Aufl., 1738).
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 187
remain in this case where Roscher placed it. He does not
seem to have been acquainted with Rohr's more pretentious
works. The Haushaltungsbibliothek, 1 even in the "much
enlarged" third edition, is a small handbook of 692 pages. It
uses the word Oeconomie as synonymous with its general
subject-matter. In the dedication to Kreishauptmann Peter
Freyherr von Hohenthal, the author says:
While writers on management [oconomische] have remained as
a rule unread by the learned, because they considered them too low,
and by housekeepers, because they found them too high, the useful
instruction which you [Ew. Hochwohlgebornen] have instituted shows
how many objects not only of important but also of ingenious investi-
gation Oeconomie contains, and how little one who is uninformed is
competent to conduct with success occupations which demand so
much knowledge and reflection. 2
The author's Preface to the second edition, dated August
9, 1726, declares that the first edition had been well received
by the public, and that certain scholars in the universities had
done it the honor of lecturing upon it. The explanation of the
author's intention in citing books which could actually be used
in household and agricultural management has an important
bearing upon the myth which the critics of mercantilism have
propagated, that there was no attention to agriculture and no
thought of it. At this time there were not only many writings
on the subject, but they were not so very difficult to obtain, 3
and Rohr's book refers to the most available of them.
1 Julius Bernhards von Rohr, Merseb. Domherrn und Land-
Cammerraths Haushaltungs Bibliothek worinnen die vornehmsten
Schriften, die zur Haushaltungskunst gehoren, angezeiget werden.
Dritte und viel vermehrte Auflage, 1755. I have not seen a copy of the
original edition of 1716.
8 This passage is one of the clearest reflections of the meanings
attached at this time to variations of the term Oeconomie. It meant
plain vulgar thrift, and then the beginnings of systematic thinking about
thrift.
3 We shall return to this point in connection with later writers.
Vide p. 256 below.
1 88 THE CAMERALISTS
In the Vorrede of the third edition, 1755, the editor shows
that in his mind the word Oeconomie still stands for a very
concrete type of technology, not for the sort of generalization
which later appropriated the term. He says:
If we think of Oeconomie, not as it is practiced by the lowest
portion of housekeepers [Hauswirthe], but rather as that which it
actually is, an art whose prescriptions are based upon knowledge of
nature, and which can be properly exercised and extended only by
means of this knowledge, then it deserves a respectable place among
the learned sciences. It requires also for its completeness the appli-
cation of various other parts of human knowledge, and the learning
of that which predecessors have done; that is, books must be read.
As a cameralistic book, in the proper sense, the Haushal-
tungsbibliolhek would not deserve mention. As an index of
the relation between the subjects known at the time as Oecono-
mie and Catneralwissenschaft in general, it is highly instructive.
A glance at the Table of Contents would sufficiently fix this
relation. A few sentences from the text may be added without
comment. The opening sentence of the first chapter declares:
The art of managing the household [Haushaltungskunst] is a
practical science (sic), which teaches how one in a proper way may
acquire money and goods [Geld und Gut], may conserve and wisely
expend what is acquired, for the promotion or maintenance of one's
temporal happiness.
Sec. 2 of the same chapter continues:
The art of managing the household may be divided into the
Oeconomica of princes and of private persons. In the former case
it is called Cameral-Finanz- und Domainenwissenschajt. It consists
in a prudence not only in administering his own means and revenues
and those of his land, and in maintaining the community, but also
in adding to the money and goods of the subjects The
house management of private persons may again be divided into
city and country management \Stadt- und Landwirthschaftskunst].
Under the former head I reckon knowledge of the coins, of trans-
actions with money, skill in keeping everything in order in the
house, and in placing the furniture in the rooms according to sym-
metry and use, proper supply of the table, temperate use of drinks,
wise control of servants, etc. Such things occur also in the country,
but because these arrangements can be made without possessing
estates [liegende GUter], I will not attribute them properly to rural
management, which involves immovable landed property. Of this
in general the so-called housekeeping books [Haushaltungsbiicher]
treat, and the same consists in knowledge of agriculture, of cattle
raising, of fisheries, hunting, forests, gardening, vineyards, etc.
This latter is much more comprehensive and difficult than the former,
for whoever has the skill to carry on management in the country can
quickly learn city management. On the contrary, whoever comes
from the city to the country, unless he has particular zeal and guid-
ance, will find it hard to adapt himself to rural management.
Both city and country management embrace three parts, namely
skill (i) to acquire money and goods, (2) to retain what is acquired,
and (3) wisely to expend it. 1
As cumulative evidence on the general position of the
cameralists, the opening sentence of the second chapter is in
order. It is the author's definition of cameral science, viz.:
Cameral science (Cameralwissenschaft) teaches princes not only
well to conserve and increase their means, but also to promote their
subjects' happiness and to order their management (Oeconomie).
Then the motive of Schroder's civic philosophy reappears
in this form (chap, ii, 4):
The best means of enriching a land is to take care that many
people are drawn into the land, and also that all the subjects through
diligent labor may have their support and means of gain [Nahntng
und Erwerb].
These citations show the general character of this book of
homely wisdom. After Rohr had written this earlier book,
his notions of his vocation seem to have become more ambitious.
1 This last proposition is notable because, although it seems to be
a platitude, it expresses the common-sense which became one of the
working premises of nearly all the later cameralists.
1 90 THE CAMERALISTS
He did not confine himself to "management" in the narrower
sense of his first programme. We may therefore find an
expansion of his ideas in another book. Though it contains
nothing original with the author, it won him not a little recog-
nition among later cameralists. 1
Previous to publication of the books we have named, Rohr
had neither academic nor governmental experience to be
compared with that of most of the cameralists; and his forms
of expression are visibly apologetic toward each of the classes
by which he was doubtless rated as an amateur. He writes
1 Julii Bernhards von Rohr Einleitung zur Staats-Klugheit, oder:
Vorstellung Wie Ckristliche und iveise Regenten zur Beforderung ihrer
eigenen und ihrcs Landes Gluckseeligkeit Ihre Unterthanen zu beherrschen
pflegen. Mil Konigl. Pohln. und Clurfl. Siichss. allergn. Privilegio.
Leipzig, 1718. In his Vorrede, Rohr speaks of a previous book, Ein-
leitung zur Klugheit zu leben, darinnen ich jungen Leuten einige Regeln
der Frivol- Klugheit beybringen wollen. The author refers to the present
volume as a companion book, designed for the use of beginners in the
study of Staats-Klugheit. He says that the book is quite different from
Seckendorffs Teutschen Furstcn-Staate, which had been "up to that
time much read by the Germans, and to good advantage." Rohr makes
this difference consist first, in describing not only what Christian princes
have done in the way of wise and just administration, but also what they
might well cease to do; and second, Rohr says that Seckendorff com-
posed his book more as a moral than as a political treatise; that is, he
showed what a ruler would do in pursuance of civic law, if he acted in
accordance with his conscience and his duty to God, and his obligations
to his country, but he did not show the means by which the tasks of
government are to be carried out in detail. Rohr claims also that his
book treats of many subjects which Seckendorff neglected. At the same
time he concedes to Seckendorffs works a rank above his own. He
explains also that he has had the Evangelical Lutheran states chiefly in
mind, because in the Catholic states the doctrines of Staats-Klugheit
are concerned with somewhat different objects, and rest upon quite
different principles. Besides Seckendorff, Rohr says that he has used
particularly Schroder, Leib, Marperger, "the learned and eminent
authors of the Unschuldigen Nachrichten," Herr I). Dohler, Hr.
Horn.
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR IQI
rather as an essayist than as a technologist. On the one hand
the systematic method of the academic thinker is lacking, and
on the other hand the firm touch of the man accustomed to deal
directly with affairs. He can be included among the cameral-
ists only as an evidence of the impressions which the cameral-
ism both of the bureaus and of the books had made up to his
date upon a university man of a rather refined type. Granting
that he helped to gain a hearing for cameralism in the univer-
sities, there is no evidence that he exerted a distinct influence
upon the development of the theory itself. 1 The Einleitung,
however, would be an extremely valuable collection of material
for the student of the culture history of the period.
The book is a compact volume of 1,474 pages, with a table
of contents and index filling thirty more pages. The plate
opposite the title-page represents a king upon his throne, at
his right female figures symbolizing Religion and Justice, at
his left Peace and Prudence, and below the couplet:
Wenn ein Regente will des Landcs Wolfarth baucn,
Mus er auf Gottesfurcht, Justiz uncl Klughcit schaucn.
The opening paragraph reads:
Prudence [Klugheit] is an adaptability of temper by which actions
are directed with reason and foresight toward the promotion of true
happiness. It discovers means by which, without prejudice and
hindrance to others, one may most conveniently and easily attain
and preserve happiness. Because it aims at true happiness, it
proposes first eternal and second temporal happiness as its chief
and subordinate aim. It is otherwise called die Politic, and is
either a true or a false prudence.
The looseness of thinking in this paragraph may be taken as
1 The copy of the Einleitung which I have studied was borrowed
from the Royal Library at Berlin. While it is much discolored by age,
it shows no signs of use. Indeed many of the leaves had evidently never
been separated since they left the bindery, and a considerable number,
including one containing a part of the Table of Contents, were uncut !
IQ2 THE CAMERALISTS
an index of the quality of the book. The ambiguity that is
involved in making the same word stand for "adaptability of
temper" and "Politic" is symptomatic of the style throughout.
The author is popular rather than analytic in his treatment.
He can be accepted therefore merely as in certain respects a
sign of the times, but not as a factor in the development of
cameralistic theory or technology. This popular and uncritical
quality is even more apparent in the second paragraph, viz.:
The true prudence demands nothing except that to which it may
properly lay claim according to divine and natural law; it subor-
dinates the will, as much as possible, when it would go to excess,
and for the accomplishment of its purposes it uses permissible means.
Its aim is the well-being of itself (sic) and of other men (sic); yet it
recognizes, in case of collision between its own and its neighbor's
fortunes, that the preference belongs to itself [! ]. It [Klu^heit] sees
from its own experience and that of others that all temporal happi-
ness, however plausible, is associated with much unrest, is fluid and
fleeting, and that it quite unconsciously slips out of the hands of its
possessors.
Thus while the b(x>k contains much that might have been
instructive to certain types of mind, in early stages of education,
it is not to be taken seriously as a sample of the academic or
professional thinking of the author's generation. It belongs
in the class once known as "edifying," rather than among
technological treatises.
Rohr distinguishes "the prudence of private persons" from
"that of the reigning princes" (p. 10). The former was
treated in the book named above, 1 the latter is the subject
of the present volume. More particularly, the prudence of
the reigning prince, or civic prudence [Stoats- Klugheit] is
described as:
the adaptability of the understanding, by means of which rulers are
capable of promoting not only their own but all their subjects' true
happiness (p. 11).
1 Vide above, p. irjo. Klugheit zu leben.
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 193
The division of civic prudence into general and special,
which we find first clearly stated by Gerhard, is adopted by
Rohr, but whether or not he was in any way indebted for the
idea to the earlier writer does not appear. His distinction,
while apparently the same, is really not along the same lines as
Gerhard's. Rohr calls application of the rules of general civic
prudence to a given state "special civic prudence," instead of
grasping the conception of more general and less general
principles which may in their way be applicable to all states.
Indeed he does not seem to realize that there is a place for
general principles, other than religious doctrines or moral
truisms, upon which details of civic polity must rest. Instead,
he assumes that one may be a specialist in civic science by
simply selecting a fraction of it as his task:
Just as it is impossible that a man, however diligent, should
cultivate all civic prudence completely: so it is well done if each
should pursue those parts for which he has inclination, talent, and
opportunity (p. 33).
Rohr bases his essay without hesitation upon the idea of
the patriarchal prerogative of the prince:
Just as a ruling prince presents two moral persons, first a private
person, who in many acts must conform himself to other private
persons, yet also is to be considered as a prince, who has to direct the
conduct of his subjects, he must consequently be versed in both
private and public prudence (p. 34).
That the book is rather rhetorical than technical is illus-
trated again in the next paragraph :
The chief task of the prudence of a ruler consists in always seeking
to combine his happiness with that of his subjects, and in striving
to prevent them from becoming separated. The prosperity of a
ruler which is not founded on the weal of his land is of no perma-
nence, as is shown by many ancient and modern histories. He must
have the prosperity of his subjects in view in all his actions, and must
undertake nothing which is inconsistent with the same.
194 THE CAMERALISTS
At the same time, Rohr quite as distinctly affirms the
absolutism of rulers. Thus:
In case of a collision between his own interest and the welfare
of the subjects, from love for his land, in order to promote the common
interest [gemeinschafttlichc Inlercsse] he must subordinate his own
interest. He thereby not only wins the love of his subjects, but he
floes that to which he is appointed of God. And while sovereigns are
not bound to render account for their actions to anyone in the world,
yet they, as well as their subjects, have over them the supreme ruler
in heaven, to whom at the great day of judgment they must give
answer.
While the author reiterates on the one hand the sonorous
principle, "Solus popttli must be the law of the prince," yet
on the other hand he unconsciously betrays the rendering which
the spirit of the time tended to give to the principle, when he
says:
The art of government is in fact an art above all arts; because
it can make kingdoms out of principalities and empires out of king-
doms, can raise a sunken state to its former splendor, and through
this rare power of making a prince really great it proves itself the
true statecraft.
In the following section (p. 37) Duke Ernst of Gotha,
Seckendorff's master, is cited as a type of the Christian prince,
and as evidence that piety is necessary for the success of a ruler.
No mention is made at this point of Seckendorff, however,
from whom it is probable that Rohr derived the substance of
his political ideas. For example, the sections in which he
describes the duties of a prince in general, especially 7-19,
merely render Seckendorff's views in slightly varied terms,
and with trifling additions of detail or illustration. It amounts
to no proper acknowledgment to the man who furnished the
thoughts when at last, in 18, his name is used in connection
with the least important item in the whole programme, viz.,
the recreations of the prince!
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR IQ5
Since Rohr was not a camcralist, but merely a contemporary
popularizer of cameralism, we repeat that he is worth our
notice merely as secondary evidence bearing upon the impres-
sion which technical cameralism had made upon the thinking
of men at one remove from the more technical writers.
In a confused paragraph (p. 71) the author raises but does
not distinctly answer the question:
In case a reigning prince violates his fundamental pledges to his
subjects, have they a right to resist? Rohr first remarks, "It is
well known that those who withstand the divinely appointed author-
ities resist the divine order," and he draws the conclusion that a
perfidious prince should be left rather to divine justice than forcibly
dealt with by his subjects. Without much assurance that the next
recourse is very promising, he points out that the constitution of the
Empire calls for judgment by imperial authorities upon a prince who
disturbs or threatens the order of the Empire by not keeping faitli
with his subjects. Pushing the hypothesis to the extreme form,
that "the excesses of the prince make the life of a virtuous subject
insecure," Rohr ventures the very cautious judgment that in such
case one is justified in resisting the prince. He immediately adds:
"If the ruler goes only so far, however, as to devise against one ami
another private person things contrary to God and to natural decency
[Erbarkcit], such subjects must rather depart from the country, or
bear the injustice with patience, than oppose the majesty of their
ruling sovereign with violence." The whole discussion of contracts
to which a ruler is a party is conducted upon a shifting basis of theo-
logical dogma, ethical generality, and amateurish Icgalism. In
modern vernacular, it amounts to a whitewashing report upon the
political status quo, under the form of an impartial inquiry into
alternatives.
The fourth chapter ("Yon dem Oeconomie \Ve.sen") is
worth notice as a further index to the current sense of the term
Oeconomie. As we try to make evident throughout this analy-
sis, the readiness with which this and similar terms have been
translated from German into English words which were
196 THE CAMERALISTS
equivalent in appearance, but not in sense, has been a serious
hindrance to proper insight into the meaning of German
sociological evolution. The one point to be emphasized here
is that nowhere, in the "series of writers interpreted in this
study, did any variation of the word Oeconomie have the force
carried by the English derivative from the same root in the
phrase "political economy." In the whole usage of the
cameralists Oeconomie was primarily thrifty management, as
measured by the prevailing standards of household or public
prudence. Oeconomie was literally housekeeping (Haus-
haltung, Haushaltungskunst, etc.), and this conception clung
to it, whether the immediate reference was to thrift in the
household, on the farm, in artisanship, trade, or government.
Oeconomie was never, until the period of Smithism, generalized
and deepened into consideration of problems underneath
rule-of-thumb wisdom. With this in mind, we find in Rohr's
approach to the subject of Oeconomie-Wesen an instructive
guide to the plane of interests which held the attention of men
of affairs, both industrial and governmental, before the stage
of critical and philosophical interpretation of economics. He
opens the chapter in this way:
Just as private persons fill their storerooms by orderly and
reasonable management [Haushalten], so that they can draw one
supply after another; in the same way with ruling princes, if they
attend to their FiirsUichen Oeconomie und Cameral-Wesen in a proper
manner, the happiness not only of their own persons and of their
families, but also of their subjects, which must always be connected
with their own, will be promoted and secured. In the case of princely
persons a double Oeconomica must have place, .... first, the
Oeconomica of private persons In this connection they
must take care that the sums which they lend [Capitdien] are
securely invested and kept in good circulation [rouliren]. They
must administer their domains to good advantage, apportion the
outlays reasonably and see that they are balanced by the income,
and always take care that a margin remains. That which God has
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 197
given them they must conserve, in order that it may not be impaired
or lost, etc. In all this they must give exact heed to the same rules
and cautions which private persons must observe. Beyond this
there is, second, the FUrstliche Oeconomica, since princes must not
only pay attention to increase and preservation of their private
incomes, but also to enlargement and preservation of the happiness
and goods of their subjects.
Then follows non-technical description of the administra-
tive machinery which the cameralists had begun to analyze
more precisely. Rohr explains the Oeconomie-Wesen of
rulers as an affair of two divisions, distribuendo et augendo,
on the one hand of applying the revenues, on the other of
raising them. He uses the term Cameralisten for those
officials who have the former division in charge, and explains
that a quite different body of persons should be employed in
the other division. Thus he thinks (p. 99) that Cameral-Sachen
should be divided into two distinct collegia the division,
by the way, not according precisely with the distribution of
functions proposed by the author a few lines before the one,
called the Cammer proper, to collect and disburse the reveunes,
the other exclusively to deliberate how to increase the revenues.
He claims that the usual union of these two collegia in a single
Cammer is harmful and costly. 1 Rohr goes into detail about
cameralistic technique as though he were an expert, but our
purpose does not require attention to the technological side of
cameralism, and if it did we should be concerned not with the
expositions of amateurs like Rohr, but with those of men who
could speak with authority.
A glance at Rohr's table of contents would show that the
personality of the prince, and dynastic policy, are made the
center from which the remainder of the book proceeds. While
this at once condemns the book, from the standpoint of the
1 At this point the author appeals to the second chapter of Schro-
der's FUrstliche Schatz- und Rcnih-Cammer.
198 THE CAMERALISTS
modern social theorist, it affords the very evidence which makes
the book valuable to the historical interpreter. This para-
mount value of government, and of the prince as incarnating
government, is fundamental in the whole camcralistic regime
and theory. It is the pass-key to the whole system. Came-
ralism as a technique and as a theory was a means developed
in the interest of an end visualized first and foremost in the
person of the prince, if never absolutely identical with the prince
and his interests. In respect to this one factor, the develop-
ment of German civilization, not to carry the generalization
at this point beyond Germany, was a progressive realization of
other values in society besides those of rulers and governments,
and progressive readjustment of ratios between the several
values. All the doctrines and policies of the period which
we are considering have to be interpreted in their connection
with the ruling presumption of the paramount importance
of the prince, who may or may not have been differentiated
in thought from the government which he represented. In
either case, the ideas of prince and government as values in
themselves, not as functionaries and functions to be appraised
according to their service for other values, were foremost and
decisive throughout this regime. We shall have occasion to
ask more than once, as we proceed, To what extent had some
suggestion of another scale of values begun to work in the minds
of the Germans? It is not a part of the task set for this
volume to demonstrate the answer to the question. We shall
be obliged, however, to point out frequent incidental symptoms
of the workings of more democratic impressions.
Rohr expressly adopts that form of the social contract
theory which presupposes nature people contemplating an
intolerable social condition, real or impending. To escape
or to avert this condition the whole number of individuals
make over their wills to one or more rulers. Thereafter the
will of the whole community can be expressed only by this
CAMERALISTICS OF RO1IR 199
single or multiple ruler, and the subject has no rightful alter-
native but obedience. The ruler summarizes not only the
will but the welfare of the state, or of the individuals merged
into a unique personality (pp. 248 ff.). By a chain of reason-
ing which we need not follow, Rohr concludes further (p. 258)
that a Christian monarch is bound by divine and human law
to take responsibility for both the temporal and the eternal
welfare of his subjects. This view of course furnishes the
basis for explanation of the ecclesiastical polity of Lutheran
states, and the author shows decidedly better acquaintance
with church problems, and especially with minutiae of parochial
procedure, than with the more strictly cameralistic departments
of government. This leaning toward ecclesiasticism is shown
in a most painfully smug chapter on the proper course of rulers
toward "dreamers, pietists, and new prophets" (pp. 322-65).
It must be admitted, however, that if Rohr's ecclesiastical
views belong in a world which Americans cannot understand,
his views of the relation of the state to education are at bottom
identical with our own. So far as there is a difference in
principle it may be traced to his emphasis on the interest of
the state in the training of good citizens, while we are inclined
to view the matter more from the side of the right of the indi-
vidual to education. The ecclesiastical factors in education
which Rohr had in mind were, both in subject-matter and in
machinery, accidental rather than essential variations of
educational principles which modern democracies attempt to
apply with other details.
In the chapter "Von Academien" Rohr partially antici-
pates Justi in a plea for "ein Professor Oeconomiae" at the
universities. The chapter is entirely in accord with the other
evidence found in the writers of this group to the effect that
their references to "oeconomica" or any equivalent expression
connoted something very different from the implications of
the same terms in the nineteenth century, and particularly
200 THE CAMERALISTS
different from English versions of the terms. In the order in
which the items occur in the chapter, we may note, first, that
the subjects which Rohr wishes such a professor to teach are
at once indicated by the phrase Stadt- und Landes-Wirth-
scliaft; second, the principal reason alleged for failure to
establish such professorships was difficulty of finding men who
had university training who at the same time possessed either
knowledge of these subjects or fitness to teach them; third,
slightly varying the second point, scholars had seldom given
attention to Oeconomie, while skilled managers (Haushaltungs
Verstandige) had seldom done much with "studiis" in the
university sense; third, it ought not to be difficult to find here
and there men with experience in administrative offices who
understand management (Wirthschafft) from the bottom and
couM teach it passably; fourth, in answer to the claim that
Oeconomica, Politica und morale ought to be taught by the
Professori moralium, and that accordingly increase of the
number of professorships is unnecessary, Rohr says it is true
that diligent Professori moralium do not fail to introduce into
their political courses all sorts of economic observations, but
it is impossible that they could fully explain these three
sciences; 1 fifth, quoting Dohler, 2 "In the schools the prejudiced
opinion prevails that a student should not concern himself
with any sort of Hauss-Wesen, that it is even a disgrace for a
student to have anything to do with such employments;" sixth,
such being the case, it is high time that students in schools
and colleges should learn Oeconomie from artisans and even
from peasants. 3
1 At this point appeal is made to Morhoff, "in dem 3. Buche des
III. Tomi seines Polykistoris;" and to "der beriihmte Professor zu
Franc kfurt, Johann Christoph Beckmann, in dem f 10. des X. Capitels
seiner Polit. Parall."
"Herrn Job. George Dohler in seiner Untersuchung des heut-su-
Tage uberhand nthmenden Geld- und Nahrungs-M angels"
3 The author refers for further considerations on the subject to the
first chapter of his Hauskaltungs-Bibliothek.
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 201
From these citations it is evident that by common under-
standing among friends and foes of "economic" instruction,
the thing intended was technical, not philosophical. It was
even more remote from subjects then regarded as within the
pale of Wissenschaft than manual training is today in the minds
of those who are least inclined to welcome it, or its maturer
continuations, into our lower and higher schools.
Chap, xvi, " Von der Gelehrsamkeit," develops the theorem:
Since good arts and sciences are fitted in no slight degree to
increase and to. maintain the happiness of a land and of its ruler,
it follows that a ruler who has the weal of his provinces at heart has
the best of reasons for desiring that his subjects should be instructed
in all sorts of useful disciplines. The more learned and intelligent
they are, the more available are they, whether in peace or in war.
The discussion takes a turn which shows the limitations of
the time with respect to freedom of thought; that is, it dwells
more on what should not be permitted in schools, or allowed
to appear in print, than upon promotion of unrestricted investi-
gation; but in one direction it calls for increased liberality.
Sec. 12 opens with the remarks:
In the case of political writings, people are in many places far
too scrupulous. State secrets are made out of matters which are
quite innocent, and sometimes people fear to make public anything
with reference to state affairs, although no good reason for such
caution can be found. 1
Beginning with chap, xvii, " Von Lastern," the book invades
more and more technical ground, but with the equipment of
the essayist rather than of the specialist, and in a style addressed
rather to the general reader than to close students. As a
mirror of the times, it would be of great value to a culture
historian who knew how to use such material. For our
purpose it yields nothing which is not to be found in more
reliable form elsewhere.
1 Obrecht has already furnished us a case in point. Vide above,
P-43-
202 THE CAMERALISTS
Two exceptions to the foregoing must be noted. The first
is a negative contribution to our inquiry. In the twenty-first
chapter, on the police system of cities, Rohr gives one of the
clearest testimonies to be found in the cameralistic or quasi-
cameralistic literature, that the police system as outlined later
was only in a slight degree in existence at the date of the book.
The institution had yet to be developed to meet needs that
were felt before the means of satisfying them were created.
Rohr quotes "a certain unnamed author, who has described
the well-organized state of the hitherto much-sought but never-
discovered kingdom of Ophir." He is said to have expressed
himself as follows:
Because through observance of good Policey the divine blessing
and the prosperity of a land are best insured, certain Policcy-Rathe
should be appointed. These should be efficient and learned men in
Moralibus, Politicis und Oeconomicis, and they should be used for
drawing up good police ordinances, and for zealously supervising
their execution. Their office demands requirement that agricul-
tural land should everywhere be well cultivated and sowed with the
necessary seed, that management [Wirthschaft] should be well and
thriftily [hausslich] conducted; impious, immoral, vicious, dissolute,
and infamous persons should nowhere be tolerated; that vagrants
and idlers should be made to work, the roads and ways be kept good
and secure, the streams be made navigable, cities and villages be
provided with good inns, traffic by water and land carried on fairly
and diligently, children and servants well trained and provided, the
offices properly filled, the unworthy expelled from civic stations, law
and justice administered, the wicked punished, the pious rewarded,
and the poor relieved. In short, that there should everywhere
prevail honorable, Christian and righteous life.
Rohr declares, however, that this ideal must be put in the
class of piorum desideriorum. He thinks that no more odious
programme could be imagined than the prerogatives proposed.
His opinion is of no value to us. The important thing is the
evidence which the passage furnishes that the Policey Ordnung
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 203
afterward introduced was in a very rudimentary stage when he
wrote. His ideas of the standards of conduct which ought
to be enforced by government seem to conform in spirit to the
standard quoted, and he goes into a mass of details, but the
particular machinery recommended by the anonymous author
alone meets his disapproval. Rohr apparently felt jealous
for the prerogatives of the church in connection with these
matters. The progress of events realized more of the system
foreshadowed in the quotation than its author appears to have
expected. Indeed more than half of Rohr's book is occupied
with subjects which Justi afterward systematized under the
rubric Policey.
The second exception to the general proposition that Rohr
affords little light on the cameralistic problem proper is found
in chap, xxviii, on "The Riches of the Country." Recalling
his earlier assertion that the interests of the prince are bound
up with those of his subjects, he premises in particular that the
prince has every reason to do his best that the subjects may be
rich. Without mincing words, he frankly puts this identity
of interest between prince and subjects in the affluence of the
latter on the ground that if the subjects have money the sov-
ereign always has means at his command to get it from them.
"On the other hand, if the subjects are poor, he can no more
get money from them than one can squeeze water out of a dry
sponge." 1
After reciting some of the information which a prince must
command, about the wealth and sources of income of his
1 Rohr cites Schroder, "Fiirstliche Schatx- und Rent-Cammer, as
holding the opposite view, viz., "a prince who has no money in his chest,
but relies on the good will of his subjects and territories, is walking on
stilts." Our review of Schroder, In which we have quoted the same
words (above, p. 144), shows that the contradiction was not so direct as
Rohr supposes. He had chiefly in mind one stage in the process, while
Schroder put the emphasis at another point, relying however on the
same ultimate resource.
204 THE CAMERALISTS
subjects, that he may know the location and capacity of the
springs which he must tap, Rohr betrays his ideas of wealth
itself, and his expressions are rather remarkable. He says:
A prince must have care that his land may increase in riches.
A land becomes richer, in proportion as money and gold (sic) are
brought into it, either from its own mines or elsewhere, and poorer
as money leaves the country. For inasmuch as by general consent
of peoples gold and silver are the universal price of all things, and
the worth of the same in all places in the world is estimated according
to the worth of gold and silver, for which everything can be bought,
one must estimate the riches of a land according to the quantity of
the gold and silver in the same. Hence a prince must give his
thought to means whereby the land may become richer, and he must
remove everything through which it becomes poorer (p. 844).'
Rohr is not content to let the matter rest with one statement.
He repeats it in this form in the next paragraph, almost in the
words of Schroder, as indeed the previous quotation was, viz. :
We find gold and silver in the mines, and this is the most certain
increment of the riches of the country, for as much as gold and silver
are found, so much has the country increased in riches.
1 After Schroder's chap, xxx, no equally clear expression of this
opinion is to be found in the cameralistic writers previous to Rohr. If
the language is carefully considered it will be seen that even this brash
assertion of Rohr cannot properly be construed as a generalization of
the same logical order as Adam Smith's propositions about wealth.
Rohr was evidently not probing beyond immediate practical utility.
He was not seeking for a philosophy of wealth, but for a basis of prudence
in dealing with the means necessary for practical wisdom. It would
be as preposterous to make such a statement, by a writer of Rohr's type,
the clue to the economic basis of cameralism, as it would be to take the
enthusiastic declaration of some interested politician, in the days of
Dingley and McKinley, that a protective tariff is the only way to create
wealth, as the measure of the economic insight of Americans in the
present generation. As we have seen, Rohr was not an authority upon
any technical or philosophical subject. He is not to be taken as repre-
senting the cameralists, except in a relatively remote way. Yet it is
from such sources that the extreme forms of statement came which were
afterward charged, under the label "mercantilism," to the responsible
publicists of Germany for most of the rest of the century.
CAMERALISTICS OF ROHR 205
Then follows an uncritical formulation of the theory of the
balance of trade. At the same time, without perception of its
bearing upon the idea of the exceptional character of gold and
silver as riches, the fundamental necessity of making the country
as fertile as possible is urged as strenuously as though the
author were the extremest physiocrat.
In the chapter on mining (xxxvi), Rohr again falls back
upon Schroder. 1 The theorem of the latter is:
A prince should cause the gold and silver mines to be worked,
if they yield anything at all, whether with a loss or a profit, for that
matters not to the country, since I have shown [chap, xxx] that this
is the most certain approach of a country to riches. 2
The most direct evidence which we get of Rohr's sources
in the next chapter, on forests, is his citation of von Carlowitz'
Sylvicultura Oeconomica, yet he writes with great confidence,
and evidently from a larger range of direct observation than in
any other portion of the book, unless it may be the ecclesiastical
sections. The essay style and quality prevail in the remainder
of the book, and it yields nothing farther that is notable for
our purpose.
1 Particularly on p. 278 of the first edition of Fiirstl. Schatz- und
Rent-Cammer. In the edition of 1744, which I have compared, the
passage is on p. 181.
a In the same connection Rohr remarks, "Es ware zu wttndschen,
dass die Bergwercks-Lehren, die der Herr Abraham von Schonberg in
seiner Berg-information, Tit. von Berg-Herren, s. 15, vortraget, von alien
Potentaten in wiirckliche Observanz gesetzt wiirden." Except that
Justi does not find occasion to lay stress on the first of Schonberg's six
recommendations, viz., gratitude to God, if the country has been blessed
with gold and silver deposits, Justi developed his mining policy along
the lines of this predecessor. Vide below, pp. 358 ff.
CHAPTER IX
THE CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER
We come now to the point at which cameral science was
first officially designated as a subject to be taught in universi-
ties. Whatever their scientific merits or defects, the men who
mark this event in the history of cameralistics are notable. 1
i The most complete survey up to date of the academic phase of
cameralism is Stieda, Die Nationalokonomie als Universitatswissenschaft,
I^eipzig, 1906. Within the period covered by the present study, the
cameralism even of the book-writers centered in the bureaus rather than
in the universities. The reverse became the case in the following period.
Stieda (p. 9) credits Thomasius with having been the first to read a course
on national economy in a German university. Such judgments do not
impress me as at all reliable. In the first place, if we had syllabi of all
the courses given at this period, it would be difficult to gain a consensus
about the way of drawing the line between those that should be regarded
as economic in the general sense of the time, and those that should not.
In the second place, judging from Thomasius' notes on Osse (vide above,
pp. 24 ff.), it seems to me altogether probable that Nicolaus Hieronymus
Gundling (vide Stintzing, All. d. Bib., in loc.), although a pupil of Tho-
masius in Naturrecht, may have been earlier and quite as distinguished
as he in the economic field. Stieda does not seem to have run down
the facts in this instance (vide p. 28). Again, it is certain that
Gerhard was lecturing at Jena on economics, in the contemporary
sense, as early as 1713 (vide above, p. 175). Gerhard's name does not
appear in Stieda's index. As a sign of the difficulty of obtaining the
literature of cameralism, it is worth noting that, in spite of his vantage
ground at Leipzig, Stieda says he has been unable to see a copy of Sin-
cerus, Projekt der Oeconomie in Form einer Wissenschaft nfbst einem
unmassgeblichen Bedenken, wie diese Wissenschaft, beydes in Theorie
und Praxi, mil mehrerm Fleiss und Nutzen getrieben werden k&nne,
Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1660; he failed also to find a copy of Zincke,
Programm von practiscnen Collegiis juridico- politico-earner alibus, 1741-
42; he appears to have found in one library only (Leipziger Stadtbiblio-
thek) the monograph of Justi (1754), Auf hochsten Befehl an Sr. Rom.
Kaiserl. und zu Ungarn und Bohmen Konigl. Majestat erstattetes aller-
206
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 207
According to Inama, 1 Gasser's father was KurfUrstlich
brandenburgischer Landrentmeister. The range of ideas within
which the paternal duties were discharged must account in
part for the interests and limitations of the son. As Inama
further says, "he had a clear but extremely jejune intellect,
with total absence of higher philosophical, ethical and histori-
cal conceptions." Gasser built upon Seckendorff, but was
far from appreciating the whole range of the earlier author's
wisdom. For our purposes, the fact that Gasser was professor
of law, and also a member of the Schdppenstuhl at Halle,
before he was appointed to the newly created chair of camera-
listics, is all that is necessary by way of introduction to his book.
Since Gasser was the first to occupy the economic profes-
sorship established at Halle (1727), his book, published two
years after beginning the new duties, would deserve attention
as a waymark, even if it contained nothing otherwise notable.*
untertanigstes Gutachten von dent verniinftigen Zusammenhange und
praktischen Vortrage alter Oekonomischen u. Kameralwissenschaften;
he found no copy of John Christian Forster, Einleitung in die Cameral-
Policey- und Finanz-Wissenschaft, 1779 (?); etc. Although I have
failed to get access to certain of the cameralistic books, my examination
of previous accounts of them leads me to the belief that on the whole
they have never been subjected to a more conscientious examination than
in this study. At least, I have expressed no judgment as my own upon
books which I have not carefully analyzed. There are good reasons for
doubting whether even Roscher could have said as much. I venture to
hope that this necessarily incomplete survey will provoke German scholars
to attempt a completely objective restoration of the cameralistic writers.
' All. d. Bib., in loc.
* Simon Peter Gassers, JCti, Einleitung zu den Oeconomixclien
Politischen und Cameral Wissenschaften, Worinnen fur dieses mat die
Oeconomico-Cameralia Von den Domainen- oder Cammer- auch andern
Cittern, deren Administration und Anschldgen, so wol des Ackerbaues alx
anderer Pertinentien halber, saint den Regalien angezeiget und erldutert
werden. Nebst einem Vorbericht Von der Fundation der neuen oecono-
mischen Profession, und der Allerdurchlauchtigsten Stifters eigentlichen
oiler gnadigsten Absicht, Halle; In Verlegung des Waysenhauses,
MDCCXXIX (pp. 347 ff.).
208 THE CAMERALISTS
The items in the book which mean most for our purpose
are contained in the Preface. They may be reduced to a very
brief resume, but the process of extracting this tincture from the
fibrous rhetorical pulp which contains it is extremely perplexing.
In the dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm I prominence is
given to the statement that the king had both excited the
admiration and gratified the wish of many scholars by taking
the lead in establishing economic professorships. With respect
both to the "admiration" and the "many," Gasser's own
account shows that our acceptance of the record must be care-
fully qualified. All the evidence goes to show that the scholars
in Germany who looked with any favor whatever at this period
upon the idea of introducing economics into the universities
were few and far between. It appears further that some of
the credit for the innovation in Prussia is probably due to
Thomasius, the editor of Osse's Testament, at that time rector
of the University of Halle.
In explaining the king's objects in founding the new "eco-
nomic professorship," Gasser incidentally betrays facts in the
situation which are doubtless more apparent to the present
reader of his book than they were to his own mind. He states,
first, that the king wanted young men to get in the universities
some of the elementary knowledge which would make them
available as civic employees. With the zeal of a new convert
he contrasts this desirable knowledge with the sort of thing
which had up to that time been the nearest approach to
preparation "juridical pedantries and lawyers' tricks." 1 He
rings many changes on this charge. He thereby shows,
first, that the subject which he represented was fighting for
its life, and, second, that men of his type had already formulated
in their own minds, if they had not widely published, some
rather specific counts against the scholastic formalism of the
law faculties of the period.
1 "Blosse Juristcrey odtr wol gar Advocaten-Streichtn."
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 209
The next item which we disentangle from the author's
labored and involved form of explanation is that he felt himself
on the defensive for delaying as long as two years before pub-
lishing this book on the subject of his professorship! His
explanation is, in brief, that his duties required him to teach
"from morning till five or six in the evening," 1 that his official
duties "auf der Kammer und Deputation" consumed his
forenoons, that from six o'clock till late at night he had
"enough duties connected with the bureau, the faculty and
other official labors to occupy two or three men," and that
consequently there remained to him for work on economic
subjects "only the few morning hours up to eight o'clock!"
Furthermore, he contemptuously describes authorship in the
legal faculty as a process of picking out passages from ninety-
nine volumes and scribbling them into a hundredth. On the
contrary, "although a heap of economic rubbish has been
brought to light already, there are few if any pioneers in this
subject, but everything must be collected with much labor
and reflection, also by inquiries and collation." 8 Gasser
returns several times to the additional difficulty that "the
scholarly and efficient Hauswirthe and Politici are more at
odds with one another tha'n any other scholars can possibly be." 3
Returning to the reasons why economic professorships had
not been established earlier, Gasser quotes Thomasius, first,
on the proposition that the jurists had become mere word-
* He retained his legal professorship, and his economic teaching
occupied only a portion of his time.
* Inasmuch as he presently acknowledges Seckendorff as a pioneer
to whom he is greatly indebted, it seems necessary to connect this remark
particularly with the special sort of material to which Gasser' s book is
devoted. This conclusion carries with it a judgment as to the sense in
which Gasser used all variations of the term occonomisch.
3 For Justi's comments on the situation at this period, vide
below, pp. 296 ff.
*Cautele der Rechts-Gelahrtheit, cap. 17, |i.
210 THE CAMERALISTS
splitters and no longer edifying instructors of candidates for
civic positions; second, that Oeconomie ought to be taught in
the universities by professors especially charged with that
subject; and third, on the reasons for omission to supply this
need. Thomasius covers all the points on which we have
already quoted Rohr in this connection, 1 and he adds the
following reasons:
First, because Aristotle left us no economic books, and at the
founding of the first universities the monks knew nothing but Aris-
totle; second, the belief has prevailed that the scholar should concern
himself with something different from that which the drudge and
common man understands; third, it has possibly been partly from
fear that the laity would discover the tricks of clerical Oeconomie;
fourth, scholars of the traditional sorts have little fitness to investi-
gate economic subjects, and so make light of them ; fifth, the same,
and indeed all scholars, are apt to be poor economists in their own
private affairs; sixth, good economy would not tolerate monkish
laziness, but is based on the contrary belief that "man is destined
for labor, and that he who does not work is not worthy to eat." a
1 Vide p. 200 above.
* In further explanation of the royal purpose in establishing the
professorship at Halle to improve the situation thus indicated, Gasser
inserts abstracts from the official correspondence leading to his appoint-
ment. The most significant expressions are these: "Es haben Seine
Konigliche Majest. in Preussen .... resolviret auf beyden Universi-
tatcn, Halle und Franckfurth, Professores Oeconomiae bestellen zu lassen,
welche denen Studiosis die principia der Land-Wirthschaft, wie auch
der Policey, ingleichen die Einrichtung der Anschlage von Aemtern
und Giitern, nicht weniger guter Verfass- und Regulirung der Stadte
beybringen sollen." Further, in the final rescript: " Friederich Wilhelm,
Konig, Demnach Wie aus hochst eigener Bewegung allergnadigst resol-
viret, dass auf der dortigen Universitat die cameralia oeconomica und
Policey-Sachen gleichergestalt, wie die iibrige Studia und Wissenschaften,
dociret werden sollen, .... damit die studirende Jugend in Zeiten, und
ehe sic zu Bedienungen employret werden, einen guten Grund in obge-
dachten Wissenschaften erlangen mogen, etc., etc Berlin den
24. Julii 1727." Gasser also refers to a monograph by the pro-rector
of the University of Halle, von Ludewig. Vide below, p. 216.
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 211
The sense in which the king understood the term Oeconomie,
and in which Gasser undertook to use it, appears in part, though
by no means fully, in the further explanation by the author:
His majesty manifested in the beginning great displeasure at
the bad Oeconomie which young people were in the habit of practicing
in their own affairs, so that when they come back from universities
and tours, they are usually already so loaded with debts that they
are helpless, and especially those who have landed estates carry on
such thriftless management because of aforesaid debts, that they
cannot rescue even the most important estates from embarrass-
ment when they at last gradually get some insight into Oeconomie,
especially because the people who operate and superintend the estates
can defraud the uninstructed owners in countless ways.
This being the state of things, continues Gasser, his majesty
was zealous to change the proportion of lawyers, who filled the
country and sucked it dry. He wanted young men to learn not
merely the elements of jurisprudence, but to add the elements of
politico,, oeconomica and cameralia (p. 8).
Gasser explains that in order to meet this demand, he
devotes the first half-year to lectures on Seckendorff's Fiirsten-
Staat. He says that although this schones Tractattein does
not contain much about Oeconomica proper, yet it in general
corresponds with the royal intention in surveying the whole
state, and thus in furnishing a basis for setting the lawyers
right. Gasser also mentions Rohr's book as a compendium
oeconomicum, but he does not agree with the author that it
would form a useful basis for university lectures, because it
contains too much that is specific and practical in form, but
not available until it can be reconsidered and applied after
adoption of fundamental rules. "Besides," adds Gasser,
"there is nothing in the book in the way of correct formulation
of the budgets."
This latter remark is explained by a glance at Gasser's
categories of Anschldge for all sorts of minor industrial opera-
tions. This estimate of the unavailability of Rohr is apparently
212 THE CAMERALISTS
to be understood primarily by comparison with Seckendorff,
because Gasser shows that he is interested in quite as minute
details as those presented by Rohr. He finds in Seckendorff,
however, the necessary statement of fundamental principles
upon which specific rules of management must rest.
After elaborating this claim at some length, Gasser cites
"von Schroter," 1 on the difference between a rich man and a
rich prince; to the effect that "much money makes a rich man
but not a powerful prince." Gasser interprets Schroder as
meaning not that a prince should have no money, but that he
should have both money and power. Consequently, Gasser
urges that the two supporting pillars of the princely state are
"revenues from the country and well-to-do subjects in the
country, particularly in the towns." This theorem is the text
for a somewhat detailed argument upon the importance of
promoting diversified industries.
The author's Vorbericht closes with a promise to make
his lectures as valuable commentaries as possible, both by
explanation and illustration, upon the contents of the book.
Although it is aside from our main purpose, we may quote
the paragraph in which a pedagogical turn is given to this
promise, 8 viz.:
I propose also to set apart a designated hour on Saturdays in
which the work of those who comraendably choose to attempt prac-
tice at once will be examined, their mistakes pointed out and further
guidance given. For that purpose I shall assign to some the tasks
of drawing up the budgets [Anschlage] of estates, and of formulating
the special budgets of breweries, mills, brickyards, etc., belonging
to estates. Others will be required to draw up the customs schedules,
catastra, etc., on the lines indicated in the several chapters. When
these are read and discussed on Saturdays, other students will be
appointed as revisers and examiners, while the lectures will take
Furst. Schatt- und Rent-Cammer. Vide above, p. 153.
* Vide Justi's related remarks, below, p. 303 ff.
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 213
them up further, and they will thus be considered as it were in full
session. In a word, each student will be encouraged to do his best
in the line in which he shows most inclination, while by listening to
the work of all he may gain a general idea of the whole subject.
The body of the book is, in a very narrow sense, technical.
As evidence of the progress of administrative technology it
would call for careful comparison with previous and following
handbooks. For our purpose its chief significance is negative.
That is, it shows that the horizon of cameralistic theory, as
the author understood it, was bounded by the rules of thrifty
management, first of the domains of the prince, and then of
the various gainful employments, sometimes viewed as lucra-
tive for the individual citizens, and sometimes as having their
chief importance as ultimate revenue creators for the prince.
Even this modicum of meaning is to be found in the book
only after patient consideration. The opening chapters, first,
on the meaning of domains in general, and especially on the
invalid distinction between Domainen-Guter, Tqffel-GUter, and
Cammer-GiUer, and second, on incorporation of new acquisi-
tions into the domains, have only the remotest visible connection
with all that follows. They have every appearance of having
been revamped from the author's old law lectures, and forced
into service in place of a general survey, which he could not
extemporize. They are an unkempt rabble of juridical archae-
ology, homespun philology, current legal usage, and common-
sense conclusion. To the modern reader, they are mostly
unintelligible. From the references to Seckendorff one derives
the impression that, beyond these incongruities, all the definite
instruction which the author imparted, after this impotent
preamble, was drawn from the Fiirsten-Staat. One other
obvious inference is that the author regarded the word-splitting'
which he summed up in these two chapters as a bad inheritance
from the civilists and the canonists. While he was not sufficiently
emancipated from the futile controversy to ignore it, his opinion
214 THE CAMERALISTS
was as frank in substance as it was Hibernian in form, viz.,
"If the French writers had not broken the ice of the theorems
of the spiritual and secular state, the papal and glossarial yeast
would have got the upper hand!" (p. 3).
Without making any visible use of these two chapters on
the domains, the author plunges, without a word to account
for the abrupt change, into a series of chapters on the most
minute details of private thrift.
Chaps, iii-x inclusive begin with analysis of ordinary build-
ing processes, and end with details of assessment of tithes and
other tributes. Sixty-two pages are assigned to itemized
schedules of the cost of different sorts of construction, e. g.,
a tile roof; a thatch roof; the carpenter's work on a country
house; estimate for a pigeon-cote resting on posts; estimate
of the cost of mason work; cost of wheelwright's work; cost
of pottery, etc., etc. The logic which calls for these exhibits
begins with the major premise: "To avoid being cheated, you
must know customary prices."
Details of a corresponding order constitute the substance
of the chapters just referred to. The aim in the author's mind
is made plain again by the opening sentences of chap, iv,
"On the budgets of estates in general, and particularly of agri-
cultural lands in three classes, and how such budget is to be
constructed, according to the amount of seed furnished or
otherwise." Thus:
As Columella observed of his own time, that all sciences, such
as military service, scholarship, commerce, building, nautical art,
even music, dancing, and such things, have their own guides and
teachers, yet agriculture has neither pupils nor teachers. The same
holds of our time. It consequently comes about that the minority
take occasion to think for themselves, but whoever lives in the coun-
try, or has an estate of his own, follows the custom of the majority,
and what is still wiser, if a specially good manager is in the locality,
the rest observe and try to imitate him.
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 215
The passage goes on to say that doing the same thing which
the good manager does may not really be doing the same thing;
because there is a failure to note the different circumstances
of adjacent tracts, and to conform treatment to the varying
conditions. Thereupon follows an attempt to analyze classes
of soil and to show the processes of culture appropriate to each.
The following one hundred and forty pages contain abundant
evidence that technical and social administration of rural com-
munities was at this time a highly developed and convention-
alized art, but at the same time it was an art consisting of
aggregated rule-of-thumb practice. It had no secure basis
in fundamental principles.
The chief difference between the first ten and the remaining
twelve chapters of the book is not in the method of treatment
but rather in the fact that the former deal with technique of
more strictly private management, while the latter belong to
a larger degree in the realm of public management. In either
case the author's effort is to describe actual administrative
practice. He has before his mind the private or public func-
tionary, and he tries to schedule the kinds of information which
proprietors or managers of farms, or civic functionaries of
various grades, from bureau clerks up to the prince, would
have occasion to use in their respective positions. All this
was Oeconomie, as Gasser interpreted the term. It had the
same relation to pure economics, as we understand the term
today, which instruction in the technique of operating a gas
plant or an electric street-railway or a telephone exchange
would have to foundations of economic theory.
In order to get at the full significance of the cameralistic
foundations at Halle and Franckfurt a. O. 1 the writings of
Thomasius would have to be more carefully examined. As
our space forbids this, we may merely call attention in pass-
ing to another important factor in the movement, Ludewig,
1 Vide below on Dithmar, pp. 222 ff.
2i6 THE CAMERALISTS
professor of law and chancellor of the University of
Halle.
On the occasion of the establishment of the new professor-
ship Ludewig wrote a quaint little book of 166 pages, explain-
ing and praising the king's purpose. The tract is a document
of firstrate importance as evidence sustaining our main thesis
about the center of interest in the whole cameralistic period. 1
Indeed, excess of cynicism could not justly be charged if one
should conclude that for reasons of his own the writer had
seized the opportunity rather for laudation of the re*gime of
Friedrich Wilhelm I than to promote cameralistic science. At
all events, the monograph is vivid confirmation of our diagnosis
of cameralism as fiscalism. 2
The essay seems to ignore the promise of the title-page
until forty-five of its fifty-six sections (one hundred and thirty
out of one hundred and sixty-six pages) are completed. The
argument begins with citation of the alleged dictum of the
Persian King Cyrus, "A select army and good management
[ Wirthschajft} of the subjects 3 are the two chief and surest means
of making a people rich and a land permanently happy." The
authority of Socrates, reinforced by Xenophon, is inserted
along with that of Cyrus, "although they wefe heathen who
' Vide above, p. 6.
Die, von Sr. Koniglichen Majestdt, unserm oiler gnddigsten Konige,
auf Dero Universitdt Halle, am 14 Juli 1727, Neu angerichtete Profession,
in Oeconomie, Policey, und Cammer-Sachen wird, nebst Vorstellung
einiger Stiicke verbesserter Kon. Preussl. Policey, bekannt gemachet von
dem zeitigem Prorectore, Joh. Peter von Ludewig, let. Universitats-Cantz-
lern 1727-
3 It is impossible to decide from the context whether Ludewig clearly
chose between the subjective and the objective force of his genitive: i. e.,
whether his thought was "on the part of the subjects" or "over the
subjects." From the succeeding discussion it appears that the two
aspects of the case were hardly differentiated in his mind, although the
emphasis falls heavily on management by the ruler.
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 217
must somehow have obtained divine enlightenment," to sus-
tain this argument. Then follows, largely as an interpretation
of Columella, a justification of the dictum, chiefly on its eco-
nomic side, from the experience of the Romans, including the
Eastern emperors. As a transition to the immediate applica-
tion of the theme, Ludewig remarks (9) that it is very difficult
to find in ancient or modern history a ruler who is equally
great in war and in promotion of management (Wirtschaft).
Possibly Henry IV of France is one of the few exceptions.
After reciting at some length illustrations of that monarch's
wisdom and prudence, Ludewig continues:
But why should we pause so long upon a foreign and past exam
pie? Through a brave and wise king, God has placed this truth
before the eyes of our own times and subjects (sic). Wherefore we
could and should daily admire, honor and thank the perfect [grund-
gilten] God, for such a blessed government of his anointed. So long
as the world has stood, as may easily be proved from the authentic
history of all realms, no region of the earth has seen an army to be
compared with that of Prussia, etc., etc. (10).
Having continued this eulogy in some detail, Ludewig
specifies and partially describes in turn, as items in the excel-
lence of the Prussian system:
the administration of charity (14); the workhouses and penal
institutions (15); the homes for veterans (16); medical and sani-
tary institutions (17); colonies (18); the establishment of many
industries, and regulation of the same (19-24); settlement of
boundary disputes (25); redemption of waste lands (26); con-
struction of water-ways (27); development of salt works (28);
profitable farming of certain royal prerogatives (29); selection of
capable young men as subordinates in administrative offices (30) ;
written ordinances and laws for all functionaries (31); revision and
promulgation of the code of private law(32) ; standardizing of weights
and measures (33) ; transformation of feudal tenures into complete
property (34); introduction of money commutation for cavalry
service (35) ; removal of capitation, property and other taxes (36) ;
218 THE CAMERALISTS
reforms of the currency (37); establishment of the office of comp-
troller (38); careful signing of royal decrees (39); administration
of justice and expediting of legal processes (40) ; consequent improve-
ment of the royal finances (41); simplification of ceremonial (42).
Without notice of transition from eulogy to exhortation,
Ludewig ventures to offer three cautious suggestions, viz.:
That it would be well for the government to provide adminis-
trative, and especially the Policey, bureaus with national and special
maps and diagrams visualizing the conditions of the country at large,
and, in more detail, of the respective administrative divisions (43);
that certain feudal burdens should be removed (44); that the mili-
tary and fiscal administration should in certain features be reor-
ganized (45).
After this introduction, which occupies more than three
times the space reserved for the ostensible purpose of the
discourse, Ludewig turns to the supposed theme of the mono-
graph in this way:
But this should be enough about the details of good Oeconomie
and Policey, which by divine grace and blessing are daily before our
eyes in these lands. And as we have rendered ourselves liable to
all sorts of perverse judgments about this writing, which flowed so
easily from our pen and good heart, we will now set forth the motives
for the same, instead of offering excuses. For since his royal majesty,
our most gracious king and lord, in founding at Halle a new profes-
sorship of Oeconomie, Policey und Cammersachen, was, so far as I
know, the first in the learned world to take such a step; and since
he most graciously decreed that the intention and use of the same
should be made public; I have believed that neither the new Oecono-
mie-Projessor could receive a greater impulse to his labor nor the
students and apprentices [Lehrlinge] greater zeal for such courses,
than if they should turn their thoughts especially in aforesaid Came-
ra/, Policey und Oeconomie-Lehren, to the example of the great and
wise founder, in his kingdom, provinces, and lands; if they should
enlarge upon what I have said, and correct that in which I have been
in error, and especially if they should add the larger part which I
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 219
have been obliged to leave untouched. Besides this, I must call to
mind that, along with my administrative duties, the founder of our
Friedrichs-Universitat conferred upon me, along with the professor-
ship of history, the calling of a royal historiographer, in which
capacity I felt a strong impulse to use the present occasion for a contri-
bution to einer Oeconomie- und Policey-Historie. And as a matter
of fact great lords may- well be pitied for the money and appointments
which they bestow upon historiographos. The latter either use
their salary for their own enjoyment in learned idleness, or, if they
do any work, fall upon obsolete times and forget their founder
This may be partly, indeed, because the archives are closed to them.
.... Another extenuating item is that if the historian happens to
make a mistake about current affairs, certain people at once seize
the opportunity to discredit him at court. Moreover, if anything
is written about recent times, it is mostly about wars and rumors of
wars, and the great deeds at home [zu Hauss und im Lande] are
seldom mentioned. Finally, it is urged by the unintelligent that
there is no use in writing down what is known to everybody in the
land. These do not consider that subsequent times consume and
erase the preceding, and that what is now before our eyes and in
our hands fifty years hence will have become a secret and forgotten,
if not made a part of history. Such being the case, great lords are
unfortunate to labor only to be forgotten, and the praiseworthy,
wise and tireless princes who have done so much good for their lands
and peoples, and have left to good successors so many examples,
have no advantages over worthless rulers (Sec. 46 elaborates
still further the theme, "Make the history of good princes while
they are living.")
Sec. 47 goes somewhat more into detail about the develop-
ments that led to the new professorship, but in substance it
repeats Gasser's account above (p. 208). Sec. 48 discusses
the relation of the new professorship to the chairs of "practical
philosophy," "ethics," and "politics." Incidentally this section
exhibits in the most explicit way the content of the term
Oeconomie, as officially sanctioned in Prussia in 1727. Expand-
ing the proposition that, while Oeconomie at last belongs
220 THE CAMERALISTS
within the departments named, yet it requires special attention
as a subject by itself, Ludewig says:
It is easy to guess the secret why hitherto professors have taught
Oeconomie who were in doubt whether to look for ears of com on
trees or in the ground. For the sponsor 1 to whom they refer deals
in his economic books almost wholly with the morality of father,
mother, children, and servants. As to arable land, meadows, streams,
forests, gardens, plants; how to treat cattle in the stall; how to
increase the supply of manures; how to brew grain and to sell the
product; what a manager has to do and what to leave undone every
day in the year; what provisions he must keep in store for fire-pro-
tection, for food, in storehouse, in kitchen, and in cellar: of all these
things Aristotle has not a syllable. Hence his creatures, the Oecono-
mie Professores, up to the present time, have not concerned themselves
with these things, but they have considered themselves masters when
they could explain the "commandments" which the children recite.
This is the reason why among the hundred philosophical books which
treat of Oeconomia there is not a wholesome and practical line, and
thus this name conceals the greatest fraud.
With this indirect definition of the scope of the new pro-
fessorship we have the substance of the essay, so far as our
purpose is concerned. In writers to be noticed presently we
shall find intentional or unintentional echoes of these reflections
upon belated Aristotelianism. The points to be noted particu-
larly are, first, that the concept carried by variations of the
term Oeconomica at that time did not by any means make it
identical with the scope of contemporary Cameralwissenschaft;
second, that the term was equally contrasted with the nineteenth-
century term economics and its variations; third, that the
foundation of the Prussian professorships of Oeconomica, etc.,
was of less immediate significance, either for cameral science
in general or for economic science as we now understand the
term, than was assumed by the men directly interested, and
even by later writers. The horizon of economics in a compre-
< Aristotle.
CAMERALISTICS OF GASSER 221
hensive sense dawned on the view of the Germans in a way
somewhat parallel with that by which the sociological outlook
in our time has widened from attention to certain remedial
problems to survey of the entire social process. 1
i In the two following sections (49, 50) Ludewig discusses the need
of more exact terms, and especially the possible substitution of the term
Wirthschaft or Haushalterschaft for Oeconomie. The remainder of the
essay repays careful analysis as an index of the author's knowledge about
the bibliography of the subject. He depends chiefly upon Seckendorff
and Rohr, both for general conceptions of the sciences with which the
new professorship is to deal and for clues to other writers. He is suffi-
ciently explicit that the men who understand Wirthschaft, as distinguished
from the commentators upon Aristotle, have ignored controversies about
mere words and names, and have written some good books about all
kinds of practical management.
CHAPTER X
THE CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR
Justus Christoph Dithmar was born March 13, 1677, and
died on the anniversary of his birth in 1 737. We need to know
of his personality simply that he was professor of history, then
of Natur- und Volkerrecht, at Frankfurt a. O., and was desig-
nated to the chair at Frankfurt corresponding to that of Gasser,
practically at the same time with the appointment of the latter.
Both began their new duties October, 1727. Roscher remarks:
While Gasser took his point of departure from jurisprudence,
Dithmar passed from history to cameral science. It may be due
to this circumstance that he (Dithmar) is as far behind his colleague
in practical economic insight as he is superior to him in general
culture 1 (p. 431).
The two books which bear their names being taken as the
sole basis of comparison, Roscher is justified in his estimate
of the relative merits of Gasser and Dithmar. Roscher is
clearly in error, however, both when he says that the division
into "Oeconomie, Polizei- und Cameratwissenschaft" originates
with Dithmar, and when he credits him with the distinction
between the "land- und stadtwirthschafttiche Zweige der Volks-
wirthschaft." Both divisions are discoverable in Gasser.'
The latter is plainly formulated by Rohr. 3 It is true that
Dithmar is the first to use these distinctions as titles for sub-
division of a cameralistic syllabus. 4 Inama seems to have
1 This is merely Roscher's surmise. I have ventured (below, p. 229)
to locate the differences between them a little farther bark.
The former is implied, not quite precisely, in the title-page; the
latter is in chap, ii, in the subdivision of rural and town economy
in building.
3 Vide alxwe, p. 188.
4 All. d. Bib., in loc.
CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 223
repeated Roscher on these points, without examining the
evidence. Neither seems to have noticed that Stisser confi-
dently attributes to P. Fischer the distinction between Land
and Stadt Wirthschaft. 1
Although Gasser and Dithmar began the work of their
cameralistic professorships simultaneously, the latter does not
find it necessary to imitate the former in an apology for delay
in publishing on this subject. The book which appeared
four years after he assumed his new duties is a mere skeleton
of academic lectures. 2 In the Preface he gives virtually the
same account of the king's purpose in establishing the pro-
fessorship which we have already drawn from Gasser and
Ludewig with reference to Halle. Dithmar speaks in much
more terse and confident terms. He takes it for granted that
since "the welfare, power, and repute of a state rest on a well-
ordered economic, police, and cameral system," and since
people versed in statecraft have long wished that studious
1 Einleitung, i. Abth., 10. Vide below, pp. 238 ff.
Hn. Just. Christoph Dithmars, des Natur und Vdlkerrechts, ivie
auch der Geschichte und dconomischen Wissenschaften vormahligen offent-
lichen Lehrers und der konigl. preussischen Academic der Wissenschaften
zu Berlin Mitgleides, Einleitung in die dconomischen, Policey- und earner al-
Wissenschaften. Nebst Verzeichniss eines zu solchen Wissenschaften
dienlichen Buchervorrathes und ausfuhrlichem Register. Mit neuen
Anmerkungen um Gebrauch dconomischer Vorlesungen vermehret und
verbessert von D. Daniel Gottfried Schreber. Fiinfte Ausgabe
1755. With bibliography and index, pp. 328. According to Inama
(op. cit.) editions of this book were published in 1731, 1740, 1745, 1748,
1755, and 1768. The author's* preface to the first edition was dated
"16. Nov. 1731." I have used only this fifth edition, whose preface is
dated Halle, September 24, 1755. Of Schreber, the editor, Roscher
says: " . . . . the Leipzig Professor of Oeconomie, Polizei- und Cameral-
wissenschaft (1708-77), whose botanical knowledge was valued by Lin-
naeus, and who showed historical sense in his chief work: Abhandlung
von Cammergutern und Einkilnften, der en Verpachtung und Adminis-
tration (1743, II. Aufl., 1754)-"
224 THE CAMERALISTS
youth might be introduced to these subjects before entering
the employment of the state, the king's action in providing
such instruction settles the matter, so far as the academic
rights of the professorship are concerned.
It is more notable that Dithmar says, ''since no introduction
to such sciences existed." This is a significant reflection upon
Gasser, not to mention the earlier writers whom we have noticed.
It goes far as a sign that Dithmar perceived the provincialism
of previous writers, and had a broader conception than they
had shown of the necessary scope of cameralistic theory. He
confesses that his Part IV on Policey-Wissenschaft takes the
police ordinances of Prussia as the material to be explained,
with certain notable features of the civil law of other states.
Schreber's Preface to the fifth edition is in some respects
more instructive for our purposes than the book itself. The
editor says that he has been careful merely to correct the text
and to insert such brief notes as would menace neither the size
of the book nor the publisher's price. He used Dithmar's
book as the basis of his own lectures, probably first at Halle,
later at Butzow, then at Leipzig (vide Stieda, p. 38). His
estimate of the book is expressed in the judgment:
To the sainted author belongs this honor, viz.: Of the study
which he undertook to teach, the mistaken opinion prevailed, that
it could not be compressed into certain fundamental theorems, and
could not be taught in universities; yet he was a path-breaker in the
subject, and he showed, not only that both things were possible,
but that they were useful. In spite of its faults, his introduction
retains the value of the most convenient reading book on the sciences
of which it treats, and is used in various, including Catholic
universities.
Schreber continues:
I do not deny that since the book first saw the light we have had
more profound and elaborate introductions to the cameral sciences.
.... I know the writings of a Gasser, Zschackwitz, Stisser, Hof-
CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 225
mann, 1 Justi, and others, and I would not detract in the least from
the credit due either to them or to the eminent merits of Herrn Hof-
raths Zink (sic), who was the first to go deepest into these sciences,
when I nevertheless declare Dithmar's Einleitung the most available
of all for the purposes of academic lectures.
Schreber states that the day before writing the Preface he
had for the third time completed in a half-year the course in
which he used Dithmar's Einleitung as a syllabus, and he had
found no other book with which he could cover the ground in
the same time. The technical aims of his instruction appear
in his explanation of his pedagogical method. He kept in
mind the training of clerks for bureaus. 2 He closes with the
advice: "To those who desire detailed instruction in Kauf-
mannswissenschaft, either Lau's Entwurf wohteingerichteter
'Of G. A. Hoffman, Roscher says (p. 436): "His Klugheit
Haus zu halten oder Prudentia oeconomica vulgaris (IV, 1730-49)
purports to treat systematically all Wirthschajtslehrc. It pays attention
more, however, to the physico-chemical than to the police aspects." I
have not seen this work, and it does not seem possible that Schreber
could have seen the first edition of Justi's Staatswirthschaft. which was
published the same year this preface was written. Of Stisser I shall
speak below (pp. 238 ff.). I do not think it probable that Schreber
referred to Johann Adolph Hoffman, whose book, Politische Anmerkungen
iiber die wahre und jalsche Slaalskunst, was published in Latin in 1718,
and a German version by the author in 1725. (Vide Roscher,
p. 380.)
3 After explaining that he put before his students all the writers
on the subjects in question, he adds: " Sodann lege ich bey denen Theilen
wo practische Ausarbeitungen zur Erlauterung ndthig sind, nach vor-
ausgeschickten Grundsatzen, meinen Zuhorern theils selbst entworfene
Muster, theils Ausziige aus ergangenen cameral-Acten, Amtsbucher,
Manuale und Rechnungen, Anschlage, Steuercatastra, Cammer-Etats,
tabellarische Stadt- und Landbeschreibungen, Commercientabellen,
Kaufmannsbiicher und dergleichen Schemata vor die Augen, wobey
sie zugleich, wie Tabellen ordentlich zu verfertigcn sind, angefuhret
werden, wovon icb den Nutzen bey meinen ehemaligen Expeditionen
einzusehen Gelegenheit genug gehabt, etc."
226 THE CAMERALISTS
Negotien, or another system, about to appear in print, is recom-
mended." 1
Of the syllabus itself little can be said without going into
the technical details by means of which comparisons might
be possible with those presented by earlier and later writers.
Such comparisons are excluded from our plan. In general
it may be noted that Dithmar furnishes abundant evidence
that analysis of the relations concerned was becoming both
more objective and more systematic. The scientific plane
which author and editor had reached may be indicated by a
few citations.
The first section proposes the following definition:
Economic science (die Oeconomische Wissenschajt, oder Hauss-
wirthschafts- und Haussltaltungskuns?) teaches how, through proper
rural and city occupations, support and riches may be gained for
the promotion of temporal happiness.
The editor adds the following leading propositions:
Economic science is not an art. a
The purpose of this science does not end with attaining, but
extends to preserving and applying, temporal income.
The difference between general and special Oeconomie must here
be shown.
It should be observed that the definition, and apparently
the editor's comments, put the subject of Oeconomie quite
distinctly on the side of private interests. The public aspects
of Oeconomie appeared to Dithmar rather under the other
two divisions of his subject.
After admitting that opinions differ greatly about Policey-
wisscnschaft, Dithmar expresses his own view in this form.
It teaches how the internal and external nature [Hfom] of a
state is to be maintained, with a view to general happiness [allge-
1 The reference may have been to Darjes, or Justi.
But the suffix Kunst was used with great freedom not only by
Dithmar in the formula above quoted but by a long line of successors.
CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 227
meinc Gluckseligkeil], in good condition and order, and accordingly
that the supreme magistracy of the country must have a care that
their subjects shall not only be kept in good numbers, God-fearing,
Christian, honorable, and healthy life and conduct, and that their
support and surplus of temporal goods shall be promoted by flour-
ishing rural and town occupations; but also that a land shall be
improved with well-laid-out cities, country districts and towns, and
all kept in good condition. Hence Policeywissenschajt is a part of
Staatsklugheit, but it can be taught conveniently with the economic
and cameral sciences, on account of its close connections with both
(viii, ix).
Dithmar's definition of Cameralwissenschaft runs:
It teaches how the princely domain and regalian rights [Rc%alien]
may be well used, and from them, as well as from the payments
[Prastarionen] due from subjects, and other public funds, the princely
revenues may be raised, improved, and applied for the maintenance
of the community [gemeines Wesen].
The editor adds:
The difference between Finanz- and Renlwissenscliajl must here
be explained (x).
Dithmar accounts for the neglect of these three important
sciences in very nearly the same terms used by Gasser and
Rohr, 1 especially in the counts referring to Aristotle and the
monks, to the class pride which had relegated knowledge of
Hausshaltungswesen to the vulgar herd, and he repeats the
arguments that all three of these sciences consist of details
which must be learned by practice, or by association with experts.
Dithmar contends stoutly that the principles of these sciences
may be taught to advantage in the universities, while he recom-
mends observation of actual practice in the fields which they
severally occupy (xvi).
Having compressed his main propositions on these general
relations into the brief space of twenty-four pages, Dithmar
1 Vide above, pp. 209 ff.
228 THE CAMERALISTS
proceeds with the subject of Landbconomie. His emphasis
is less on the side of manual operation than Gasser's, and
more on managerial technique. In his way, he restricts
himself as closely to technical details as his predecessor. This
remark applies also to Part III, "Von der Stadtoconomie"
This Wissenscftaft is said to teach "how, through the occupa-
tions of citizens, sustenance and riches may be gained for the
happiness of each and of the whole." It would be easy to
point out curious combinations between the "science" so
marked off and the Policeywissenschaft of the same system,
but it is enough to remark that these pioneers were not yet
much troubled about consistency of classification. They were
chiefly concerned with concrete particulars. Dithmar defines
cities as "those societies which have Stadt- und Burgerrecht,
and are authorized to cany on city occupations [Stadtgewerbe]
or pursuits that furnish support for citizens" [biirgerliche
Nahrungen] ( i). The analysis deals consequently with the
actual situations only, without attempting anything more
fundamental than description of existing urban arrangements.
In the introduction to Part IV, on Policeywissenschqft,
Dithmar says:
t.--*"V- . :i^' V 1: t '.i . i T.)V ?.]
The Policey is grounded in civic society, in consequence of which
it is competent for the ruling prince to control the conduct and affairs
of his subjects, for the maintenance of the community [gemeinen
Wesens] (fv).
He continues:
Policey may rightly be called the life and soul of a state, and the
importance of Policeyunssenschajt is therewith evident. The more
the grievance that the same has been neglected ! In the Middle Ages
the Romish clergy were at fault for this. For their purposes good
Policey was not desirable, and consequently Policeywissenschaft
was suppressed by them along with other disciplines (vi). In modern
times there is no lack of political books, but little about Policey-
wissenschajt is to be found in them, without doubt because economic
CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 229
and cameral sciences are lacking, with which Policeywissenscfiaft
is closely connected (vii). Such science is to be gained by knowledge
of the police systems of ancient and modern states; by meditation
upon what might be good for a state in view of its circumstances;
by associating with experts in police affairs; and by personal experi-
ence (viii, ix).
Instead of attempting to pass upon the value of Dithmar's
specific views in this connection, we shall allow Justi to stand
for this part of the cameralistic system. 1
Dithmar again indicates his conception of Cameralwissen-
schaft 2 in the proposition (p. 242) :
It teaches how the revenues of the reigning prince may be raised,
from time to time augmented, and so applied to maintenance of
the community [gemeinen Wesens]iha.t a surplus may remain annually.
As a mere outline of the subjects which belong under this
head, the syllabus puts its author in wholly respectable com-
parison with Justi. Of course it is impossible to compare
his knowledge of details with that of the later writer. 3
On the whole Dithmar must be regarded as in certain very
important respects more typical than Justi of German camera-
listic scholarship at the middle of the eighteenth century. He
represents both its weakness and its strength. The stage of
evolution through which this division of German social science
was passing may be characterized as a struggle for emancipa-
tion from a-priori, deductive methodology, into the freedom
' Vide below, pp. 436 ff.
* In a note Dithmar gives the earliest explanation of the origin of
the term which I have found in the textbooks, viz., "The science has its
names from the word Camera, by which, according to the idiom of the
Middle Ages, the place was designated in which the revenues of the reign-
ing prince were guarded." He refers to "du Fresne, glos. v. camera."
Vide Zincke, below, pp. 232 ff.
3 On the use of Dithmar's book as a text by Ickstatt, at Ingolstadt,
1746, vide Stieda, op. cit., p. 241; also by Thorn in Giessen, 1757, ibid.,
P- 'S3-
230 THE CAMERALISTS
of empirical, telic discovery. Dithmar was evidently much
more conscientious in every way than Justi. He was extremely
respectful toward the past. He was cautious about encoura-
ging innovations. He was the first of the cameralists to present
a respectably classified bibliography of the subjects which
they treat; 1 and the groups of writers scheduled, ranging
from Xenophon, Geoponica, Cato, Varro, Vergil, and a score
of other writers on agriculture, to his immediate contemporaries,
on subjects which were creating a new literature, vividly reflect
the unconscious adjustment that was going forward between
authority on the one hand and observation and analysis on
the other. Dithmar has fortified the text of his little book
with more references to sources than are to be found in all Justi's
writings. Still further, there is a perceptible contrast between
his mental attitude and that of the legalistic publicists who
had no way of determining how to drain a swamp or work
a vein of ore, unless a precedent could be found in the law
books. On the other hand, Dithmar was no such man of the
world as Justi. He could draw upon no such varied experience
with affairs. His judgments were those of a scholar rather
than of a business man. He was therefore relatively modest
and conventional, though evidently intelligent and progressive;
while Justi was forceful and self-assertive, partly for the
reason that he had a much more restricted historical and
literary outlook than Dithmar. The bolder and more aggres-
sive type better visualized the active factors which were expand-
ing administrative theory. The less demonstrative type more
fairly represented the form in which the reconstruction was
impressing itself upon the universities. 3
1 I say this in spite of the fact that there had been many confused
lists of books.
3 A final estimate of Dithmar would have to consider his work as
editor and largely as author of the ten numbers of Oekonomische Fama,
the first German cameralistic journal, 1729. As I have seen none of
CAMERALISTICS OF DITHMAR 231
these numbers, I must be content to refer to Roscher's account of them
(pp. 431, 432). In this connection mention must be made of several
men of whose relative merits as cameralistic writers I am not prepared
to judge. These are, first, Johann Hermann Fiirstenau, 1688-1756,
"intrusted with the professorship Oeconomiae at the University of Rinteln
(Grundliche Anleitung zu der Haushaltungskunst und denen gehorigen
furnehmsten Schriften, Lemgo, 1736); second, Andreas Berch, 1711-74,
who was not in Germany, to be sure, but was professor of Oeconomie at
Upsala (an anonymous monograph, 1746, on Die Art durch die politische
Arithmetik die Haushaltung der Lander und Reiche zu erforschen, and,
in 1747, Einleitung zur allgemeinen Haushaltung, Grundsatze der Policey-
Oekonomie- und Kameralwissenschaft, the latter translated into German,
1763, by the writer about to be named) ; third, Daniel Gottfried Schreber,
1709-77, "the first to hold a professorship of the economic sciences at
Leipzig" (Abhandlung von Kammergutern und Einkunften, der en Ver-
pachtung und Administration, 1743, II. Aufl., 1754; Zwo Schriften von
der Geschichte und Nothwendigkeit der Kameral-urissenschaften insofern
sie als Universitatswissenschaft anzusehen sind: Entwurf von einer zum
Nutzen eines Staats zu errichtenden Akademie der dkonomischen Wissen-
schaften, 1763). I have been able to see none of the writings of these
men. Stieda (vide Index) adds important information, particularly
about Schreber.
CHAPTER XI
THE CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE
No author, in the whole series which this study includes,
is more difficult to interpret and appraise than Zincke. The
most obvious reasons for this are, first, that he was a somewhat
voluminous writer, even if we take into account his camera-
listic publications alone. Moreover, his books do much less
than is usually the case to throw light upon one another. On
the contrary, his variations of terminology and classification
from book to book are bewildering. It is hard to decide
whether there is consistency and unity in the successive volumes,
or whether they are so many distinct trials at a baffling task.
In the second place, although Zincke presents his material
in highly analyzed form, his style is elusive, and his divisions,
subdivisions, and cross-classifications mystify more than they
elucidate.
It is also to be said that Roscher has conspicuously failed
to place Zincke in his true perspective. While it is necessary
to use Roscher in getting back to the facts about the cameralists,
he is in this case a stumbling-block as well as a stepping-stone.
From the sketch by Zimmermann, 1 the most salient points
in Zincke's checkered career may be summarized as follows:
Georg Heinrich Zincke was born in 1692, and died in 1768.
His father was a preacher, and both father and mother seem to have
done their best to induce the son to adopt the father's calling. The
boy twice interrupted his school career to enter the army. After
he had become Unterofficier he was captured and taken to France
as prisoner of war (1709), but escaped, and went to Jena, ostensibly
to study theology, but he gave quite as much attention to the legal
sciences. He was made Master in 1713, and was allowed to lecture
"on German and Latin style, morals and Gelehrtengeschichtc"
i All. d. Bib., in loc.
232
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 233
After a short engagement as Hojmeisler in a family, of slight impor-
tance, he went to Erfurt, and acquired the right to offer courses and
to preach. Presently, "because of love for the law, and a throat
trouble," he went to Halle, where he both lectured on his old sub-
jects and attended courses in the legal sciences by Ludewig, Bohmer,
Thomasius, etc. In 1720 he received the degree Dr. juris at Erfurt.
Returning to Halle, he was in turn "Ordentlicher Advocat; Secretar
und Syndicus bei den Coloniegerichten der Pfalzer daselbst, und bei
Commissioner, in Cammersachen besch&ftigt;" later, "Fiscal der
Kriegs- und Domanenkammer im Saalkreise und im Mansfeldischen,
dann wirklicher Commissionsrath und Criminalrath." The latter
position he retained till 1731, when he was called to Weimar with
the rank of Hofrath. He gained unusual favor with the Herzog,
and exerted influence much beyond his proper sphere. Whether
this actually injured the Herzog and the country, Zimmermann
declines to judge. At all events, Zincke made such enemies that a
judicial investigation followed, with the result that Zincke was
imprisoned for three years. 1 Ill, and weakened by prison life, he
was taken up by Herzog Christian in Saalfeld, and after his health
was restored he was on his way to take a teacher's position in St.
Petersburg when he was persuaded to change his plan and to remain
in Leipzig, offering courses in the Rechts- und Cameralvrissenschajten
(1740). Thereupon Zincke developed very influential literary
activities. His Attgenteines okonomishes Lexicon (1742) was re-
edited in a fifth edition by Volkmann (1780), a sixth by Leich
(1800), and Roscher speaks of a seventh in 1820. The scientific
reputation which he gained thereby is said by Zimmermann to
have been the occasion of his removal to Braunschweig at the end
of 1745, to accept an appointment as Hoj- und Kammerrath und
ordentlicher Professor der Rechte und Cameralwissenschaften am Col-
legium Carolinum, and soon as Mitcurator of that institution. In
Braunschweig Zincke did not acquire great influence. He was
charged with certain functions in the administrative bureaus, and
he lectured on Cameral- und Policeywissenschafl. The control of
the academic administration was entirely in the hands of the "Abt"
Jerusalem. Zincke published a criticism of the management in
1 Roscher has it "nearly six years" (p. 432).
234 THE CAMERALISTS
1748, but Jerusalem replied and was sustained by the highest author-
ity. Zincke appears, in consequence of this rebuff, to have aban-
doned further administrative ambitions. For at least another decade,
or till his sixty-seventh year, he continued to be productive as an
author.
It is difficult to fix upon an order of treatment which will
most clearly represent Zincke's contributions to cameralistic
literature. To what has already been said about Roscher's
work at this point, we must add that he really dodges the
"Zincke problem." 1 He quotes only the earliest and least
mature of Zincke's cameralistic books; 3 his reference to the
most pretentious of his books is inaccurate, and provokes the
suspicion that he knew it only through a catalogue. 3
We must remark, second, that Roscher's account of Zincke
is virtually a description only of the journal which he edited. 4
This emphasis deprives Zincke of his full due. At the same
time it calls attention to an important factor in the development
of cameralistic theory. Possibly Zincke's influence as editor
may have been more effective than the rest of his literary labors.
However that may be, his part in the development of camera-
listics would be very inadequately represented if we should
accept Roscher's showing as sufficient. His account should
> Rose her, pp. 432 5.
Grundriss einer Einleitung zu dcr Cameralwisscnsckaft, II Theile,
1742.
3 Anfangsgrunde. Vide below, pp. 256 8. The mere publishers'
description, "II, 1755," while technically correct, would hardly have
been allowed to stand as a sufficient index of the proportions of the work,
if it had been carefully examined. It is nominally in two parts, but each
part consists of two considerable volumes. The four volumes contain
respectively pp. 806, 1218, 998, and 662 + Index 62.
4 Leipziger Sammlungen von wirthschaftlichen, Policey- Cammer-
und Finant-Sachen, of which 184 numbers appeared, 1742-67. As I
have seen none of these numbers, I am obliged to depend upon Roscher's
testimony with regard to them.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 235
be read by every student of the period. 1 Letting that
contribution to the subject count for what it is worth, we must
introduce further evidence which at least widens the basis of
judgment.
Stieda has presented a much more sympathetic view of
Zincke in a compact sketch. A free rendering of the passage
will furnish a proper introduction to the later books. 2
In spite of the fact that he did not reach his aim, for he was never
Professor der Oeconomie, although he read lectures on this subject
at the University of Leipzig from 1740 to 1745, Georg Heinrich
Zincke nevetheless belongs in this connection. His views must have
had considerable influence upon the further development of the
Wirtschaftswissenscha/ten as subject-matter for lectures in univer-
sities. In the year 1741 or 1742 he published a Programm von
practischen Collegiis juridico-politico-cameralibus, the purpose of
which was to recommend the lectures which he proposed to give.
Since these four sheets met with approval he followed them up, in
the year 1742, with a Grundriss einer Einleitung zu den Cameral-
Wissenscha/ten. It consisted of two parts. A preliminary discus-
sion dealt with the question how young men should be instructed
theoretically in these sciences, and how they might be introduced
to the application of them. Zincke had at first the intention of using
Dithmar's Einleitung as his text, and after the death of the latter
negotiations were begun with Zincke, looking to his undertaking,
as editor, to bring out a revised edition. For unknown reasons the
plan failed. Zincke had come to the conclusion that there were serious
gaps in Dithmar's Einleitung: e. g., that it omitted too many neces-
sary subjects, that it afforded insufficient explanations to give thor-
ough knowledge, etc. Probably the author himself, if he had lived
longer, would have improved the book in these respects. At all
events these imperfections made Zincke feel the need of publishing
an outline of his own.
' Op. cit., pp. 433-41.
Stieda, op. cit., pp. 25 ff. I cite this passage, first, because I have
been unable to obtain the two sources to which it refers; and, second,
because it coincides with the judgment of Zincke which I had formed
from study of his more mature works.
236 THE CAMERALISTS
There are but very few, declared Zincke, who at the present time
devote themselves with special diligence and with persistent effort
to the economic sciences. Most people regard their elementary
principles as merely minor considerations. This being the case,
there should be a use for the outline. Its aim is the common weal
[das gemeine Beste], not the advantage of each individual manager.
All the doctrines which it presents are connected with the Policei
or with the public arrangements for support [Nahrungseinrichtungen]
in a country. In Kameralvrissenschafl the special relation and
purpose of all these doctrines appears in their application to the
management [Wirtschajt] of the state and of the prince. The total
Polizeiurissenschaft as a system of management is, however, arranged
really with reference to the public and general weal.
It was Zincke's intention to present these sciences in the uni-
versities after the following manner. In the first place he would offer
every half-year a general fundamental course on the entire science,
and second on special portions. Third, he wanted to supply guid-
ance in the application of the science, i. e., a practical course. In
the latter it would naturally be impossible to impart to the future
official all the technique of economic transactions. Excursions in
actual application could be made, however, and the students could
be incited to prepare documentary exercises in economic and Policei
procedure. Zincke had the plan of proposing a subject, of having
the same worked up, part by part, through assignments to individuals,
and then of having it presented and discussed by the students as a
group. In other words, these details show that Zincke was planning
essentially the seminar method, and he hoped thereby to make the
new subjects particularly attractive. He probably leaned upon
Gross, Entwurj cines mil leichten Kosten zu errichtenden Seminarii
otconomico-politici. '
In the year 1746 Zincke accepted a call as professor and Kuralor
of the newly opened Kollegium Karolinum in Braunschweig. With
his entrance into the service of Braunschweig-Lftfieberg he gave up
the realization of the plans contained in the above-mentioned pro-
gramme. Yet he considered his ideas so important that he hoped
they would be generally adopted. Hence in 1746 he returned to them
' Vide Stieda, op. cit., p. 13.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 237
in the Leipziger Sammlungen, which he had begun to publish in
1742. He put them in more general form as Gedanken und Vor-
schldge von einem auj Universitaten auf die Cavneralivissenschajten
einzurichtenden besonderen Collegia Statuum Europae Camerali.
In this discussion he begins with the explanation of a Politicus.
He goes back to a concept with which we have become acquainted
in connection with Christian Weise. 1 He would not have the word
understood to mean a crafty man acting a part to the hurt of his
neighbor, but rather a man who possesses the talent, not only in his
private station, but also with respect to the common weal, to live
justly and wisely. A Politicus is thus a statesman. No one can
attain this character who is not intelligent about the state and has not
carried on political studies. To be sure there are different kinds of
knowledge necessary for a chancellor, a civic employee, a minister
of war or of finance. All these, however, find something which con-
cerns them in the political sciences. Hence they must in the first
place learn the whole in its general principles and rules. Every
political function, high or low, has in its affairs a definite relation
to the welfare and happiness of the state in general. The state,
however, has no other purpose than to improve and perfect all that
constitutes the temporal weal of its members. The Politicus must
learn whatever sciences, talents, and preparation are necessary for
the attainment of this purpose.
For this end it is not enough to have the mere knowledge of the
laws from the pandects and the theory of civic processes. Rather
is it one of the most important and necessary sciences of a Politicus
to know, in a way that is applicable to practice, how to make a land
progressively richer, how to make improvements in the application
of the riches to the security and need and convenient life of the mem-
bers of the state, etc.
The most general theorems and rules of this science are found
in the theory of general civic prudence [allgemeine Staatsklugheil}.
But this great portion of political science needs to be taught much
more thoroughly, dearly, and circumstantially than in this general
theory. This is done in the Kameralwissenschaften, which are
composed of General- und Special-Qekonomie, of the Polizeiwissen-
1 Vide Stieda, pp. 3, 4.
238 THE CAMERALISTS
schaft, which is based upon them, and of the science vom Finanz-
und Kammerwesen der Filrsten.
For further details Zincke refers to his Grundriss, in accordance
with which he had lectured and intended to continue his lectures.
Since however not everybody has the patience in detail, but people
rather content themselves with a historical concept and at the same
time with other fragments of knowledge in political and civic affairs,
that course in general civics is particularly to be desired. He urges,
moreover, after he has argued for the study of Kameralwissenschajt
in general, still another course "de notitia statuum," in which, for
the sake of general culture, the needs of those shall be supplied who
do not purpose to make a career in the departments for which he
speaks. He cites Gundling's Zustand der Europ&ischen Staaten,
and wishes to add statistics as an enlargement of the study. In
this course, which apparently was to have been of a more popular
character, the possible and actual condition of a state would be treated,
and the relations of the Policei and the financial system.
Passing these preliminary and elementary forms of his
theory, we must take into account the evidence afforded by
Zincke's work upon the second edition of Stisser's Einleitung. 1
Stisser (1689-1739), could be passed over with a few words,
if further reference to him were not necessary in order fairly
to report Zincke. Stisser was a student of law and philosophy
at Jena and Halle and might have gravitated into an academic
career if he had not evinced notable administrative talent.
1 Fried rich Ulrich Stissers, Ehemahligen Fiirstl. Braunschweig-
Liineburgl. Amtmanns und nachherigen K. Pr. Krieges- und Domainen-
Raths Einleitung zur Land-Wirthschaft und Policey der Teutschen. Zum
Unltrricht in Otconomic- Policey- und Cammer-Wesen eingerichtet.
Nunmero aber von neuen ubersehen, an vielen Orten verbessert, vermehret
und brauchbarer auf Verlangen gemachet, wie auch mil noch mehr His-
torischen Nachrichten von denen Geschdften und Schriften, auch mil
einer neuen Vorrede versehen von D. Georg Heinrich Zincken, Hoch-
furstl. Braunschweigischen wiirckl. Hof- und Cammer-Rath, Prof. Juris
und Cameralium auf der Universitat Helmstddt und des Hochfurstl.
Collegii Carolini in Braunschweig Curatore 1746. (First edition,
1735.) Roscher (p. 376) erroneously dates this second edition 1748.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZIXCKE 239
While in practical employment at Jena (1734-35), he was
allowed to lecture in the university on the economic sciences,
and the Forst- und Jagd-Wesen der Deutschen.
Besides the book just mentioned, Stisser published in 1734
Bin Programme, von der Moglichkeit, dass die oekonomischen
Wissenschaften in eine Lehrart gebracht werden konnen, massen
ein elendes VorurteU vormahls auch die grossten Gelehrten von
der Unmoglichkeit dieses Vornehmens eingenommen hatte.
In 1737 the work appeared which is rated as the most meri-
torious of his writings, Die Forst- und Jagd-Historie der
Teutschen.
It appears from Zincke's testimony that the publication
of the two books which marked his professional residence at
Jena was the occasion of speedy termination of Stisser's
academic career. The book on forestry and hunting was
dedicated to the king of Prussia, and that expert in manage-
ment was so much impressed with the author's knowledge
of affairs, as evinced by both this and the Land-Wirthschaft,
that he called him to Berlin, in order to test his information
and judgment orally. As a consequence, Frederich Wilhelm I
gave him an appointment at Stettin. 1
It was Stisser's plan to write a second volume, Stadt-Wirth-
schaft, and a third, Wirthschaft grosser Herren. In explaining
his relation to Stisser's book, Zincke says (p. 14):
As I began to lecture upon the Cameral-Wissenschajten to the
students at Leipzig, I looked for a complete hand- and reading-book
which would present the subject in brief and systematic form. I
found, to be sure, the sainted Herm Dietmar's Einleitung, which
surveyed the whole field, but in its special divisions consisted merely
of a few scattered observations, with defective fundamental ideas,
or none at all, and in many cases employing far too general theorems.
1 "Krieges- und Domainen-Rath in der Pommerischen Cammer
zu Stettin, mit einem Gehalt von 66 Rthl." Zincke's date for this trans-
fer (1734) is obviously a misprint for 1737. Stisser died two years later,
at the age of fifty-one.
240 THE CAMERALISTS
The sainted Herrn Stisser's Einleitung was in many respects, especially
in organization of the material, more according to my taste. It
contained more complete conceptions, and united the Policey-Wesen
with Oeconomie in a practical way. At the same time it treated only
Land-Wirthschajt and Land-Policey, and was consequently not
complete enough to serve me as an outline of all Cameral-Wissen-
schaften. Beyond that, moreover, I valued highly the practical
and still compact arrangement of this little book: yet I was told that
it lacked much on the systematic side of pedagogy, that the sainted
man was neither a good methodologist nor an adequate philosopher,
and that a teacher of these sciences should be both. I was told that
certain fundamental ideas might be better defined, and that various
of Stisser's particular opinions were not accepted by all specialists
in Wirthschaft and Policey. For these reasons I could not use the
book for my purposes. Hence I decided to publish my well-known
Grund-Riss einer Einleitung zu denen Cameral-Wissenschajlen, in
two parts, 1742 and 1743. In the first part I presented the general
and special principles of the Land- und Stadt-Wirlhschaftl of the
Germans, and of Policey, with a view to their application by the sev-
eral Collegiorum, and also for pedagogical use. In the second part
I presented die Wirthschaflt grosser Herrn oder das Cammer- und
Finanz-Wesen. Yet this was a mere sketch of a much larger work
and of a much more complete treatment which would be of no use
for beginners Before coming to completion of this larger
work I fell back upon Stisser's Einleitung .... which I thought
I could make useful for beginners, at least in certain parts of ....
Land-Wirthschajt and Land-Policey
In his Preface Stisser says that Christianus Thomasius was
the first, so far as he knew, to give his hearers a collection of
brief propositions, as an accompaniment of his lectures. Then
Gentzke, Bierling, Beyer, Gundling, and many others imitated
him, including Professor Diethmar at Franckfurt and Herr
Hofrat Schmeizel at Halle. Apparently he meant to say that
these theorems were in German, for he emphasizes the fact
that after some hesitation, he decided to follow the lead of
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 241
Thomasius, and present the substance of his teaching "in
honest German garb."
After a quaint discussion of the current overvaluation of
the advantages to be gained by foreign travel, he urges that
Germans may profit most by studying the accumulated prac-
tical wisdom of their own country, the ways and means of
industrial thrift first of all.
He joins in the discussion of the question why this impor-
tant subject has had so little attention in the universities, and
curiously enough he puts the chief blame on the students.
He says they prefer to give their time and money, Veneri et
Baccho, to learning what would enable them to earn their
bread. At all events, they regard it as disgraceful and beneath
their dignity to soil themselves with "low-lived economic
sciences." Against this prejudice Stisser stoutly maintains:
These sciences are parts of the greatest Staats-Wissenschajt,
yes the soul in the civic body, and have the special use of showing
how a great lord may bring his land and people to prosperity
According to Zincke's explanation of his editorial work
on Stisser's book, it would be unsafe to pass judgment upon
the author, without comparing the original edition. Nothing
appears in evidence, however, to show that he was in any way
in advance of Gasser in the particular respects with which
we are concerned. We may therefore dismiss him from con-
sideration, and turn our attention again directly to Zincke.
The next evidence of Zincke's individual views appears
in his modification of the plan of Stisser's book. As he states
it in his Preface (pp. 20, 21), this modification consists in pre-
senting "first the Cammer-Wissenschaften, then in outlining
Oeconomie in general, of which the Land-Wirthschaft und
Policey of the Germans is only a special part." Then Zincke
explains that he has assembled "the most general rules of
management (Wirthschafftsregeln), and has furnished an
introduction to the study of oeconomischen Wissenschafft
242 THE CAMERALISTS
itself, in a form which is adequate preparation for these sub-
jects." Certain of the details in the introduction are impor-
tant way marks for our purpose. Beyond these, the book is
devoted entirely to rural management. We should note,
however, that Zincke has enriched the book with references
to authorities to such an extent that the authors' index fills
twenty-four and a half double-column pages. If we had found
no evidence of a similar sort in the earlier writers of this group,
Zincke's bibliography would alone be enough to demonstrate
the absurdity of the tradition which von Mohl repeats in the
passage quoted above. 1
The most significant propositions of the introduction may
be epitomized as follows:
The subject of the book is the rural management of the Germans
[Land-Wirthschaflt der Teutschen]. This is a special part of the
management [Wirthschafit] of this people in general, and this depends
to a certain extent upon the whole. It also presupposes various
general ideas of Wirthschafft and Hausshaltung (i).
The word Wirthschafft is sometimes used in a very comprehensive,
sometimes in a very restricted, sense. Thus, (a) for Wirthschaftts-
Geschdjte themselves; (b) for the ways and means of managing
(Wirthschafllen); (c) for a family, considered as managing (die da
wirlhschafttet); (d) for Land-Wirthschafft in particular; (e) for the
science and art of understanding one's own or another's management
[Haushaltung]; (/) for the theory and instructions [Lehre und An-wei-
sung] which lead to prudent ordering of Wirthschaflts-Geschajte.
This last is the meaning which the word has in this book. In the
same sense the words Hauss-Wirthschafll, Oeconomie, and Hauss-
haltungskunst arc in common use (2).
Wirthschafjl is thus a practical theory or Wissenschajt, in which,
according to their wisdom, prudence, and art, almost all learned
sciences are applied to proper gainful occupations, to the end that
not only necessary and comfortable subsistence, but also a surplus
for pleasure or need [zu Liebes- und Noih-Fallen], may be gained (3).
1 Vide pp. 12 ff.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 243
Accordingly Wirthschafit in general is a science which teaches
prudence in pursuing the callings which provide sustenance and
thus justly and prudently not only to gain means of subsistence,
but also prudently to hold, expend, and apply the same (4).
Wirthschafit is variously subdivided: especially into general
and special theory; this latter again into ofientliche Landes -Wirth-
schafit and Privat-Wirthschafit; or in other words general and special
Policey-Wissenschaft, which teaches how to order and to promote
for their several purposes, through good police laws and institutions,
the Wirthschafits-Geschafte of a country, a city or of an office (5).
Privat-Wirthschafit teaches how each individual member of
civic society may conduct his Wirthschafit wisely (6).
Privat-Wirthschafit is sometimes divided according to the strata
and persons that manage (wirthschafiten), sometimes according
to the things which are the objects of management, sometimes accord-
ing to the basic theorems of the processes concerned, sometimes
according to nations (7).
In the first case we have the Wirthschafit (a) of princes, rulers,
and great lords, with their Cammer- und Stoats -Revenues, i.e., die
Ho}- Stoats- und Militair-Wirthschafit; (b) of subjects, since pecul-
iar managerial relations spring from the social stratum and circum-
stances. These are consequently peculiar rules of Wirthschafit
for (i) the greater and lesser nobility: (2) soldiers; (3) travelers;
(4) citizens of high and low degrees; (5) scholars, at schools, univer-
sities, in church, school, and political offices; (6) rural populations
of higher and lower degree and peasants; (7) the male sex, e. g.,
married and single persons, boys, young men, adults, and aged; (8)
the female sex, in parallel classes; (9) the poor; (10) the needy;
( 1 1) the middle class; (12) the rich; (13) the servant class (8).
It would be an endless affair to treat of the Wirthschafit of each
of these strata in detail. Hence, with respect to differences of stra-
tum only the Haushaltung und Wirthschafit of great lords will be
considered. In the theory of Cammer- Rent- und Finanz-Wesen,
however, their particular maxims will be shown after the basis
has been laid in Oeconomische Policey-Wissenschafit. And precisely
therein consist today the so-called Cameral-Wissenschafiten in which
one learns WirthscJtafit chiefly with reference to the best common
244 THE CAMERALISTS
good [das genuine Beste] and for the service of great lords, the Privat-
Wirthschaftt of all others, who live as subjects or as obscure persons,
is shown along with the first part of Oeconomischer Policeywissen-
schaflt (9).
Conformably to the objects and transactions of Wirthschajfl, the
same is divided (i) in accordance with the chief branches of business
in Europe, into the theory of (a) Land-Wirthschaftt, (b) Stadt-Wirth-
schaftt, which division was first made by P. Fischer; (2) in respect
to the collateral processes (10).
We may briefly describe Land-Wirthschaftt as that part of Wirth-
schafit which teaches how one may carry on the cultivation of the
earth, both upon and below the surface, especially upon estates and
in connection with the appertaining rights, also cattle feeding and
particularly cattle raising, so wisely and prudently that one may
by appropriate means gain all sorts of profit and advantage, retain
the same, and turn it to thrifty application [haitswirthlich anwenden]
(13)-
Die Wirthschaftt consists of .various doctrines [Lehren]. It con-
tains especially general theoretical and practical theorems, which
are final rules. These consist either of fundamental theorems from
other sciences, or of fundamental theorems and rules peculiar to
Oeconomia generali. 1 The former are derived especially from (i)
general and special Rechts-Gelehrsamkeit; (2) Natur-Lehre, Chymie,
Anatomic, and Artzney-Kunst; (3) Mathematics, especially Rechen-
kunst, Geometric, Mechanique, and Baukunst; (4) general Staats-
und Privat-Klugheit (14).
Die Wirthschaftt consists further (2) of special theorems and
rules pertaining to the chief objects and transactions of Land- und
Stadt-Wirthschaftt, to their auxiliary transactions, and to the Wirth-
schafft of this and that sort of persons. Here we present the theorems
about the principal and subsidiary phases of Land-Wirthschaftt
and about the persons engaged in the same. This belongs under
the head Specialia (15).
1 Zincke remarks in a note, "These have been presented best by
Hr. Lie. Hofmann in his first book, Klughtit Haus zu halten." This
is G. A. Hoffmann. The remainder of the title of the book is: oder
pruderUia otconomica vulgar is; 4 vols., 1730-49. Vide Roscher, p. 436.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 245
Finally belong to Wirlhschafjt (3) Singularia or the most particu-
lar observations and devices. Moreover we must mention (4) the
Wirthschaftts-Termini or Kunst-W drier, Redens-Arten, and expla-
nations of the same 1 (16).
Die Wirtksckafft varies also with respect to nations or peoples,
and it is certain that the former [Wirtkschafft] vaiies as widely as
the latter, their soil and climate. Not to speak of the uncivilized
peoples outside of Europe, the Land- und Sladt-Wirlhschafll of the
civilized Europeans, for example of the French, Spanish, Italians,
English, Dutch, Poles, Swedes, etc., differs, in respect to very many
Wirthschaflls-Geschaflen, especially in respect to particular arrange-
ments, purposes, and objects, from that of the Germans, and indeed
the latter varies not only by contrast between the ancient and the
modern, but also by contrasts l>etween the various German j>eoples
and localities at present. Thus there are the differences between
the Ober-Sachsen, der Nieder-Sachsen, der Schwaben, der Schweitzer,
etc. Herr von Rohr accordingly, and not without reason, made a
plea for more information and cultivation of oeconomia harmonica. 2
Meanwhile it is the duty of Germans to pay special attention to the
most common features of the Wirthschafil of Germans, and to under-
1 The bibliography of this part of the subject, as cited by Zimkc,
is notable: viz., "(i) Das Cheminizische Oeconomische Lexicon, new ed.,
Niirnberg, 1746; (2) Chommel Diction. Oeconomique; (.3) Das allge-
meine Oeconomische Lexic., so vormahls schon bey Glcditschen in Leip-
zig herausgekommen, an. 1744, aber von mir dem jezgen Edilore dieser
Einleitung, vermehret und verbessert herausgegebcn wordcn; (4)
Savery, Lexic. de Commerce, ed. n.; (5) Das bey Heinsio in Leipzig edirte
Handels-Lexic. sub. Tit. AUgemeine Schatz-Cammer der Kaufmannscha/,
in 4 Theilen und einem Supplem., ed. infol., 1741; (6) Beiers, Allge-
meines Handlungs- Kunst- Berg- und Handwercks-Lexic., von D. Strubcn
ed. in 410, an. 1722; (7) Das in Berlin von einem Gliede der Societal der
Wissenschaften herausgekommene Real-Lexicon der Wissenschaften;
(8) Das bey Gleditschen herausgekommene Natur- Berg- Cewerck- und
Handlungs-Lex.; (9) Minerophili Berg-Wercks- Lexicon; (10) Mein
D. Zinckens Manufactur- und Handwercks-Lexic., so jetzt untcr der
Presse und von Fuchsen allhier ediret wird."
In \iisHausshaUungs-Bibliothek, ed. 1726, p. 129. Vide also Hrn.
von Hohberg, Adlichen Land-Wirthschofft (Zincke).
246 THE CAMERALISTS
stand it according to the manner, customs, usages, laws, and civic
organization of their own country. This book is specially devoted
to that purpose (17).
This passage is at once symptomatic of the whole camera-
listic conception of economic problems, and it is a rather excep-
tionally clear and unequivocal expression of the conception.
It is thus one of the crucial exhibits in the body of evidence
which sustains one of the principal contentions of our argument :
viz., the theories of the cameralists were formulations of differ-
ent sorts of utility with reference to relatively parochial aims.
They were not attempted generalizations of universal economic
or civic relations, because universal relations of these orders had
not roused their attention or interest in an appreciable degree.
They were virtually attempts to answer the question: "Situ-
ated as we are, and being what we are, individually and politi-
cally, how can we use our opportunities so as most to further
our particular purposes ?" A stage of experience characterized
by this range of generalization must be taken for granted, and
accepted just as it was. We turn the reality of experience
into myth and fable if we interpret back into such intermediate
experience the states of mind which emerged at later stages.
In brief, we must interpret the cameralists as they were, not
as nineteenth-century economists. We do not satisfy this
requirement merely by pointing out that their conclusions
differed from those of nineteenth-century economists. That
way of stating it covers up and compromises the crucial
distinction. In an essential sense, the cameralists were not
concerned about the same problems ttiat engaged the nine-
teenth-century political economists. This experience of the
cameralists has value for modern men; and historical
scholars must find and utilize the value. The experience
has been shorn of its value by growth of a tradition which
vitiates our interpretation in advance by ignoring the radical
contrast between the Smithian and the pre-Smithian atti-
CAMERALISTICS OF ZIXCKE 247
tudc of mind toward economic relations. The introduction
continues:
Whoever would thoroughly learn Wirlhschafit in the special
department of Policey- und Cammcr-\\'esens must gain the knowledge
through instruction and experience. The instruction must consist
in part of coherent oral discourse upon IVirlhschnfit as a whole, and
afterward upon a portion of the same upon which one proposes to
place the chief emphasis; in part through oral instructions incidental
to practice itself, and through association wilh experienced ffunxs-
wirthen, and in part through the reading of good IVirlhschaffts-
Bucher (18).
Whoever will thus study Wirthsclmfit must have learned pre-
viously (i) to write and reckon well; (2) to form a good concept;
and the rudiments of (3) der Moral; (4) Natur-Lchrc und Ilislnriam
naturalcm; (5) die Chymie; (6) die Gcometriam, architccturam
civilem, and especially die Mechanique; (7) something of Mcdirin;
(8) something of the laws. Before all things, however, one must
attempt, through the grace of God, to put oneself in the situation
in which one can actually exercise the first general l\'irtlischu/]l<>-
Regel of the Christians: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" ( 19).
Beyond this, all depends (i) on very careful consideration and
investigation of the wirthschafftlichrn Objecte, Zwecke und hfsonderer
Gcschajte, and especially upon understanding and choice of the
persons concerned: through all this, moreover, upon cautious deci-
sions in wirthschafillichen Din gen; (2) upon a diligent, careful,
energetic, and industrious carrying-out of the precepts and applica-
tions in general, to the end of gaining good returns from the occupa-
tion, of caring well for them through frugality and watchfulness,
without greed. Finally, upon applying to those ends all temporal
means according to God's law and according to wirtksckafltiichrH
Klugheit, and especially upon so ordering outlays that an annual
surplus will remain (20).
We now return to Zincke's own hooks. Most important
for our purpose is, first, the Cameralisten-Ribliothek. 1
1 I). Gcorg Hcinriih Zinc-kens, Herzogl. Braunsrhw. \vinkl. Hof-
unl Cammer-Raths, etc., Cameralisten Bibliothek, U'orinne ncbst der
248 THE CAMERALISTS
A general description of these compact little volumes would
afford but a vague idea of their contents. It will not be pos-
sible to present an adequate outline of Zincke's system, because
that would require as much space as can be given to the author
who may on the whole most fairly be taken as an epitome of
cameralism, viz., Justi. To differentiate Zincke's system from
Justi's, it would be necessary to go into comparison of technical
details in the two authors; and that would be foreign to our
purpose. Without attempting to pass upon the delicate ques-
tion of the relative merits of the two men, we must confine our-
selves here to certain specifications which show that Zincke
was among the formative factors in the social science of his
period.
Indeed, there are more evident motions in the direction of
Smithism, in Zincke's most general methodological observa-
tions, than in any other writer in the series. He perceived, in
a vague, abortive, fashion to be sure, that the details of camera -
listic policy required a center in more fundamental philosophy.
His attempts at foundation of such a philosophy are rather
pathetic, but on the other hand his contemporaries did not
even make the attempt. Whether Zincke actually saw deeper
than Gerhard had penetrated cannot be known. At all events
he published his ideas much more extensively, and it is plain
that his mind was maturing in the direction of such problems
Anleitung die Cameral-Wissenschaft zu lehren und zu lernen, ein voll-
stdndiges Verzeichniss der Biicher und Schriften von der Land- und Stadt-
Oeconomie, dent Policey- Finanz und Cammer-Wesen zu finden, so theils
kurz beurtheilet, theils umstdndlich vorgcstcllet warden. Der erste Theil,
von der Oeconomie 1751 (304 pages); "Zweyter Theil, von der
Policey- Wissenschaft, 1751" (270 pages); "Dritter Theil, von der Cam-
mer- und Finanz-Wissenschaft ^S 2 " (354 pages); "Vierter
und Letzter Theil. Nebst vollstandigem gedoppelten Register iiber
alle vier Theile 1752" (210 pages). In addition, the authors'
index occupies 58 pages, and the subject-index, 36 pages, besides four
pages of errata.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 249
as Smith afterward proposed. Zincke's place in the cameralis-
tic succession may best be indicated by a few characteristic
details.
Zincke was the first German writer, so far as I have been
able to discover, to insist strongly upon a sharp distinction
between vulgar and learned economic theory. Beginning in
the Introduction (pp. 7, 8), and continuing through the classi-
fications in the bibliographies, he tries to show the difference
between the folk-lore of familiar occupations, and "learned"
theory. His impulse was respectably scientific in its concep-
tion. He had not gone very far in his analysis of the kinds
of research which would be necessary before "learned" theory
could establish a relatively secure base. Zincke maintained
valiantly, against the overwhelming academic prejudice of his
time, that the subjects properly included within the scope of
cameralistics were capable of organization into a group of
sciences as methodical and respectable as those which had
already won academic recognition.
In supporting this thesis, Zincke argued (pp. 16, 17) that
a system of cameralistic science must rest upon applications
of doctrines accepted by philosophical, mathematical, legal,
and other sciences. "In so far as those theorems are truths
established by other sciences, we may take them for granted in
cameral science." The list of such truths which he cites as
the philosophical antecedents of cameralistic science hardly
impresses the modern reader with the solidity of the support,
but such as it is we may reduce it to this:
A means [MiUef] is something in which the sufficient ground is
contained through which to reach a given end. We all have a natural
longing for welfare. That is an end which all men by nature seek.
All our lives we strive for this condition, which we call happiness
\GlUckseligkeit}. Progress toward this condition we call temporal
happiness, and the things which contribute to it may serve either our
bodies or our souls or both. Such things we call our goods. A
250 THE CAMERALISTS
stock of such temporal goods we call temporal means [Vermdgen]. 1
Transactions with these means, or the actual use of the same for
the above specified end, we call, in a somewhat narrow sense to be
sure, livelihood [Nahrung].'
It need not be argued that the need of using these temporal
means for gaining our happiness makes it both the right and the
duty both of the individual man and of whole societies, especially
of those heads of societies to whom the citizens have intrusted the
supreme power over themselves, in order to insure temporal happi-
ness, to apply these means in every proper way to gain the happiness
of all. We have then the three most general kinds of transaction
in all management [Wirlhschaft], viz., the gaining, the guarding, and
the applying of temporal means. These three kinds of transaction
are explained in General-Oeconomic (13).
In the same portion of cameral science this principle will be
demonstrated, viz., a prince, as the ruling head of a civic society, whether
the same consists of a physical or a moral person, for the maintenance
in part of his sovereignty, his house, and his own exalted person,
partly the common good [gemeinen Bestens] of his state, must strive
to gain, keep, and apply a proportional amount of ready means
[bereitestes Vermdgen} (i4). 3
' For reasons already alluded to (vide above, p. 76; cf. pp. 367 and 373)
and which will appear more fully later, it is necessary to render Mittel and
Vermdgen by the same term. We shall have little to do with the former
term in the technical sense which Zincke tries to impress upon it, while
the latter figures very prominently in the theories that follow. It is
necessary to protect it against the unauthorized legal additions forced
into it by the rendering "property."
* It is impossible to choose a rendering of such terms which can be
used consistently even in translating single authors. They vary indefinitely
in the usage of the writers in this group (SJio, u).
3 One of the incidental questions which this study raises is as to the
possible effect of this mere phrase upon the suggestibility of actual rulers
during the eighteenth century. The idea of the "readiest" means
undoubtedly carried with it the snap judgment of best means, and thus
one of the impulses was given to exaggeration in practice of the stimulus
applied to trade as a producer of national revenue.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 251
The keynote of cameralism is struck by Zincke in the next
paragraph :
The more a prince, by observance of this duty, is able to promote
his own and his country's welfare and more complete condition (sic),
the greater will he be. For herein is to be found the true ground of
the external greatness of a prince. The greater he becomes, however,
the more must he have ready means, and consequently the more
must he endeavor to procure, to guard, and to apply the same (15).
All ready means, and consequently those of a prince, consist
of income [Einkunften]. Hence there must be sources from which
it is derived. 1 An irrefutable and indubitable truth is therefore:
That a prince is bound [schttldig und verpflichtet] to recognize the
first general and permanent source of his ready means, and to estab-
lish the same upon that source (16).
Where then is this source to be found ? The source of the ready
means of the whole human race is well known. Created animate
and inanimate nature, especially however the earth with its creatures,
its forces, all men themselves, and created things outside of them,
are the sources from which they derive everything to be used as
means [Vermogen].* God himself is indeed the first founder of
this source, through his wise and beneficent creation, preservation,
and care of men. All powers of bodily movement and of the exer-
cise of the soul are to be included in this source. But each individual,
and each smaller or larger society, controls only a certain portion
of this source of ready means. This control is exercised partly by
virtue of the native power of the individual or the society, partly
through the two chief natural (sic) institutions of the world, namely,
property and rulership [Eigenthum und Herrscha/t]. Accordingly
' Zincke uses the French word fond, but in apposition with it the Ger-
man words Quellen and Grund. The sense is sometimes merely " source "
in general; sometimes "fund" in a more special use, and sometimes a
close approach to the modern technical concept "capital." Without
representing the unstable condition of Zincke's ideas at this point, the'
term " source" will fairly translate the essential thoughts in this connection.
In this particular passage the author approaches as close as the
conceptions of his time would permit to the plain formula, "Nature is
the ultimate source of wealth."
252 THE CAMERALISTS
no one can bring the whole source under his property or rulership,
and it is therefore impossible and consequently foolish to make the
attempt (18).
The portion of the earth controlled by a collection of men must
then be the immediate source of their ready means (19).
Since endeavor after secure and comfortable life has made it
necessary for such collections of men to unite their property and
powers in the single will of a ruler, and to a certain degree, with respect
to these two chief matters, to subject themselves to the same, and
thus the concept state or civic society arises; it follows unquestionably
that the immediate source of the ready means of a ruler in general
can be no other than his land and people, or so-called Territorium
(20).
In order to show the local and temporal shading of this
idea in the cameralistic view the next section is translated
in full:
I assert with zeal that this is the immediate source of ready
means in general. For since lands, and the people in the same, in
spite of all this, according to the great law of God respecting the
social helpfulness with which human welfare is bound up, are in a
certain interdependence, and hence each land and people can and
must at the same time make use of the means of another land and
people for the welfare of the former, and conversely can and must
with its own means and powers help the other land; so one may
say that to a certain extent, and in an indirect or distant way, by
virtue of this interdependence of lands and peoples, the means and
the powers of the same are and must be of assistance as a source
of ready means for a ruler over land and people. Moreover one
of the most important portions of the cameralistic sciences is that
which shows the ways in which other lands may rightly and wisely
be made into sources of all sorts of revenues and profits (21).
Speaking now more precisely, the source of the ready means of
a ruler is to be found not merely in land and people, with all their
interconnections, but rather in a land and people placed in a con-
stantly flourishing condition o] their means oj livelihood. Hence
follows the principle: A prince who would better establish, maintain,
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 253
and preserve his ready means, must devote all his effort to put his
land and people in a constantly more flourishing condition of gaining
the means of livelihood, and must thus secure for them increasing
prosperity. Accordingly, the more services, things oj money value,
money, and credit increase, the greater and richer is the source and
ground of the ready means of a ruler (23).
Using means of livelihood is called managing \wirthschafjten].
When the produce provides not merely the wants and conveniences
of physical life, but also that excess which we call riches, we call it
good management. If the means of livelihood for a land and people
are to be flourishing, good management must prevail among and
over them. It follows that the ruler, or those who assist him in
these important matters, must have the knowledge necessary to
insure good management, and must exert the utmost endeavor
to secure the application of this knowledge throughout the land
(23)-
This is necessary not only for the sake of promoting good manage-
ment in the land, and to put the people in the way of ready means,
but it is necessary in order to secure the sources of the prince's own
ready means (24).
It follows that a prince needs genuine and skilful cameralists.
By this name we mean those who possess fundamental and special
knowledge about all or some particular part of those things which
are necessary in order that they may assist the prince in maintaining
good management in the state (25).
A land can be put in a flourishing condition of the means of live-
lihood only through good Policey-Gesetze und Anstalten. Whoever
would serve the prince well at this point must not only know the
existing Policey-Gesetze, but he must understand how to invent and
introduce such laws and institutions. For this purpose he must
also understand the nature and structure of the means of livelihood,
or Wirthschaft. For the Policey-Gesetze und Anstalten have the task
of directing and improving the means of livelihood and the manage-
ment of a people. Hence it follows that the science of making police
laws and institutions can neither be learned nor applied without the
science and knowledge of management, which is properly called
die Oeconomie in distinction from der Oeconomic, which means the
254 THE CAMERALISTS
actual application. 1 Whoever, finally, would administer the ready
means of rulers, not merely prudently, but in close connection with
the constantly improving conditions of livelihood, and with super-
intendence of the same, which a wise ruler exercises through good
police laws and institutions he must have thorough knowledge
of Oeconomie and Policey (26).
After rehearsing the argument that all this cannot be left
to pure empiricism, but must be reduced to expert knowledge
and practice, Zincke compresses his case into this proposition :
Cameral-Wissenschajt is a learned and practical science, first,
of inventing, improving, and introducing all sorts of good police laws
and institutions drawn from the nature and conditions of the means
of livelihood of a land; second, a science partly resting upon die
Oeconomie, partly upon special rules and maxims which set forth
the rights and duties of a ruler, of wisely, prudently, rightly, and
skilfully founding, maintaining, increasing, and administering the
necessity, comfort, and riches of a land, and at the same time and
thereby the ready means needed by the ruler for the good of the state
and its ruler (29).
Zincke explains, half apologetically, that this description, and
the book itself, were written not for the learned, but for begin-
ners. He proposes the following as an alternative form:
Cameral-Wissenschaft is a learned and at the same time practical
science, having as its object thorough understanding of all means
of livelihood and on that ground the introduction of good Policey,
to the end of rendering useful services to states and rulers in cameral
and financial affairs (30).
Elaborating the idea that Cameral-Wissenschaft consists
of various Wissenschaften, Zincke continues:
1 But on p. 55 Zincke distinctly defines the word Oeconomie as mean-
ing "die Wirthschaft selbst." Again, in the Anfangsgrunde (I, p. 18),
Zincke assigns to the first part of Cameral-Wissenschaft: "Die Natur
und Beschaffenheit aller Nahrungsgeschafte insgemein, und besonders
deutlich und griindlich zu analysiren und einzuseheo. Und diesen Theil
nenne ich die gelehrte Oeconomie."
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 255
In my Grundriss I presented die Oeconomic and Policey-Wissen-
schaft in the composite form of wirthschaftliche Policey-Wissenschaft.
I made Cameral-Wissenschaft the first main division, and Cammer-
und Finanvwissenschaft the second. I have reconsidered, however,
and this book will have three main divisions: (i) Die Oeconomic;
(2) die Policey-Wissenschaft; (3) die Cammer- oder Rent- und Finanz
Wissenschaft (32).
From the redundant and perplexing variations upon this
explanation in the most general part of the work, we abstract
only the following items:
Oeconomic attempts to teach the poor how they may advance in
means to the middle class, the middle class how they may become
rich. Policey-Wissenschaft shows not only how to decrease the num-
ber of the poor, but also how to promote the interest of all other
strata, so that each in its way may enjoy advancing prosperity (p. 60).
This does not mean that everybody is to be brought into the middle
class, or everybody to be made rich. This is quite as incorrect as
the other hateful idea of certain leaches, who teach that all, especially
the peasants, should be reduced to the barest necessities of life. It
means that all are to be put in the way of gains in prosperity propor-
tioned to the lot of each (pp. 61-63).
The first and most general principle of a good finance system
is that the administration shall aim to insure the ready means of
the ruler by such arrangements as will at the same time promote
the best good of the state. That is, neither (i) the interest of the
ruler, nor (2) the interest of the state must be allowed to infringe
on the other (pp. 68, 69).
The work as a whole compels the conclusion that Zincke's
methodological interests excessively handicapped his camera-
listic interests. To use a different figure, his stage machinery
is so conspicuous and so intricate that it conceals the play. At'
the same time it is evident that he was thinking ahead of most
of his academic contemporaries. His perceptions were indis-
tinct enough, but his attempt to find a firm basis for cameralis-
tic theory and to organize its pans into a coherent system
256 THE CAMERALISTS
entitles him to a place with the most intelligent of the series.
In one respect he is easily foremost among the cameralists.
He published the first bibliography which made a systematic
attempt to classify the literature, not merely according to sub-
jects, but according to degrees of scientific merit. He had
a code of letters indicating the two main classes of (a) "learned,"
(b) "unlearned" books, and in each class the grades, (i) good
(2) very good, (3) moderately good, (4) bad, (5) very bad.
Besides this gradation, there are numerous quasi-critical and
other notes. The bibliography of the first part of Cameral-
Wissenschaft, or Oeconomic, contains 975 titles, of which 295
are on strictly agricultural topics, and 172 more relate to other
extractive industries (Part I, pp. 192-304); the second part,
" Policey-Wissenschaft" contains 502 titles, of which 164
refer to agricultural administration 1 (Part II, pp. 441-565);
the third part, "Cammer- und Finanz-Wissenschaft," has 570
titles (Part III, pp. 780-916); and in Part IV (pp. 1071-1134).
There are 243 bibliographical notes as addenda to specified
sections in the body of the work.
At the end of the text (p. 1134), is the devout ascription,
which flippant critics might render, to be sure, in a way that
would have an appositeness quite undesigned by the author:
"Gott meinem SchSpfer allein die Ehre. "
The existence of this bibliographical monument passes
into a curious historical problem, when we encounter the
contrast presented by the books of Justi and Sonnenfels. We
cannot go into the problem here, but must be content with
simply calling attention to it.
Passing to Zincke's more elaborate work, 3 we find another
> Again attention must be called to the absurdity of the tradition
voiced by von Mohl (above, p. 13), in view of this large body of litera-
ture on the extractive industries.
1 D. Georg Heinrich Zinckens Anfangsgrunde der Cameralwissen-
schaft, worinne dessert Grundriss weiter ausgefuhret und verbessert itnrd.
Des Ersten Theils, welcher so wohl die General als Special Land- um4
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 257
version of the Cameral-Wissenschaft, which however, as the
author says (I, p. 7), amounts to the same thing as the formulas
quoted above, viz.:
It is a learned and practical science, devoted to thorough under-
standing of all occupations that procure livelihood, to introducing,
in pursuance of this knowledge, good Policey, and to making the
livelihood of lands increasingly prosperous, to" the end however
not merely of better establishing, maintaining, and righteously and
wisely increasing the ready means of rulers and states, but also, by
means of wise income and expenditure, to secure good administra-
tion.
The judgment expressed above 1 must explain why it would
not be profitable to attempt a digest of this expansion of Zincke's
Grundriss. The author gives so much space to protestation
of what the different branches of camera! science should prop-
erly teach, and why, and how, and by what means, and to what
ends they should teach it, that it is easy to see how his contem-
poraries may have lost their patience before they found out
whether the science, as he advertised it, actually did any of
these things. So far as attention could be held at all at this
time by systematized cameralistics, the subject had to be
presented with details in the foreground. Very few people
cared for the more general methodological settings. Zincke's
books give ample evidence of profounder and more compre-
hensive views of the science than can be credited to Justi.
The former, however, was far too cameralistic to win his way
very widely with the traditional academicians, while he was
much too academic to make a strong impression upon the sort
of constituency which was favorable to cameralism. His
books cover the whole field of cameralism in a way which
Sladtoconomic (sic) und Policeywissenschaft abhandclt Des
Zweyten Theils, welche die eigentliche Finanz- und Cammenvissenschaft
enthalt Leipzig 1755.
1 Vide pp. 252 ff.
258 THE CAMERALISTS
was related to the interests of practical cameralists very much
as a treatise on the logic of ethics would affect the typical
modern legislator. This is not to say that they were on a
plane altogether remote from actual application. They con-
tain much, on the contrary, which is at the other extreme of
the tediously commonplace; for example, the twenty-three
fundamental rules for obtaining "means." 1 As a whole,
however, they are emphatically books of and for the study
rather than the bureau, and it is not surprising that they failed
to make an impression proportioned to their intrinsic worth.
As a general proposition, no one engaged directly in any division
of the activities which Zincke discusses could fail to be so well
informed, or to have such sources of information among his
associates in the occupation, that the author's treatment of his
interests would seem superfluous. On the other hand, to
most of the scholars of the time Cameral-Wissenschaft was as
much of an impertinence as sociology has seemed to the majority
of the same class during the past quarter-century. In the
Vorbericht to Theil II Zincke seems partly aware of this situa-
tion, and to choose his course in spite of it. a He declares that
he is not writing for the great masters in their subjects, whose
pupil he is willing to call himself, nor for those who want a
handbook of technical practice, still less for those self-satisfied
people who imagine that these subjects are too trivial for their
superior mim's. He believes that the book will be of use to
the students who have listened to his lectures for twenty years,
and he also expresses the hope that German rulers, from whom
ministers who disagree with the author do not contrive to keep
1 I, pp. 172 ff. Vide the nine rules on the relations of occupations to
one another (I, 205); the four fundamental rules for Policey (I, p. 266);
etc. On the other hand, the schedule of 38 "police questions" (I, p. 266)
is in spirit and in detail quite typical of the best practical standards of
the system.
(Especially pp. xiii ff.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 259
tJte book (sic!) will find in it something to approve and apply.
Lastly, he speaks as though he had definite expectations that
his work would be used as a text by tutors charged with the
education of young princes.
To sum up the case for Zincke, one can hardly study the
cameralistic sources without astonishment that this writer
has been allowed to fall into such an inconspicuous place in
the history of German social science. His merit is far above
his reputation. His more solid qualities have been obscured
by the more brilliant and audacious Justi. There is plenty
of internal evidence in the books of the latter that he was both
jealous and afraid of Zincke. He might well have been.
With all his versatility, his scholarship was not of an order to
gain by critical comparison with that of his less showy and
apparently less successful contemporary. Stieda has evidently
reached a somewhat similar estimate. He is well within bounds
when he concludes (p. 31):
Under all the circumstances Zincke seems to have been a very
respectable thinker. To be sure he sticks too closely, on the one
hand, to details of the particular gainful occupations, and as con-
trasted with the general principles of national economy he excessively
emphasizes Praxis. Nevertheless, what he was after was a study of
economic relations, and he wanted it to be systematic and thorough.
It would surely have been to the advantage of the University of Leip-
zig, if instead of allowing his migration it had put him in a professor-
ship of the economic sciences, which he would certainly have occupied
with all zeal.
In closing his discussion of the economic policy of Frederick
the Great, Roscher very aptly remarks:
Whoever would characterize a great general must use, for com-
pleting the picture, proportionate details about the qualities of his
most important subordinates. Hence something must be said about
a group of writers of the second and third rank
For the same reason, in order properly to shade our picture
260 THE CAMERALISTS
of cameralism in general, we must mention briefly some of
the less important writers at the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury. First in order, we may name Kottencamp. 1 The most
obvious fact about this mere tract of sixty-four pages is that
it is a eulogy of Frederick the Great, from the point of view
of a military man, to be classed with the similar eulogy of
Frederick's father, by Ludewig, speaking as an academician.
In the second place, the tract is notable as an apology for the
benevolent despot in contrast with the Machiavellian type of
prince. Without asking whether Kottencamp understood
Machiavelli, we find in him a very graphic sketch of the type
of government which cameralistic theory presupposed. 2 If
we were confined to this piece of evidence, the picture of the
cameralistic regime which could be reconstructed from it would
exactly correspond in tone with the account we have thus far
given; and there would be more than a suggestion of the main
divisions of technical detail which are presented by the text-
1 Kurtzer Abriss und wahrcs Ebenbild tines grossen Fiirsten und
erhabenen Geistes. Worinnen die attgemeinen Grundlehren der gesunden
Staatskunst in natiirlicher Ordnung abgehandelt, und mil den neuesten
Exempeln der Europdischen Geschichte erlautert seyn. Nebst einigen
Anmerkungen iiber die Lehrsatze Machiavels von der Regierungskunst
tines Fiirsten, verfasset und entworfen von Christian Friedrich Kotten-
camp, Audileur bey dent Ko'nigl. Preussis. hochlo'bl. Wallravischen
Pionnier-Regimente. . . . 1747.
* His subtitles are: "I. Von den verschiedenen Gattungcn, und der
Gemuths-Art der Fiirsten;" "II. Von der verschiedenen Fahigkeit und
Arten des Verstandes regierender Fiirsten;" "III. Von der Gerechtig-
keit, wie, auf welche weise, und wie weit souveraine Fiirsten solche gegen
ihre Nachbaren und Unterthanen beobachten miissen;" "IV. Wie ein
Fiirst seinen Staat erhalten und gross werden konne;" "V. Von dem
Staatsinteresse, und der Verbindlichkeit der Fiirsten in Betracht des-
selben;" "VI. Von dem Gliicke, und dem Einflusse desselben in die
Handlungen, und Staatsgeschafte der Fursten;" "VII. Ursachen,
wodurch die Reiche und Staaten verfallen, und die Fiirstenlichen Hauser
zu Grunde gehen."
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 261
writers with whom we are chiefly concerned. Kottencamp
undertakes to show that the principles of true statemanship
are equally distant from Machiavellianism on the one hand
and from theological ethics on the other. Dismissing at once
the assumption that government can be conducted on a prayer-
meeting basis, he declares that while "honor, uprightness,
and virtue in general must everywhere be bound together with
sound politics," yet self-preservation, "which is the natural
impulse of all men," is "the plumb-line to which all doctrines
of statecraft must conform," and "the actual interests of the
state must therefore be placed at the foundation of all civic
maxims." "If the precepts of state adopted by cabinets often
seem severe, and in outward appearance to insult virtue, they
are nevertheless justified by grim necessity in this imperfect
human life." It is easy to read between the lines of this essay
unrecognized major premises which would in less than a
century dictate revolutionary conclusions. In form the mono-
graph rests without question upon the divine-right presupposi-
tion. In fact, princes are judged and classified by strictly
functional standards. 1 We shall find cumulative evidence of
this conflict between old and new standards of value in Justi
and Sonnenfels. Men at this time still expressed their belief in
princes in terms of divine right. They were already uncon-
sciously learning to form their working estimates of princes
by the criterion of their benefit or injury to their states. Kot-
tencamp formulates the first great commandment of statecraft
in the precept: "Seek to maintain thyself and thy state, and
to promote the best good of thy state." 2 While the first clause
was still paramount both in political policy and in political
'E.g., p. 19. Still more distinctly, p. 44, "Das wahre Staats-
interesse besteht in den Nutzen, .... aber .... dieser Nutze ....
konne von der Gerechtigkeit auf keine Weise getrennt werden."
* " Suche dich und deinen Staat zu erhalten, und deines Staats Beste
zu beforden" (p. 19).
262 THE CAMERALISTS
philosophy, the great dynamic fact in this period was the
gathering force of the second clause. Rulers and their advisers
regarded it as the formula of a gratifying incident of absolutism.
In the retrospect we can see that it was a revolutionary prin-
ciple, destined to supplant absolutism.
The prevailing assumption of the universal enmity of states
is presented in the essay as a matter of course. "To tell the
truth, it is with peoples and states as with the animal kingdom.
The stronger overcome the weak, and grow still stronger by
devouring them" (p. 20). Therefore, "a prince never trans-
gresses justice if he only restrains his desire to oppress others
and to appropriate their powers; and on the other hand has
only the purpose of his own preservation in all undertakings
against his neighbors" (p. 30).
Turning to principles of government Kottencamp bases
political wisdom on three "maxims":
A prince must rule his realm according to its own genius and
the disposition [Gemiithsart] of the people, and must understand
how to stop the sources of all internal unrest and disturbance (p. 33).
Then internal concord provided for, the prince has the
comparatively easy task of dealing with foreigners. Therefore,
second :
A prince must always put himself in such a condition as com-
pared with his neighbor that he is at least his equal in resources and
power, or, if this is impossible, that the inequality may be offset by
alliances and other arrangements, so that he need not fear destruction
or subjugation by his neighbor (p. 34).
In the third place, a prince who would provide against his own
fall anrl the destruction of his realm, must in his prosperity moderate
his desires and not covet more than he would be able in a natural
manner to protect and permanently retain (p. 37).
The thesis of the second part of the same chapter (iv), on
the question, How may a prince become great ? is:
The true greatness of princes is inseparable from the prosperity
and growth of the fortune and welfare of their lands (p. 39).
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 263
To modern republicans such propositions are platitudes.
Their historical importance consists in their demonstration
that the times were generating essentially republican energies
while the absolutistic regime was superficially unquestioned.
Again, Kottencamp voices a deeper political philosophy,
rather than the creed of a governing class, when he defines the
interest of the state:
The interest of the state .... is whatever belongs to the growth,
prosperity, and welfare of a state (p. 43).
To be sure, the Germans had not yet fairly entered upon
that stage of their political education in which a thoroughly
rational content was to be given to the concepts "growth,"
"prosperity," "welfare," and the like. The meaning of
these forms of expression may easily be exaggerated. They
may not be taken to mean all that they would suggest to modern
men. We argue from them here no more than that men were
well on their way toward abandoning the will of the prince
as the last norm of political desirability. They were learning
to set up more essential popular values as the valid ends of
civic action.
A second minor writer of this period is von Loen. 1 Roscher
says:
The extent to which at this period (1747) popular feeling had
adjusted itself to police guardianship may be seen from M. v. Loen's
Entwurj einer Staatskunst, worin die naliirlichsten Mittcl entdeckt
werden, ein Land macktig, reich und gliicklich zu machen (1747,
III. Aufl., 1751). The author recommends freedom as the first
means of promoting population, "this essential ground of all the
power of the prince and happiness of the state." Freedom is "the
true happiness of a state, the most precious possession of man, a
part of his life. He cannot be robbed of it without violation of
justice and violence to nature" (pp. 3 ff.). Yet according to von Loen
1 As I have been unable to secure copies of his books, this reference
is wholly a quotation from Roscher (p. 441).
264 THE CAMERALISTS
much constraint is consistent with this freedom. Tradespeople,
for example, "should hot be allowed to bring any foreign wares into
the country which are unnecessary and useless, and on the other
hand drive money out of the country." The manufacture of too
much gold and silver and of too much liquor should be forbidden;
likewise the founding of too many printing establishments, because
"most books are good for nothing, but merely make the common
people discontented, turbulent, and confused" (pp. 6 ff.). A mar-
riage bureau should forbid marriage's "whenever the parties are not
suited to each other" (p. 23). There should be sumptuary laws
regulating the costumes of the various social strata (p. 154).
Von Loen died in 1776. His best-known book is the novel,
Graf Rivera, oder der ehrliche Mann am Hofe : Its motive was the
improvement of life at courts.
The third writer to be recalled in this connection is Philippi. 1
This exponent of Prussian civic ideas is of the same general
class and type with Koltcncamp. He adds nothing to the
theory of cameralism, but he is good evidence of the kind of
commonplaces which had become orthodox tradition in the
quasi-absolutistic states of which cameralism was the theory.
Philippi's books contain not a little material which goes much
farther than he imagined in throwing light upon details of
political opinion as held in Germany at this time. Our limits
permit only a few indications of points in his argument. The
fundamental proposition is:
Everyone is bound to take care for the improvement of his tem-
poral circumstances and princes especially for the righteous aggran-
dizement of their states. *
The essay calmly takes for granted that the temporal happi-
' Die wahren Mittel zur Vergrosserung eines Stoats, 1753. (166 pp.)
This essay is dedicated to Frederick II of Prussia. Der vcrgrosserte
Staat, von Johann Alhrcrht Philippi, Konigl. Preussischen Auditeur
Finckischen Regiments J 759- (.37 2 PP-) Dedicated to the
Prince of Prussia.
3 Die wahren MiUel, chap. i.
CAMERALISTICS OF ZINCKE 265
ness of subjects depends more upon providential care by the
prince than upon any other human means, and it is therefore
primarily a discussion of this cardinal factor. "The first
means of blessing and aggrandizing a state is a good prince."
It is also presupposed that there is divine guarantee of good
princes in hereditary succession, while there is no such guaran-
tee in an elective monarchy. Next to a good prince, true and
wise counselors and administrators promote the aggrandize-
ment of a state (chap. ii). Chap, iii begins with a typical
formula of the factor of population, viz.:
The great author of the anti-Machiavelli says with the greatest
justice: "He is not the greatest and most eminent who possesses
the most land. If he were, many an owner of agricultural land would
outrank a counselor of state, but on the contrary, we may say with
certainty that he is the richest prince who has unlimited sovereignty
over the most subjects." Accordingly, for the aggrandizement
of a state, all legitimate means must be used to maintain a constant
increase of the popualtion. 1
Next in importance for upbuilding a state is the maintenance
of armies (chap, iv); after these essentials, important means
are freedom of conscience (chap, v), freedom in gainful occu-
pations (Handel und Wandel), except possibly to the Jews
(chap, vi), promotion of commerce through promotion of
agriculture (chap, vii). 2 The remaining chapters on taxation
(chap, viii), the judiciary (chap, ix), the treasury (chap, x),
the improvement of higher and lower schools (chap, xi), and
Policey (chap, xii) contain nothing which calls for comment.
The second of the essays mentioned is merely a variation
1 Here and elsewhere Philippi cites von Loen as conclusive authority.
.* This part of the argument corroborates our generalization that the
traditional accounts of this mercantilist theory are largely fabulous.
Vide p. 14. Philippi quotes with approval a remark attributed to Pliny:
"The more diversified crops a land has, the greater its happiness and
wealth."
266 THE CAMERALISTS
of the first. 1 The date of the Preface is May 21, 1759.
Although, as it proved, the third Silesian war was to drag along
nearly four years more, this Prussian militarist wrote in an
exultant tone. The second essay may be called an I-told-you-
so version of the first. The chapters are the same in number
as in the earlier essay with the exception of an added thirteenth
in the later, "Gedanken uber die Kameral- und Finanz-Wis-
senschaft;" they treat of the same topics; but now the point of
view is no longer prospective, it is retrospective. The recom-
mended means for aggrandizing a state had been used a half-
dozen years longer by the great Frederick, and Prussia was
now the already aggrandized state. This view of the situation
furnishes the occasion for elaboration of the eulogy upon Fred-
erick's regime, which had been more moderate in the earlier
essay. At the same time, there is reason for the suspicion that
this confident tone was merely a rhetorical device. The
author wanted to do his part toward keeping up the courage
and stimulating the ardor of his fellow-Prussians. Whether
the essay was merely a specimen of the " point- with-pride"
type of campaign literature, in which the pride is often in
inverse ratio with its real occasion, or a genuine expression of
belief about the assured results of Frederick's rule, it has the
same value for our purposes. It is the credo of a mediocre
man, in which we find such a man's reflection of the doctrines
taught by more eminent authorities.
1 I have used both a separately bound copy of the first, and a copy
in the same covers with the second. It should be added, however, that
the binding, though not very recent, is apparently of a much later date
than the publication.
CHAPTER XII
THE CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES
Roscher speaks of Darjes as "undoubtedly the most impor-
tant of the cameralistic professors patronized by Frederick the
Great" (p. 419).
Like many Germans at this period who afterward gained
eminence in other spheres, Joachim Georg Darjes (1714-91)
devoted a considerable portion of his attention as a university
student to theology. He even preached a short time after
gaining his Master's degree. Turning, however, to juris-
prudence he received the degree of Dr. der Rechte (1739),
offered courses on the Institutes and Pandects, and in 1744
was made ordentlicher Professor der Moral und Politik, with
the title Hofrath. According to Richter (All. d. Bib., in loc.)
Darjes' academic success was so great that in his twenty-seven
years at Jena, he had more than ten thousand hearers. On
the invitation of Frederick the Great, he migrated (1763) to
Frankfurt a. O. as Konigl. preuss. Geheimrath und ordentlicher
Professor der Rechte. Here he founded the Kb'nigliche Gelehrte
Gesellschaft. He did not, however, acquire the same influence
as a university lecturer which he had enjoyed at Jena. He
became (1772) Direktor of the university, Ordinarius of the
law faculty, and the ranking professor of law. 1 Richter says:
"Darjes was of great service to the cameral sciences by
introducing them into university instruction." (Richter
1 Of his numerous writings (scheduled in Meusel's Lexicon), we
may name, irv addition to the book to be discussed below: Rlementa
metaphysica, 1743; Institutiones juris prudentiae universalis, 1745;
Philosophische Nebenstunden, 1740-52; Erste Griinde der philosophise he *i
Sittenlehre, 1750; Via ad Veritatem, 1758; Discurs iiber Natur- vnc.
Volkerrecht, 1762; Einleitung in des Freyherrn von Bielefeld Lehr-
be griff- der Staatsklugheit, 1764 (on J. F. von Bielfeld [sic] vide Rosrher,
pp. 426 ff.)-
267
268 THE CAMERALISTS
doubtless meant at Jena.) "As an author Darjes does not
stand particularly high. He lacked thoroughness, precision,
and talent for clear presentation." 1
This estimate by Richter is by no means to be accepted as
final. Indeed, if we recall Zincke for the sake of comparison,
we experience a deep sense of relief in passing from his much
less perspicuous, if more profound and comprehensive books,
to Darjes' clear and intelligent outline of cameralistics.*
Roscher further says (p. 419):
Darjes was an eminent pupil of Wolff, who wanted jurisprudence,
medicine, Wirlhschajlslehre, etc., to prevail only as applied phi-
losophy, but on account of his severely demonstrative method of
exposition J. J. Moser contemptuously labeled him "Modephilosoph."
With respect to the fundamental concepts of national economics
Darjes had learned much more from Hume than the majority of
his contemporaries in Germany.
Roscher cites only the second edition of the Erste Griinde,
published after the author had moved from Jena to Frankfurt. 3
In his estimate of Darjes' rank Roscher evidently did not
include Justi in the group of "Frederick's professors of came-
ralistics." He doubtless classed Justi as an administrator or
author, rather than as a professor.
1 Vide Stieda, pp. 52 and 78.
* Erste Griinde der Cameral-Wissenschaften, darinnen die Haupt-
Theile so wohl der Oeconomie als auch der Pblicey und besondern Cameral-
Wissenschaft in ihrer natiirlichen Verkniipfung, zum Gebrauch seiner
academischen Furlesung entivorfen von Joachim Georg Darjes, Hoch-
furstl. Sachsen- Weimar- und Eisenachischen Hof-Rathe, der Philosophic
und beyder Rechten Doctor, wie auch der Sitten-Lehre und Siaats-Klugheit
ordentlichen Professor zu Jena, des Senats der Churfiirstl. Maynz. Aka-
demie ntitzlicher Wissenschaften ordentlichem Beysilzer, der Jenaischen
Akademie i. d. Z. Pro-Rector und der Philosophise hen Faculty Decano.
.... 1756. (Pp. 664, exclusive of the Index, which fills 54 pages.)
3 All references in this chapter are to the first edition. I have not
seen the second.
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 269
Darjes' own account of the origin of his book, as contained
in the Vorrede, is substantially this: He says that from boy-
hood he had been eager to search into the secrets of nature,
to find out how natural forces work, and thus to learn what
must be done when the attempt is made to imitate nature by
art. Following this impulse, he found frequent occasions,
in the course of lectures on other subjects, especially morals
and politics, to introduce practical reflections upon rural and
urban management. His hearers recognized the importance
of such considerations, and at length a petition came from
them for a separate course on the subject.
In adopting the suggestion, Darjes selected as his guide,
first, Dithmar's Einleitung. He pronounces the book admi-
rable [schon], but finds it somewhat too "remote" from the
aspects of the subjects which he wants to treat. That is, he
regards it as not sufficiently concrete. "It describes things
which occur in all departments of these activities [i. e., Wirth-
schaft, Policey, Cammer], but he does not explain how they
are to be carried out and improved." Then followed "the
excellent work which bears the title, Kluglieit zu leben und zu
herrschen." 1 He says:
I have more than once lectured with profit upon this work, and
I doubt if anyone can read it attentively without becoming more
useful. It lacks nothing except more specific explanation of the
grounds on which the activities of rural and civic management must
be judged.
Darjes says that he had also several times used Schroder's
Fiirstliche Schatz- und Rent-Cammer* and Seckendorff's
Fiirsten-Staat, 3 as the basis of his lectures, but at length he
was prevailed upon by his students and the publishers to print
his own ideas in systematic form.
1 Rohr's digest seems to have had an influence out of proportion to
its author's merit. Vide above, p. 190.
* Vide above, pp. 135 ff. 3 Vide above, pp. 61 ff.
270 THE CAMERALISTS
The author's views of the instruction in cameralistic sub-
jects most appropriate to universities, and consequently to be
introduced by such a book, call for treatment midway between
abstract methodology on the one hand and details of admin-
istrative routine on the other. He points out very clearly that
it would be an endless task to describe in dftail each of the
separate processes that occur in the different divisions of
management. He is equally clear in his judgment that such
detailed description would be undesirable if possible. He
declares that many managerial processes must be compre-
hended under a common idea; that the important thing is to
understand this fundamental idea, in a single typical case, and
then anyone capable of independent thinking can find for
himself the relation of other cases to the same idea. He also
draws a very definite distinction between the science of manage-
ment and actual management itself, and he adds:
Those who carry out operations are often incapable of compre-
hending the science fundamental to the operations. They simply
do what they arc told, and their reasons for doing it do not extend
Ix-yorul the fact that they are told. Those who have charge of
operations, however, must necessarily understand the science of the
same.
Accordingly, Darjes calls his book "philosophical intro-
duction to ir/>//;.vr//a//" and he explains that his purpose is:
to dwell on the connection of tiuths which will make us capable of
judging all questions that would arise in practice, on their real
grounds, and to form clear and intelligible ideas of everything which
ociurs in Wirlhschajt The science of Wirthschajt should
make us ca|Kible of making an orderly Wirthschajt possible where
it has hitherto been impossible, and of guiding the same to the
advantage of human society. If we add that wisdom has its purpose
in promotion of the welfare of men, and second, that a great part of
the welfare of the state is founded in an orderly Wirthschajt, we have
the motives for applying the science of Wirthschajt to the state;
vix., first, to derive from the constitution of the state those means
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 271
by which the establishment of an orderly Wirthschaft in it is pos-
sible; second, to describe those means through which an orderly
Wirthschajt will be capable of promoting the prosperity of the state.
The first of these purposes is treated in the first and second parts
of this book, the second in the third part, the third in the fourth
part.
Darjes concludes with the specification :
The source from which I have drawn the special ideas is expe-
rience. Hence I may rightfully demand that the ideas be judged
not in accordance with the conceptions which others have constructed,
but in accordance with experience. That which experience teaches
us I have combined with general truths, partly in order to establish
a correlation, partly to confirm rules, the observance of which will
conduct us securely toward attainment of the end which we have
proposed.
As we have intimated before, 1 this appeal to experience,
particularly in the sense of personal observation, may be
taken as one of the authentic finding marks of the cameralists.
Beginning with Osse, we find increasingly evident tendencies
to break away from mere repetition of tradition and precedent,
and to consider state policy as means to certain rather clearly
defined ends not contained in conventional definitions. With
exceptions, and with varying degrees of emphasis on this phase
of their reasoning, the men whom we recognize as cameralists
have exhibited this trait. They were not equally aware of the
importance which they actually assigned to the empirical
element in their systems. Darjes is notable, however, as one
of the most outspoken in this respect.
But we must judge Darjes still more specifically. The
succession of cameralists furnishes several marked cases to
point the moral that reputation is not always in accordance
with an objective measure of merit. If we were to make out
from the type of evidence now under review the most exact
1 Vide p. 4 el passim.
272 THE CAMERALISTS
estimate possible of the growth of scientific consciousness
among the cameralists, the most significant signs would by no
means always be found in those writers to whom tradition,
as we have it, has awarded the most conspicuous place. Darjes
is one of the most notable cases in point. In spite of ihe
phrase quoted above, 1 readers of Roscher who do not compare
the authors discussed will hardly gain the impression that
Darjes marks a distinct stadium in the development of German
economic insight. My own judgment is that the Erste Griinde
contains the most striking evidence to be found in the came-
ralists thus far reviewed, that attention was turning toward
economic relations conceived approximately as in Adam
Smith's formulation of economic problems. A casual read-
ing of Darjes' book would detect in it merely insignificant
variations in form and content from the analysis and
treatment of previous cameralists. More careful scrutiny
discovers such differences of precision and clearness in the
perception of relations, that one feels bound to credit Darjes
with having advanced a long distance toward the standpoint
of positive science. Not only is his style more direct and
business-like than that of most of his class, but clear and
objective thinking furnishes a substantial content for his
language. Nor is progressiveness the only trait for which
Darjes is notable. His epitome of the aims and outlook of
cameralism is remarkably concise and comprehensive. No
single writer in the cameralistic succession gives a brief account
of the scope and purpose of their discipline which better
reflects the genius of the whole movement.
Although it may not be immediately apparent that it is
more than mere repetition of ideas which had become stock
properties among the cameralists, we should leave a serious
gap in our outline of the development of the subject, if we
failed to present, in a faithful rendering of his own words,
1 Vide p. 267.
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 273
a digest of Darjes' introduction. He first pays his respects to
three objections, already familiar to us, urged by his contempo-
raries against Camerd-wissenschaft or Haushaltungskunst, viz. :
first, it is useless to try to make a science out of these subjects
they must be learned by experience; second, whether worth
while or not, a science of these subjects is impossible, because
so many contingencies are concerned, which cannot be foreseen,
and cannot be brought under general conceptions; third, it
is beneath the dignity of scholars to concern themselves with
subjects which are matters for peasants and plain citizens.
In answer to the first objection Darjes forcibly maintains the
proposition (2): "All works which men carry on for the advantage
of human society become at once, if not perfect, at least less imperfect,
if they are ordered and controlled by those who have a science and
a philosophical understanding of these works." In support of the
proposition he urges, in a spirit much more of the future than of
the past: "It is not difficult to prove this theorem, both from reason
and from experience. Reason draws this conclusion: a thing is
perfect when it is arranged according to its nature and its idea. If
then we are not to expect that a work shall be perfected by blind
chance, its completion must be governed by those who are skilled
enough to investigate the nature and idea of this work, and from
this understanding distinctly to conclude what determines the per-
fection and imperfection of the work. This is the idea of a science
and of a philosophical understanding. Is not this enough to furnish
conclusive support for the thesis: A science and philosophical
understanding of Cameralwissenschajt, or of Haushaltungskunst,
in the general acceptance of that word, is not only necessary, but
also profitable?" 1
To the second objection Darjes replies (4) : "People who say that
Cameralwissenschaft is impossible fall back on a prejudice created by
those who have proposed untenable conclusions in the name of such
1 In expanding the argument, Darjes cites, "for the benefit of those
who allow themselves to be influenced more by celebrated men than by
reasons, .... die vortrefliche Streitschrift . . . . de excolendo studio
oeconomico." (By Rohr. Vide Roscher, p. 378.)
274 THE CAMERALISTS
science. The answer must be given: We must distinguish the grounds
from inferences drawn from them. The alleged grounds are not to
be repudiated completely. In the first place it is true, and I can
prove it from my own experience, that in the application of economic
science [Sconomischen Wissenschaft] many circumstances emerge
which we could not have foreseen and which demand that we must, if
not completely abandon, at least in certain particulars modify our
plan. Among such circumstances I count the various states of mind
and capacities of men, by means of which our project must be carried
out; the various sorts of soil, determined partly by their inner con-
stitution, partly by their location; the various accidents due to
weather conditions, etc. In the second place, it is true that in various
writings which purport to treat Haushaltungskunst* scientifically,
matters are included which partly contradict experience, and which
partly, although they may be possible, are impracticable
This does not prove that a scientific treatment of Haushaltungskunst
and the camera! sciences is impossible. On the contrary, the fol-
lowing causes compel rejection of such a conclusion: first, no one
who acts intelligently rests his judgement of a thing upon the mis-
takes of those who represent it. Second, mistakes made by the
intelligent deserve special attention. They may show how to
discover what has been concealed, and how to make that which was
well known more useful and applicable. Who can make use of
such mistakes, however, but he who already has a science of such
things ? Such mistakes then are no proof of the impossibility of the
science now in question. They may rather extend and complete
the science. Third, he who possesses no science in the art of
management (sic)* must conform to old tradition, and it will be
hard for him to adapt himself to unexpected and altered circum-
stances. If things go well in such a crisis, it is his good luck; if
1 The substitution within a few lines of the term, "Haushaltungs-
kunst 1 ' for " dconomische Wissenschaft" is strictly typical. The clearest
thinkers in the group did not get their objects of attention so definitely
related that such terms as these received a precise and invariable content.
* " Wer in der Haushaltungskunst keine Wissenschaft besitzet."
However sane the fundamental thinking of men who expressed them-
selves in such fashion, they were outside the threshold of scientific
275
they go ill, it is his misfortune, and the essence of it is his own stupid-
ity. Whoever on the other hand has a philosophical understanding
knows how these unexpected circumstances are to be considered,
how one may compare them with the nature of the matter, and thus
determine the general theory more exactly, and thereby make it
more useful. What then is proved by this addition of special cir-
cumstances? That a philosophical science of Haushaltungskunst
is impossible ? It rather confirms the contrary, and the necessity of
such a science. This may then be concluded that without experience
a philosophical science of management [eine philosophische Wissen-
schafl der Haushaltungskunst} cannot be made sufficiently definite
and applicable." Darjes assents to this conclusion, and declares
that his book will be composed accordingly.
To the third objection the answer is substantially this: The
people who regard attention to Haushaltungskunst as beneath the
dignity of the learned, appear to have a very great soul but a very
petty mind. They call themselves learned, but do not know what
learning [Gekhrsamkeit] is. They have perhaps forgotten that the
true learning is that which proves itself profitable among men and
in human society, and that the eminence of this learning depends
upon the quantity of this advantage. 1 To put it briefly, a philoso-
pher constructs general concepts, he infers from these the qualities
of things, and he consequently builds up a correlation of truths which
represents the essentials of all particulars which are to be treated in
this special division of learning. A philosopher will then become
practical if he determines his general understanding more accurately
through history and experience, and this is the natural way of build-
ing the special sciences.
Thus one determines one's ideas of what is right and wrong
through the customs of peoples and through the decisions of rulers,
precision, and without special evidence for each particular case, none
of their propositions are to be interpreted as carrying the same content
which their terms would connote in later, more critical, stages of social
theory. If Richter (vide above, p. 267) meant to accuse Darjes of lack of
precision in this sense, there is surely no reason for treating him as
exceptional. It was the fashion of the time.
Is "pragmatism" then a recent discovery I
276 THE CAMERALISTS
and one becomes a jurist. The philosopher determines his under-
standing of the forces of things through learning how the human
body is put together, and through that which he is taught by expe-
rience in this connection, and he becomes a physician. Another
philosopher determines his understanding of the nature and workings
of things through that which experience in affairs [" Beschaftigungen"]
teaches him, and he becomes a manager. l Why now is the dignity
of the scholar more in question in the last case than in the others ?
Is he who constructs a science of preserving and extending the
riches of the state and of its inhabitants less useful to the state than
he who makes himself skilled in preserving the health of people,
or he who learns how to decide what is right and wrong in the
quarrels between people? The external welfare of men is related
to three factors, to riches, to the enjoyment of rights, and to health.
Each who is zealous so to determine his philosophy that it may be
useful in promoting any of these purposes (sic) is thereby zealous
in promoting the welfare of human society. Is it not a clear proof
of confusion and prejudice if one looks upon one of these factors
as opposed to the dignity of a scholar ? That which is really beneath
the dignity of a scholar is to deal in confused ideas, and to draw
conclusions from prejudice.
But, continues Darjes, I may have misunderstood these men.
Perhaps they merely mean that plowing, manuring, brewing, baking,
etc., are not proper occupations for scholars. If that is their mean-
ing, I have misinterpreted them, but it is their fault. Of course
we do not have these practical manipulations \wirthschajtliche
Handlhiernngen] in mind when we speak of a philosophical science.
1 The word is Wirth. Shall we translate It "economist"? If we
do, we introduce an ambiguous middle term which falsifies our whole
subsequent interpretation of evolution in German theory. One of the
constant motives of this book is to set forth enough selections from the
mass of evidence to show that English assumptions about the history
of German thought have almost completely failed to take account of the
actual process. In fact, the conception of the manager of economic
relations was much later than this, and with great difficulty differentiated
from the conception of the generalizer of economic operations. Con-
sequently the arts of economic management, and the science of economic
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 277
We turn then from these objections to a positive description of
cameral science (9). In the first place we must define certain uses
of terms. The chief theorem is this: Whoever wishes to count upon
a certain annual income, must look out for the source from which the
income may flow. The theorem is supported as follows: Our yearly
incomes flow either from an established source, or they depend upon
chance, and are thus beyond our control. Since it is self-evident
that in the latter case we can make no certain calculation upon the
yearly revenues, wisdom demands that we look out for a source that
is capable of producing our revenues. In a note Darjcs explains
that he uses variations of the word "certain" or "assured" in this
connection in the general sense in which such terms are employed
in the theory of morals and prudence; that is, not complete cer-
tainty, but a high degree of probability is the meaning.
There are two possible sources of annual income (10): (a)
skill in the application of our powers, or (6) an already secured
"good" which is capable of producing a yearly profit. This latter
is called in a special sense the source of annual revenues, the fund
[Fond], the capital.
"I am uncertain," says Darjes, "whether to give precedence to
the former or to the latter of these sources, or whether they are
equivalent in respect to yearly income (11). Thus A has a capital
of 10,000 Thaler and this yields a yearly profit of 500 Thaler.
B can earn with his skill 500 Thaler. Accordingly the one has as
great an income as the other. For many reasons it might be inferred
that in respect to yearly income the two sources are indifferent.
relations were (also much later than this, and never with quite the same
abstractness in Germany as in England) set distinctly over against each
other. Between the cameralistic period and the economic period in the
nineteenth-century sense, an evolutionary process intervened in which
the center of attention was shifted a long distance away from particular
operations and details of results toward correspondences of many opera-
tions, and formulas of relations between operations and results. German
experience before this process was matured has a value of its own, but
we have misconceived most of the value, because we have assumed it
without proper reckoning with this evolution of purpose by which it
must be interpreted.
278 THE CAMERALISTS
On the other hanrl it is urged that a capital is exposed to various
vicissitudes. \Vc may lose it by fraud, fire, flood, and other accidents.
Our skill on the contrary is secure against these attacks. Persons
of the opposite view reply: 'We can earn nothing with our skill
if we arc sick; moreover it depends in many ways upon the opinions
of other men whether we shall be able to apply our skill. It is
not always within our power to rouse the necessary opinions. A
capital, however, may show itself effective whether we are sick or
well, and whether men are of one opinion or the other.' '
Most people would conclude that capital and skill should be
combined (12). Darjes expresses his own judgment, however,
that between capital and skill the former is the more secure source
of revenue, and for these reasons: The greater the number of
accidents which may interfere with the sources of our annual revenues,
the more easily these accidents may operate, and the more independ-
ent they are of our control, the less securely can we reckon upon our
yearly income. This uncertainty is greater in the case of skill
than of capital. Hence we can more securely count upon a yearly
income from capital than from skill.
In a note (13) the author specifics that he uses the word "cap-
ital" not in the narrower sense in which it is applied to a sum of
money which we borrow for the sake of making a profit, but in the
general sense, of those acquired means which we assume to be
permanent, so that they may annually be efficient for our advantage.
This use of the word, he says, is usual in all writers on Haushal-
tun^skunst whom he has read. "If there is no objection to the term,
I prefer to use the word Fond. I have no objection to any freedom
which others desire in this respecl." 1
The foregoing must be applied to the revenues of a prince
($14). It is known from the law of nature that the prince, as a
member of civic society, must he distinguished from a prince as
such. 1 In the latter character the prince must be considered in his
1 Uarjcs gives no hint of the writers whom he had in mind in this
connection. The probability is that they were French, for I have found
in the earlier cameralists no rlireci attempt to define the use of the term.
This distinction seems to have been assumed by all the cameralists
more or less consciously. The most definite previous formulation of it
is in chap, vi; vide pp. 143 flf. above.
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 279
relation to the state and the subjects. This gives us a ground for
dividing the yearly revenues of the prince into the personal and the
princely income.
The capital or the "Fond" of the princely revenues is the riches
of the state and of the subjects (15).
Whoever attempts to increase his yearly revenues either draws
upon his capital, or he seeks to increase his capital and make it more
fruitful (16). The former means is unreasonable, because it
either defeats the purpose or makes permanent attainment of the
purpose impossible. Hence the theorem: The increase of yearly
income is unreasonable when it is brought to pass by impairing the
capital. 1
In order that our attempts to increase our revenues may be
reasonable they must aim either to increase the accumulated capital
or to make it more fruitful (17).
To appraise the riches of the subjects, we must determine either
"the sum of their already accumulated capital, or the amount of
their yearly revenues. It, accordingly, we understand that the
capital of the princely revenues is the riches of the subjects, these
revenues are taken either from the capital, which the subjects have
already acquired, or from the yearly revenues of the subjects. If the
former method be chfisen, the income of the prince each time impairs
the capital of the subjects. This is unreasonable. If one will
accordingly follow reason, one must assume in this case that the
capital or the Fond of the princely revenues is the yearly income
of the subjects. Hence the general rule (19): The first care
of him whose task it is to raise the princely revenues, must be
to discover how the yearly income of the subjects may be increased.
Accordingly a prince is a rich prince when he has rich and skilful
subjects.
In the Middle Ages the word Camera designated the place where
the princely revenues were kept (21). Hence it occurred that men
' The importance of this argument can hardly be estimated unless
it is connected with chap, cviii, in Schroder's Schatz- und Rent-Cammer.
We must allow for the persistence in practice, to a certain extent con-
fusing theory, of the less mature idea of which Schroder was the spokes-
man. Vide above, pp. 135 ff.
280 THE CAMERALISTS
understood by Cameralwesen those ordinances which defined the
Wirthschajt of a prince. An orderly Wirthschajt consists of three
chief points (sic) viz. : the maintenance, the raising, and the admin-
istration of the yearly revenues. This is enough to show why we
understand by Cameralivissenschajt that science which shows us
the reasonable way of preserving, raising, and applying the
annual revenues of a prince. There may be some who disapprove
the separation of these purposes, instead of combining them in one
expression. To satisfy them we may define Cameralwissenschajt
as a science of the reasonable Wirthschajt of a prince.
A cameralist is one who understands Cameralivissenschajt (22);
more particularly, he must be able to solve the following problems:
(i) How may an established source of the yearly revenues of a prince
be preserved? (2) How may the yearly income of a prince be
reasonably raised? (3) How is a reasonable application of the
yearly revenues of a prince possible ?
Cameralistic technique consists then, first: (a) in finding means
capable of realizing the riches of the state and of the subjects;
(b) in bringing the yearly incomes of the subjects into certain classes,
and in determining their amount as accurately as possible (23);
second, in finding reasonable ways of raising the annual revenues
of the prince, and consequently (sic) of making the subjects richer
and more skilful (24).
Our yearly revenues are either direct workings of nature or the
output of the latter is based upon our occupations, which in turn
presuppose a certain skill which we have acquired by our efforts
(25). These occupations either put nature in a condition to accom-
plish that which is possible for her, or out of natural products they
produce other things which are useful for the human race. This
taken for granted, it is clear that in respect to the second point, a
true cameralist must understand: (a) the true qualities of natural
objects, and what can be brought to pass by means of them; (b)
how nature can be made more skilful in bringing forth what is
possible for her; (c) how other things for the use of men may be
produced from the yield of nature. And the author adds in a note:
"We speak of 'the use of men' not in a moral, but in a political sense,
according to which everything is useful for the human race which
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 281
may bring about its preservation, happiness, and the improvement
of welfare. The science with which we are now concerned demands
that we should attach such a meaning to the word."
It is hardly necessary to point out that we have here a seed
of the sort of thinking which developed later into pure econom-
ics of the nineteenth-century type. The argument continues:
By these signs we may distinguish between a true cameralist
and a despoiler of the country [Landverderber] (26). There arc
people devoted to raising the revenues of a prince, who either through
wantonness or stupidity are restrained from taking the way which
wisdom prescribes, i.e., the way of increasing the yearly rwenucs
oj the subjects. They think they have fully discharged the duties
of their office if they find schedules which would increase the annual
payments of the subjects. These people increase the annual rcven ucs
of the prince by weakening the capital. This increase is of no
duration. The subjects and the state must eventually grow poorer.
This is enough to show that such people do not deserve the name
cameralist. They are the plague in the state, and for this reason
are called despoilers of the country.
On the contrary (28), the true cameralist proposes to increase
the yearly incomes of the subjects. The subjects must accordingly
not only be put in a situation in which it is possible for them to
increase their incomes, but their will must lead them to the necessary
occupation. This latter demands an awakening of their zeal for
labor. The former demands, first, an understanding of the possible
increase of revenues; second, possession of those means through
which the understanding may be skilfully applied; third, removal
of all those circumstances which might obstruct the execution of this
purpose. Accordingly, in respect to the second main task, a came-
ralist must further understand how the state is to be arranged (sic) in
order (a) to rouse in the subjects a zeal for labor; (6) to enable the
subjects to gain adequate understanding of the possible increase of
incomes; (c) to insure to the subjects adequate provision of means
and opportunity skilfully to apply the acquired understanding;
(d) to guard the subjects against hindrances to convenient disposal
of the things which they have produced.
282 THE CAMERALISTS
The reason why a cameralist concerns himself with these points
is to raise the annual revenues of a prince (29). This is the principal
occupation through which he is distinguished from another scientific
manager [H^tr/A]. But this peculiar occupation demands that he
shall observe more than one rule. It follows immediately that he
must understand (a) how a prince may raise his yearly revenues
from the yearly incomes of the subjects, without weakening the
source of the same; (b) how, through the reasonable use of the
yearly revenues of a prince, the yearly incomes of the subjects may
be preserved and increased. 1
We come then to the third main task, viz., the reasonable use
ol the annual revenues of a prince (30). Whoever manages wisely
brings his revenues and his outlays into certain classes. He dis-
tinguishes the necessary outlays from those that are less necessary.
He compares the outlay with the income, and designates for each
class of outlays a particular class of revenues. Hence, in respect
to this third task, a cameralist must understand (a) how to bring the
revenues of a prince into certain classes; (b) how to determine the
yearly outlays of a prince, and how these are to be divided in certain
orders; (c) how to compare the annual outlays of a prince with his
annual revenues, and how a special class of the revenues may be
assigned to each sort of outlay.
It follows that an introduction to Cameralwissenschajt must first
outline the operations of nature. Accordingly we have as the first
part of the science, Landwirthschajt [Oeconomia rustica] (31).
A note upon this section offords another instructive sign
of the progress of analysis in this field. Darjes says:
Many who treat of Oeconomie interpret it in a moral sense, since
they regard us as in an interdependence of those rules in accordance
with which a reasonable Wirthschajt must be arranged, and we have
made a brief sketch of these in the philosophical theory of morals.
1 Throughout this discussion, and in the same connection in other
cameralists, there is ambiguity in the words which I have translated
"raise the revenue," etc. The meaning is sometimes "increase the
revenue," but it is not always clear to the writers themselves which they
CAMERALISTICS OF DARJES 283
The cameralist presupposes this treatment, and he goes farther.
He investigates how these general rules can be applied to the works
of nature. For this reason he busies himself with Oeconomie in the
physical sense, yet not as a peasant, but as a philosopher. He works
out a conception of the workings of nature, of the natural causes
of these workings; of completeness in the workings of nature, and
of the means of making these causes capable of rendering the work-
ings complete. From these conceptions he deduces general theo-
rems which serve him as rules in a specific case, and hereby hi-
becomes a philosophical Lattd-Wirth, who is able to regulate the
Landwirthschajt in a country, and to make it more complete for the
profit of the state.
The passage calls for the observation that the development
of thought in Germany at this time, upon subjects afterward
differently allotted among nineteenth-century social sciences,
was by no means confined to the cameralists. \Ve must remem-
ber, while analyzing cameralistic thinking, that this was merely
one of the factors in the whole thought-movement of the time,
within the range which we may call in general sociological.
Darjes accordingly classifies the first part of Landicirtli-
schaft in three divisions, dealing respectively with (a) the
workings of nature and the means of making them more
complete; (b) agriculture; (r) cattle raising (32). He calls
the second part of Cameralivissenschaft, dealing with those
things which may be produced by artificial control of the
workings of nature, Stadtwirthschaft or Oeconomia urbana
(33). an( l i ts subdivisions deal with (a) Geu'erken in which
the forces of nature are employed in producing certain goods,
such as beer, alcohol, and starch; (b) Manufacture)! mid
Fabriquen, which produce things which nature by herself
could not produce (34).
Darjes makes Policeiwissenschaft the third part of Canie-
ralwissenschaft, and he explains:
The Greeks understand by the word *o\tT<la those laws of a
284 THE CAMERALISTS
state upon which its beauty and well-being rest. 1 The state is
accordingly beautiful, and its well-being is assured, if its subjects
have flourishing means of subsistence. This is sufficient to show
why the name has been given to this third part of Cameralwissen-
schajt. This part of the science is concerned with: (o) the popula-
tion of the state; (6) establishment of schools and universities; (c)
political establishment of the ecclesiastical system: (d) incitement
of subjects to labor; (e) arrangements of the state preserving the
health of subjects; (/) beauty of the country; (g) promotion of
security; (h) care of the poor, etc. (36).
The cameralist must finally apply the sciences thus described
to the Wirthschajt of a prince, as prince (37). This application
makes the fourth part of Cameralwissenschajt which has appro-
priated the name Cameralwissenschajt in a peculiar sense. Its sub-
divisions are: (a) determination of the various sources of the princely
revenues; (b) devising of ways and means to draw from these
sources; (c) description of the regular application of the annual
revenues of a prince.*
We are not concerned with comparative techique in any
part of the cameral sciences, and we may allow this general
description to represent Darjes' professional equation in the
cameralistic group. 3
Substantially the same explanation is given more at length, with
quotation from Xenophon's Athenian Republic, in Justi's Crundfeste,
1,5-
> The author promises to name, as occasion requires, books on the
various subjects; but he refers in general to Rohr's Haushallungs-
Bililiothek and "Zink," Cameral-Bibliothek.
3 If the sources had been accessible, I should have added an estimate
of Johann Jacob Moser as an index of the spirit of cameralism. I have
as yet no means of testing the reliability of Roscher's account (pp.
441 .)
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI
Since we have referred to Seckendorff as the Adam Smith
of cameralism, we may carry out the conceit by calling Justi
the John Stuart Mill of the movement. In each case, however,
the analogy rests upon points of resemblance which would be
rated as trivial after critical investigation. It is true, never-
theless, that, as a pioneer in reducing an administrative pro-
gramme to literary expression, Seckendorff occupies very much
the same relative position in the development of cameralistic
theory which Smith occupied later in the evolution of an
abstract theory of wealth. It is also true that Justi organized
the cameralistic technology which had been developed up to
his time into a system of theory which correlated the different
phases of cameralism, very much as Mill gave to the doctrines
of classical economics their most impressive rendering. It
would hardly be profitable to pursue farther the quest of like-
ness or unlikeness in either case.
The original plan of this book proposed to present Justi
alone as the type of cameralism in general. Further reflection
led to change of the plan to the programme here followed.
The principal reason was that, if the first intention had been
carried out, it could not have forestalled the criticism: "One
case cannot justify a generalization. Nothing appears in
evidence to prove that Justi was not an exception rather than a
type." Since the literature by which this objection is removed
is so inaccessible to Americans, mere assertion that it exists,'
or even copious references to particular passages, would fail
adequately to present the cameralists to English readers.
The alternative chosen was an attempt to survey the whole
cameralistic period and to divide attention in proportion to the
relative importance of the principal writers.
285
286 THE CAMERALISTS
The most convincing biographical study of Justi has been
made by Frensdorff. We follow his conclusions in reducing
to the lowest terms such details as are necessary for our pur-
pose. 1
Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, son of the Gerichthalter
Georg Heinrich Justi, was baptized December 28, 1717, in the
evangelisch-lutherische Kirche at Briicken an der Helme
(Kegierungsbezirk Merseburg, Kreis Sangerhausen) . The story
that he was born on Christmas eve of that year is thus not
improbable. Of his earlier years little is known. The traces
of his university career are rather dubious. The most reliable
of them are at Wittenberg. Partly within his student period
he had some army experience. "Although Justi's military
period was no longer than his academic career, it left traces
which may be observed for a long time in his writings. He
often made use of observations collected (1741-42) during
the war of the Austrian succession" (Frensdorff, p. 363).
Justi credited the lieutenant-colonel of the regiment to which
1 F. Frensdorff, "Ueber das Leben und die Schriften des Natio-
nalokonomen J. H. G. von Justi," Nachrichten von der Konigl. Gesell-
schaft der Wissenschaft zu Gottingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse,
aus dcm Jahre 1903. Gottingen, 1904. (Pp. 354-503-) It would be
an unfortunate misdirection of energy to enter upon examination of
Justi's career under the guidance of the previous accounts of his life:
e. g., the article in All. d. Bib.; Roscher's essay, in Archivfiir die Sdch-
sische Geschichte, 6ter Bd., pp. 77 ff.; the digest of that essay, Gesch.,
pp. 444 ff., etc. My first loss of confidence in the reliability of Roscher
in matters of detail came from discovery of numerous inaccuracies in his
biography of Justi. These related to items on which the text of the author's
works is final. Frensdorff has used sources of other kinds, not accessible
in this country. He has not only discovered Roscher's mistakes in cases
of the type just referred to, but he has proved that previous biographical
sketches of Justi were largely fabulous. An earlier monograph by the
same author should be consulted: Festschrift tur Feier des hundert-
funfzigjahrigen Bestehens der Kdnigl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften
zu Gottingen. "Bcitrage zur Gelehrtengeschichte Gottingens" (Berlin
1901), pp. 495 ff-
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 287
he belonged with turning the course of his life to legal and scien-
tific pursuits.
Justi's first publication was Die Dichterinsel (1745), a
combination of Utopia and satire feebly resembling Swift's
Gulliver. At about the same time, Justi began, to publish in
Dresden a monthly magazine, under the title Ergetzungen der
verniinftigen Seele aus der Sittenlehre und der Gelehrsamkeit
tiberhaupt. During the remainder of his life Justi seemed
never content unless he was addressing the public through one
or more journals of various types.
In the course of the year 1747, Justi removed to Sanger-
hausen, where his name is known first as Advocai, then as
Rath der verwittweten Herzogin von Sachsen-Eisenach.
Although the term Witthumsrath, used in flippant allusion
to this incident, seems to indicate that the sonorous title was
not everywhere taken seriously, on the other hand, perhaps
without exceeding the privileges which at the time went with
any title whatsoever, Justi evidently regarded the designation
obtained from the Herzogin as an available asset, and he
made good use of it as a help to something better.
Justi's next step toward distinction was the composition of
a monograph on a subject calling for review of Leibnitz' theory
of monads. The subject was proposed for a prize contest by
the Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the prize was
awarded to Justi in 1747 (Frensdorff, p. 371).
Presently Justi changed his residence to Vienna. Of this
episode Frensdorff says (p. 375):
The period of his stay here is the most important of his life.
From this point dates the turning of his mind to the science which
was to give him his place in history. Up to this time he had traversed
many fields with his facile journalistic pen polite literature, phi-
losophy, history, jurisprudence, etc. He now began to cultivate the
economic sciences. His removal to Vienna had much to do with
this transition.
288 THE CAMERALISTS
Justi arrived in Austria at precisely the time when Maria Theresia
had put her improving hand upon all departments of the inner life
of the state. The system of taxation and the organization of civic
functionaries were reconstructed, so that the government was
independent of the estates, and a central control of internal affairs
was possible. These reforms reached their most definite expressions
through Haugwitz, head of the political and cameral administration.
.... The reforms which he introduced in general administration
were also beneficial to the educational institutions founded at the
same period. Both the Theresianum, founded in 1746, and the
Savoysche Ritterakademie proposed to furnish a training for aristo-
cratic youths which would provide the state with more competent
servants both civil and military.
No sufficient explanation of Justi's initial success at Vienna
has been found. At all events, he was appointed, August 31,
1 750, to the "Professura eloquentiae germanicae" in theCollegium
Theresianum. In connection with this professorship, Justi
was instructed to offer lectures entitled "collegium oeconomico-
proi-ineiale," which included "Finanzen, Handel, Contribu-
tionale (Steuerwesen) und Manufartunt'esen." The immediate
occasion for this course, which was incidental to a larger
educational porgramme, was similar to that which had led
the king of Prussia, a quarter-century earlier, to establish the
cameralistic chairs at Halle and Frankfurt a. O., viz., the
desire to supplement the traditional courses at the university
by instruction which would be direct preparation for official
service.
The document which marks Justi's entrance into the
cameralistic series was in the nature of a report to the empress
(1752), containing a prospectus of cameralistic study. 1
At particular command of the empress, Justi was com-
missioned to deal specifically with the subject of mining.
1 Auj hochsten Bejehl an Sr. Rom. Kaiserl. und zu Ungarn und
Kuhmen Konigl. Majestdt erstaltctes alleruntcrtanigstes Cutachten von
dem vernunjtigen Zusammenhange und praktischen Vortrage aller Oeko-
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 289
Thereupon he gave his attention not merely to the theory, but
to the actual development of the mineral resources of Austria.
This particular element in his activities may have had much
or little to do with the brevity of his stay in Vienna. At all
events his connection with mining administration proved to be
his final undoing. For reasons which are as confused as the
explanations of his coming to Austria, among them friction
with the ecclesiastical authorities, Justi returned to North
Germany in 1753. Stieda thinks (p. 33) that he did not even
begin his lectures on cameralistics in Vienna. Frensdorff, on
the contrary, is quite sure he was the first teacher of the eco-
nomic sciences in Austria (p. 389). Unless we presume that
Justi had forgotten the facts in less than eight years, or that
he deliberately lied, his own assertion, which Stieda seems
to have overlooked, is decisive. 1
Light is thrown on Justi's reasons for leaving Vienna by
his hints that the Jesuits were hostile to him, and had spies at
the doors and windows of his lecture-room. 8 He also says
that the rector told him flatly, "There is no need of Cameral-
wissenschaft und Policei; Austria has been prosperous a long
time without anything of that sort. If people are only pious
and say their prayers, God will bless the country without
such stuff."*
Reviewing the Austrian passage in Justi's career, Frens-
dorff says (p. 389) :
nomischen und Kameralwissenschaflen .... von Herrn Hofrat u. Pro-
fessor J. H. G. edlen Herrn v. Justi. Herausgegeben von Dr. E. VV.,
Leipzig, 1754. According to Stieda's description (p. 32) this docu-
ment contains virtually the same programme afterward proposed in the
Preface of Staatswirthschaft. In the latter form it will be discussed
below.
It is quoted below; vide p. 336, note.
3 Staatswirthschaft, I, 119. It does not seem to me that Frensdorff
has given due weight to this evidence.
*Grundriss einer guten Regierung, p. 324.
290 THE CAMERALISTS
Brief as was his stay in Austria, the time was not lost for Austria
nor for himself. As one line leads back from him to the most
eminent representatives of Volksivirthschaft under Kaiser Leopold I,
so another connects him with those who followed. Justi continued
the work of Becher, Schroder, and Hornick Each had at
heart the question how Austria might be made more prosperous by
means of Landesoekonomie or Volkswirthschajt. They solve the
question according to the principles of the mercantilists; and the
difference between them and Justi is his more abstract procedure.
He is not concerned in the first instance with a particular country.
He tries to lay down principles of universal validity, and while they
handle their material in a popular way, Justi puts his in the form of
a dogmatic and schematically complete exposition. 1
Justi left Austria during the year 1753. On New Year,
1754 at Mansfeld, he signed the prospectus of a new monthly
journal; 2 he appears to have been for a short time in Leipzig,
but in 1755 he appears in Gottingen. The reasons which
account for these movements remain unexplained. In Got-
tingen Justi combined the activities of Polizeidirector with the
academic function of lecturer on cameralistic subjects. 3 In
June, 1757, however, Justi left Gottingen. Again the reasons
are largely matters of conjecture. The action for divorce
brought by his wife doubtless had something to do with the
brevity of his stay. He next appears (1757) as Bergrath in
the service of the king of Denmark. This Danish episode
lasted less than a year. He moved to Altona, then to Hamburg,
where he made the acquaintance of the Prussian resident von
Hecht. From this time to the end of the Seven Years' War,
Justi did a great deal of political writing. He affected a
1 This estimate must be considerably qualified, especially as to the
contrast of purpose between Justi and his predecessors. I note my
partial dissent, however, without further comment.
* Neiu WahrheHen turn Vortheil der Naturkunde und des gesell-
schaf (lichen Lcbtns der Menschen. Vide Frensdorff, p. 391.
sFrensdorff, p. 393.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 291
manner which purported to set the issues of the day in the light
of a comprehensive political philosophy.
Justi appears to have remained in Hamburg until some
time between 1758 and 1760. From the spring of the latter
year 1 his books are dated at Berlin, and the title, "Kgl. Gross-
britannischer Bergrath" disappears.
Justi's occupations and status in Berlin are extremely
uncertain up to 1765, when he was appointed Berghauptmann.
From this vantage ground he secured the notice and favor of the
king, who indorsed rather extensive plans for the development
of mines. On the other hand Justi seems almost immediately
to have made enemies. These were partly personal creditors,
partly bidders for the opportunities which his office controlled
or influenced. Presently more serious trouble came. Ques-
tions were raised about Justi's financial administration. The
outcome was judicial investigation which resulted in his
arrest and confinement at Kiistrin (February 9, i768). 2 At
the time of his death, probably from apoplexy, he was carrying
on the legal fight for release. He maintained that the whole
case was trumped up by enemies, and according to his daugh-
ter's statement, he expressed his confidence, the evening before
his death, that the process would result in his favor. Although
it is possible, and even probable, that in the whole matter
Justi was "more sinned against than sinning," we must admit
that the incident at best deepens the impression left by the
most favorable version of his earlier life. With all his intel-
lectual versatility, Justi never shows a sign of moral strength.
Returning to our main interest, viz., the cameralists as
authors, not as individuals, we are obliged to disentangle
* Roscher says "from 1762" (p. 444); but the Vorrede of Vol. I
of the Grundfeste is dated "Berlin den 25. April 1760;" of Vol. II, "Ber-
lin, den 6. April 1761;" while the Vorrede of Natur und Wesen der
Staaten is subscribed, "Geschrieben zur Leipziger Michaelis-Messe 1759-"
* Vide Frensdorff, pp. 449 ff.
292 THK CAMERALISTS
Justi's camcralistic works from a mass of miscellaneous writ-
ings. Mcusel's Lexikon schedules forty-eight works which
he published between 1741 and 1771, many of them in several
volumes. They fall into six groups: (i) aesthetics and belles
lettres; (2) philosophy; (3) natural science; (4) history;
(5) law and statesmanship; (6) camcralistics in the wide sense.
Most of his books were dashed off with genial carelessness, and
with notorious disregard of the literature of the subjects treated.
He despised all science which could not be turned to tangible uses,
philology, mathematics, astronomy; in the latter case showing his
ignorance by sneering at the inaccuracy of astronomical opinions. 1
Surh reaction against earlier one-sidedncss probably had a certain
value. At the same time it became itself very plain onc-sidedness
when, for example, Justi admitted the right to kill in self-defense,
but merely to preserve one's own life, not however "to preserve those
chimeras and absurd treasures which we have constructed out of
honor, and property, which is probably not in accordance with the
will of God, or out of female virtue, and perhaps even of virginity" 2
(Roscher in Archiv }ur Sachs. Ceschichte, Bd. 6, pp. 77 fT.).
One might read Justi's cameralistic books a long time
without happening upon express recognition that anything
worth notice had previously been written on the subjects
treated. Tardy and grudging references to other authors
occur, but they do not by any means give due credit for Justi's
drafts upon his predecessors. He succeeded in eclipsing
them partly because he had rather unusually acute political
instincts. Besides this, he was a skilled organizer of literary
material. If he was not a plagiarist in the strict sense, he was
a [>ersistent absorber and purveyor of other people's ideas
as his own. While this fact foredooms certain tendencies to
idealize Justi as an originator in the social sciences, it indicates
his value as a summarizer of previous social science. Justi
1 Slaatsu'irthschaft, I, xxiv.
Natur und Weaen der Staaten, pp. 176 S.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 293
repeatedly excuses his omission to cite other writers, on the
ground that such references merely serve to parade an author's
learning. 1 He has a euphemistic substitute for frank con-
fession in the following passage:*
I have never owned a book which I have not read entirely
through, and my memory was so strong that in case of all notable
passages I not only knew the volume in which they were to be found,
but also the chapter and usually the page. Indeed, I have often
introduced into my writings from memory passages many lines
long without again referring to the book. This extraordinary
memory has been growing weaker for several years, and I am learn-
ing the value of good tables of contents.
Our plan requires a review of the most important of Justi's
cameralistic books, as nearly as possible in their chronological
order. We shall find at least the elements of all his subse-
quent books in the Staatswirthschaft.*
We must give more than passing notice to the strategic
force of the expression on the title-page, "which are requisite
for the government of a country." The phrase at once puts
to the front the purpose and viewpoint of cameralism, viz.:
1 E. g., in the last paragraph of the V or rede of the first edition of
Grundsaize der Policeyvrissenschaft.
* Vorrede to the "zwoten Ausgabe" of the book just cited, 1759.
3 Johann Heinrich Gottlobs von Justi Staatswirthschaft, oder sys-
temaiische Abhandlung oiler Oekonomischen und Cameral-Wissenschaften,
die zur Regierung eines Landes erfodert werden. In zweien Theilen
ausgefertigt. Erster Theil, Welcher die Lehre von Erhaltung und Ver-
mthrung des Vermogens des Staats, und mithin die Staatskunst, die
Policey- und Commercien-Wissenschaft nebst der Haushaltungskunst
in sick begreifft. Zweyte stark vermehrte Auflage 1758.
The title-page of the second part of the book, bound in the same
volume, is varied as follows: Zweyter Theil, Welcher die Lehre von dem
verniinftigen Gebrauche des Vermogens des Staates, und mithin die eigent-
liche Cameral- oder Finanz-Wissenschaft in sich begreifft. Nebst einem
vollstdndigen Register iiber beyde Theile.
I have seen Professor E. R. A. Seligman's copy of the same edition.
It is bound in two volumes, but the binding is evidently much later than
that of the copy which I chiefly used.
294 THE CAMERALISTS
first, the paramount state whether the princelingdom of
Reuss or the kingdom of Prussia, is immaterial a dominant
conception of what belongs to thrifty state-housekeeping, and
Staatswirthschaft as the tradition of the technique which
accomplishes that species of thrift.
We must set it down as a fixed fact that this is an element
in the historical development of German social science, and of
German government, which accounts for certain of the typical
contrasts with English theoretical and practical tradition.
In order to obtain a general conception of the range of
Staatswirthschaft as Justi and others taught it, and as most of
the higher civic officials in Germany learned it, till a more
modern organization of science was brought into vogue by
Rau (Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomic, 1826, etc.), the
Table of Contents should be examined.
The first impression which the book would make upon
any fairly intelligent person, who happened upon it with no
previous hints about its contents, would be that it was intended
as a digest of knowledge useful for civic functionaries. The
primary thesis which the book and all the other writings of
Justi on related subjects justify is that social problems pre-
sented themselves to the author principally as problems of
civic administration. That is, the autonomous, patriarchal
petty state was the ever-present working assumption. Justi
is thus strictly in line with cameralistic tradition as we have
made it out from the beginning.
Since Justi's work is in effect a recapitulation of cameralism,
we are justified in reproducing rather fully his own review of
the state of cameralistic knowledge at the time of writing.
The Preface to the first edition of Staatswirthschaft clears the
ground in this way:
The economic and cameral sciences are very old in the world.
The application of them occurred indeed the moment property was
introduced among men, and republics came into existence.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 295
This delightfully unconstrained style of historical free-
lancing at once illustrates Justi's irresponsibility to authorities.
Yet it would be unfair to treat him as exceptional in making
hearsay a sufficient basis for historical generalization. Europe
was still in its age of fable. It was half a century after the
writing of this preface when Niebuhr's first volume on the
history of Rome marked the dawn of the era of historical
criticism. If Justi felt at liberty to spin historical formulas
out of his imagination, he was exercising a liberty which was at
his time under no serious ban of disrepute.
It is important to notice that the word "republic" in Justi's
vocabulary is not an anachronism. It is merely the unprecise
term in frequent use at the time to denote any civic society. 1
Justi goes on to say that:
People have always been obliged to observe appropriate rules
in exploiting their estates, and rulers of republics have found them-
selves constrained to adopt expedient measures both for organizing
the state and for thrift and order in the same. This is the essential
in the economic and cameral sciences.
Then Justi cites Aristotle as evidence that theoretical
treatment of these subjects was very ancient, and we need not
challenge this phase of his retrospect. He proceeds to bemoan
the neglect of this branch of science:
All other sciences have workers in superabundance. To these
alone have they given little thought, and if we had not been able
to collect certain practical observations from people active in these
pursuits, but little devoted to learning, these sciences would be
everywhere barren and empty. There has been scarcely a thought
of teaching these sciences in the universities, and, although teachers
1 Vide Index, title "Republic." Justi applies the designation to the
beginnings of civic society, apparently making the origins of the institu-
tion of property and of " republics" simultaneous, if not identical. With
Justi, as with his predecessors, the word "republic" was a purely generic
term of the most general application to all sorts of civic societies in which
the relations of meum and tuum had begun to receive social sanction.
296 THE CAMERALISTS
in excess have been provided for all other branches of knowledge,
centuries elapsed after the founding of these institutions before it
was found necessary to devote a single chair to these sciences.
From the following passage it is probable that Justi used
the same sources which we have quoted above (viz., the books
of Gasser and Dithmar, and possibly the tract of Ludewig);
but his readers would find no hint of these means of verifying
his statements. For the contents of the passage in addition to
the data given above, Justi offers no evidence beyond his own
assertion. He says (Preface, p. xii):
It was thirty years ago when the former king of Prussia, who was
himself a really great manager [H'tr/A], who appraised learning
wholly according to its use to the state, and consequently had no
very high ideas of the scholars of his time, set the example of estab-
lishing in his universities chairs devoted to the economic sciences.
This occurred in fact in Frankfurt a. O. and in Halle. That at
Halle remains; and in this case the king was so fortunate in his
first appointment as to find as an incumbent Privy Counselor
Gasser, who really had much talent for these sciences, although he
did not think with enough order and system to develop them thor-
oughly. The king thought so much of his teaching that a Prussian
subject stood little chance of promotion if he could not show a
certificate from Gasser that he had regularly attended the tatter's
lectures. This example of the Prussian king at last drew the atten-
tion of other states to the advantage of economic professorships.
Similar chairs were accordingly founded in Upsala, in Gottingen,
and some other German universities, as well as in some academies,
as in Vienna and Braunschweig.'
Justi expresses himself as highly dissatisfied with the results
of this movement. In the first place, cameralistic chairs were
still too rare. In the second place, when they exist they treat
1 While Justi is literally correct about the foundation of cameralistic
professorships, he overstates the neglect of these subjects. They were
treated more or less formally, oftener, however, on some other than the
cameralistic basis, by many men in Germany: e. g., Gerhard, as early
as 1713 at Jena. For further details vide Stieda (vide p. 206 above).
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 297
"only Haushaltungskunst und Landwirthschaft with less
incidentally about Policey, and the Regalien." That is, to
express the idea in today's idiom, Justi regretted that the
emphasis had been placed on the operative rather than on the
managerial side of gainful occupations. He supported this
judgment by referring to the textbooks which Gasser and
Dithmar had published in connection with their lectures. 1
These are the only text-writers whom Justi mentions here by
name, although the vague reference to "others" shows that
he knew more than he cared to tell or was willing to make
exact, about path-breakers in the subject. Enlarging upon the
criticism just quoted, Justi declares (p. xiii) that it is mere
patchwork to deal with these fractions of Cameralwissenschaft
and to neglect the rest.
Indeed [he exclaims], thanks to such samples, the statesmen and
practical cameralists have the idea that in these sciences no orderly
system of theory is possible, and this opinion has been uttered to
my face. On the other hand, the students find little that is impor-
tant in such books, but discover that they have to do mostly with
rural economy, which they expect to learn by experience, if they
have occasion for it. They therefore look upon these sciences very
coldly, and conclude that they can get along without learning them.
Justi adds that another obstacle in the way of these sciences
is found in the teachers themselves. They are apt to be people
not trained for university careers, and taken from the admin-
istrative service. They accordingly are seldom good instruct-
1 Vide above, pp. 207 and 223. He mentions Gasser and Dith-
mar again (Preface, p. xliii), where he also refers to "a new came-
ralist" (vide p. 309 below). On p. viii of the Preface to the second edi-
tion it appears that some reviewers had compared the first edition
unfavorably with Zincke's Grundriss. Unless the latter writer was the
"new cameralist" referred to (and such a phrase would have been both
inaccurate and insolent), I have no surmise about the man intended.
Justi takes up the matter again in the Preface of the second edition of
Grundsatzc der Policeywissenschaft (vide below, pp. 437, 438).
298 THE CAMERALISTS
ors (p. xiv). On the other hand, the trained scholars of the
academic type who are charged with teaching these subjects
do not know enough about them in detail to make their instruc-
tion valuable.
At the same time Justi finds a brighter tint for the picture.
He thinks there is no doubt of the superiority of the Prussian
bureaus to those of other states, and some of this excellence is
due to the teachings of Gasser and his colleagues. The estab-
lishment of cameralistic chairs had also been accompanied
by more publication on the subject, and in most parts of Ger-
many there had been an evident increase of interest in camera-
listic science. The same appeared to be true elsewhere, notably
in Sweden, and Justi credits Sweden with more progress than
Germany in this field. He draws the inference that progress
in these respects would everywhere have been still more credit-
able if instruction in the universities had been more adequate,
and the remainder of the Preface is devoted to expansion of
this proposition.
Justi goes about his task of establishing the claims of
cameralistic science in a way that is quite in accord with the
methodology of the time. At first glance it seems not unlike
the general argument of Adam Smith. It is impossible, how-
ever, not to infer that the preliminary moral part of the argu-
ment sits more lightly upon Justi than upon Smith. In the
case of the former, it has rather the effect of an argufnentum
ad hominem addressed to people whose conventional views
were inhospitable toward his subject. It attempts to show
on their own grounds that cameralism has valid claims. He
begins with the proposition that there are different kinds of
knowledge appropriate to the different uses of life (p. xvi).
If we refuse to cultivate the kinds of knowledge necessary for
the fulfilment of our diverse duties, it is just as though we had
deliberately declined to perform the duties themselves (p.
xvii). Included in this necessary knowledge are "natural and
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 299
revealed religion, morals, or the theory of virtue, and the science
of civic law, which shows us our duties in our various stations."
Dividing knowledge into the "necessary," the "useful,"
and the "attractive," Justi urges that the "economic and
cameral sciences" should be recognized as belonging in the
first class. "They give us precisely that insight which we most
need for the purposes of civic and social life (p. xix). The
government of republics cannot endure without them, and there
is no social institution or class or mode of life which could
do without them entirely."
Advancing to another premise of his argument, Justi
predicates of the universities as follows:
It will be enough if we attend to their ultimate purpose. This,
in so far as they are public foundations of the state, can be no other
than that of affording to youth properly prepared in the lower schools
adequate instruction in all intelligence and science which will be
needful for them, in order that they may some time, as servants of the
state and upright citizens, render useful services to the common-
wealth, 1 and be in a position fully to discharge their duties (p. xx).
It follows from the foregoing reference to the ultimate purpose of
the universities that it should be one of their principal efforts to teach
the economic and cameral sciences (p. xxi).
The argument is then developed by going into detail in expand-
ing the proposition:
There are very few positions of responsibility in the state in
which expertness in the economic and the cameral sciences would
not be the chief matter, if the duties of the position were fulfilled
and good service to the state performed (p. xxii).
We get something like a direct view into the state of thought
at the time by finding that it was necessary for Justi to argue
1 I give under protest this rendering to the phrase, "dcm gemeimn
Wesen." It has no exact equivalent in our idiom, and must certainly
not be understood to carry the associations which we attach to the
expression that must serve us as translation.
300 THE CAMERALISTS
against the idea that, while instruction was necessary in law
and medicine, civil servants could pick up casually all that
they needed to know about economics and cameralistics.
While we have a precise parallel with this situation in many
universities today in the case of sociology, the academic con-
ditions against which Justi argued have been transferred, in
England and America more than in Germany, to business and
government. That is, the universities are now eager to teach
these subjects, but the practical men are skeptical whether
the universities can teach anything about them which cannot
be learned better in practical life. 1
Justi's estimate of the part played by knowledge of the
Roman law in German civilization, and as substitute for more
specific cameralistics, is also instructive. He says (p. xxv):
The recovery of the Roman law, and provision for teaching it,
was the first step which Providence allowed us to take, in leading
us out of the thick fog of ignorance which everywhere surrounded
us. We therefore owe deep gratitude to Roman legal learning, and
it is remarkable that for several centuries it was believed that all
human wisdom was to be found in the body of Roman laws. To
knowledge of these laws it was chiefly due that we became intelligent
enough to begin the extermination of barbarism. Today's fortunate
organization of states according to the fundamental principles of
economic and cameral science is by no means old. Less than two
hundred years ago there was no knowledge of a cameral system in
Germany, and at that time men could scarcely have believed that
the prosperity [Aujnahme*\ of the trading classes, the encouragement
of the classes producing raw material, and the administration of the
revenues of the sovereign could occur in accordance with permanent
principles and methods. Consequently nothing was known of
cameralists. The most eminent magistrates [J ' ustizbcdicnten] of the
prince at the same time managed his revenues; or the matter was
1 Vide Spencer's argument in The Study of Sociology.
* This is one of the ambiguous terms which a literal translation
would not fairly render.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 301
held to be of such slight account that the consort of the prince took
charge of it, just as today the spouse of a well-to-do private person
manages his household. The good arrangements in the police and
other bureaus, which we now find in most states, came only gradually
into being, perhaps more through accidental suggestions than in
pursuance of coherent principles of the governmental sciences.
The organization of states is itself perhaps not yet brought to per-
fection, and perhaps it is only a beneficent fruit of our enlightened
century that we at last perceive that the great housekeeping [Wirth-
schaft] of the state, in all its economic, police, and cameral institu-
tions, rests upon coherent principles, which are derived from the
nature of republics, and incidentally are veritable sciences.
Justi at once reiterates the moral that these sciences are
now worked out in somewhat complete shape, and conse-
quently it would be a dereliction in high places if there should
be further delay in making them the subject-matter of univer-
sity instruction (p. xxvii).
One of the passages in the Preface indicates that Justi's
idea of cameral science pictured it as a social polytechnic, and
the cameralist as an all-around expert in this complex science
of government. Thus he says (p. xxxi):
We may admit, to be sure, that a merely practical cameralist,
if he has good natural intelligence, and industriously makes himself
acquainted with the institutions of other lands, may become a good
particular cameralist (sic) in this or that branch of civic adminis-
tration, but he can never become a good universal cameralist (sic).
From lack of coherent basic principles he will never walk with secure
steps. At every unusual occurrence he will waver and seize upon
questionable decisions. If he thinks he has introduced important
improvements in this part of the administrative organization, he
will at last come to the perception that he has thereby caused dis-
proportionate injury in another part of the great housekeeping of the
state, because he did not sufficiently understand the correlation of
this great system and the influence which all circumstances of the
entire system have upon one another. What can however be more
indispensable to a state than perfect universal cameralists? The
302 THE CAMERALISTS
welfare of the state rests heavily upon them. Most lands appear
in this respect to be seriously lacking. 1
Justi frankly puts the sciences of civic administration, as
professed technologies, in direct antithesis with "the other
sciences which merely serve to enlarge the human under-
standing" (p. xxxiii). He urges, however, against the con-
trary opinion of some scholars, that the former would not
interfere with the latter, but on the contrary, "the more we
discharge and respect our duties to the state, the more shall
we be inclined to improve our understanding."
But Justi is not content with arguing that the universities
should undertake instruction in cameralistics. His argument
is so cogent in his own mind that it carries him much beyond
his premises. Apparently inflamed by a zeal that is kindled
in the course of his discussion, he demands still wider scope
for his science. He concludes the first branch of his arugment
as follows (p. xxxiv) :
In my opinion I have sufficiently shown that it is necessary to
teach the economic and camcralistic sciences in the universities.
This theorem has the corollary that we must prepare youth for such
instruction in the lower schools, and there can be no doubt that every
new academic citizen* should bring with him at least ^the general
theories of Haushaltungskunst 3 as the basis for all the sciences
which are necessary for promoting the great housekeeping of the
state. Indeed, in the very meanest schools, in which the children
of the lowest rabble arc instructed, at least the most comprehensible
precepts should be taught, and the duties which they at some time,
as citi7,cns and inhabitants of the state, and as fathers of families,
will have to observe. In the case of institutions of this class, we
seem never to have thought that it is not less needful to educate good
and useful citizens than good Christians.
1 The rest of the paragraph (p. xxxii) reads like a memorandum for
Spencer's The Sins of Legislators.
3 1. e., every matriculant at the university.
s Without trying to make too much of it, we may notice that he uses
the art rather than the science concept.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 303
Justi then passes to a second consideration, viz., the proper
organization of cameralistic instruction. His proposal is
worth quoting at length (pp. xxxv ff .) :
It will hardly be supposed that I should regard a single man as
sufficient to teach the economic and cameralistic sciences in univer-
sities. At least two teachers should he appointed, of whom the one
should deal chiefly with police and commercial science, the other
with economics and finance. For if these sciences arc to be taught
completely, fundamentally and to real purpose, each of these profes-
sors must have time to treat of this or that portion of his sciences
in detail in separate courses of lectures, in order that each may have
opportunity to make himself proficient in that branch to which he
proposes to devote himself. Some will want to make a career in the
manufacturing system, some in the bureaus of taxation and revenue,
some in forestry, or the forestry bureau, and all must have oppor-
tunity to get detailed instruction in the selected specialty.
The traditional professorship of politics in the universities should
be so filled that future ambassadors and ministers could profitably
hear the occupant discuss statesmanship, and so that the doctrines
taught would not seem ridiculous to actual ministers and statesmen.
The professor of chemistry should be of such a character that he-
would be prepared to teach Probicr- und Schmelzkunst, and should
not give his time merely to the theory of compounding medicines,
which any apothecary's boy can learn without trouble. Likewise,
the teacher of mechanics should be prepared to explain the machinery
of mining operation and construction, and the professor of natural
science [Naturkunde] should be able to impart adequate knowledge
of ores and of fossils in general. These six professors, to whom we
might add the professor of civil and military engineering [burger-
lichen und Kriegsbaukunst], if talented, experienced, and expert men
were chosen, would compose a faculty that would Ix? uncommonly
salutary for civic life. It would amount to an oracle which could
with great advantage be called upon in many affairs of state for
which it is now often necessary, at great cost, to procure advisers
from foreign countries.
In respect to instruction in the economic and camcral sciences,
there is first of all needed a Collegium Fundamental, in which all
304 THE CAMERALISTS
these sciences are presented in a single coherent theory. This is
necessary in order that young students may get an insight into the
whole, that they may gain a coherent idea of all contrivances in the
great housekeeping of the state, ^and may be filled with correct
principles derived from the nature of republics. When they have
laid such a ground they will never be entire strangers in any part of
the housekeeping of the state, although it may be their intention to
emphasize some particular part of civic administration. This will
under all circumstances accrue to their advantage, because all
affairs of state have an inseparable influence upon one another and
an interconnection with one another. This course should properly
be heard by every student, unless he is determined not to become a
member of the civic organization. Should we not get acquainted
with the structure and nature of the civic body in which we live?
Should we not make ourselves acquainted with our obligations
toward the republic, and is there a scholar to be found who does
not need at least the rules of Haushaltungskunst ?
The many-colored naivete" of this passage gives it a high
value. The cross-lights upon the state of knowledge in general,
though not directly in the line of our inquiry, are altogether
worthy of attention. The observation most immediately
pertinent is that, although Justi's range of effective vision
covered only the operations of a system of bureaus developed
in the service of an obstinately statical type of state, yet the
soul of truth in his contention has gone marching on. We
now see that adequate social science presupposes analysis of
all the processes within which government is a mediate process,
until we have a survey of the whole cosmos of human purposes
in the whole complexity of their activities. In other words,
we have here an outcropping of the social logic which had never
been generalized in its present form until the last half-century.
The perception that we need to understand the social activities
of which we are factors permits no stopping-place until we have
compassed the whole range of activities within which there
are traceable connections of cause and effect in human lives.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 305
Our primary interest with the cameralists, however, is in
tracing the progress from their preoccupation with a mere
administrative technology to an economic theory which would
have the same relation to such technology that the science of
physics has to civil engineering.
Justi goes on to say (p. xxxvii) that the first part of his
Staatswirthschaft is for use as a textbook in such a Collegium
Fundamentale.
It contains in a coherent system the chief principles of all eco-
nomic sciences. First of all the chief theorems of statecraft [Staats-
kunst 1 ] are presented. Then the police administration is explained,
which in a broad sense includes the science of commerce. These
two sciences occupy the first book. The second book teaches
principally the immediate duties of subjects, in which duties are
involved the grounds of financial science, and then follow the general
rules of management, with the chief theorems of agricultural science.
Justi thinks that this part of the book can be covered in the
university in a semester (p. xxxviii).
This fundamental course taken for granted as an intro-
duction, Justi would proceed to develop the involved particular
sciences. First of these he says is "Oekonomie," and the term
is thus put in the place of a specific designation under the
generic terms "Staatskunst," "Staatswirthschaft," "Haus-
haltungskunst," etc. Justi at once explains his use of the
title "Oekonomie":
It includes not only the general rules of management [Haus-
haltung], but also the theory of municipal management, and especially
1 The undifferentiated conception of which the word was a symbol
at that time cannot be indicated by any English word now in use. The
rendering "statecraft" does not quite correspond with Justi's idea, yet
it would be more unfair to use the modern term "political science."
In the rough, Staatskunst as Justi knew it, was the methods of keeping
the civic machinery running and of assuring the ways and means on which
the machinery depended; including, however, much more management
of private affairs than Americans or Englishmen would admit into
political science.
36 THE CAMERALISTS
of agricultural management. It is necessary to begin the special
sciences with these two, because they in turn are fundamental in
this field (p. xxxviii).
Again we must make the comment that the apparent validity
of this position is shaken by the fact that the "Oekonomie,"
as Justi knew it, was systematized rule-of-thumb. It was the
procedure which had become the routine of the traditional
bureaucratic state. Its foundation was the sand of assumption
that this state was the universal state. "Oekonomie" was thus
essentially stereotyped usage, while "political economy" as
proposed by Adam Smith was essentially an inquiry into prin-
ciples of economic relationship antecedent to usage, and
destined to control usage. We must admit that usage on a
different plane set bounds to Smith's objective analysis, 1 yet
the contrast between the two systems was at bottom this:
Justi was formulating usage, Smith was referring usage to
underlying principles. Each procedure had justification after
its kind. Neither procedure has yet come to its full fruition.
On each side criticism has both brought out incompleteness
and found approach to correlation with the opposite procedure.'
Of this first fundamental science of the second order,
"Oekonomie" Justi adds (p. xxxviii):
It not only affords adequate ideas of the subject-matter con-
cerned in all these specific sciences, but its theorems are at the same
time an epitome of all the measures which are necessary in the great
management of the state. The great management of the state rests
virtually upon the same rules which other management must observe. 3
1 Vide Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, pp. 56, 107, 125,
148, 1 60, etc.
This passage contains a part of the reply which I would make to
FrensdorfT's generalization. Vide above, p. 290.
3 While this proposition suggests the remark which Herbert Spencer
somewhere makes, to the effect that "the problems of the state are merely
the problems of the household enlarged and extended," the inferences
drawn by the two men from the same generalization were quite con-
tradictory.
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 307
In both establishments the ultimate purposes are to acquire "means"
[Vernwgen], to assure what has been acquired, and to use reasonably
the goods possessed. The housekeeping of the state is merely of
incomparably greater extent than that of a private person. A
student who wants to learn the economic and cameral sciences
thoroughly, and at the same time wishes to end his studies early,
might therefore hear the Oekonomie while also hearing the Col-
legium Fundamental, yet it would always be better if he would begin
the more special courses after completing the more general. The
course on Oekonomie may also easily be completed in a semester.
Next to the economic lectures [continues Jusli] should follow
in order the course on police science. This is also the first part of
the great Oekonomie (sic) of the state, since it includes the chief
measures intended to preserve and increase the general means of
the republic. All the methods whereby the riches of the state may
be increased, in so far as the authority of the government is con-
cerned, belong consequently (sic) under the charge of the police. 1
The science of police is consequently the more immediate basis for
the cameral and finance sciences proper, and the expert in police
science must sow, as it were, in order that the cameralist in turn
may reap. Since this science is very comprehensive, the lectures on
it will demand a whole year, if one treats the subjects involved with
the proper thoroughness and completeness.
Then cameral and financial science proper completes the series.
This is, as it were, the second main division of the great Oekonomie
of a republic, since it deals with the reasonable use of the means of
the state, and the entire internal housekeeping This science
also is so inclusive that it can hardly be covered properly in less
than a whole year.
All these sciences are demanded if one is to attain thorough
knowledge of them, and to become a universal cameralist. But if
one is destined to become only a particular cameralist, one or the
other of these sciences may, if necessary, be dispensed with. For
instance, one who purposes to give his attention chiefly to the com-
1 The "consequently" is obviously a term of reasoning in a circle.
But why call attention to a spot on the outside of this cup and platter,
while the whole contents were a ragout of begged questions ?
308 THE CAMERALISTS
mercial system may omit the Oekonomic and Camtralwissenschaft,
and after the Collegium Fundamentale may turn immediately to
police science, etc. (p. xl).
Another specification shows that Justi's perceptions were
in more than one direction prophetic. He adds (p. xl):
It is not to be denied that it would be of great advantage if one
would begin this study with a course on the history of the police,
commercial, economic, cameralistic systems. This sort of history,
however, is not yet at all worked out, with the exception of a slight
beginning at Berlin, and there is a special lack of a suitable text-
book for this purpose. Meanwhile, each of the above-scheduled
courses should begin with a brief history of the subject. Thus in
the lectures on police one may introduce a discourse on the police
arrangements of ancient times, and of the rise and fall of countries
and cities; in commercial science one may rehearse the history of
shipping and trade, and similarly in the case of the other sciences.
The technological and vocational trend of Justi's ideas is
more evident than before in the paragraph in which he begins
to discuss the limitations under which instruction in these
sciences must proceed. His first proposition may be rendered
in modern academic jargon, "It is of course impossible to
conduct these courses by the laboratory method" (p. xli).
And he continues:
For in these sciences practice would not amount to much if it
consisted in preparing camera! documents or acting as a commission
in cameral affairs. That is perhaps not the hundredth part of the
practical labors in these sciences. In the case of each main division
there are numerous side applications. If one were to give specially
practical lectures, one would be drawn into repetition of exposition
and explanation which would amount to a review of the whole body
of science, and a series of years would not suffice for such a course.
Consequently every course on a special economic science must be
planned in a practical way, especially the courses on police, commerce,
and finance, and so soon as the instruction has reached the end of
a main division the instructor must exhibit pieces of work of the sort
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 309
that apply what has been explained. He must require the students to
imitate these samples, and he must pass judgment on them publicly.
This should be the practice at least with the more diligent students,
who have an interest in getting thorough mastery of the subject.
It would be impossible to treat in this way all the exercises that
might be submitted. 1
At the close of the Preface (p. xliii) Justi again refers to
Gasser and Dithmar, and expresses the hope that his work
will be found superior to theirs. He thinks these latter are too
defective to be used with advantage. Then occurs the phrase,
"a new cameralist," already noted. Justi says that so far as
extent of material is concerned this writer is measurably com-
plete. "But it would not be in accordance with the truth if
one should attribute to his work an organization firmly based
upon the essence of the subject."
In the Preface to the second edition, less than three years
later than the first, Justi says that the first edition was exhausted
a year and a half before the time of writing.
He betrays a rather innocent idea of the growth of science,
when, in apology for enlarging Part I, he says that an author
ought not to publish a book until he has reached his limit of
ability to treat the subject, so that changes will not be necessary
in later editions. He ought at most to publish additions as
appendices, but in separate sheets, so that the owner of the
first edition could use them with it. He conformed to this
requirement in part by making the changes chiefly in the
notes (p. iv). 2
Before entering upon an analysis of the text of Staats-
wirthschaft, mention must be made of the syllabus which
1 As an item of evidence bearing on the growth of the seminar
method in German universities, sec. xlii is worth consulting.
Sees, vi-ix of this preface contain curious circumstantial evidence
about the author's attitude toward other writers, and about the sort of
liberty which a commentator on political subjects might at that time
MMtme.
310 THE CAMERALISTS
preceded it. The main outline is identical with that of Staats-
wirthschaft, and the latter evidently incorporated the sub-
stance of the lectures given on the basis of the former. The
most notable feature of this outline is the prompt and definite
statement of its fundamental thesis: viz., after declaring
(2) that the ultimate purpose [Endzweck] of the economic and
camcral sciences is the common happiness [gemeinschaftliche
Gliickseligkeit], Justi declares (3):
Hence follows the first and universal principle, namely: all the
governmental activities of a state must be so ordered that by means
of them the happiness of the state may be promoted.
Our interpretation of this principle must be deferred. 1
In accordance with his theory, Justi begins Staatswirthschaft
with a "short history" of the financial systems and commerce
of all peoples. It occupies twenty-six pages. The status of
its historicity may be inferred from a note on the second page,
in which Whiston's estimate of the population of the ante-
diluvian world is cited as proof that navigation must have been
practiced during that epoch, because without it a population
twenty times as numerous as that of the modern world could
not have been supported!
1 Vide p. 319. The syllabus is entitled: Kurzer systematischer
Grundriss oiler Oeconomischen und Cameralvrissenschaflen. It is
reprinted in Justi's Gesam. Pol. u. Finanzschrifien, Vol. I, Abth. 2,
pp. 504-73; and in Vol. II, Abth. 2, pp. 303-77. A note to 2 says:
"I used this outline as the basis of my lectures at Vienna, and it had to
be submitted to the previous censorship of the ministry. Graf von
Haugwitz was so much pleased with it that he caused it to be circulated
among all the members of the General-directorii." This seems to settle
the case with Roschcr as to Justi's academic activities at Vienna. Vide
above, p. 289.
Both in the essay referred to above (p. 286) and in the Geschichle
(p. 444) Roschcr says that Slaatswirlhschaft was dedicated to Maria
Thcrcsia. Frensdorff (p. 385) assumes that such was the fact. I have
been unable to find a copy of the first edition, but have used the second
(1758). My copy seems to be in the original binding, but it contains no
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 311
The character of the historical propositions is seen in the
following samples:
The Phoenicians carried on extensive trade both on land and
sea; .... because her finances were not well administered, this
powerful republic in consequence, and also because of party spirit,
at last suffered total destruction; .... there were at the time [of
the first Ptolemiesl in Egypt 33,339 flourishing cities (p. 7); ....
the Romans, as the rest of their constitution was wise and excellent,
had also a well-ordered constitution of the financial system (p. 7), etc.
Justi mentions Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, the Capitularies,
etc., but not in a way which shows whether he had first-hand
acquaintance with them. The notes do not furnish evidence
of the authorities behind the statements in the text, but add
illustrative or cumulative material backed by nothing but the
author's assertion.
In the sixth section (p. 10) Justi declares:
The Roman commerce declined, just as this realm tended toward
its fall, on account of the bad administration of the emperor; and
although the Roman Empire in the Orient, especially in Constanti-
nople, in the beginning had a considerable trade, yet this declined
in proportion as the realm was weakened by the Arabians or Sara-
dedication whatever. The same is true of other copies of the same edition
on which I have obtained reports from libraries in this country. As the
Preface to the first edition was dated "Leipzig n April, 1755," i. e., in
the second year after Justi left Vienna, it does not accord with the cir-
cumstances of his departure, so far as theyare understood, to suppose that
he would have been in a state of mind to waste any veneration on the em-
press. Roscher seems to have been in error about the dedication. It is pos-
sible that the original of the Crundriss may have been dedicated to Maria
Theresia, and that Roscher confused the syllabus with the expander] work.
After the foregoing was written I received the following from the
library of the British Museum: "The first ed. of Justi's Staatswirthschaft
( l l$S) is in B. M. and is dedicated to Maria Teresia. His Kurzer syste-
matischer Crundriss (1752 ?) is not in B. M." This puts Roscher right;
but it also shows that he missed the significance of the omission in the
second edition.
. .i::' : Tf* .
312 THE CAMERALISTS
cens. On the other hand all commerce passed over to these peoples,
especially after they had conquered Egypt.
Then in a note upon this paragraph Justi continues:
Not the division of the Empire, as many writers on history
believe, caused the fall of Rome, for both empires remained after the
division stronger than the most powerful realms. We must seek
the true cause of the fall of both empires in the insecure occupancy
of the throne and in the irregular succession, etc.
These platitudes and generalities are below the standards
of a modern "finishing school." They are mere space-fillers
in a book ostensibly introducing young men to practical govern-
mental careers. It is hard to believe that they could have been
regarded by their author as more than rhetorical flourishes.
Coming to the period of discovery and colonization, the
information vouchsafed contains this item concerning the
English possessions in America:
They possessed there Virginia, Carolina, New England, Scot-
land (sic) besides several other lands and islands (p. 17).
The more serious and practical purpose of the book might
be inferred, perhaps, from the points to which Justi calls
attention in the case of Germany. He says (p. 24):
In respect to the finances, Germany has been very careless for
several hundred years. Only at the end of the last century were
manufactures to some extent re-established through the Protestant
French refugees, and the former king of Prussia, who was himself
a very great administrator [Haushalter], by good management,
increased his revenues by one-half, and he gave equal attention to
manufactures. The present great and wise Prussian monarch has
not only retained the former management, but by forming great
maritime trading societies he has laid the foundations for sea com-
merce, etc.
A note to this paragraph declares:
In the Middle Ages, when almost all the revenues of the German
princes were derived from the crown estates, which produced little
CAMERALISTICS OF JUSTI 313
enough, as a rule the consort of fhe prince, or the prince himself,
took charge both of the income and of the expenditure, without the
help of bureau employees. In modern times, and even within 200
years, questions of justice and finance, neither of which bulked very
large, were dealt with by one and the same body of officials. Land-
grave Philipp of Hesse, as appears from his will, had for all his admin-
istration two dignified officials, each of whom received fifty florins
salary. Elector August of Saxony (1526-86) is, so far as I know,
the first of the German princes to have organized an orderly cameral
system.
So far as a serious scientific or practical purpose may be
supposed to have stimulated this "historical" survey, so far
as it is to be regarded as something more than a mere rhetorical
embellishment, there appears to be but one object which it
can have served. It advertised the importance of adminis-
trative thrift. It did this not by analysis of cause and effect
which was above the grade of puerility, but merely by calling
attention to the matter-of-fact elements of ways and means
which romantic or speculative or heedless tradition had formed
the habit of neglecting. Perhaps the present state of mind
in the United States on the subject of forestry may be cited
as the most instructive parallel. Until very recently it was
almost impossible to make anyone of the academic or of the
political type take the slightest interest in the subject of forest
preservation. It was regarded as a matter that would take
care of itself, or if not, it was no concern of people whose chief
interest was in taking care of themselves. Justi's public was
in a somewhat similar state of mind about national revenues.
Evidently there was a reason for this in the fact that public
revenues were not in the same sense "public" that they are
today. They were the revenues of the prince and of his
government. While there had been great changes in the
technique of administration, and while the problems of pro-
ductiveness of different sources of revenue had been system-
atically calculated by the governmental bureaus, it was about
3 14 THE CAMERALISTS
as hard, apparently, to create non-official interest in these
subjects, as with us at present in the subject of forestry. People
then said, "It is the prince's affair; let him look out for it;"
just as we now say, "What has posterity done for us? Let
future generations look out for themselves." Accordingly,
this historical retrospect, utterly without value as a contribution
to knowledge, for it was merely a recital of scrappy hearsay,
was a bit of homiletical practice. It was an appeal to the
suggestibility of hearers, and an attempt to put them into a
receptive attitude toward the technological considerations which
were to follow.
CHAPTER XIV
ARGUMENT OF JUSTFS " STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT "
It is now in order to summarize Justi's epitome of cameral
science, not with reference to its technological details, but
especially with a view to the larger scheme of purposes which
these details, and cameralism as a whole, presupposed. In
this re'sume' much reappears that has been said or implied
either by Justi or his predecessors.
The argument begins with assertion of the necessity of starting
the teaching of any science by laying down fundamental principles
(p. 29), as distinguished from the programmes of teaching merely
through examples, or practice, or memory.
The importance of basing a system of teaching on principles is
peculiarly evident in cameral istics (p. 30). The forethought of
a wise government must extend to a thousand sorts of matters which
are most intimately connected with one another. If then one lacks
a general and connected idea of these governmental affairs, one will
in many ways cause injury to the body politic [gemeines Wesen],
when one attempts to be of use.
Again Justi implies, without dogmatically asserting it,
that these affairs of state have never yet been treated in a
single book as details growing out of fundamental principles.
His note on this proposition still more clearly reflects the
situation as he saw it. He says (p. 31):
We cannot assert, to be sure, that there has been a lack of books
along these lines. If we consider both home and foreign countries,
we may collect quite a library. Yet we cannot find a book among
them all which attempts to teach one or more of these sciences on
the basis of their correlations with the whole subject. Even the
Compendia are not exceptions. Usually they treat somewhat of
economy and of the royal revenues. If they are very ample, there
will be a few sections about the police, but in the fragmentary fashion
316 THE CAMERALISTS
and disorderly arrangement in which they accidentally occurred
to the author. I am by no means inclined to blame others, and I
therefore refrain from mentioning names. The facts however are
open to the eyes of everyone. Without doubt the reason of it is
that, through some ordering of destiny which I do not understand,
philosophical minds have paid no attention to these sciences which
so intimately concern the welfare of social life. 1
We call the sciences dedicated to the government of a state the
economic as well as the cameralistic sciences, or the economic and
cameralistic sciences. 3 Economics or Haushaltungskunst has for
its aim to teach how the means of private persons (sic) are to be
preserved, increased, and reasonably applied. What economics
attempts to do in connection with the goods of private persons, the
governmental sciences aim to do in the case of the total means of
the state. Hence they properly bear the name, the economic sciences. 3
We give them the name cameralistic sciences, however, because the
high collegia which the sovereigns have established, to manage the
preservation, expansion, and use of the means of the republic, are
usually called Cammern or Cammercollegia (p. 32).
Our times are so fortunate that almost all rulers are eager to
secure for their states a flourishing trade, and for their subjects all
kinds of subsistence and temporal welfare. I do not venture to say
that this providence always springs from genuine sources, that is,
from love for the subjects and from paternal impulse to make them
happy. Self-love is here and there the chief motive. Yet there is
rather satisfactory consciousness on the part of princes in general
that they cannot be great and powerful if they have a land that is
poor and resourceless. All courts accordingly use language con-
sistent with the genuine sources of motive for political action. It is
1 Zincke's Cameralwissenschaft appeared the same year with Justi's
first edition. I fear he was a cad to publish such a reflection three years
later.
3 In Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, pp. 189 and 210, I have
called attention to the strange turn of affairs which led von Mohl to
declare that political science had nothing to do with political economy.
This antithesis must be looked into later.
3 The unsteadiness of the conception in Justi's mind is evident.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 317
our business to set in order the principles of these governmental
sciences, which the nature of things, truth, and sound reason demand.
These principles must be derived from the ultimate purpose of the
state. What then is a state, and in what does its ultimate purpose
consist? (p. 33).
It is evident that Justi is to a certain extent aware that he
is proposing ideal principles rather than those which are
actually accepted by the ruling classes. It is not so plain that
he saw the inherent antagonism between contemporary political
policies and abstract principles. He was apparently concerned
with generalizations primarily as a rational basis for existing
practice, and only secondarily, if at all, as a leverage for change
of practice. Yet the moment one begins to formulate human
society, in general, or a state, in particular, in accordance with
rational categories of whatever sort, one inevitably initiates a
reconstructive impulse. The problems are thereby presented:
Why does not the actuality conform to the theory ? and, What
is to be done, either to the actuality or to the theory, in view
of the discrepancy ?
Justi answers his own question in this way (p. 33) :
It is usually asserted that republics have been derived from fear
of incursions. It is more probable that they grew out of the govern-
ing skill of families; that is, the patriarch must necessarily have had
a certain prestige and power over his children and servants, which
descended at his death to his eldest son, until in the course of time
it amounted to a real rulership. We have many evidences that this
was the fact, but of course they do not account for great empires,
which have always been formed by force of arms.
With no further fact or theory or criticism as a basis, Justi
proceeds to the following definition (p. 34):
A republic or state is a unification of a multitude of people under
a supreme power, for the ultimate purpose of their happiness; or
we may say, a republic consists of a multitude of people who are
combined with each other by means of a general interdependence
318 THE CAMERALISTS
and certain fixed institutions, in order, with their united energies,
and under a superimposed supreme power, to promote their common
happiness. Republics are accordingly distinguished from Gesett-
schaften or Societaten, which, to be sure, have a certain best, and
sometimes happiness in general, as their aim, but have never sub-
ordinated themselves to a supreme power. The supreme power in
the state accordingly originates without doubt from the people;
a principle which today is as universally recognized as true as it was
formerly regarded as dangerous by little minds.
Hamlet's reflection, "What a piece of work is man!"
might be parodied from the opposite point of view, with such
generalizations as the foregoing as the point of departure,
With what Pickwickian states of mind do men fool themselves !
In a political society in which government was primarily of,
for, and by the sovereign, a theorist could still suppose he was
dealing with realities in basing a technological system on the
presumption that the power of the sovereign is derived from
the people. Perhaps the anomaly is most striking when
inverted. Sovereigns could persist in acting as though they
had absolute rights as sovereigns, for generations after men
of thought had discovered that the powers of sovereigns come
from the people. The wonder is not so great as it seems,
because the anomaly does not by any means last so long after
the discovery as appearances seem to indicate. It is alto-
gether improbable, for instance, that to Justi the formula,
"The power of sovereigns is derived from the people," meant
what it means to us. Nor did it have precisely the psychologi-
cal sense in which it is a truism. It had rather a vague, dreamy,
mixed sense, made up in part of purely idealized notions of
the relation, partly of the historical hypothesis above expressed.
The thought-medium in which this idea was carried, however,
was a strong tincture of superstition about some sort of fore-
ordained fitness of certain hereditary lines to be the repositories
of these powers over their fellow-men; and accordingly it
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 319
carried an energetic presumption that the well-being of these
multitudes was to be thought of in terms of the pleasure of the
sovereign, rather than of the wants of the subjects.
Yet Justi seems to be very much in advance of his time
when he continues (p. 35) :
The ultimate aim of each and every republic is therefore unques-
tionably the common happiness It is unnecessary to enlarge
upon the proposition, therefore, that the subjects do not exist for the
sake of the ruler.
But it was precisely this principle which was to be the bone
of contention between sovereigns and subjects for the next
hundred years. The system which Justi was trying to inter-
pret, and for which he wanted to train recruits, was historically
an assertion of the contrary principle.
As previously in the Grundriss, 1 Justi formulates as "the
first and universal principle of all economic and cameralistic
sciences" the following proposition (p. 35):
All the administrative transactions of a state must l)e so ordered
that by means of them the happiness of the same (i. e., of the state)
shall be promoted.*
To what extent we have here a clue to the conflict of ideas
in Justi's mind, and in the civilization of the time, it would be
unsafe to infer with much positiveness. The confusion is
notorious, both in abstract thinking and in the current social
practice. Neither the psychology nor the logic nor the sociol-
ogy of it is our immediate concern, beyond mere observation
of the fact. We are at present interested in tracing the develop-
ment of scientific consciousness out of this situation. Merely
as a symptom of the situation, as a sign of the lack of precision
and consistency of view, we may note that in the previous
paragraph Justi had been talking about the well-being of
subjects, as the end for rulers to subserve, or "the common
1 Above, p. 310. ' Vide below, p. 327.
320 THE CAMERALISTS
happiness." In the formula which he now constructs to
enJbody that idea, the center of attention is the happiness of the
state. No long argument is necessary to show that there was
room for endless incongruity and inconsistency in theory and
practice so long as such variable common denominators were
used as "subjects," "the common happiness," and "the
happiness of the state."
In other words, there was not yet a precise and consistent
analysis of civic relations. Conceptions of civic relations
were fluid and shifting. As Hegel might have put it: Expe-
rience was only partially self-conscious. Theory was accord-
ingly in many ways in contradiction with itself and with
practice. Both theory and practice were unsystematically
feeling their way toward precision and consistency. Justi
bravely declares that the sequel will prove the theorem just
quoted to have the character of a universal principle, and to
be the source from which all doctrines of the state and of
government may be coherently derived (p. 36).
Then Justi classifies all "republics or forms of govern-
ment" (sic) into the three types:
(i) The monarchy or autocracy, in which the power resides in
one alone; (2) the aristocracy, or the government of the better class
[Vornehm]; (3) the democracy, or the rule of the common people.
Then there are mixed forms.
This whole type of analysis, not yet by any means out-
grown, makes form of political structure the decisive matter,
and does not press back to the psychological or even the socio-
logical meaning of the form. Commenting on the analysis,
Justi adds:
It is easy to prove that the monarchical form of government is
far preferable to all others, in consideration of the rapidity with
which it can grasp the means of happiness of a state, and because
many domestic disturbances and discords are thus prevented. It
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 321
is also certain that a single good monarch can do more good than
free republics could bring to pass in centuries (p. 38). x
Since the monarchical form of government is taken for granted
in this book, it is necessary to consider the various constructions
of the monarchical form: viz., (i) with reference to succession of
rulers; (2) with reference to unlimited or limited power; (3) with
reference to the connection of realms and territories which belong
to a monarchy (pp. 30-43).
The analysis under these heads is of the most elementary
and obvious sort, and dynastic convenience is throughout the
principal test of value. Thus Justi says that there are ample
grounds for the conclusion that women are not fit to govern a
state; yet he adds that the same reasons would exclude an
incompetent or ignorant man from the succession. Without
saying it directly, he implies that the fixed succession in the
male line is notwithstanding a lesser evil than uncertainty
about the succession. In a note he makes a remark which
throws light on the preconceptions which lead to this judg-
ment:
A realm is in its essence nothing but an estate [Landgut], which
might fall into the hands of an alien heir (p. 39).
The discussion is so general in its character that it is a
famous object-lesson in the futility of deciding upon social
arrangements by means of academic generalizations. Whether
a monarchy, limited or unlimited, an aristocracy, or a democ-
racy is the best government, proves to be a question quite
co-ordinate with the problem whether a saw or a hat or a loaf
of bread is the best piece of property. There is no universal
"best" in either case. The historical judgment in both cases,
that is, the actual working judgment, the judgment that holds,
is the judgment not of types but of workings. The academic
method thus illustrated by Justi must always sooner or later
As we have pointed out before, this is today one of the most con-
fident presumptions of industrial monarchy.
322 THE CAMERALISTS
give way to the pragmatic method best illustrated on a large
scale by British history.
At the same time it must be admitted that there was much
more pragmatism in fact than in form in Justi's theories; and
this is almost universally the case with social philosophers.
That is, he dealt with universal propositions, but they were
universals of which particular cases were given in the current
problems of German states, and more than he was aware he
was really asking: "Which of the possible alternatives will
work best in this situation ?" Questions of checks upon the
ruler, of succession to the throne, of relations between terri-
tories politically connected only through a common ruler,
were everyday affairs. The judgments passed upon them,
both by practical and theoretical reasoners, were in this form :
So and so works best with us just now: ergo, so and so is a
universal principle. This type of fallacy is long-lived. In
slightly less naive shape it underlies the Smith ian political
economy. Adam Smith knew, yet he did not know, that the
capitalistic order of society in which he lived was merely a stage
in historical evolution in the same series with community
ownership, and with feudalism. He believed, however, that
the social division, landlord, capitalist, and proletarian, worked
well. Hence he canceled the historical factor and concluded
that the stratification, landlord, capitalist, and proletarian, is
eternal; and he proceeded to draw all further conclusions
with this premise reckoned as a finality. The judgments which
Justi expresses are defective in a much more elementary way,
because they are based on a presupposition of a much more
precarious type. The corollaries which he immediately draws
are as follows:
(i) The fixed form of succession is necessary to the happiness
of a state, because otherwise the state can expect nothing but unrest,
wars, and disruption; (2) the territorial possessions, and the freedom
of those classes that are not harmful to the welfare of the state must
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 323
be preserved; (3) no new liberties and privileges must be conceded
which interfere with facile control of the means of happiness of a
state (pp. 43, 44); (4) various realms and lands belonging to a
monarch must be combined in a union and a general organization,
because separation hinders the use of the full powers of the state,
prevents complete employment of means of revenue, especially in
commerce, and leads to antipathy and jealousy between the different
territories.
In qualifying this conclusion Justi betrays the opportun-
ism that is really decisive in all his judgments (p. 46).
Further light falls on the standpoint of the whole system
in the elaboration of these clauses. Thus Justi observes that
some states seem to assume as a principle the opposite of
(2), i. e., liberties are suppressed as much as possible. There-
upon he remarks that "there are weighty considerations making
for the conclusion that a monarch does no wrong in adopting
this policy: for usually such liberties are no good to the state,
but are merely for the benefit of individuals." The two
terms, "state" and "individual," here brought into compar-
ison, were relatively unanalyzed concepts; and judgments
between them were necessarily rough. The leaning in favor
of the state as contrasted with private persons is, however,
plain and characteristic. When Justi puts into German
the familiar Roman epigram in the form: "The happiness
of the state is its highest law," we must understand him to
mean not what a Roman tribune would mean, nor what an
American democrat would mean. He meant: "The success-
ful carrying-out of the policy which the ruling power in the
typical German state sets up as its aim is the paramount
consideration." It is impossible to determine precisely how
much his frequent partial formulations of more popular stand-
ards should modify this proposition. 1
The nature of the presuppositions on which Justi's system
1 Vide below, p. 327.
324 THE CAMERALISTS
rests appears further in his analysis of the monarchical factor
in the state. Thus he begins with the definition (p. 47):
A monarch or ruler [Regent] is the supreme head of the state,
or of the republic, who possesses the highest power in order that
by means of it he may take care of all the affairs of the community
and may apply efficient means for promoting the common happi-
ness.
These words could of course be fitted out with an utterly
democratic meaning. Their connotations at the time were
at best patriarchal, and as a rule the patriarchalism was of a
sort which inverted the personal relations actually concerned.
That is, state policy was incarnated in the ruler, whose success
was identified with "the happiness of the state;" while the
individuals subject to the ruler were in the last analysis not
regarded as having any well-being which deserved to weigh
against "the happiness of the state" so conceived. This
appears always only in part, in formulas of the royal character
or powers. These theorems are never perfectly clear either
way. They contain elements of contradictory views. They
can be interpreted correctly, therefore, not by mere linguistic
rules, but by the light of the conduct in which they were
applied. Such partially ambiguous propositions follow,
e.g.:
The chief duty of the monarch consists therefore in guardian-
ship of the happiness of the subjects.
But in the next sentence the other conception reappears,
viz.:
We should form a very erroneous idea of the monarch if we
thought of him as an administrator or superintendent of the supreme
power and of the affairs of the community. In this way we should
make of the monarch merely the servant of the state, and place the
republic over him, so that he could not be distinguished from a
Staathalter. This is the false notion held by the Monarchomachi,
from which so many harmful and dangerous conclusions follow.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 325
In the note to this paragraph, the idea is made still plainer,
viz.:
The enemies of the supreme power, and especially of absolutism,
whom we are accustomed to call the Monarchomachi, adopt as their
chief principle the theorem that the whole people is above the ruler,
and hence may either call him to account for acts prejudicial to the
welfare of the community, or may resist him. From such damnable
principles came the unhappy tragedy of the unfortunate Charles I
of England, and from the same cause Henry III came to his death
in France. Nothing is more detestable than these ideas which arc
evidently contrary to the nature of a republic and open the doors to
all sorts of uproar and disorder (p. 47).
Here then we are dealing with the familiar fallacy of passing
judgments first on fragments of situations, and then promoting
those judgments to the rank of principles with universal
validity. With such beginnings, modern social science is still
not too far along in the juvenile grades of its education.
The supreme power [die hochste Gewalt} is next denned as
consisting "in the use of the total means and powers of the
state in order thereby to attain the ultimate end of the same,
viz., its common happiness" (p. 48).'
Again we must not take these eighteenth-century words as
indicating twentieth-century ideas. Every shade of meaning
has to be challenged, to be sure that the real thought is de-
tected. The clue to the difference between the earlier and the
later conceptions is in the antithesis between the conception of
the monarch and the state, as incarnations of the community
in a sense* which left the people in a status of tributary exter-
nality, and on the other hand, the conception of ruler or chief
magistrate as merely the representative and the agent of the
state, which is simply a name for the people in their political
relations. If this latter idea were forced into Justi's further
explanations, they would in a general way command present
Vide pp. 327, and 372, 373.
326 THE CAMERALISTS
assent. But the other idea has to be understood in connection
with the words, and they then describe what actually was in
German states at the time, but has to a considerable extent
been revolutionized out of them meanwhile. Thus Justi says
(p. 48):
We should limit the supreme power much too narrowly if we
should make it consist merely in laws, ordinances, penalties, etc.
To the means and powers of the state belong not only all sorts of
goods, both fixed and movable, within the boundaries of the country,
but also all the talents and abilities of the persons who reside in the
country. The reasonable use of all these things, then, and the
prerogative of such use, is therefore the supreme power.
The judgment passed above on Justi's generalization of
particular utilities into universal principles, in the case of the
monarch, would have to be paralleled if we went into particulars
about his opinion of the relations between the lawgiving, the
judicial, and the executive departments of government (pp.
Following these most general observations about the
organization of states, Justi returns to the fundamental propo-
sition which dictates the divisions of his book, viz. :
The business of a ruler falls into two great divisions, to wit:
(i) the preservation and expansion of the means of the state; (2)
the wise application of these means, both in use and in thrift. 1
Hence all the sciences concerned with the government of a state
fall into a twofold division. The first contains statecraft, Policey,
and commercial science, along with economy (Oeconomie), all of which
aim either to preserve or to increase the means of the state. The
second comprises the cameral sciences proper, which teach how to
use these means wisely and in promotion of the happiness of the
state.
Since the paramount aim of the state is to preserve and extend
1 1 translate the phrase " gebrauchel und damit gewirthschaftet" in
this clumsy way, to avoid premature use of the technical concepts "con-
sumption" and "production."
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 327
its means [Vermogen], this purpose must be regarded as the chief
responsibility of rulers, and Justi accordingly deduces the following
theorems (p. 53):
1. The monarch must make use of means and measures through
which the resources of the state may be preserved and expanded,
and his subjects may be made happy.
2. The subjects must facilitate these measures by their obedi-
ence and diligence [Fleiss].
From these principles another follows, viz.:
3. The welfare of the ruler and the happiness of the subjects
can never be separated, and the one without the other can never
permanently exist.
There is more pathos and naivite* than conscious hypoc-
risy in this third proposition. It is true in the same sense in
which the familiar classical economic dogma about the unity
of interest between employer and employee is true; and it is
false in the same way that this economic dogma was false.
If there were some infallible arbiter of the interests concerned
in either case, the formula might be so construed as to express
the truth. The well-being of subjects is by no means neces-
sarily harmonious with the well-being of rulers, when the
rulers have power to determine both; any more than the
interests of employers and of employees are necessarily one,
when the employers have the power to pronounce upon both.
Justi's note on Machiavelli at this point is instructive
(p. 54). He cannot understand how his Italian predecessor
can possibly have meant some of his doctrines seriously; and
therefore adopts the theory that The Prince was a heavily
veiled satire. The more probable alternative from our present
point of view is explanation of Machiavelli and Justi on
precisely the same grounds. Each was a product of his
environment, with a sufficient force of variation to betray
innovating impulses that looked toward a modified environ-
ment. Contradiction and inconsistency were in both cases
an inevitable part of the situation.
328 THE CAMERALISTS
That Justi mixed much sentiment and idealism with his
programme of objective analysis, may be illustrated by citation
of the next paragraph (p. 55) viz.:
From the combined welfare of the ruler and the subjects alone
springs the real strength of a state. This strength consists prin-
cipally of the reciprocal trust and love which the wise ruler and the
fortunate subjects of a considerable state have for each other, while
they endeavor with united energies to preserve and extend the
resources of the state. For neither the well-filled treasury and the
formidable army of the ruler, nor a land living in riches and abun-
dance makes this strength. Such a condition, however happy it
appears to be, is by no means sufficient against all accidents. History
is not empty of examples of the most powerful and flourishing
realms which unexpectedly came to destruction. A monarch has
accordingly met with a great loss if he no longer enjoys the love and
confidence of his subjects.
It is impracticable to give an adequate account of Justi's
work without succumbing to his own tediously repetitious
style of exposition. We have already had occasion to notice
two or three variations of his general scheme. We come now
to still another explanation which we may reproduce in brief.
Of the sciences to be treated in the first part of the Staats-
wirthschaft, Justi says (pp. 60-62):
The chief purpose of Stoats kunst is to assure complete security
for the community, both against external and internal dangers.
The immediate reason for this purpose is that these dangers threaten
the common welfare, and weaken the resources and powers of the
state. Statecraft thus obviously seems to preserve the resources
of the state.
Policcywissenschajt is concerned chiefly with the conduct [Lebens-
wandd] and sustenance [Nahrung] of the subjects, and its great
purpose is to put both in such equilibrium and correlation that the
subjects of the republic will be useful, and in a position easily to
support themselves.
The name "commercial science" is applied to two distinct
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 329
sciences. The one teaches the ways and means of conducting
commerce, and the composition of goods with which commerce is
carried on. The other treats of the measures by means of which
commercial enterprises may be established and made to flourish,
so that as a result the sustenance of subjects may be more ample
and the resources of the country may be increased. The latter
presupposes knowledge of the former, so that it is not dependent
merely on the reports of traders themselves, and it (the latter) is
peculiarly appropriate for those persons who are charged with the
government of the state. Accordingly it may be called, in distinc-
tion from the first, civic-commercial-science [Staatscommercien-
wissenschaft]. Fundamentally it is a subordinate science of Policey,
and it is a subject which we shall presently discuss. It is evident
that this science, too, ends with extending the resources of the state.
Management [Haushaltungskunst] is particularly devoted to
showing how the resources of private persons may be preserved,
increased, and well used: and since rural thrift is of great im-
portance to the state, this branch of science, after referring to all
classes and vocations, gives special attention to the ways and means
of cultivation. The more thrifty the private persons, the greater and
securer the resources of the state. Again there can be no doubt that
the science of management is tributary to the preservation and
extension of the resources of the state.
Since the co-operation of ruler and subjects is necessary for these
ends, the subject-matter of these sciences involves two chief con-
siderations, viz.:
1. What means and measures has the ruler to adopt, in order
to preserve and increase the resources of the state, and thus to
promote the happiness of his subjects ?
2. What duties have the subjects in order to lighten the respon-
sibilities of the ruler?
The treatment is divided into two books in accordance with
this latter subdivision.
As a special introduction to the former of these subjects,
civics, or statecraft, on the side of the ruler, Justi attempts
to define the concept "happiness" [Glucksdigkeit], which is
33 THE CAMERALISTS
the goal of statecraft (pp. 65 ff.). He distinguishes it in the
first place from the philosophical concept, "happiness," which
he describes as "perfection of our moral condition, and the
consequent felicity of the soul." On the other hand, the
happiness here in question is either the perfection of our external
condition, or some specially advantageous occurrence which
could not properly have been expected from our situation.
More definitely expressed, Justi means by the happiness of
subjects in the present connection:
such good arrangement and structure of a state that everyone may
enioy a reasonable freedom, and by his diligence may be able to
attain those moral and temporal goods which the demands of his
social station make necessary for satisfactory living.
In spite of himself Justi includes much more than material
goods in this concept, yet the moral elements which he inserts
in the specifications have to be scrutinized with great care to
distinguish them from the concepts which the same terms
now suggest to us. For instance, he explains that "the
freedom of the subjects is indispensably necessary to their
happiness," yet the whole treatise is in principle and in detail
a definition of relations between ruler and subject to which
our generation would deny the predicate "freedom." We
must emphasize our previous observation that the essence of
the situation of which Justi was a symptom must be formulated
as an effort to express, in theory and in practice, the purposes
involved in the situation in terms of the paramount governing
factor of the situation. This is a social solecism. Social
logic is a progressive demonstration of the fallacy. The
interaction of the interests represented by these two terms,
ruler and subject, or more generally, social control and individ-
ual initiative, is the process actually going on, so far as these
two terms at any moment are active factors of the process.
Justi accordingly had in mind a relatively local, temporary,
provisional phase of the social process, and he virtually at-
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 331
tempted to generalize this transient situation as a universal
condition, and to lay down the laws of its equilibrium as
laws of universal equilibrium. When we have pointed this
out, we have really closed the rational verdict upon the system,
and upon all others of which it is a type. But we are at work
upon something more than the mere appraisal of a piece of
archaic philosophy and technology. Our main interest in it
is as it functions as a term in the evolution of social science
in general. With this purpose in view, we must continue the
analysis. We must try to discover how the fallacies of attrib-
uting a static character to the evolving, and a universal
validity to the particular, progressively discredited partial
science and forced more valid representation of reality.
Justi specifies "freedom, assured property, and flourishing
industry," as the three chief factors on which the happiness
of the state and of the subjects depends. 1 These specifica-
tions completely omit the factor which modern democracies
have placed at the head of the list, viz., government of, for,
and by the people. The cameralistic conception of the state
was that of a population free to conduct their private affairs
for themselves, but not presuming to have thoughts or ac-
tions about public affairs except as they were dictated by the
ruler. This arbitrary distinction between private and public
interests could not withstand the wear and tear of the social
process; but before the artificiality of the distinction was
discovered civic life had to struggle on a long time under the
embarrass ment of the provisional absolutistic theory and
practice.
Entering upon discussion of the security of the state, Justi
urges (p. 70) that:
more must be understood under this head than the condition of the
subjects in which, freed from all violence and fear, they may peace-
1 In Grundriss einer guten Regierung, p. 65, Justi makes the con-
stituents of happiness, "freedom, internal strength, and security."
33 2 THE CAMERALISTS
fully enjoy their goods and pursue their vocations. The state
itself must be in such a condition that, without fear of a stronger
power, it may make use of all means and measures which it finds
necessary for its prosperity and for the happiness of the subjects.
The fact that such danger to the state itself may come from either
external or internal assault, makes it necessary to develop the theory
of state action with reference to each type of contingency. This
gives the classification of the material of this division into two
sections.
We come then to the specific teachings of the book. Since
Justi is much more significant as an epitomizer of the whole
cameralistic movement than as an original contributor to the
theory, it is necessary for our purpose to present the most
complete survey possible of his principal doctrines. We have
therefore compressed the most important sections in the volume
into a series of brief propositions, viz.:
1. A republic enjoys external security when it is fortified against
conquest and even against the excessive power of a neighboring
state (p. 72).
2. Interest is the moving spring of all actions of states, and when
two peoples insist on their irreconcilable interests war is the con-
sequence (p. 72).
3. Hence two things are necessary: first, discreet conduct to-
ward other free powers; and, second, a sufficient army (p. 73).
4. Discreet conduct toward other states involves: first, knowl-
edge of all other European states; second, adequate knowledge of
the home state, its physical and personal make-up (p. 74).
5. A state must perfectly understand the nature of its relations
to other states, the previous history of those relations, etc. (p. 76).
6. The so-called "balance of power" in Europe is an academic
invention. If there were such a system no one would have less
cause to conform to it than the house of Austria (p. 77).
7. A state must observe natural law, the law of nations, and the
social duties toward other states (p. 78).'
1 A note qualifies the proposition by asserting that this must never go
so far as the making of apologies by one state to another.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 333
8. A state must seek to discover the movements and intentions
of other states (p. 79).
9. For the foregoing purpose the most able and discreet men
must be selected as ambassadors (p. 80).
10. But no pains must be spared to get the necessary imforma-
tion by secret means (p. 81).
11. No state should invent schemes for the disadvantage of
others which would be disgraceful if discovered (p. 81).
12. When a state discovers such secret machinations, it often
performs a good service by informing the court of the country in
whose interest the plans are made, that the plot is known. This
usually leads to abandonment of the scheme (p. 82).
13. When the plan is abhorrent to natural and international
law, or to fidelity and faith, it may be made known at other courts
(p. 8a).
14. Discretion demands that the blame be put on the ministers,
not on the sovereign (p. 82).
15. A state must be particularly on its guard against another
state in which such a plot has been discovered, even though it was
dropped. The same animus is likely to hatch another (p. 82).
16. Measures for the foregoing purpose consist usually in advan-
tageous alliances, which are of two sorts, offensive and defensive,
each of which requires its own sort of consideration (p. 83).'
17. Allies against a hostile power must be sought among those
whose interests and policies are identical with ours (p. 86).
18. Guarantees, and other treaties, by which free powers
promise aid in stipulated cases, are also means of security for a
state (p. 89).
19. Another protection against outbreak or extension of war,
is the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of a given territory (p. 87).
20. Frequently some European power, under a particularly
energetic prince, threatens to subordinate the rest of Europe. Then
a wise monarch is both privileged and bound to adopt means to
keep such a prince within proper limits (p. 88).
* Justi has a long note on this subject in which he takes decidedly
advanced ground against war except for the most important reasons.
Vide 56, p. 88, last sentence.
334 THE CAMERALISTS
21. Such measures vary according to circumstances, but they
must not include treachery (pp. 88-90).
22. Discreet conduct toward the other free powers is not a
guarantee of external security, but other means of defense will be
required (p. 92).
23. The chief of these is an adequate army (p. 92).
24. Recruits from the inhabitants of the state are preferable to
foreign mercenaries (p. 93).
25. The army must be in constant readiness for war (p. 95).
26. There are three ways to make an army brave and invincible:
(i) By honors and rewards, together with appeals to love of country,
after the example of the Romans; (2) by granting license to plunder
and ravish, as in the case of Tamerlain, Attila, etc.; (3) by main-
taining discipline through fear of punishment. The third only is
to be recommended (p. 97).
27. In a well-ordered state the military budget must take pre-
cedence of everything else (p. 98).
28. The monarch should be commander-in-chief of the army
(p. 99).
29. Fortifications are another means of security (p. 100).
30. Maritime nations also require a fleet (p. 101).
31. Incidental to these latter, various munitions of war must be
collected (p. 102).
32. Resort must be had in extremes to troops furnished by
allies, and to mercenaries (p. 103).
33. It is most advantageous when the allies make separate
invasions of the enemy's territory (p. 104).
34. It is a question whether subsidizing revolt in an enemy's
territory is a permissible means of security (p. 105).
35. It is permissible to destroy an enemy's trade and commerce
(p. 106).
36. Non-permissible means of defense are: assassination of the
hostile monarch or his ministers; bribed incendiarism, murder, or
similar treacherous violence; poisoned weapons; violation of truce.
ON THE DOMESTIC SECURITY OF A STATE
37. The domestic security of a state consists in such a well-
ordered constitution of the same that all parts of the civic body are
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 335
held in their appropriate correlation, and in the consequent repose,
while the persons and property of individuals are protected against
all injustice and violence (p. 108).
38. For the above purpose each class in the state must be
required to keep its appropriate place (p. 108).
39. The relation which subjects must observe toward the state,
as well as toward each other, is based on a moral foundation. A
wise government therefore will have a care for the religious failh
which the people profess (p. 109).
40. The state must care for the administration of justice (p. no).
41. The state must protect the subjects against frauds and vio-
lence (p. in).
ON THE ATTENTION OF THE RULER TO THE EXTERNAL CONDITION
OF CLASSES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE STATE
AND TO ONE ANOTHER
42. No one should be permitted to gain so much power and
wealth that he might be dangerous to the state or to his fellow-
citizens (p. 112).
43. The ruler has nothing to fear from the wealth of his subjects
if it is not too unequally distributed (p. 113).
44. The ruler must first of all give his attention to securing
the best talent for the high offices of state and of the army (p. 114).
45. No officer should be allowed to gain enough power to be
dangerous to the state (p. 114).
46. Hence no officer should be intrusted with lettres de cachet
(p. 114).
47. Offices should not be hereditary (p. 114).
48. Neither at court nor in the state should there be different
parties (p. 115).
49. No special class, family, or single person should be allowed
to gain so much power that disobedience to the supreme power
would be safe (p. 116).
50. No one should be permitted to possess fortifications or
maintain an armed force (p. 116).
51. Subjects should not be allowed to attach themselves to
foreign powers (p. 116).'
1 A note applies this proposition particularly to the Jesuits.
33 6 THE CAMERALISTS
52. No privileges should be permitted to subjects which are
harmful either to the state or to other subjects (p. 117).
53. No class should be permitted to monopolize the riches of
the country (p. up). 1
54. The ruler must not disregard the feelings of the subjects
toward himself or his ministers (p. 120).
55. The ruler must use all the wisdom possible in governing his
conduct in case disorders arise (p. 121).
ON THE ATTENTION OF THE RULER TO THE MORAL CONDITION
OF SUBJECTS, PARTICULARLY THEIR RELIGION AND CONDUCT
56. The moral condition of the subjects must be such as will
accord with the welfare of the state (Wohlfahrt des Stoats), and pro-
mote internal security (p. 122).
57. The ruler must not allow his own religious opinions to be
the sole criterion of the goodness or badness of the religion of his
subjects; but he must always treat that religion as true which has
been introduced by the fundamental principles and constitutions of
the state or by the treaties of his predecessors (p. 123).
58. The regent must nevertheless attempt to establish unity of
faith among his subjects (p. 124).
59. On the other hand the welfare of the state must be preferred
to unity of faith (p. 124).
60. The ruler must prevent the introduction of opinions about
religion which are blasphemous and disgraceful, and which tend to
demoralize the character of the subjects (p. 125).
61. For the forgoing reason, a censorship of books must be
established (p. 126).'
62. The ruler must try to stimulate the intelligence of his
subjects (p. 128).
63. The ruler should use the thousand means which are at his
disposal to put premiums on personal virtues of all kinds (p. 128).
1 Again a note states that this has special reference to the Jesuits,
and intimates that the author's teaching in this spirit in Vienna was one
of the causes of his becoming persona non grata.
* The qualifications which Justi adds would seem to the modern
mind sufficient to nullify the proposition itself.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 337
64. Yet the ruler must not go so far as to pry into the family
life of unsuspected persons (p. 130).
65. The ruler must not deny the subjects innocent pleasures
(P- 131)-
ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
66. The supreme power must adjust strife between subjects
over property, pursuits, and transactions, and the decision must
rest on the constitution of the republic and on the principles of
morals (p. 132).
67. The administration of justice is to be distinguished from
the science of law. It belongs partly to statecraft, partly to Policey
(P- 132)-
68. The laws must correspond with the condition of the
community, with the character of the various groupings of the
subjects, and with the particular purposes which a wise government
proposes (p. 133).
69. The laws must be plain and intelligible (p. 134).
70. The laws must be brief and simple (p. 135).
71. Good laws will be in vain unless the government selects men
of high character for judges (p. 137).'
72. Even then the judges cannot be trusted without careful
supervision (p. 138).
73. Before all things the administration of justice must be non-
partisan (p. 139).
74. The judicial procedure must be prompt and brief (p. 139).
75. It would promote justice if the costs of court procedure
should be defrayed by the state and not by the litigants (p. 140).'
ON THE MEASURES OF THE RULER FOR SECURING THE PERSONS
AND GOODS OF SUBJECTS
76. Domestic security demands that the persons and goods
of subjects shall be safe (p. 141).
1 Just! cites the French Parliament as an example of a wise arrange-
ment of influence upon the ruler in an unlimited monarchy, from the
judicial department. He apparently had no suspicion of the verdict
which the Revolution was about to pass upon that same Parliament.
* Justi speaks on this point as though he considered his opinion
utterly impractical.
338 THE CAMERALISTS
77. This safety must be assured both against domestic and
foreign violence or fraud (p. 142).
78. Nations frequently regard the traders of another nation as
legitimate booty (p. 142).
79. Nations sometimes kidnap, the subjects of other nations
for soldiers (p. 143).
80. Nations sometimes encourage special sorts of lotteries, or
other fraudulent schemes for obtaining the property of the subjects
of other nations (p. 144).
81. The worst sort of domestic violence is nocturnal robbery
and murder, whether on country roads, the streets of cities, or in
private houses (p. 145).
82. If we seek the sources of these evils, they are to be found
chiefly in the defective education of youth, and in the consequent
excesses of adults, the scarcity of food in the country, or the defective
impulse to perform remunerative work, the oppression of the land
under heavy taxation and other wrongs of government (p. 145).
83. A wise ruler would not have much difficulty in adopting
measures which would remove these conditions (p. 146).
84. Meanwhile the minor civic officials must be required to
keep sharp watch of criminals (p. 146).'
85. Frequent visitations of roads, forests, and suspicious houses,
and the use of the militia on country roads and at night in the streets
of towns, are advisable. Also the closing of public houses at an
appointed time, and sharp watch of them after that hour, while
the watchmen themselves must be subject to the severest punish-
ments, if they take bribes to allow criminals to escape (p. 147).
86. Thieves are on the whole more dangerous to security than
robbers and murderers, and must consequently l>e zealously traced
and punished (p. 147).
87. Vagabonds of all sorts must be driven from the country
(p. 148).
88. Watch must be kept at the boundaries against such classes,
1 Again Justi, whether facetiously or as a mere excursus in academic
utopianism it is impossible to decide, suggests that it would be well to
imitate the Chinese custom of docking the pay of officials if they failed
to apprehend robbers or murderers within six months of the crime.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 339
and householders must be required to report the names and circum-
stances of the people who lodge with them (p. 149).
89. It is a question whether a wise government should tolerate
Jews. They surely cause much harm by their usury and sharp
practices. Yet it is also a question whether they have not been
forced to these and even criminal practices by the policies of govern-
ments toward them. Probably if they were admitted to all means of
gaining a livelihood they would be as useful to a land as other sub-
jects (p. 150).
90. A wise government must finally punish with severity all
other kinds of violence, such as duelling, outbreaks of apprentices,
and all ways of taking private steps to supplant the law in meting
out justice (p. 151).
91. To prevent these evils, the law itself must efficiently treat
the conditions which they are intended to correct (p. 151).
ON THE RICHES OF THE STATE
92. Besides security, sufficient wealth is necessary to the hap-
piness of a state (p. 152).
93. By the wealth of a country we understand a sufficient supply
of goods to satisfy the needs and conveniences of life, and by means
of which the subjects by diligence and labor may find adequate
sustenance (p. 15 2).'
94. Such being the nature of wealth, if a land yielded an abun-
dance of such useful things, and had no trade relations with other
lands, we might call it rich, even though it contained no trace of
gold and silver (p. 152).
95. Because of international transactions we need a ware
[Wo0re] which is rare, to which all peoples assign equal value, which
is durable and easily carried, to be used as a universal means of pay-
ment (p. 153).
96. Gold and silver possess these qualifications. Consequently
a land cannot be regarded as rich today unless it possesses a sufficient
supply (genugsame Mengc) of these metals (p. 153).
1 It is obvious at a glance that this description !s an unanalyzed
compound which presently had to be decomposed into the concepts,
"wealth" and "capital."
340 THE CAMERALISTS
97. Token currency is in no proper sense an addition to national
wealth, although it may be a means of increasing wealth (p. 154).
98. If a ruler could circulate token currency at will, he could
gradually absorb the whole national wealth (p. 155).
99. Such currency ought not to be used unless a definite term
is fixed for its redemption (p. 155).
100. We must distinguish (a) the wealth of the ruler; (6) the
wealth of private persons; (c) the wealth of the land (p. 155).
101. Gold, silver, and costly ornaments stored in the treasure-
chests of the monarch are of no use to the country and would not
alone tend to remove the land from poverty (p. 155).
102. The same is the case if there are many rich persons in a
country who either hoard their wealth, or keep it in foreign banks
(P- 155)-
103. The true conception of national wealth then is that it
consists of an adequate supply of money, distributed among the
subjects, employed in gainful pursuits, and constantly passing from
one hand to another (p. 156).
104. In order that the people may be able by labor and diligence
not only to support themselves but to supply the needs of the state,
the ruler must see (a) that all measures are taken which secure the
necessary means of increasing wealth; (b) that all necessary means
are used to insure the constant employment of this wealth in gainful
ways, and the circulation of it from hand to hand (p. 156).
ON INCREASE OF THE WEALTH OF THE STATE
105. A state cannot increase its wealth without guarding what
it already possesses. The first rule of a wise government therefore
should be to prevent by all possible means the unnecessary removal
of money from the country (p. 157).
106. This involves stopping, by the court, of purchases of
foreign goods and discouragement of customs which tend to take
the money of private persons out of the country (p. 157). *
1 The item chiefly in Justi's thought at this point is the custom of
deposit in foreign banks, and the antidote which he proposes is such a
firmly established domestic bank system that a premium will be put on
keeping the funds at home.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 341
107. The second fundamental rule of a wise government must
be that there should be constant effort to increase the wealth of the
state, for a land cannot be too rich (p. 158).
108. On the other hand riches must not be increased at the cost
of oppressing other peoples, for such means of obtaining wealth
demoralize those who so obtain it. The chief cause of the fall of the
Persian and Roman monarchies is to be found in their disregard of
this principle (p. 158).
109. There are three chief ways of increasing the wealth of a
land: (i) the increase of population; (2) foreign commerce; (3)
mining.
ON INCREASE OF THE POPULATION OF A COUNTRY
no. Increase of the population increases the means of a
country both because the newcomers bring goods into the country,
and because they stimulate circulation of money (p. 160).
in. It is thus certain that large population makes a state
prosperous provided its constitution is beneficent. 1 The talents of
the persons in the republic, indeed the persons themselves, are
among the resources of the state. The larger the number of people
living in the country therefore, the greater will be the means and
power of the republic. Hence the duty of the ruler to promote
increase of population (p. 160).
112. It is often asked whether a population cannot become too
great, so that some will obstruct the happiness of the rest. Nothing
is so unfounded as this objection. Given flourishing commerce,
manufactures, and trades, with well-administered police and govern-
ment in general, and there is no good reason why the population
should stop at any particular point. Holland and China are evidence
to this effect (p. 161).
113. There is no reason to fear that population could overtax
the food supply. Europe could feed six times its present popula-
tion (p. 162).
' The expression is " seine Bescha/enkeit und Regierungrverfassuug."
This seems to be one of the rare cases in the cameralistic books of use
of the term Verfassung very nearly in the modern sense. Vide above,
PP- 34, 70.
342 THE CAMERALISTS
114. If we had wise police and economic administration, there
would be no need of allowing emigration to America (p. 163).'
115. To encourage increase of population the government in
the first place must be beneficent and mild (p. 164).
1 16. As a particular under this generalization, reasonable freedom
must be permitted to the subjects (p. 165).
117. The growth of population is scarcely possible unless the
ruler permits complete freedom of conscience (p. 165).
118. Freedom of conscience must be distinguished from complete
freedom of religious liberty. The latter is to be granted only under
approved conditions. The former, consisting of rights of belief and
household worship, should be allowed in so far as it is not harmful
to the state (p. 165).
119. A wise ruler will not leave the food supply and employ-
ment of subjects to take care of themselves, but will see that they
are systematically made abundant (p. 167).
1 20. Still further, the government must encourage the immigra-
tion of rich and talented people of all kinds, and may resort to titles,
honors, positions, and privileges as premiums to them (p. 168).
121. So far as possible, the government should relieve new-
comers who wish to build, of the taxes, building-permit fees, etc.
(p. 168).
122. Special encouragement must be given to skilled foreigners
who wish to introduce into the country desirable industries (p. 169).
123. The ruler should see that the laws are favorable to the
marriage relation (p. 170).'
124. A wise Catholic ruler will try to limit the growth of the
clerical orders, for they arc largely responsible for the unfavorable
contrast in population between Catholic and Protestant countries
(P- 173)-
1 The pious reflection is subjoined: "Nevertheless we must bow to
the wise providence of God, which perhaps in this way will make the
most remote regions of the earth moral, reasonable, and enlightened in
religion."
Certain fines and penalties for celibate men are suggested, and
it is further hinted that instead of requiring a payment to the government
for permission to marry, a reward should be given for marrying.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 343
125. A wise ruler will consider seriously the point of view of
population, before entering into war. He will especially encourage
all means of diminishing sickness and of preventing plague (p. 173).
126. A wise government will check drunkenness and other de-
moralizing vices (p. 173).
127. The art of medicine must be brought to the highest efficiency
(p. 174).
128. Surgery, midwifery, and pharmacy must for the same reason
be encouraged and regulated by the government (p. 175).
129. Provision must be made for assuring purity of foods (p. 175).
130. The cleanliness of cities must be assured, and this requires
attention to the building regulations (p. 176).
ON COMMERCE WITH FOREIGN PEOPLES
131. Commerce is transactions in means of sustenance in which
the goods and wares are exchanged with advantage either against gold
and silver, or against other wares, and by this process the needs and
conveniences of human life are satisfied. This explanation includes
everything which belongs to the nature of commerce and to com-
prehension of it (p. 177).
132. Only foreign commerce can increase the wealth of a land
(P- 178).
133. The first principle of commerce must be that more gold
and silver shall be brought in than carried out by it (p. 178).
OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATURE OF COMMERCE
134. The first distinction to be made is between goods produced
at home and those obtained from abroad (p. 179).
135. When commerce is carried on with domestic wares, the
wealth of the land always gains something by it, but this kind of
commerce may nevertheless be very disadvantageous to the state;
for if the wares are carried from the country in the raw and untrans-
formed condition, or arc drawn from foreign nations, the land loses
considerably from the earnings and support of subjects which might
have been enjoyed from the same (p. 180).'
* This paragraph is translated as literally as possible; the obscurity
is in the original.
344 THE CAMERALISTS
136. When commerce is conducted with foreign wares alone,
this is either because these wares are to be consumed at home, or
because they are to be traded, with profit, to other nations. The
first sort of commerce is wholly harmful to a country; for although
the special traders, certain commercial cities, and the tariff and
excise accounts of the ruler may temporarily profit, the land as a
whole cannot gain anything by such trade. On the contrary, if it has
no other sources of wealth, it must gradually lose all its gold and
silver, and this harmful trade must at last stop from lack of means
of payment (p. 180).
137. The second sort of foreign trade is incomparably more
profitable for the state (p. 181).
138. There is a great difference in goods with respect to the
source, or the lands from which they are derived. The trader must
know all about the differences, and he must know whether he receives
them from the first, second, or third hand, and where they can with
profit be sold. The cameralist, however, must know them so far
that he can judge what sorts are most advantageous for the entire
system of commerce, and for domestic manufacture, or with which
kinds the land may most easily carry on profitable trade (p. 182).
139. Another difference in wares springs from their essential
nature and composition. That is, they may be rough or fine, useful
or useless, superfluous or necessary, genuine or spurious, fresh or
spoiled, etc. Of all these differences, a trader must be fully informed.
A civic official in the commercial department must also be somewhat
intelligent about these things, in order to promote the transportation
of the wares, and properly to assess the duties and excises (p. 182).
140. There are also differences with respect to their external
and accidental condition; i.e., packed or unpacked: to be counted,
weighed, or measured; salable or unsalable and contraband the
latter only temporarily and in time of war forbidden. Both mer-
chants and cameralists need to be informed about these details
(P- 183).
141. These various sorts of goods occasion many sorts of trade;
e. g., the customary classification is: (i) Cloth; (2) Silk; (3) Spices;
(4) Groceries [Materialien]; (5) Hides and furs [Rauch- und Pelz-
handel}; (6) Gold, silver, or jewels; (7) Books. This however is
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 345
merely an approximate classification, for there may be as many
sorts of trade as there are separate sorts of wares. Indeed it is
advisable for a trader not to deal in too many wares. If he dares to
confine himself to a single one he can more effectively master the
conditions of that trade. Small traders who have to look out merely
for cost and sale may carry a miscellaneous stock (p. 183).
142. Trade comprises two chief types of transactions: (a) ob-
taining the wares; (b) marketing them (p. 184).
143. All domestic goods come either from cultivating the earth,
or from stock-breeding, or from industries [Gewerben]. As to
agriculture, a wise merchant will either himself engage in it, or by
advancing loans, storage, and favorable contracts will seek to get
the wares at a good price. As to products of stock-raising, he may,
by cash payments, by courteous conduct and minor attentions [eine
kltine Ergotzlichkeit], get the good-will of the shepherds and other
country folk who have such things for sale. The wares, however,
which come from the trades, are procured best through the estab-
lishment of manufactures and factories. Sometimes advances to the
manufacturers and hand-workers will secure the goods. A wise
government, on the other hand, will always see to it that all these
domestic wares are supplied at the required quality and price, in
order that the favorable balance in other countries may be retained
(p. 184).
144. As to obtaining foreign wares, they come either by wagon
or by boat from neighboring lands, and in such cases the factors
involved are essentially those just named; or they are brought from
long distances across seas. For that purpose the merchant must
either have ships of his own, if commerce is free to all, or he must
buy shares in trading associations, or in the great auctions he must
provide himself with the needed wares (p. 185).
145. By "shares" [Actien] we understand those participating
parts which a great privileged trading society at its organization
sells at a fixed price, in order thereby to bring in the sums which
must be used in the trade of the society. These shares, which there-
after may be resold, rise or fall in price, according to the success of
the society (p. 185).
146. Since seafaring is beset with many dangers, a wise mer-
346 THE CAMERALISTS
chant will never risk his whole resources, or a large portion of them,
at one time upon the waves. Consequently it is not only customary
for many merchants to join in fitting out ships, but many forms of
contract have been invented, such as shares in ships, insurance, etc.
The most important of these is insurance; that is, another party
undertakes to assure the cargo of a ship for a payment of 3, 5, 10, 20,
30, or more per hundred, according to the degree of danger to be
feared, and in case of loss to make it good (p. 186).
147. The second chief type of transaction, sale, depends prin-
cipally upon good correspondents, who protect the merchant by
giving him timely notice of rise and fall of prices and other circum-
stances which affect his trade. A good merchant must be able to
distinguish between a correspondent who can be relied upon to serve
his employer's interests and one who is seeking chiefly his own
advantages. The bourse, a house where in great trading centers
the merchants daily meet to transact business, is very prolific of such
reports, but they cannot be regarded with much confidence (p. 187).
148. Actual sale is of various kinds: e. g., for cash payment,
on credit, on instalments, on exchange, on venture, or on speculation
[a raventure ou en /'air], or by means of commission merchants,
factors, fairs [Afessen] or similar devices. A merchant must be well
instructed about these different sorts of trade, together with the cost
of transportation, tariffs, probable dangers, and the prices to be
expected, in order that by weighing these items over against one
another he may be reasonably assured of profits. He must also
assure himself about the reliability of the persons intrusted with the
transportation, also concerning the warehouses and other circum-
stances of the towns and roads through which the goods must pass
(p. 186).'
149. To keep all these things straight, bookkeeping is necessary.
It is customary to use the following books: The inventory book;
the manual, or memorial, or chief book; the journal; the debt book;
the credit book; the treasury book; the secret book; the stock
book; the expense book. All of these must be kept in the greatest
1 To those who imagine that commercial dishonesty is of recent
growth, Justi's note on types of rascality which have to be counted on
would furnish valuable information.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 347
order, and they must exactly correspond with one another. For
this reason, in large concerns a special bookkeeper is appointed ( !)
(p. 188).
150. The ultimate purpose of all these transactions is, on the
side of the republic, to export goods produced in the country, and
not needed, and therefrom to gain increase of wealth, as well as to
provide the land with all those goods which are required for the
needs and convenience of human life. On the side of the merchant,
however, gain is the single purpose of all his endeavor. In view
of the service which he renders to the state, of the danger which he
incurs, and of the labors which he undertakes, we should not begrudge
his gains. They consist in the increase of his goods and of his means.
The amount of his goods depends entirely on the value which they
have in terms of gold and silver. Consequently the single aim of
the merchant is to increase his resources in gold and silver, or in
goods which in comparison with these metals have a great value
(p. 188).'
151. Gold and silver is also in fact the ground (sic) of all
commerce* carried on in the world or at least among civilized or
somewhat intelligent peoples (p. 189).
152. Because merchants have constant occasion to transfer gold
and silver to one another, a large number of devices have been
invented to serve their purposes. Thus the important exchanges,
and the system of bank credits, whereby gold and silver are trans-
ferred only in imagination, yet with the same advantage to the
merchant as though the metals were actually delivered. The essence
of the matter is that one gives to a third party notice that the sum
due can be drawn at a certain place. This simple and natural way
of payment is then by the laws, by the different moneys, and other
circumstances, surrounded with a multitude of formalities and
special details, which today compose a considerable part of the
1 In such propositions as this, mercantilism seems to be less false
than crude and unanalyzed.
Transliteration of the vague term Grund is probably the best way
of indicating the altogether immature character of the thought in this
connection.
348 THE CAMERALISTS
science of commerce, not only for the merchant, but also for the
cameralist (p. 189).
153. A bank is a public institution of the state in which mer-
chants and other private persons may at will securely deposit sums
of money, in such a way that they may withdraw the same any hour,
or may use their deposits for payment to other persons by means
of the bank-credit system. Banks of this sort are called deposit
[Giro] or exchange banks, in distinction from loan banks (p. 190).
I53A. It must be repeated that not money, but gold and silver,
is the chief price and the universal means of payment for all goods.
Money, so far as foreigners are concerned with it, is in fact itself
nothing but a ware worth just what the gold and silver in it will
bring (p. 191).'
154. Those rulers who coin depreciated money miss their cal-
culation in expecting to gain by it. Foreigners will take it only
at its true value, and even something less. The bad money therefore
returns to the land that coins it. It is paid back by the subjects
into the treasury of the ruler, and he deceives himself if he supposes
he has in the treasury more than the actual gold and silver. This
flattering idea disappears as soon as the attempt is made to purchase
abroad. Meanwhile the subjects who have received the money
from the ruler at the imaginary value, and who must make foreign
purchases, suffer (p. 191).
155. The persons engaged in trade are either principals, sub-
ordinates, or auxiliaries. The duties of each of these classes must
be treated in the special textbook on commercial science (p. 192).
156. The fundamental principles of merchants must be dis-
tinguished from the measures and purposes of the government.
While the merchant aims only at gain, and is not always concerned
whether his gain corresponds with the advantage of the state, a
wise government, on the contrary, must give the chief attention to this
latter consideration. Hence the merchants may be much dissatis-
fied with the regulations of trade. Domestic manufacture and trade
are far less inviting to them on this account than the welfare of the
1 It is rather remarkable that Justi does not state in the same
connection that gold and silver are themselves essentially "wares" like
any other.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 349
state demands. It is not to be assumed, however, that the advantage
of the whole state is incompatible with the prosperity of the mer-
chants. The former may, however, require that the advantages
enjoyed by the latter shall be less than at some other periods. Even
in this case the merchants may offset the restrictions by interesting
themselves in promoting mining, manufactures, etc. (p. 194).
ON THE FOUNDING AND THE PROSPEROUS CONDITION OF
COMMERCE
157. No European country is entirely without foreign commerce,
but some of it is very harmful, and cannot continue without adequate
increase of wealth from other sources (p. 195).*
158. The establishment of commerce presupposes that it will
obtain a condition which promises permanence with advantage to
the state (p. 195).
159. The founding of commerce is not a mere matter of ap-
pointing and encouraging fairs and markets (p. 195).
160. If at these markets more foreign than domestic goods are
sold, then they are only a great vortex from which more gold flows
out than comes in, and the town where the fair is held is the only
gainer, and it consequently holds on to its advantage as long as
possible, in spite of the general poverty of the country (p. 196).
161. Prohibition of the exportation of money does not secure
profitable commerce. In the first place it cannot be effective, in the
second place it would deprive the subjects of many things which
their present standard of life requires, and in the third place it
could accomplish nothing of itself in the direction of establishing
commerce (p. 196).
162. The first principle of advantageous commerce with foreign
nations is, that more gold and silver shall come into the country as
a result than goes out, and on this principle must all measures for
establishing useful commerce be founded (p. 198).
163. Since commerce must be carried on either with domestic
or foreign goods, and since the mere importation of foreign goods
cannot possibly constitute an advantageous trade, there follows
naturally another principle, viz. : The value of the domestic products
1 Vide Proposition 135, above.
35 THE CAMERALISTS
exported must exceed the value of foreign wares imported. The
inferences from these two principles will give us all the measures
necessary for the establishment of commerce (p. 198).
164. The excess value of exports over imports can be secured
in only two ways: first, the quantity of imported foreign wares must
be diminished; or, second, the gaining and exportation of domestic
products must be increased (p. 198).
165. In fact these two methods must be combined in order to
assure the result (p. 199).
166. For this purpose a wise ruler must inform himself pre-
cisely about the exported and imported wares and their aggregate
values. These facts must be exhibited in tables drawn from the
tariff and excise registers, so that they can be reviewed at a glance.
For greater exactness the contents of the tariff and excise registers
may be tabulated separately and compared with each other. To
be still more certain, all merchants, artists, manufacturers, and arti-
sans may be required to report what kinds of wares they imported
during the previous year, and what domestic products they sent
abroad. By these three processes together the facts may be some-
what exactly ascertained (p. 199).
167. We call this casting the general trade balance. The
special trade balance is a similar showing of the imports and exports
between the home and a specified foreign country. A wise govern-
ment will every year keep both accounts (p. 200).
168. A wise ruler or his ministers will study these tables to
discover whether among the imports there are any which could be
produced at home, and thereupon it must be made a fixed rule that
nothing which can be produced at home shall be imported. The
necessary measures must then be adopted to promote production of
those wares (p. 200).
169. In this connection all kinds of textiles call for attention,
since they are for clothing and are accordingly necessaries of life.
Every land either has materials for these, or can easily get them.
Silk-weaving is also possible in northern countries. Wool may be
grown everywhere, and the fine wool to be mixed with it may be had
through trade, as the English importation of Spanish wool. Hence "
such manufacture ought not to be omitted (p. 201).
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 351
170. Yet foreign trade in such fabrics is not to be expected.
Our neighbors, England, Holland, France, and Wales, have already
too long start of us. But it will be advantage enough if we check
the import of foreign textiles (p. 201).'
171. The only variation from the last conclusion is in case we
can invent such improvement in the fabrics, that we can make
foreigners our debtors (p. 202).'
172. The same principle holds in the case of every sort of ware
which might be produced at home. As everything cannot be done
at once, beginnings should be made in the case of those wares which
are most used at home, and for which the largest sums are now
sent abroad (p. 203).
173. A second rule must be kept in mind along with the first,
viz., preference should be given to those industries which would
employ and support the most men (p. 203).
174. A third rule should also be followed, viz., to prefer those
industries for which the raw materials are produced at home (p. 204).
175. On the other hand, those industries must be stimulated
which will produce goods that foreign nations need (p. 204). 3
176. In order to exploit these resources it is necessary for the
government to rouse a commercial spirit among the subjects. 4
177. No monopolies in such domestic products, and no similar
privileges should be granted (p. 209). s
1 In such propositions it appears that Justi's generalization was
even narrower than its usual form would indicate. The problem was
not even that of the type of state then regarded as permanent, but of the
author's particular state.
Jusli's note on this section is a plea for governmental encourage-
ment of inventors.
3 A considerable list follows of German resources for such supply.
4 The picture of unthrift and indifference which follows is an im-
portant piece of culture-historical evidence. There is also a plea for
industrial education which has a truly modern ring, and also suggestions
about stimuli to individual effort.
s The reasons assigned for this rule make against protective tariffs,
and all the consequences which Justi suggests have been illustrated on
an enormous scale in recent years. Justi adds that this last principle
352 THE CAMERALISTS
178. Assuming such measures for promoting domestic produc-
tion, a wise government must give its attention to measures for
inducing foreigners to take the wares. Two factors must be assured:
(i) The wares must have the desired quality; (2) the price must be
satisfactory. It may be added that the beauty of the wares is also
a factor (p. an).
179. In order to insure the quality of wares, the government
must not merely promulgate certain ordinances and rules, but it
must also appoint certain inspectors who will examine the completed
wares, and will mark with a distinguishing sign those which conform
to the standards and those which do not. In case, as is certainly
advisable, complete freedom from tax shall be permitted to exports,
this immunity should extend to those wares only which satisfy this
test (p. 212).
180. It is also often necessary to stimulate production by cer-
tain prizes and rewards, and when the court learns that science
or skill is lacking for the production of certain wares, every effort
must be made to attract people with the necessary qualifications,
or by the necessary money payment to get the lacking information
from a foreign artist, since everything may be had for money (p. 212).'
181. If the wares are to be supplied at a favorable price, not only
must the articles requisite for supplying the necessities of life be
purchasable at moderate prices, for on this depends the amount of
the wages of the laborers, but the raw material of the wares must
also not be dear. The ruler must accordingly take all possible care
that not only agriculture but all the industries that supply the
necessities of life shall be in good order, so that no scarcity shall
occur, as one industry always sustains another. Before all things,
however, those crafts which deal with the necessities of life must
had come to be recognized in practice at his time. He also remarks that
"such privileges can have no validity in themselves," for it is presumed
that they are to be allowed only in so far as they make for the welfare
of the state, and the successor to the throne can in no way be bound to
continue them. He recommends the formation of a special company
for exploiting the mineral resources of the country (p. 210).
1 In a note Justi goes into considerable detail about the sort of
specifications that should be prescribed.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 353
be held under strict supervision, in order that they may not raise
prices by charging excessive profits, or by buying up the supply,
and other underhanded means (p. 2i4). x
182. When so much has been done for stimulation of domestic
production, it is time to establish fairs and great markets (p. 214).
183. But flourishing commerce must be described as something
more than enough to sustain fairs and markets established under
the foregoing conditions. The expression is properly used only
when flourishing trade in all sort of wares is carried on with all
parts of the world. This is hardly to be thought of unless it is
in connection with extensive merchant marine and foreign trade
(P- 5)-
184. Assuming that the land borders on the sea and has good
harbors, or at least the possibility of making them, or is crossed by a
navigable river which is at the command of the country to its mouth,
the beginnings of sea-trade may be made by the formation of a great
trading society, which can collect the guarantee or the capital for
its transactions by the sale of a certain number of shares (p. 216).
185. In order to induce both natives and foreigners to take
shares, either very great privileges must be granted to the society,
or the bad condition and management of foreign companies must
furnish the necessary stimulus, or the court must offer the company
material support.
186. The success of such a company depends principally upon
good management of its affairs. The court must consequently do
its best to insure the election of directors whose insight, talent,
diligence, and integrity are grounds for confidence; and the minister
of commerce and marine, who should possess all these qualities in
the highest degree, must know how to lead these directors in accord-
ance with his purposes (p. 217).
187. Such a company must be guarded against dangerous enter-
prises and needless outlay. A few unfortunate investments will
not only ruin the company, but it will be much harder for the state
afterward to bring about the formation of a new company (p. 217).
188. The power and prestige of the monarch go far toward the
i This paragraph gives more evidence of economic insight than any
that have preceded.
354 THE CAMERALISTS
success of such a company. Other nations that carry on foreign
trade look with jealous eyes on such a company, and try in every
way to put obstacles before it. The power of the monarch, however,
restrains them within such limits, that they cannot openly antagonize
it (p. 217).
189. It is proper that possession of a certain number of shares
should be a condition of sitting and voting in the meetings of such
a company. It is not so certain that a similar condition should
hedge election of directors, because it is not at all certain that wealth
enough to own shares is combined with the necessary qualifications
for such an office (p. 218).
190. It is a prime condition of success that such companies
start with sufficient capital for large operations (p. 218).
191. It must be insisted that the predominant effort of such
companies should be to sell domestic goods in foreign lands. If
they only bring in goods directly from foreign lands which have
previously been bought from middle-men, a saving of middle-men's
profits and of transportation charges of foreign ships is made, to be
sure; but nevertheless the money to defray the first cost of the goods
goes out of the country (p. 219).
192. Such a trading society must not count on founding estab-
lishments in distant lands at once, but must plan to gain them grad-
ually; i. e., not until they can pay good dividends to the share-
holders, and until there is a comfortable capital in reserve, so that
the cost of foreign establishments may be covered out of the reserve
without diminishing the dividends (p. 221). Such gains take large
fractions of the capital; societies formed by other countries, and
already operating there, conduct minor warfare with competitors,
and the monarchs cannot regard their quarrels as sufficient grounds
for actual war. If one such society is ruined under these conditions,
it is all the harder for subsequent ones to succeed (p. 219).'
193. When the trade of such a commercial company becomes
flourishing it is possible to organize other companies to operate
in the same territory in particular lines of goods. It is preferable,
1 Justi testifies to scruples, which must have passed as altogether
Utopian, about the grounds in justice for exploiting the territories of
weaker people.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 355
however, to sell more shares and expand the operations of a single
company. This prevents harmful jealousies, cross-purposes, and
manifold loss of advantage by the home company (p. 223).
194. After all, such companies are not absolutely essential to
the promotion of foreign commerce. Even if they have been used
to establish trade, the time may come when expansion of trade will
be best assured by opening it freely to all mariners and merchants
(p. 223).'
ON THE AUXILIARIES [Huljsmittef] TO COMMERCE
195. First of all we must name among the conditions of pro-
moting commerce, a mild government, and reasonable freedom of
conscience and action, as in the case of domestic prosperity. 3 People
engaged in foreign trade must for special reasons enjoy these immu-
nities, because they have special facilities for withdrawing their wealth
from the country (p. 225).
196. Second, a wise ordering of the tariff and excise system
is the principal means by which a wise government can guide foreign
commerce according to its purposes. Instead of being detrimental
to trade, since traders always have their own interest in view more
than that of the state, and it would be ruinous to leave the ways and
means of commerce to their enterprise, no trade can be carried on in
a way that is advantageous to the state which is not in this way
guided, controlled, and to a certain extent promoted (p. 226).
197. For purposes of tariff and excise, wares are of three classes:
(i) for export; (2) for import; (3) for transport. Wares of the
first class are either fully manufactured, or in raw or partially manu-
factured condition; those of the second class are either indispensable
or dispensable. Accordingly the tariff and excise laws must take
account of five classes of wares, and this makes five primary rules
necessary (p. 227).
198. RULE i. All exports of tnanufactured goods must be
i Justi fortifies this opinion by citing the opposition in England to
the great trading companies, and he expresses the judgment that they
had become more harmful than useful to the British Empire. On the
other hand he thinks it is not time for Holland to abolish the Dutch
East India Company (p. 225).
Vide above, Propositions 115-18.
356 THE CAMERALISTS
burdened with light imposts. The one profitable kind of trade
consists in commerce of this class, and a wise ruler must not merely
take care that the goods themselves are of high quality, but he must
see that foreigners are stimulated to take them. It is poor encour-
agement to foreign buyers to lay a tax on such goods. The exporta-
tion is of itself such an advantage to the state, that it is unnecessary
to burden it with imposts which make against the ultimate use of
exportation (p. 227).*
199. The only exception to this rule is in case the home products
are so cheap, or transportation is so cheap and easy, that the exports
can undersell competing products of foreign countries. Even in
this case, export taxes should not be imposed on articles the home
production of which is capable of indefinite expansion. It is better
to give the home merchants the opportunity to make the profit, so
that they will be stimulated to increase the volume of trade to the
utmost (p. 228).
200. Another corollary from this rule is that very low imposts
should be placed on raw materials when they are moved from one
part of the country to another for the purpose of being manufactured
(p. 229).'
20 1. RULE 2. Export o] raw material which is a home product
must either be heavily taxed or entirely prohibited (230).
202. RULE 3. All imports of dispensable wares must carry
heavy imposts; for if they are really dispensable the importation
brings the country great harm by useless foreign expenditure of money
(p. 23i).3
203. RULE 4. Imports of indispensable wares should bear only
light imposts. Tariff and imposts should not be the ordinary way
of collecting tribute from the subjects. They are justified as a
source of revenue only by some subsidiary purpose. Their main
purpose should be to direct the course of commerce (p. 231).
< Justi cites the wisdom of countries which put premiums on expor-
tation.
* Justi's illustration of harm to the book trade through taxation of
paper might be quoted as prophetic.
3 The author's discriminations between degrees and types of dis-
pensability are sociologically interesting.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 357
304. It follows that foreign raw material needed for chief or
subordinate purposes in home manufacture should be free of import
duties (p. 232).
205. RULE 5. Goods in transport should be free of imposts,
with the exception of trifling tolls (p. 232).
206. The only exception to this rule is when the carriage of an
article through the country takes a market away from a home product,
in which case we must be sure that imposition of high taxes would
not lead to reprisals (p. 232).
207. All the servants of the taxing system must be held under
strict discipline, both against 'peculation, and against needless
vexation of travelers (p. 233).
208. Commercial treaties with foreign countries are the next
most important means of promoting commerce (p. 235).
209. Next in order are good harbors and roads, and passable
rivers and canals (p. 236).
210. A well-organized system of posts, boats, and land carriers
is a further desideratum (p. 237).
211. The coinage is an essential factor of flourishing trade
(p. 238).*
212. Unpartisan and prompt rendering of justice in all trade
litigation greatly promotes business (p. 240).
213. To this end special commercial courts, both original and
For its bearing on the content of Justi's mercantilism, the note at
this point is worth translating in full, viz.: "There can be no doubt that
a low rate of exchange is very harmful for a country, and there are two
chief circumstances which put the exchange of a country on a bad foot-
ing: (i) when it must annually pay a large sum to other nations to
settle the trade balance; (2) when its coinage is depreciated. A land
which finds itself in these bad conditions is in a sorry plight. Bad will
go toward worse through the workings of exchange. All in all the coin-
age today is in an unspeakably bad condition. Under it twenty million
people suffer extreme disadvantage, and only in the neighborhood of
fifty dealers in coin [Miinzlieferantcn] and fifty money-changers enrich
themselves as leeches by sucking the blood of their neighbors. In such
a situation it would be a thousand times better that we had no coinage
at all, but simply settled our balances in gold and silver by weight "
(P-
35 8 THE CAMERALISTS
appellate, should be organized. They should be composed in part
of legal experts, in part of merchants, capable of bringing the most
exact technical knowledge to interpretation of the laws (p. 240).
214. The most flourishing commerce is hardly possible unless
the ruler organizes a special bureau of commerce. This must be
composed of members who, along with proved integrity, fidelity, and
wisdom, possess complete knowledge of trade, and especially of
civic-commercial science; and it is particularly advisable that no
merchants should be members of the bureau, because their purposes
are often different from those of the state. 1 In the largest countries
a special subordinate bureau may be organized for manufactures.
In this bureau former merchants and mining experts may be useful.
In both bureaus individuals must be placed in charge of divisions
of operations with which they are particularly acquainted, and
consequently only the most important and general matters should
be handled by the whole body. In every important seaport or
commercial center there should be at least one commercial councilor,
to supervise commercial and manufacturing relations at that point
under the provisions of the two bodies (p. 240).
215. Finally, a wise government must take care to remove all
obstacles which may embarrass commerce. These may come
either from foreign or domestic causes. Thus, under the former
head, war between other powers, with incidental hindrances to our
commerce; secret machinations of other powers against our foreign
traders, etc.* Among domestic hindrances may be named: Scarcity
of materials for shipbuilding and other production; lack of capital
in the country; existing privileges of certain lands and towns in the
matter of imports and exports of staples; the envy and jealousy of
certain lands and towns toward one another, etc. (p. 241).
ON MINES AS A MEANS OF INCREASING THE WEALTH OF A COUNTRY
The plan of this study excludes, as far as practicable,
consideration of opinions about merely technical, adminis-
' Vide Prop. 156.
* A naive discussion follows in a note, as to whether the spirit of the
Christian religion permits a state to buy immunity from piracy of non-
Christian powers; and the comforting conclusion is reached that the
Christian religion surely cannot oppose any arrangements which make
for the real welfare of the state (p. 243).
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 359
trative, or operative details. We are concerned with the
main problems which cameralism proposed, and the relation
of the formulas and solutions which cameralism offered to the
development of social science in general. In order to fix
with certainty the meaning of the essential theories, we must
admit much evidence that is contained in subordinate details.
The importance of these minor applications in the routine
rules of the cameralists diminishes from this point, as we have
already epitomized the cardinal doctrines which reflected the
peculiar circumstances of the period, and which were modified
after the circumstances changed. At the same time, we have
seen in these characteristic theories some of the presumptions,
both theoretical and practical, which have retained, and in
some ways have gathered force in later German thinking.
These views have encouraged tendencies in German policy
which, for better or for worse, have produced evident con-
trasts between the civic and economic systems of Germany
on the one hand and of England and America on the other.
It will not be necessary to reproduce the remainder of Justi's
system as fully as the sections have been represented thus far.
It is in point however to translate in full the opening para-
graphs of the portion devoted to mining. The redundancy
of statement is a fair index of Justi's usual style. He says
(pp. 243 ff):
We come now to the third chief means by which the riches of a
country may be increased, viz., mining, whenever the natural
resources of the country include mineral deposits. In Germany
these resources are by no means rare. Few states of any size in our
Fatherland are without them. Yet the population of most parts of
the country lacks inclination to develop the mines, and the govern-
ments have not taken adequate interest in this source of riches.
Nevertheless this is almost the sole way in which well-founded hopes
may be cherished of increasing the riches of the country. Germany
has at only a few points facilities for navigation. In this respect,
as well as in manufactures, our neighbors have such a long start
360 THE CAMERALISTS
of us, that we should he very foolish if we reckoned on more through
these means than merely retaining our money at home. Since,
moreover, the neighboring countries are giving more and more
attention to keeping their rich inhabitants at home, our mining
operations are in fact the only probable means by which riches in
the various states of Germany may be increased.
Since in our enlightened times the intelligence requisite for the
government of states has greatly increased, almost all European
states are exceptionally alert to prevent the outflow of money from
the country. In France, England, and Holland, careful reckoning
is kept of the wares annually sold to foreign nations, and of the
wares bought from the same nations. If attention to these subjects
continues, in fifty years it may easily occur that commercial treaties
will set limits to the amount of goods that a nation may annually
take from another. The same foresight will be used with reference
to the other ways by which money is drawn from the country. There-
upon the mines will be the only means of increasing the wealth of
the country. This resource alone is completely in our power, and
no counter-enterprises of foreign peoples can restrict us in exploiting
the same, or can make it valueless.
The mines not only increase the treasure of the country with
respect to the amount of gold and silver which they extract from the
earth, but they also furnish us the principal wares with which we
may expect to establish advantageous foreign commerce. In
addition to this the mines will support a multitude of people, and
this will have further an important influence upon the plane of
living in the whole population. Especially will the mountainous
regions be populated and exploited to the benefit of the revenues
of their districts and of the whole state, while the same districts,
without mines, would usually have a barren and empty appearance.
All this, it seems to me, furnishes more than superfluous proof of
the great utility of the mines.
Who then can doubt that the mines deserve the special attention
of a wise government ? So soon, therefore, as minerals are found
in a country, or as good evidences of them appear, or when informa-
tion is at hand that in earlier times mines had been operated there,
a ruler who is really concerned for the best good of his state will make
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 361
it a principal rule to establish mining and to develop it to the utmost.
To that end he must seize upon all useful and efficient measures.
I shall now do my best to show what such measures must be.
Propositions more summary in form than those in the
series up to this point will sufficiently indicate the scope of the
discussion, viz. :
216. Precious metals should be mined with the aid of govern-
ments even at a loss (p. 246).'
217. This is not a loss for the state as a whole. The sums
expended remain in the country and support many people. The
country as a whole will be richer by the amount of gold and silver
that is taken from the earth (p. 246).
218. In case of the other metals, even a small profit should
justify mining. By furnishing material to be sold abroad they add
to the nation's wealth as truly as the mining of gold and silver.
219. The measures to be adopted by rulers for promoting
mining fall into three groups: (i) for stimulating the population to
engage in mining; (2) for standardizing the operation of mines;
(3) for promoting mining science (p. 247).
220. Although all mining rights belong to the ruler, yet he
cannot work them, because that would too greatly enlarge his budget,
and make his income uncertain. The first requisite, then, is proc-
lamation of free mining rights, subject to the laws of the land, at
least to citizens, with reserve of the rightful royalties to the govern-
ment (p. 247).
221. The ruler should give assurance that he will not himself,
or through his ministers, engage in mining (p. 248).
222. The ruler must take care in many ways that those who
operate mines shall be free to carry on their enterprise under the
most favorable conditions (p. 249).
223. The government must assist unprofitable mines, by remitting
dues, etc. (p. 250).'
' This doctrine goes back to Schroder, loc. cit., chap. bcv.
The idea here proves to be, not that mines should be operated if
the net outcome is to be a loss, but that mines at first unprofitable should
be assisted until they can be made to pay.
362 THE CAMERALISTS
224. Many changes in the mining laws are necessary, especially
because the introduction of machines, etc., has changed conditions
(P- 251).
225. An area of "at least two miles" should be assured for
the operations of a new mine (p. 252).'
226. This plan is recommended only for the precious and base
metals (p. 253).
227. For salts, coloring matter, and clays, commercial societies
are preferable (p. 254).
228. Schools of mines should be founded to train future man-
agers of mines (p. 256).
229. It will be useless to count on mines as a permanent source
of wealth unless provision is made for keeping up the supply of wood.
ON THE CIRCULATION OF GOLD IN THE TRADES
230. It is not enough that there should be wealth in the country,
but the ruler must take care that this wealth is constantly active
in the trades, and that it passes from hand to hand, for the true wealth
of the country depends wholly upon this. In this way the subjects
arc put in a position not merely by diligence and labor to provide
for their need and comfort, but also bear their share toward sup-
plying the needs of the state. In fact it is quite natural to represent
a republic under the figure of a human body. Wealth is the blood,
the trades are the arteries, and the government is the heart, into
which from time to time the wealth circulating in the arteries flows,
and thence again pours into all parts of the civic body through the
outlays of the state. We have now to treat of the means by which
this circulation is promoted (p. 259).*
231. The chief means of promoting circulation of money in the
trades are four, viz.: (i) that the sources of subsistence shall be
kept in good correlation; (2) that the land shall keep its credit high;
' This apparently means two German miles square, and Jusli
recommends that such a reservation should be divided into four or five
hundred parts, whether for separate operation or merely in dividing the
proceeds is not clear.
* This paragraph is translated in full because it is a characteristic
expression of mercantilism, and contains its own evidence that the theory
v.us not so definite as tradition has made it.
JUSTFS "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 363
(3) that manufacture and artisanship shall be kept prosperous;
(4) that idleness and beggary shall be abated (pp. 259-330).'
One or two incidental symptoms occur among the tech-
nological rules, in these sections. For example, while reiter-
ating the precept against allowing money to flow out of the
country, Justi adds: "A flourishing condition of the occupa-
tions by which the necessities of life are gained is, however,
the real strength and health of the state." This perception
again challenges the current reputation of mercantilism.
Justi denounces abstract science, and demands that the
learned class shall abandon profitless refinements and devote
itself to the useful arts. He would also have the government
weed out the student ranks by examinations difficult enough
to reduce the numbers of would-be scholars (p. 274).
After discussing at length the desirability and means of
preventing idleness and luxury, he adds a qualification which
is symptomatic of mercantilism in particular and of the pre-
vailing economic naivete* in general. He says (p. 328):
I will go further, and assert that the government has no need
of prohibiting extravagance and luxury. According to all rational
principles it is entirely a matter of indifference to the state in whose
hands the wealth of the country rests, if it is only in the country and
is distributed in proper proportions among the different classes and
orders of the subjects. Moreover, if the things with which extrava-
gance is practiced are not imported from foreign countries, it is a
blunder to suppose that extravagance is harmful to the state. On
the contrary the circulation of money and the support of the citizens
are promoted by it. Everything therefore which the government
needs to care for, is that those wares and things which arc used in
1 These sections are almost exclusively composed of rule-of-thumb
conclusions about practical details. They presuppose the essentially
patriarchal conception of the state which we have called the major
premise of cameralism. The state being the housewifely patron saint
of the people, specifications of the supervision to be exerted depend on
their efficiency in promoting the chief end of such a state.
364 THE CAMERALISTS
extravagance shall be produced at home, not imported from abroad.
A state composed wholly of misers, or frugal people, and in which
no luxury existed, would necessarily be the poorest, weakest, and
most miserable state under the sun. It would not be able to employ
and support a fourth part of the population of present states. How
many occupations would remain if we should restrict ourselves
strictly to necessities? Luxury in the use of domestic products, if
it is conjoined with industry, is the natural heat and fire in the civic
body, which gives it activity and vitality. Very few cases will be
found in which repression of luxury is required in the interest of the
welfare of the state. I have treated these cases in the Grundsdtzen
dtr Policey.
OF THE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS IN ORDER TO ASSIST THE RULER IN
PRESERVING AND INCREASING THE RICHES OF THE STATE
232. The nature of a republic necessarily involves common
and harmonious obligations, for when the subjects have placed over
themselves a supreme power (sic), 1 from which they demand that it
shall promote their happiness, they are naturally bound to conform
to those arrangements which that supreme power adopts for their
happiness, and to promote them in every way, otherwise they would
obstruct their own ultimate purposes (p. 333).
233. By subjects we understand all those who enjoy the pro-
tection of the state. This brief proposition gives us the clearest
idea of the essential characteristics of a subject, and in fact no more
essential finding mark can be determined than the enjoyment of
protection (p. 334).
234. The right cannot be denied to a ruler to demand that all
those who possess estates in his land shall either be permanently
domiciled upon them, or shall sell the estates to some person agree-
able to him (p. 340).
235. Subjects owe their duties to an unlimited monarch only
when he does not act as an enemy of the people. This situation
may never have occurred, because even the greatest tyrants had
apparent excuses, and it is consequently never quite clear that an
autocrat is acting as the enemy of his people (p. 345).
1 The Italics are mine, and the proposition is quoted for its bearing
upon our interpretation of Justi's fundamental political conceptions.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 365
236. Under mixed forms of government the subjects owe duties
not to the monarch alone, but also to the whole state, and to the
fundamental laws of the same. Consequently duty to the monarch
is not a valid plea in extenuation of action harmful to the estates
(P- 347)-
237. Duties of subjects are accordingly of two classes: (a)
immediate duties to ruler or state, springing from the essential nature
of the relation of subjects; (b) mediate duties toward ruler and state,
i. e., such as subjects owe primarily to themselves, and thus second-
arily to ruler and state.
OP THE IMMEDIATE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS TOWARD RULER
AND STATE
238. The immediate duties of subjects toward ruler and state
are those which are necessarily connected with the ultimate purposes
of the republic and with the relation of subjects, and which subjects
owe to the supreme power in the state alone (p. 349).
239. These immediate duties fall into three chief classes:
(a) exact obedience to the laws, commands, and ordinances of the
supreme power; (b) unimpeachable loyalty to the same; (c) con-
tribution according to ability to the support and best welfare of the
state (p. 349).'
240. Loyalty [Treue] consists of complete devotion, attachment,
and reverence toward the supreme power, with careful endeavor to
avoid, and so far as possible to assist in preventing everything
which might be harmful to the external and internal security of the
state and of the person of the ruler (p. 376).*
241. Subjects are released from loyalty to a ruler (i) through
absorption by conquest or otherwise into another country (p. 393) ;
(2) when the ruler abdicates (p. 397).'
1 The immediately following sections are a diversified homily on
the fundamental virtue of obedience, with extreme claims for the arbitrary
rights of rulers (pp. 351-73).
Again the treatment is rather hortatory than scientific.
3 The third type of duty (vide Prop. 239*:) is discussed in variations
of commonplaces adapted to the particular conception of the state on
which cameralism was based (pp. 402-28). The following division,
"On the Indirect Duties of the Subject," exploits the homely virtues of
the thrifty type (pp. 4*0-35).
366 THE CAMERALISTS
242. In order to treat at length of the mediate duties of sub-
jects, we must elaborate the whole housekeeping art [Hauslial-
tungskunst] since the obligation to operate well with our resources
can be fulfilled in no other way than through the rules which this
Haushaltungskunst teaches. But Oekonomie 1 belongs in the system
of the sciences which we have undertaken to expound, because
through the exercise of the same the resources of the state are main-
tained and increased. On that account it is the more evident that
all the sciences pertaining to government and to the large manage-
ment \Wirthschajt] of the state hang together most exactly in a single
system. Attempting therefore to treat of Haushaltungskunst com-
pletely and thoroughly, so far as the limits of the present work
permit, we shall in the first place present the general doctrines of the
same, then we shall treat particularly the two chief topics of Oeko-
nomie, viz., urban economy and rural economy, and shall apply to
them the general rules (p. 435).'
243. The name Haushaltungskunst or Oekonomie may really
be applied to two distinct sciences. When we speak of the Oekonomie
of the country, or of the great management \Wirthschajt] of the state,
all the sciences are involved which we treat in this book. When we
talk of Oekonomie or Haushaltungskunst simply, we mean that
science which we are now about to explain, and which is concerned
with the goods and with the gainful occupations of private persons.
Haushaltungskunst is, however, a science of so ordering the gainful
occupations and the thrift in town and country that means [Vermdgen]
will thereby be preserved, increased, and reasonably used, and the
1 Apparently used in this paragraph as a synonym for the former
term. In the following paragraph this is certainly the case, i. e., Prop. 243.
Of the whole following division, which has certain necessary
resemblances to political economy as Adam Smith used the term, yet
differs from it as kitchen work from chemistry, we may say that it con-
tains nothing beyond commonplace material which genius and humor
like Benjamin Franklin's might have coined into pithy Poor Richard's
proverbs. Sufficient samples are given to show the quality. It should
be observed that the presence of this department in Staatswirthschaft
again demonstrates the absurdity of the traditional accounts of mer-
cantilism as a theory.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 367
temporal happiness of private persons will be promoted; or more
briefly expressed, it is the science of applying our " means" to the pro-
motion of our temporal happiness (p. 437).
244. One sense of "means" [Vermdgen] signifies everything
that is within our power, or that which we are able to bring to pass.
In ordinary thinking "means" signifies all goods and aptitudes
which we possess and which we may employ in order to provide for
ourselves the necessities and conveniences of this life. In the
narrower sense we understand by "means" the possession of a
sufficiency of movable or immovable goods, which put in our hands,
according to our social position and make-up [Beschaftenheit], all
the conveniences and advantages of life. When we here use the
term "means," it is in the two last senses, principally in the third
(P- 438). 1
245. Except through accident, no obtaining of "means" is
possible unless our aptitudes and already-possessed goods are the
beginning and ground of the acquisition (p. 439).
246. By "goods" we understand in Haushaltungskunst only
those things which have a certain value and use for the need and
convenience of human life, and which at a certain value or price
can be transferred to others; i. e., things that have a money value
(p. 440).
247. Credit is to a certain extent to be reckoned among goods,
for it can be used as the ground and beginning of "means" (p. 440).
248. By "aptitudes" we understand those acquired capabilities
and skills by which we may be useful to others and to ourselves in
business and trades, or in social life in general (p. 441).
249. All "means" must be gained either by services [Dienste],
or by trades [Gewerbe]. The former require only "aptitudes;" the
latter require "aptitudes" and goods together (p. 441)
250. Services are a certain compact between the principal and
the servant, by which the latter, in return for a certain salary or
compensation, promises to apply his "aptitudes," in certain assigned
1 This paragraph sufficiently accounts for choice of the vague term,
"means" instead of a more technical term as a rendering for VermOgen.
We should misinterpret egregiously if we smuggled a later precise and
constant concept into the word. Vide pp. 76 and 250.
368 THE CAMERALISTS
occupations, for the benefit of the principal. These services are
either honorable or menial; they are also morally legitimate or
illegitimate (p. 442).
251. The two great classes of gainful occupations are (i) those
that procure livelihood in the town; (2) those that procure livelihood
in the country (p. 443).
252. From services or trades come "earnings" [Geurinnst].
This is the advantage which accrues to us from a thing after deduction
of our applied outlay and effort. The justification of earnings must
have at its basis the revenue which the other can, and probably will
derive from the thing, for we are surely entitled to demand that the
other shall allow a just portion of the return to accrue to us which
he would not have acquired without our co-operation (p. 444).
253. In order to gain "means," one must first of all make &
plan of his mode of life, and of the ways by which he is to acquire
earnings. In this plan account must be taken of his aptitudes
and goods. Most men make the mistake of making no plan, and of
seeking their fortune in a merely haphazard way. Still others fail
because they draw back in fear from every obstacle (p. 453).
253.Y Before all things we must so apply our "aptitudes" and
our goods that they will actually promote our purposes (p. 455).
254. Further it is necessary to know all the details involved in
the success of our plan (p. 457).
255. This knowledge will enable us to choose the necessary
means for carrying out our plan (p. 457).
256. It is further necessary to combine these means in a skilful
way (p. 458).
257. By this skilful combination of "means" it is often possible
that one may at the same time accomplish several sorts of purpose,
and earn in several ways (p. 458).
458. But one will not acquire "means," cither by service or
trade, if one has not learned to save (p. 460).
259. In order to exercise this great art of saving, the first thing
in every establishment must be a budget or correct estimate of income
and outlay (p. 461).
260. The savings must then be used further to increase "means"
(p. 464)-
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 369
961. After all, the increase of "means" will be a tedious process
unless one takes some reasonable chances, and occasionally exposes
a part of his "means" to the hazards of fortune (p. 465).
262. Those who make such ventures should first possess
considerable "means," so that they could lose what they risk without
being reduced to want (p. 466).
263. Then the anticipated gain should be in proportion to the
danger to which one is exposed (p. 467).
264. The reasonable use of "means" is the chief purpose of
acquisition and of Haushaltungskunst.
265. "Means" contribute not a little to the end of a social
happy, and virtuous life. One is thereby much more qualified for
service to the community, and one can fulfil the duties of social life
in a much higher degree than those who have no means (p. 471).
266. The reasonable use of means depends upon three chief
rules: (i) The "means" must be so used that the substance (sic)
of the same will not be impaired (p. 471); (2) one must apply one's
"means" to the support of one's life and to the promotion of one's
temporal happiness, according as the social position and constitution
of each demand, and as the condition of one's "means" permits
(p. 481); (3) besides using our "means" for our own needs and the
convenience of our life, we must devote them also to the use of our
needy neighbor, and to the advantage of the republic (p. 485).
ON MANAGEMENT IN TOWNS
267. The life of towns has the most intimate connection with
human society and with the constitution of the republic. The towns
both form the bond of connection between the rural sustaining system
and the whole sustaining system of the country, and in them quite
unique occupations are pursued, which have immediate influence on
the weal of the state. The fundamental rules of management can
be applied here therefore only in a general way, because otherwise
it would be necessary to discuss each particular occupation. In the
case of rural management, on the contrary, there must be specific
application of the general rules (p. 490).
268. A town is a combination of societies, families, and single
persons, who live in a guarded [verwahrten] locality, under the over-
37 THE CAMERALISTS
sight and direction of a police bureau, or other persons charged with
administration of the police system, in order with better success to
maintain the operation and co-operation of those gainful pursuits
which are immediately demanded both for the needs and conveniences
of the country and for the unification of the whole sustaining
system. The protection [Verwahrung] is the essential finding mark
of the town, without which no locality can be called a town, how-
ever large and well built it may be (p. 490). l
269. The essential difference between towns depends therefore
on the fact that one kind must be guarded by art, that is, by walls
and ditches, another kind by nature, that is, by oceans, seas, rivers,
and inaccessible mountains, so that entrance may be had only at
certain places called gates or portals expressly designated for that
purpose. Otherwise the requisite police arrangements for the chief
purpose of the town are not available (p. 493).
270. Towns must accordingly be classified in various ways:
(i) Into (a) commercial towns; (b) manufacturing towns; (c)
mining and salt towns; (d) brewery and distillery towns; (e) market
towns; or (2) into (a) residence towns (i. e., of the court); (6) uni-
versity towns; (c) fortified towns; (d) border towns, etc.; or (3) into
(a) large; (ft) medium; (c) small; or (4) into (a) capitals; (6)
provincial towns (p. 496).
271. At bottom there are two principal types of occupation for
towns; first, the assembling of persons capable of carrying on the
various pursuits; second, the accumulation of all sorts of wares and
goods, and to this end all their establishments, measures, and en-
deavors must be directed (p. 497).
272. Since we are here exclusively concerned with the economy
of private persons in towns, we have to do principally with two
subjects, viz.: (i) What the general rules of management have to
say about management and organization of the sustaining occupa-
tions; (2) how management itself, without reference to occupations
in the town, may best be conducted (p. 497). '
1 It is needless to comment on this typically cameralistic inversion
of essence and accident.
* This programme results only in slight variations upon the general-
ities indicated by Props. 253-64. Passing to treatment of occupations
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 371
273. Rural management is a complex of sustaining occupations'
to the end that through agriculture and stock-raising the resources
of the soil may be best used, and that all sorts of raw wares and
materials may be extracted from the same for human need and
convenience. The rural sustaining occupations consequently
differ from those of towns principally in this: in the former the
effort is to produce raw wares and goods, in the latter men are chiefly
engaged in transforming the raw wares and materials. While this
latter purpose requires unified societies and efforts, with police
supervision, the former can be carried on by separate families either
scattered at considerable intervals, or living in village groups" 1
(P-
THE THEORY OF THE REASONABLE USE OF THE "MEANS"
[Vermogen] OF THE STATE, INCLUDING CAMERAL OR
FINANCIAL SCIENCE PROPER
On the Reasonable Use oj State Revenues in General
On the second title-page of the second part, or volume,
the clause is inserted, "in which cameral science proper is
treated." It is not our present affair to debate with Justi the
insufficiency of his economic foundation, nor to go into details
about the overlapping and confusion of economic, camera-
listic, and police problems as they appear in his system. 2 We
are attempting to present this typical cameralist just as he
was, and to show how cameralism as a so-called science
reflected the immaturities and prejudices of the type of state
in which it was developed. We come now to a portion of the
system in which actual administration had worked out a
technique that was relatively precise. In so far as such a
which are not necessarily peculiar to towns, Justi lapses into extended
pseudo-technical discussion of brewing, distilling, vinting, truck-garden-
ing, and milling (pp. 505-17).
1 Then follows an academic version of the wisdom that every farmer's
boy is supposed to acquire (pp. 526-606). This then is as deep as Justi
goes into the theory of economics on the side of production proper.
3 Vide II, 63, and Prop. 219.
THE CAMERALISTS
technique, not guaranteed by a conclusive economics, can
have a value for science, it is the most important part of Justi's
system. We must repeat, however, that the problem of cam-
eralism was not yet consciously the problem of modern
economics, and still less the problem of modern sociology,
viz.: What is the value of all mediate processes for the trunk-
line process of promoting the evolution of persons? The
problem of cameralism was merely the ways and means prob-
lem of the quasi-absolutistic governments of that period, viz. :
the quasi-absolutistic type of state being given, in which, in
effect, the state is the government, and the government is
the prince, how may the resources of that type of state be so
managed that its perpetual motion will be assured?
We shall show this in further detail by continuing the series
of propositions condensing Justi's argument.
274. To recapitulate: The common happiness, the ultimate
purpose of all republics, for attaining and realizing which the supreme
power exists in states, demands that the care and endeavor of this
sovereign power shall be directc'l chiefly toward two great activities,
viz.: first, securing and increasing the "means" of the state; second,
the reasonable and wise use of the "means." The great management
of the state consists then of these two chief employments. Part I
having been devoted to the former of these, Part II will deal with
the latter (II, 3).
275. The "means" of the state consist not merely in all sorts
of movable and immovable goods, possessed primarily either by the
subjects or by the state itself; but rather in all talents and skill of the
persons who belong to the republic. Even the persons themselves
must in a certain sense be included, and the general use of these
means of the state constitute the supreme power. 1 All ordinances
of the supreme power have for their object therefore the wise use
of the means and forces of the state for the realization of the common
happiness (II, 5).*
1 Vide I, 19, and this book, pp. 76, 250, 367.
* This proposition is typical of the vagueness of undifferentiated
cameralistic ideas. The original reads: "A lie Anordnungen dtr obtr-
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 373
ay6. In the widest sense, the reasonable use of the "means"
of the state includes all the rules laid down in Part I. In the special
sense we understand by the reasonable use of the "means" of the
state the wise measures of the ruler, to the end that the general
"means" of the state may be made to yield certain revenues, and
constantly available resources, without impairing the "means,"
and in accordance with the demands which from time to time the
essential needs of the state may enforce (II, 6). x
sten Gcwali kommen also darauf an, doss sie von dem Vermdgen und den
Krdften des Staates *u der Bcwirkung der gemeinsckaftlichen Gluckselig-
keit einen weisen Gebrauck machet." I attribute the thoroughly non-
committal force in this connection of the phrase "kommen darauf an," to
an unreconciled antithesis of ideas. As it stands, the proposition dis-
tinctly means neither, "The objective goodness or badness of the acts of
a government is to be decided by its use, etc.," nor, " The intention of the
government is to use, etc." The former meaning would lead to a corol-
lary which is abhorrent to Justi (vide I, 47, above, pp. 335 ff.). The
latter meaning is always the reserve presumption on which to rest the
claim of the government to unquestioning submission. Yet, so long as
the latter claim maintained its orthodoxy, it was by smuggling into its
assets some of the credit which the former proposition would establish,
while that proposition was not admitted at full force. In other words,
the stage of thinking represented by Justi was a dodging between affirm-
ative and negative answers to the question, Are governments absolute,
and so unimpeachable, or are they fallible, and consequently to stand or
fall on the merits of their acts as determined by some objective standard ?
The quasi-absolutism which Justi represented resorted, when hard
pushed, to the affirmative. Cromwellism and the French Revolution,
and the American Declaration of Independence vindicated the negative.
We shall miss the full meaning of this treatise and of cameralism in
general, if we fail to keep in mind that they were straddles on this funda-
mental problem, with the working balance toward the arbitrary side
(P- SI3-)
i It should be remembered, that this discussion is in terms of Ver-
mdgen, not of Reichthum. One of the most subtle questions in future
historical criticism of the literature of economics will to a large extent
turn upon the fallacy of interchanging the two concepts. When Adam
Smith founded systematic study of problems of wealth, he carefully
delimited the concept The subsequent confusions in English thinking
374 THE CAMERALISTS
297. The first condition of reasonable use of the "means" of
the state is adequate knowledge of them (II, 6). 1
298. The wise ruler has a conception of a true happiness of
the subjects and of the state constantly before his eyes, and he has a
were not quite indentical with those in German theory, and one of the
reasons for the differences was strictly verbal. I am not prepared to
express a judgment about the relative importance of this factor. I have
not collected sufficient evidence to prove that much of the confusion in
English economic theories came from taking over arguments expressed in
unwarranted translations of German terms. I am convinced, however,
that this is the case. It is enough at present to point out that it would
shunt us on to a side track if we should render Justi's word Vermogen
by the primarily legal term "property;" still more if we should use the
more restricted economic term "wealth." The work of reducing this
and similar ambiguous terms to constant values has been a considerable
part of the difficulty of promoting the various social technologies assem-
bled as "cameralism" to relative distinctness and precision.
The idea of the divine foreordination of hereditary sovereignty
reappears as the constant motif in the cameralistic doctrines. We illus-
trated this in its most dogmatic form in the case of Schroder (above,
pp. 137 ff.). Thus Justi says: "The Eternal Being whose Providence
has appointed him to the government of the people put under him as
subjects will hold a ruler to strict accounting, etc." This was not
merely a pious phrasing of social order. It was literal interpretation,
and it carried the corollary that the Almighty alone, not the people of a
state, had the right to call the ruler to account. Justi employs formulas
of the ruler's responsibility which would mean to a twentieth-century
man almost all that we should assert about the responsibility of chief
magistrates (e. g., II, 10); but we must always construe these proposi-
tions in the light of the reserve clauses in the author's mind. These
latter virtually nullify those phases of democracy in the formulas which
a twentieth-century man would regard as crucial.
' Much of the development of the proposition in subsequent sections
has already appeared in substance in our citations from Justi's Preface
and Introduction, and need not be repeated. For instance, a section
(II, 13-15) is devoted to the proposition that a ruler ought not to use the
"means" of the state without having a correct estimate of them. It
amounts only to a more pedantic way of reading the New Testament
moral: " What king going to make war against another king, sitteth not
down first and consulieth whether he be able, etc"
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 375
correct judgment of the relative proportions of the different needs
(II, 15; vide I, 66-69). '
299. The wise ruler must take no steps for the welfare of the
state without taking care that "means" enough are devoted to the
purpose to insure its success (II, 17).
300. For the purposes of the state, great sums must be expended.
These "means" are mostly in the hands of private persons. The
portions necessary for the purposes of the state must be obtained
from the individuals in ways which will not impair the substance of
their "means," i. e., they must be taken from earnings [Gewinnste].
Enough, however, must be left so that the subjects can live from
their earnings (II, 8).
301. The "means" so obtained must be at all times available
in the form of money, and we call it then "the readiest means" of
the state (II, 20). *
302. This "readiest means" of the state is the great subject-
matter of cameral or finance science proper, in so far as the same is
regarded as a subordinate science under all the economic and cameral
sciences required for the government of a state. All measures and
transactions of cameral science have to do merely with this "readiest
means," and have for their aim either the systematic raising of the
same or wise application or administration. Otherwise expressed,
Cameral or finance science is an adequate knowledge and facility
[Erkenntniss und Geschicklichkeit] in those transactions whereby
1 Although the proposition is supported only by the most common-
place generalities, it indicates, along with stalwart faith (for publication)
in the virtues of paternalism, a rather comprehensive view of the sorts
of interests which the benevolent despot should try to harmonize. Inci-
dentally, Justi again has his fling at the relative unimportance of the
learned class.
Justi has evidently used the term "means" now in a special sense,
i. e., the reserve plus the current revenues of the state. Whether this
idea is more cause or effect of the general mercantilist position it would be
fruitless to inquire. It is a typical case of fallacious transition from a
concept defined to include both goods and persons, to a concept sym-
bolized by the same term, Vermogen, but defined to mean gold and silver
coin.
376 THE CAMERALISTS
"the readiest means" of the state, for promotion of the common happi-
ness of the same, are well and economically managed (II, 21).
303. We easily see that cameral science is closely connected
with all other economic sciences which are treated in this book.
It teaches not merely how to use wisely and for the good of the state
those "means" of the republic which are founded, preserved, and
increased by Staatskunst, Policey, die Commercienwissenschaft und
Oekonomie, 1 but in the great management of the state it conducts, so
to speak, the internal management, to the effect that without its
co-working no governmental business of any kind can be undertaken;
because for all such undertakings "readiest means" are necessary.
In short, cameral science is absolutely indispensable to the happiness
of the state, because the greatest "means" of the state would yield
nothing, without skilful administration. Hence it has its ground in
the common fundamental principle of all the sciences which pertain
to the government and general management of the state.* It is
particularly based however on die Staatskunst und Policeywissen-
schaft, since it must derive its chief working principles from them.
Moreover it must make use of Haushaltungskunst and jurisprudence
as principal auxiliaries. The former will furnish the elementary
rules of managing "means," the latter will guard against unjust
procedure (II, 23).
304. The fundamental principle of cameral science is this: "7n
all transactions with the 'readiest means' of the state, the aim must
be to seek the common happiness of the ruler and the subjects"
(II, 24).*
305. The rules of raising the revenues without harm to the
1 As we have seen, these are categories which do not correspond
with recognized classifications in current social science. The essential
reason is that they were impossible as scientific categories. At a venture
we may offer as equivalents the terms, civic policy, police and commer-
cial science, and economy.
Vide above, pp. 298 S.
3 In spite of the arbitrary conception of the state in terms of which
this formula must be interpreted, it contains much saving grace of
correct moral valuation, while the context shows that the principle was
not always evident in actual cameralistic practices.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 377
subjects, and from current earnings, must also be applied to prov-
inces, so that the chief division of the state will not be favored at
the expense of minor divisions (II, 30).'
306. The theory of camera! science may be divided into three
chief parts. We accordingly divide this second part of the Staats-
wirthschaft into three books: (i) On the raising of revenues; (2)
on the disbursements of the state; (3) on the organization and admin-
istration of cameral business. This classification leaves nothing
lacking which is necessary for a beginner in cameral or finance
science, and in general about the reasonable use of the "means"
of the state (II, 39).
ON COVERING THE COSTS OP THE GREAT OUTLAYS OF THE STATE
307. A state often finds itself in need of resources which are not
supplied by the rules already given for raising the "readiest means."
This book is devoted then to the problems which those extraordinary
requirements involve (II, 40).
308. The problems of cameralism accordingly fall into three
chief divisions: (i) The establishment of the "readiest means"
which calls for the greatest skill and strength of the cameralist;
(2) the raising of the regular income of the state from the sources
that are common to almost all states; (3) the raising of emergency
funds (II, 42).'
309. Establishing the "readiest means" of the state depends
1 In this connection (II, 33) Justi admits that he is repeating rules
that have already been laid down, but he solemnly adds, "But in those
passages we were not yet treating cameral science proper. Since it is
now necessary particularly to define the fundamental principles of this
science, we must not be content with mere citation of the fundamental
principles reviewed above. Indeed these are not the same, since in the
former case we were talking of the use of the general "means" of the
state, while now we are speaking of the administration of the revenues
of the state. Nevertheless, everything that could be called a " principle "
is the same, even in Justi's version, and he was close to the perception
that cameralistics was not a science at all, but merely a technology without
a peculiar scientific content.
* From this point the treatment becomes more narrowly technical.
To what extent it was practical rather than academic, according to
37 8 THE CAMERALISTS
first upon developing a populous land, with the maximum amount
of wealth circulating in the gainful occupations (II, 44).
310. A second and more immediate foundation is necessary,
viz., either certain cstatus the proprietorship of which belongs
immediately to the state and to the ruler, and the whole revenue of
which accrues to the "readiest means," or certain rights reserved to
the supreme power. The proper name of these rights is the regalia
(II, 45).
311. The foundation of the revenues of the state is laid then,
first, in good management of the estates immediately appertaining
to the state or to the ruler (II, 45).
312. In the case of the regalia, the desideratum is a reasonable
use of the rights, in consideration of the common "means" of the
state, and of the common welfare of the ruler and of the subjects
(II, 46).'
313. The best standard of taxation is the persons of the subjects
in general, according to a just proportion of their immovable
"means" and industry, and especially the laborers and assistants
employed in such gainful occupations. In such case the commerce,
the industry, and the freedom of the subjects would not suffer the
slightest hindrance, as the number of the persons employed could
not possibly be concealed (II, 52).
314. It is possible for the state to raise so little revenue by
taxation that the total "means" of the state will fall far below the
normal level, and the welfare of the subjects will be harmfully
restricted (II, 53).
contemporary standards, it docs not fall within my province to decide.
The technical programme proposed has diminjshing pertinence to the
purposes of this book. I shall accordingly ignore the larger part of its
contents, and, as in the account of Adam Smith's purely economic chapters
(vide Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology), merely call attention
to incidental symptoms.
1 While our aim does not permit attention to details of fiscal tech-
nology, it should be noted that for investigators of the subject of taxation,
the rule-of -thumb conclusions scheduled by Justi are by no means
unworthy of consideration. For example, Justi's rules are quite close
approaches to the doctrines of free trade afterward promulgated by
Adam Smith (e. g., II, 48, 49).
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 379
315. The Regalia should be so administered that the welfare
of the state and the convenience of the subjects would remain the
first consideration, and the revenues the second (II, 54).
316. A reasonable cameralist will accordingly follow two rules:
(i) Direct management by the administration of complicated
economic processes must be avoided by arranging with competent
Entrepreneurs (sic) to carry on the enterprises at their own risk,
at a certain rate of dividend on the proceeds; (2) all needless extra
expense, such as unnecessary employees, must be avoided (II, 56).'
317. Subsidies from foreign rulers are not to be rejected, especi-
ally if they do not entail more costs than they amount to (II, 61-63).
318. The best and surest increase of the revenues of the state
comes from encouraging the laboring class [Nahrungsstand]
(II, 63).
319. A cameralist should at the same time be a police expert
and an economist (II, 63).
320. The first care of the cameralist must be for the develop-
ment and cultivation of unimproved and thinly populated sections
(II, 64).
321. A considerable budget must therefore be annually at the
disposal of the bureaus (II, 66).
322. Even without such capital the domains may by good
management be made to yield large revenues (II, 69-74).
323. Returning to the Regalia the most harmless increase of
revenues through extended use of the Regalia occurs (i) when they
are used in places where they had previously not been enforced.
Hence the intelligent cameralist must be on the watch for such
undeveloped sources of revenue (II, 75) ; (2) through improvements
of public works affected by the Regalia (II, 76) ; (3) through increase
of the rate of impost and of prices of products covered by the Regalia
(II, 77)-
324. The problem of increasing the revenues of the state in the
form of contributions, taxes, and other payments by the subject can
be solved only by improving the condition of the laboring class, and
1 A highly idealistic excursus follows on the possibility of painless
taxation. Justi declares that democracies might easily rea-Iize such an
ideal (II, 57).
380 THE CAMERALISTS
by increasing the population (II, 81), but this just portion of revenue
should be collected only when the needs of the state call for it.
325. The only exception is when a new impost may restrain
or cure a police evil, or may evidently benefit and enlarge the laboring
class. 1
326. The second chief responsibility of the cameralist is the
raising of the ordinary revenues of the state.' By the ordinary
revenues we understand the established arrangements for covering
the ordinary needs of the state by levies upon designated objects
(II, 88).
327. Following the Roman law, it has been customary in
Germany to distinguish between Fiscum and Aerarium. Under the
former are classed the revenues of the cameral estates and of the
Regalia. These are supposed to be for the support of the person of
the ruler and of his family, court, and servants, with all other expenses
necessary to maintain the princely dignity. It is the traditional
idea that the cameralists were to deal especially with these revenues,
and they are accordingly known as cameral revenues. The reve-
nues of the Aerarium are supposed to be especially for the protec-
tion and security of the country, and for promoting the general
welfare of the state (II, 89).
328. This distinction is groundless (II, 90).
329. Knowledge of the distinction is necessary, however, in
order to understand certain existing survivals and consequences of
the distinction in the present cameral organization (II, 92).
330. It is best to divide the revenues of the state according to
their four chief sources, viz.: (i) Those from the crown estates,
the cameral estates, or the domains (as they are variously named) ;
(2) those from the Regalia; (3) those from payments by the sub-
jects, in general taxation; (4) those which indirectly accrue in the
course of attaining other chief purposes (II, 95). 3
1 Justi's examples would fall in the class of sumptuary laws.
Vide Prop. 208.
3 The sections devoted in turn to these subjects contain almost
nothing pertinent to our purpose. They are strictly technological
(II, 97-305).
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 381
OF CONTRIBUTIONS, TAXES, AND IMPOSTS
This portion of the Staatswirthschaft is also chiefly tech-
nological, and thus not primarily germane to our purpose.
Since policies of taxation have their roots, however, so deep
in social philosophy, and since the theories of taxation occupy
so prominent places in the social sciences, we present a digest
of Justi's more general opinions.
331. The three chief sources of the necessary income of the
state are: (i) the contributions; (2) the taxes; (3) the excises paid
by the subjects. The domains and the Regalia are not sufficient
to cover the expenses necessary for the welfare of the state, especially
in the present armed condition of Europe. The magnificence of
courts has also greatly increased. To cover these costs the subjects
must contribute from their private means (II, 306).
332. There can be no doubt that the subjects owe this con-
tribution to the great expenses of the state. In so far as all subjects,
in respect to their common welfare, are in close unity with one
another, and represent a single body, or moral person, their private
means are at the same time the general, although mediate "means"
of the state (II, 307* vide I, 415, Prop. 239).
333. It is a fundamental rule to seek such ways and means of
levying the taxes now in mind, that the subjects will pay them with
willing and happy hearts, and at their own initiative. This is
possible even in monarchies, if wise use is made of the passions of
the subjects; e. g., if the people, with the exception of nobility and
scholars, are divided into classes, according to the amount of tax
which they pay; or, if certain lucrative occupations are permitted
only to persons who pay a certain minimum tax, as is stipulated for
example in* the case of brewers in Frankenhauscn, Schwarzburg,
etc. (II, 309).
334. A second fundamental rule is that the taxes must not
interfere with the reasonable freedom of human conduct, with the
credit of merchants, with the trades, and shall in general not be
oppressive to the industrial system or to commerce (II, 311).
335. A third rule is that the taxes must be levied upon all
subjects with righteous equality, since all are equally under obliga-
382 THE CAMERALISTS
tion in this connection, and all share in the protection and other
benefits of the state. Yet the application of this rule must have due
respect to the second, for, although all subjects should pay taxes
in just proportion to their means, yet the nature and purpose of the
different species of goods does not permit that all objects can bear
equal rates of taxation (II, 312).
336. A fourth rule is, that the contributions and excises shall
have a sure, fixed, and un falsified ground, and consequently should
be levied upon objects not only upon which they may be promptly
and certainly collected, but in connection with which fraud and con-
cealment is not easy for the subjects, nor peculation for the officials
(II, 313)-
337. A fifth rule is, that the taxes shall be based on such objects
as will permit limitation of the number of collectors' offices, and
therewith of officials (II, 314).
338. The sixth and last fundamental rule is that payments
must be made as easy as possible for the subjects, and hence must
be divided into convenient parts, and made payable at appropriate
times (II, 315).'
339. It is not easy to hit upon an impost which satisfies all these
requirements. Vauban, Schroder, and others have proposed a
royal or general tithe, which should combine all desirable qualities.
Tested by above rules, however, the plan will be found wanting.
Others have proposed a combined poll and income tax, etc. (II, 316).
340. The nearest approach to application of the rules will be
through selecting three classes of objects for taxation, viz.: first,
immovable goods; second, the persons of the subjects; third, the
gainful occupations (II, 318).
1 Vitle Adam Smith's "four maxims," Wealth of Nations, Book V,
cap. ii, part ii, Bax crl., p. 351. Vide Small, Adam Smith and Modern
Sociology, pp. 229 IT. Smith's first maxim is approximately Justi's
third rule; the second maxim is nearly Justi's fourth rule; the third
maxim is almost identical with Jusli's sixth rule; the fourth maxim may
be compared with Justi's second rule, but is much more fundamental
and prc( isc. Justi's Rule i is nebulous; Rule 5 refers to one class of
consideration only whirh, with many others, enforces the much wider
generalization of Smith's Maxim 4.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 383
OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND TAXES ON IMMOVABLE GOODS
341. The propriety of taxing land rests on two facts: first, it
is mediately a part of the general property of the state; second, the
revenues from it are least concealable. Nor is there any hardship
in liability of the land for a portion of the expenses of the state
(II, 320).'
342. Lands of the different kinds, e. g., meadows, vineyards,
forests, etc., must be divided into three classes, good, medium, and
bad; and houses must also be classified as large, medium, and small.
Again, the regions in which the lands lie must also be classified, and
in like manner the towns which contain the houses. A calculus of
these different factors will give the rate of taxation (II, 324).
343. The productiveness of the land must be precisely reck-
oned, and the tax must be levied accordingly (II, 324).'
344. The revenues of the houses should also determine the
amount of levy upon them; and it should correspond with the just
rate upon the interest which would be derived from the selling value
of the same (II, 325).
345. An important duty of the bureaus relates to remission of
the taxes in case of providential losses by fire, flood, storm, drought,
etc. (II, 333).
346. It is a mistake for the ruler to reward services by grants of
freedom from taxation (II, 335).
OF PERSONAL TAXATION
347. The second chief taxable object is the person of the sub-
jects themselves. Not all subjects possess immovable goods. All
are however members of the community, and enjoy its benefits; all
consequently owe something in return. Personal payments to the
state even by those who also pay land taxes are therefore proper, if
they are rightly graded (II, 340).
348. The personal tax may be the chief tax of a country, virtually
1 The details which follow deal with the technique of assessing and
collecting land taxes.
It is not clear whether Justi regards this precept as a further
elaboration of 342, or as something distinct. There is no meaning in the
classification proposed in 342, unless it is a part of the process intended
by 343-
384 THE CAMERALISTS
summing up all the forms of income tax, or it may be an accessory of
the principal forms of taxation (II, 341).
349. There is no adequate standard of personal taxation
(II, 343)-
350. Personal taxes may be regarded as a means of collecting
a portion of their dues to the state from subjects who otherwise
would be wholly or partially exempt from taxation (II, 344).
351. Poll taxes on Jews are to be specified as one of the forms
of personal tax. They are levied at the same rate upon rich and
poor alike, and they are left to equalize the matter among themselves.
Usually the whole Jewish community is held responsible for pay-
ment of an aggregate sum reckoned in proportion to the numbers.
Since it is the choice of this unfortunate race to remain aliens among
us, we need "not bother ourselves about strict propriety and exact
justice (II, 346).
352. In some countries protection-money [Schutzgeld] is paid
by those subjects, or aliens, who possess no immovable goods.
It is sometimes reckoned by families, sometimes by polls. In either
case it is to be reckoned as a personal tax. This is an undesirable
levy in addition to a poll tax (II, 347).'
353. Various other taxes have been levied as personal, .which
are really occupation taxes or excise (II, 348).
354. In the same way, salt and tobacco taxes have been levied
as personal taxes (II, 348).
355. The chief duties of the cameralists in connection with these
personal taxes consist in so administering the same that the system
will be reasonable, conducive to the welfare both of the subjects and
of the state, and duly respective of the equality of the subjects. In
this respect a cameralist has an opportunity to show great skill and
wisdom. Decisions must be rendered as to cases in which personal
taxes should be remitted. The ground for this concession should be
services.* Particularly must the cameralists take care that personal
> Justi makes the Schutzgeld appear as a species of the genus now
known as "police graft."
Justi broadly hints that "the benefit of clergy" had German
forms which amounted to serious abuses, e. g., in freeing from personal
taxation as "Gelekrte," men who had made no good use of their time in
the university.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 385
and other taxes are collected by the same officials, so that the expense
of separate employees shall be saved (II, 351).
OF TAXES ON OCCUPATIONS, OR SO-CALLED EXCISE AND IMPOSTS
356. Since immovable goods can be burdened with taxes to
the extent of only one-fourth or one-third of their earnings, and since
no very considerable sum can be raised from personal taxation, the
gainful occupations must be the next source of revenue (II, 352).
357. Occupations may be taxed (a) on the materials which
they use, and on their output (excise); or (b) directly, according
to the extent of their operations (II, 353).
358. The former method is almost universal in Europe (II, 353).
359. The latter has a minor place (II, 353).
360. Various causes contribute to the vogue of excises in
Germany: thus (a) the limitation of tariffs by the laws of the Empire
gave occasion for excises as the most convenient and productive
substitute. Again (6) it was observed that large industries were
growing up in the towns without paying much into the national
treasury; (c) they are means of getting revenue from individuals
who have no immovable goods (II, 355).
361. It is not true that the owners of real estate can make the
taxes which they pay fall upon other subjects, because customary
price defeats this shifting of the incidence of the tax (II, 355).
362. A further reason for the use of excise is that it gives the
ruler a much freer hand than in levying land taxes (II, 356).
363. Excise is either universal falling upon all articles without
exception which are used for the support of life or come into the
channels of trade; or particular falling upon selected articles of
consumption or wares (II, 356).
364. Excise does not conform to the rules above given for
taxation; for (i) it limits the reasonable freedom of human action
(II, 358); (2) it is detrimental to crafts and commerce (II, 359);
(3) it does not spread the burden of taxation equally (II, 361);
(4) it has no secure basis, since fraud and peculation are afforded
large scope (II, 362); (5) its collection requires many officials and
large expense (II, 364).
365. The claims for excise are insufficient; viz.: (i) It puts a
386 THE CAMERALISTS
share of the common burdens upon all; (2) by limiting his expendi-
tures each may ease the burden at will; (3) it calls for only a
fraction of earnings a little at a time; (4) but almost without the
knowledge of the subjects it increases the "readiest means" of the
state; (5) no sheriffs' process (execution) is required to enforce it;
(6) aliens must bear their share; (7) it is a means of controlling the
commerce of the country, and of promoting manufactures (II, 365).
366. Since immediate abolition of excise is hopeless, the rules
for its employment must be stated, viz.: (i) All the rules previously
laid down in the case of tariffs, etc. (II, 288-300) ; (2) excise rates
must respect the rate of earnings of the different occupations, and
must call for only a small fraction of the earnings of those that deal
in the necessities of life (II, 368); (3) in order that moderation of
excise be not misused for unwarranted increase of profits, the police
must interfere and fix the price of necessities (II, 369); (4) larger
demands may be made upon luxuries (II, 369); (5) but the three
grades of luxury must be respected (II, 369; vide I, 231); (6) excise
is surely excessive when it amounts to more than the remaining
earnings of the craft, or when it amounts to a half or two-thirds of
an article on sale (II, 369); (7) excise must vary according as the
transactions are first, second, or third hand, and whether a craft
contributes or not to the completion or improvement of a thing
(H, 370).
367. Occupation-taxes [Gewerbe-Steuer] might be introduced,
in harmony with the fundamental rules of taxation, and to the
advantage both of ruler and subject (II, 373).
368. The essential principle of this type of tax is adjustment
to the scale of income of the occupation (II, 374-92).'
OF THE RIGHT OF THE SOVEREIGN TO IMPOSE SPECIAL TAXES
369. These revenues may be called accidental in a double sense:
First the sovereign power finds occasion to raise certain revenues
without making the revenues themselves the ultimate purpose, and
at the same time without prejudice to the actual ultimate purpose of
the state; second, these revenues may be called accidental because
1 Justi elaborates a scheme of occupation taxes in considerable
detail, and seems to regard it as wholly practicable and wise.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 387
they are based merely on accidental arrangements and certain
incidents, either of the whole republic or of the supreme power; or
of those subjects who contribute to these revenues. Such occasional
circumstances are so various that some of them are likely to be
present always, and their revenues consequently aggregate an
appreciable sum (II, 400).
370. These accidents may be grouped in five classes, and we
may arrange Jhem in the order of their probable value in yielding
revenue, viz.: (i) Revenues from overlordship of the state over
certain properties, to be distinguished from the Regalia (II, 401-11);
(2) rights of revenue that are incidents of the administration of
justice (II, 412-16); (3) the revenues accruing through administra-
tion of the police system (II, 417-21); (4) revenues incidental to the
war-making power, including subsidies (II, 422-25); (5) revenues
from sovereignty over the ecclesiastical system (II, 426-29). l
ON THE COLLECTING OF EXTRAORDINARY SUMS FOR THE
USE OF THE STATE
371. In case of war, or other crises, exceptional demands for
money arise. It is not for the cameralist to decide whether the
occasion actually demands the exceptional sums, but if the ruler has
so decided it is the task of the cameralist to find the ways and means.
These are chiefly two: (i) Extraordinary contributions of the sub-
jects; (2) the credit of the ruler and of the country (II, 430-33).
372. There are two ways of levying extraordinary contributions,
viz.: (i) By increasing the rates of ordinary contributions and taxes;
(2) by levying a new sort of contribution. The preference is to be
determined by the circumstances of the state. If the sums to be
raised are not too great, if there is no need of instant payment, and
if the ruler can assure the subjects that the increase will be only
temporary, the former method is preferable, because the technique
for raising such contributions is already in operation. The existing
taxes must, however, be at such rates that they do not absorb one-
third of earnings, or the other form must be adopted (II, 435).
' These items as treated by Justi are so largely reflections of tem-
porary conditions, that the details yield nothing for our purpose that
has not appeared elsewhere.
388 THE CAMERALISTS
373. The best form of extraordinary levy is a tax on social
position [Wurdensteuer], that is, all subjects, lay and clerical, are to
be arranged in classes and subdivisions, and the higher the social
rank and dignity the higher must be the rate of this tax. Thus the
levy falls to a considerable extent upon persons who were not bur-
dened before, and who have the ready means of payment (II, 443). x
374. One of the first rules of a wise government must be to
preserve its credit, and this depends, first, on integrity in its trans-
actions; second, on prompt payment of interest (II, 452).
375. The establishment of a bank is also a useful means of
obtaining control of extraordinary sums (II, 455).
376. Another means is the provision of annuities, the capital
of which falls to the state on the death of the annuitants (II, 455).
377. So-called "Tontines," invented in France, and named
after their originator, Tonti, are also to be considered (II, 456)
378. Lotteries may also be used when exceptional sums are
needed (II, 458).
379. Scruples about the fundamental morality of annuities,
tontines, and lotteries are not sufficiently valid to estop the state from
Hsing them (II, 459).
380. Although it is impossible to exclude aliens from invest-
ment in annuities, tontines, and other forms of state debts, yet so far
as possible subjects should be preferred as investors, so that the
interest will not go out of the country. Whether money should be
borrowed abroad for the sake of winning other nations to our interest
is another question which belongs to Staalskunst (II, 461).
381. When the credit of the country makes borrowing difficult,
then one of the more common devices is to farm out certain fixed
revenues, and to obtain advances from the parties to whom they are
farmed (II, 461).
382. A similar device is to make over certain domains or other
revenues of the state to a lender (II, 462).
383. A still more desperate device is the pawning of domains
or even provinces (II, 463).
384. A cameralist will today scarcely recommend the absolute
alienation of territories and people for the sake of money (II, 465).
1 Additional minor taxes are discussed (II, 445-49).
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 389
OP THE EXPENSES OF THE STATE
385. The second chief responsibility of the cameralist is with
the disbursements of the state, and this is quite as important as
responsibility for the revenues (II, 469). x
386. Instead of being expended for the common happiness, the
means of the state are (i) often wasted; (2) used with shortsighted
niggardliness; (3) applied at the wrong point for the best results;
(4) unsystematically administered (II, 471).
387. In order to avoid these errors, the rules laid down in the
introduction must be applied, viz. : (i) Outlays must be in accordance
with the circumstances and revenues of the state; (2) the "readiest
means" of the state must be used for no other purpose than the best
good of ruler and subjects (II, 473).
388. From the previous fundamental principles we derive the
first rule of wise expenditure, viz., No outlay must be undertaken
without the most thorough previous consideration, and estimate of
the involved cost, and of the income likely to accrue from the same
to the state (II, 476) .
389. The second rule is, that the outlay should never exceed
the income (II, 478).
390. Rule three. For all outlays the "readiest means" must
be already in hand, and in no case should a start be made with a
debt (II, 479)-
391. Rule four. All expenditures of the state must be made
certain (II, 480).
392. Rule five. No outlay should be made which tends per-
manently to diminish either the available or the total "means" of
the state (II, 481).
393. Rule six. So far as possible, outlays should be so ordered
that the money will be expended within the state, and will get into
circulation in the sustaining system of the country (II, 482).
' Justi accuses the cameralistic writers of having failed to give this
subject proportional attention, and assigns as one of the reasons that
they have had little faith that rulers would pay attention to cameralistic
precepts on the subject. Justi disclaims the purpose of instructing
courts as to their duties, but thinks k the duty of cameralists to system-
atize wise rules of administration, whether rulers adopt them or not
39 THE CAMERALISTS
394. Rule seven. The importance of every proposed outlay
must be measured by the amount of income that it is likely to return
for the welfare of the state (II, 484).
395. Rule eight. Outlays must be arranged in the order of
their usefulness for the common good of ruler and subjects (II, 486).
396. The great management of the state bears much similarity
to the housekeeping of private persons; hence the rules that are
valid in private housekeeping apply, with changed details, to the use
of the "means" of the state (II, 487).
396A. Rule nine. The necessities of the state must take pre-
cedence of all other demands, and necessities must be reckoned in the
following grades, viz.: (i) Those on which the stability of the
republic depends; (2) those which are of qualified necessity, i. e.,
from omission of which the community would suffer great harm,
such as loss of industries through failure of proper promotion;
(3) those which might be omitted without positive injury, but without
which the maximum happiness of the state cannot be reached
(II, 488).
397. Even expenses of the first grade should not be covered
so extravagantly that outlays of the other grades would be impossible
(II, 489).
398. Rule ten. Only when all the necessary expenses are
provided for can the means of the state be appropriated to con-
veniencies (II, 490).
399. Rule eleven. After all outlay is provided for which is
required for the needs and conveniencies of the state, attention may
be given to comfort, dignity, display, and ornamentation (II, 491).'
400. Rule twelve. The aim should be to put the finances of the
country in such condition that not merely the necessities and con-
1 Justi adds: "I have no hesitation in giving the preference to
outlays for the display of the court: for since the chief purpose of these
outlays is to impress foreign nations with the prosperity and power of the
state, no better place of using the money can be found than at the court
of the monarch, where it most directly appeals to the eye of foreigners.
Still, that which is appropriate for the comfort and elegance of the
country in other places must not be forgotten. It is not consistent if
the residence charms the eye of foreigners, while the rest of the country
has a poverty-stricken appearance.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 391
veniencies, but also the comforts and elegancies may be secured
(II, 492).
401. Rule thirteen. If the government is to be in a situation
to make fair appropriations of all kinds, it must in all its outlays
observe reasonable economy (II, 493).
402. Rule fourteen. Care must be taken that economy be not
turned into greed, especially through contempt of the ruler for
certain needs of his subjects, while his passions lead him to favor
other outlays (II, 495).
403. Rule fifteen. The finance bureau must constantly have
the most exact information about the condition of all the funds
(II, 409).
404. Rule sixteen. No disbursements should be made except
upon strict account (II, 500).
405. Rule seventeen. Entrepreneurs should be used in all
cases which involve employment of a large number, and many
minor outlays (II, 501).
406. Rule eighteen. Nothing which can be obtained with a
lump sum should be subject to several charges (II, 305).
407. Rule nineteen. The persons expending the money of the
state should not themselves make additional costs necessary (II, 504).
408. Rule twenty. Everything must be supplied at the proper
time, with foresight and advantage, and by cash payments; and
when it is profitable stocks of goods needed by the state should be
kept.
409. Rule twenty-one. Strict accounts, in perfect order, must
be kept of the outlays of the state (II, 507).'
410. After provision for the military budget (II, 527-57), and
for the court budget (II, 560-86), the cameralistic expenses proper
may be divided into eight groups: (i) Moneys for the civil-list
and dowries (II, 588); (2) appropriations for the various admin-
1 The following section, viz., Division Two, "Of the Proper Ordering
of Expenditure, or the General Budget," contains simply considerations
still more strictly technical and does not call for analysis. We may note
one important precept, viz., // a European state wants to have influence,
it must devote at least two-thirds of its revenues to the military Budget
(H, 5*3).
392 THE CAMERALISTS
istrative expenses (II, 589) ; (3) the expenses of levying and collect-
ing the revenues, and of maintaining the sources from which they are
derived (II, 592) ; (4) the salaries and pensions of all civil servants
in the state, finance, police, and justice bureaus (II, 597); (5) the
expenses of bringing land under cultivation (II, 602) ; (6) the expenses
of buildings for the use of the state (II, 607); (7) the support of the
ecclesiastical and school systems (II, 609); (8) expenses for the
comfort and adornment of the country (II, 613). x
411. The organization and the correlation of the cameralistic
system, and of the bureaus belonging to it, is one of the most impor-
tant elements in the government of a state. The whole management
of a community rests upon it, and to a certain extent its whole internal
constitution rests upon it. The administrative police institutions
of the state are a part of the cameral system. At all events the two
arc inseparable, because the former constitute the ground of the
"readiest means" of the state and must in turn be supported by the
same. In this most general signification of the cameral system, it
comprehends not merely all police institutions and measures, and
consequently the commercial and agricultural administration, but
also the administration of justice, at least so far as concerns the
technique of the same, and the nature [Beschaflenheit] of the laws,
as well as the management of the military system. There remain
therefore only foreign affairs, which may be contrasted with cameral
business, and which constitute the second essential element in the
government of the state. Important as the constitution of the
cameral system is then in itself, it is especially so on account of the
peculiar traits of our times. Since the European powers have placed
themselves on a constant war footing, since they have made it a part
1 The remainder of this subdivision (II, 614-60) is entirely devoted
to the routine of cameralistic functions. Justi makes the topic of cor-
relating the different kinds of cameral administration co-ordinate with
(a) the raising of funds; (6) the reasonable use of the "means" of the
state. The technique of this organization as outlined in the remainder
of the Staatnvirthsckaft contains nothing directly material to our purpose.
Nevertheless, as a bit of shading for the picture of the state which we
have already found in the book, an abstract from Justi's introduction
to the section, is added.
JUSTI'S "STAATSWIRTHSCHAFT" 393
of their programme to encourage commerce and manufactures and
the sustaining class, as well as the general culture of their countries,
the cameral system has taken on a quite other form. Those states
in which the rulers two or three hundred years ago either left the
finances to their consorts, or intrusted them as a minor duty to a
privy council or court, now have various great and important bureaus
for the administration of the same, and meanwhile the revenues have
increased five, six, and ten times (II, 664). l
1 The remainder of the book contains (i) a general sketch of the
administrative organization of the chief European states (II, 666-84);
(2) a brief discussion of propositions looking to improvement of the
cameral organization (II, 684-88) ; (3) Justi's own programme of reor-
ganization (II, 688-702) ; (4) the fundamental ordinances and technical
processes of cameral administration (II, 702-44). In this portion of the
book a conspicuous trait of Justi's method is particularly prominent, viz.,
an appearance of studied effort to avoid giving credit to previous writers.
This peculiarity cannot be overlooked as a symptom of the literary
practice of his time, as the usage of previous cameralists sufficiently
shows. Justi was exceptionally unwilling to give other writers their
due unless they were safely dead. Montesquieu is the only author whom
he frequently mentions by name. Only three or four others are men-
tioned at all in this volume, and never with precise reference to passages
by which the correctness of the judgment passed upon them might be
decided. When Justi refers to "other cameralists" who have proposed
modifications of the system, he gives no clue to their identity, so that
their own grounds for their propositions might be examined. In this
respect his methods are as crude as his manners.
I regret that I have been unable to secure a copy of the work in
which Justi expanded his views of fiscal science; viz., Das System des
Finanzwesens, 1766.
CHAPTER XV
IUSTFS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
As we have seen from various points of approach, cameralism
was not primarily a philosophy, nor was it an economic theory
in the modern sense. It was a technique and a technology.
In so far as it rested on a basis of principles, they were prima-
rily political rather than economic generalizations. That is,
political purposes were chiefly in view, and economic means
were enlisted in the cameralistic technique to promote those
purposes.
If would be easy to cull out of Justi's books sentences
from which we might infer that he was, in the last analysis, a
full-fledged democrat. Such an inference, however, would
be as unwarranted as the contrary conclusion that he manifested
no democratic opinions or sympathies. The plain fact is
that his thinking had, so to speak, special apartments for
as many different orders of opinions, which would have treated
one another roughly if they had met face to face. Occupying
separate quarters they could ignore actual incompatibilities.
In his apartments devoted to the most general aspects of
life, the conspicuous motto on the wall was: "The Happiness
of Ruler and Subjects."
In the apartments assigned to the primary necessities of
life, the fireside talk was a ringing of changes upon "Earn and
Save!"
In the apartments reserved for plans and programmes
of political life was an undertone, always audible, droning
variations of the constant theme: "The clue to life is a good
king, with well-trained civil servants and docile subjects."
Now, it would be folly to class a house as "disorderly"
simply because its tenants were of such diverse types, but the
394
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 395
moment it becomes necessary for the lodgers to decide upon
a common standard the problem of harmonizing these con-
ceptions is imminent. It by no means follows that their
different outlooks upon life are essentially incompatible. In
composing them, however, it is inevitable that different forms
and contents and implications of each will from time to time
control, and that one of the main conceptions will dominate
the others. Men will ask one another, What is happiness ?
How is it composed? What does it involve? Is it one
and the same thing for everybody, or does it vary from
man to man, from time to time, from place to place ? To
what extent is it simply our own affair, and to what extent
does it depend on other people ? Again, they will ask, How
many ways are there to earn and save ? What do these ways
have to do with one another ? How do they depend on one
another? What advantages has one over another? How
far may the arts of earning and saving be developed beyond
present methods? To what extent may we discover more
fundamental and inclusive principles of earning and saving
and of guaranteeing to each all that he earns and saves?
Still further, men will ask, What proof have we that kings
are essentials to life, any more than stone hatchets, or bone
fish-hooks? Why may not kings and paternalism be out-
grown, just like wooden plows, and bows and arrows, and
flint and steel ? When are kings and kingcraft good and when
are they bad? What recourse have men when kings and
kingcraft fail?
Men need not have asked all these questions by any means,
nor others equally obvious, before they would be capable of
seeing that Justi's system, however useful for its purpose,
was very far from a conclusive science of the things with which it
was concerned. It contained rudimentary moral and economic
and political philosophies but neither of these philosophies
had been thought through, and the relations between them
39 6 THE CAMERALISTS
had been subjected to no critical analysis whatsoever. In
effect it was plans and specifications of the best paternalistic
government that could be devised, with the reservation that
no questions were to be asked about the finality of that pater-
nalistic government as an irreducible minimum. It was
accordingly a system of operating the paternalistic type of
state, first and foremost, so that it could maintain itself in
the rivalries of similar neighboring states, through systematic
superintendence and stimulation of approved thrift, without
prying behind the precepts of commonplace prudence, and
with such resulting happiness to the people as was to be gained
in the course of making the permanence and power of the
paternalistic state the supreme end. In other words, so far
as Justi's type of cameralism held the center of attention, it
postponed all larger questions of social science, and substituted
for them a catechism of the routine to be observed in govern-
mental bureaus, of the attitude which the ruler would main-
tain toward government and subjects if his views agreed with
Justi's, and of the attitude which the subject should main-
tain in any event toward ruler and administration. Otherwise
expressed, all the social science there was within the sphere
of cameralism was first, as we shall see presently, a more or
less explicit political philosophy, then a managerial ritual,
with no positive provision either for revising the ritual itself
or for reappraising the purposes which the ritual was supposed
to serve. It had the same relation to the problems of society
in general that a hook on tactics would have to statesmanship. 1
In applying the term "ritual" to Justi's cameralism, I
do not mean to assert that it was necessarily arbitrary in detail.
On the contrary, the larger number of its precepts were emi-
1 Parts of the contents of Justi's tooks might be cited as proof that
the comparison is an exaggeration, especially the volume, Natur und
Wesen der Staaten. If substance, not form, is decisive, the parallel is
exact.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 397
nently reasonable. The ritualism came from its relation
to the major premise, viz., the finality of the paternalistic
state. As items in the operation of such a moral economy
as present analysis discovers in human experience, these
same precepts might be no more ritualistic than valid rules
of hygiene.
This appraisal of Justi's system may be varied as follows:
It was an undigested mixture of judgments about means and
ends. It did not consciously encounter the previous question,
viz., How shall we know when such means as the type of state,
and ruler, and bureaucracy which we now take for granted,
and which are at present assumed to be indispensable for
the types of ends which we also take for granted, lose their
value as means, to such an extent that we can no longer take
them for granted as approximate ends ? The parallel question
would also have challenged the authority of Justi's system,
but it had not appeared above his horizon; viz., How may we
know when the types of ends which we take for granted cease
to satisfy the conditions of life, and consequently impeach the
means on which we have relied for the conduct of life ? That
is, the autocratic state and ruler and bureaucracy had so
imposed themselves on the thoughts and feelings of the time
that they were virtually valued as both means and end of
human purposes, and criticism of them to discover how far
they were merely provisional means to mediate ends was
marking time in the cameralistic technology. Meanwhile,
such larger social philosophy as ventured to show signs of
life within or around this technology was in its primary charac-
teristics more prominently political than economic. We shall
attempt to justify this judgment by an examination, first,
of the Natur und Wesen der Staaten, and second, of the Grund-
riss einer Guten Regierung.
Of these two books, which we shall notice not in ineir
chronological but in their logical order, we may first observe
398 THE CAMERALISTS
in general, that they merely elaborate themes which were
contained in Staatswirthschaft. Indeed that volume in prin-
ciple exhausts Justi's cameralism. The later volumes con-
tain nothing except illustrative material which was implied,
if not expressed, in the earlier synoptic book. We shall there-
fore be able to do justice to these volumes, as expansions of
Justi's system, without the detailed analysis which was neces-
sary in presenting his general survey.
We turn to the more fundamental of these special treatises. 1
If thifr-beok had been written for the purpose of supporting
our main thesis about cameralism as essentially a political
rather than an economic theory, it could hardly have been
more unequivocal. 2 For our purposes the Preface is most
important, because the body of the book merely enlarged
upon principles which are sufficiently prominent in our account
of Staatswirthschaft.
The contents of the Preface may be summarized in this way:
Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois is in many respects an exemplary
book, but it contains certain errors which should be corrected.
This book may be regarded as an alternative treatise on the
spirit of the laws [Geist der Cesetze]. "After I have discussed the
essence and nature of states, and have pointed out the errors of
Montesquieu in this connection, I come to the essence [Wwfn]
of the laws, which are the means through which states must attain
their essential purpose,- namely, the common happiness \gemein-
schajlliche Gltickseligkeit], which means can be derived nowhere
else than from the essence and nature of states as their chief source."
1 Die Natur und das Wesen der Staaten, als die Grundwis sense haft
der Staatskunst, der Policey, und aller Regierungsivissenschaften, des-
gleichen als die Quelle aller Cesetze, abgchandelt von Johann Heinrich
Gottloh von Justi, Berlin, Stettin und Leipzig 1760 (488 pages
+ index of 32 pages).
It was not from this book, however, that I arrived at my interpreta-
tion. Long before I discovered it, I had reached my conclusion from
equally decisive but less obvious evidence.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 399
"It will easily be seen that this book contains the fundamental
science of all the economic and camcral sciences, and that it con-
stitutes, so to speak, a sort of political metaphysic for all the govern-
mental sciences. For there can be no doubt that all these sciences
must be based upon the essence and nature of a (sic) state, and there-
from alone, as from their fountain-head [Plauptquelle], must be
derived."
We have inverted the order of Justi's paragraphs, so as
to place his more general propositions first, without affecting
his thought. The more specific reason which he assigns for
writing the book is in the earlier paragraphs of the Preface, viz. :
I made the plan of this work five years ago. 1 Meanwhile it has
reshaped itself in my mind, in accordance, as I think, with a better
general idea which I have meanwhile formed. The necessity of such
a work was evident to me" from the time that I began to write upon
the economic and cameral sciences.
All these sciences, and all those which are required for the gov-
ernment of a state, must in a word be derived from the general nature
and essence of states, and nothing can be securely established in
them if one does not constantly look back to the nature of civic
institutions [bUrgerlichen Verfassungen], If accordingly I would
justify this or that principle or rule in Staatskunst, in Policey, in
Finanz-Wissenschaft, and the other economic sciences, I had to
trace the grounds of the same very remotely [weitl&ujtig] from the
essence and the nature of states; and when this principle or rule
emerged in another portion of these sciences, it was necessary to
repeat the most important grounds, in order to show the harmony
of the same with the essence of civic institutions. I judged accord-
ingly that a special treatise on the essence and the nature of states
would serve my own as well as my readers' convenience, since I
would not then be under the necessity, in all my subsequent works,
1 If we take the statement literally, it would locate this passage in
Justi's thinking during the interval between his departure from Vienna
and his arrival in Gdttingen, i. e., about a year before publication of
Staatswirthschaft. It is not unlikely that revision of his notes for that
volume clarified his ideas in the direction of the book before us.
400 THE CAMERALISTS
repeatedly to show the correspondence of my fundamental proposi-
tions with the nature of a state.
Thus we have Justi's own direct testimony that all the
sciences embraced in the general sense of the term cameralism
were, in his view, deductions from a fundamental political
philosophy. Moreover, all activities in civic society were
to find their rationale in this a priori, viz., the presupposed
"essence and nature of states." This concept served in Justi's
thinking as the finality back of which analysis could not pene-
trate. A large part of the difference between this type of
thinking and modern sociological inquiry is a consequence
of penetration by the latter into the social processes antecedent
in time to the existence of states, or more general in content
than civic activities. The resultant perception that states
are but one of the many variations of means by which men
seek to accomplish their purposes displaces the concept ' ' essence
and nature of states" as the ultimate term in explanation of
civic activities, and substitutes the essence and nature of
associating persons, whose purposes give the sliding scale
of values to all their machineries.
The argument of Natur und Wesen may be compressed
into the following resume":
First, the assumption of an original condition of "natural free-
dom" (chap. vii). Justi's particular version of "natural freedom"
need not be analyzed in detail. While he does not arrive at a plau-
sible hypothesis of reconciliation between the notion of the freedom
of individuals and freedom of groups, within which there was no
freedom, he satisfies himself that there is enough in the idea for a
major premise, and he proceeds to build upon it.
Second, the derivation of social life from an inborn "social
impulse" is denied ({5). On the contrary, perception of advantage
from social reciprocity, i. e., in the last resort, reason [Vernunft],
is the cause of social life (6). With the development of circum-
stances, and corresponding development of wants, the utility of
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 401
extending social combinations appealed to developing reason. Fear
was one of the tributary motives. Some more intelligent men
began to see the advantage of using compulsion upon weaker men,
subjecting them to their laws, and making them serve their own
advantage and conscience. Thus the condition of compelling or
being compelled, the condition of war, took its origin. Hence come
consolidation of related societies into larger societies, in order to offer
more resistance to less closely related societies (7).*
Third, these aggregations of people in societies do not yet con-
stitute republics. Mutual aid [Beystand] is the purpose of societies,
but republics have an incomparably greater purpose. In these
societies all men lived still in the state of natural freedom. Each
was subject to his own will and laws in so far as he was not constrained
by others. Since they had not yet merged their will, the will of
each was entirely free. It was within the free choice of each to make
use of the advantage of reciprocal support, or to forego the same and
to live each for himself. This freedom to step out of society at will
is common to all societies which have no overlord, or which do not
live under the laws of a republic. Particularly, however, the differ-
ence between societies and republics consists in the latter having a
supreme power set over them, while the former have not. When
therefore the societies compel one of their members to conform to
their purposes and to the social compacts, this occurs according to
the laws and the condition of war, not however according to the nature
of a supreme power (9).
It may be asked whether it were not possible that men could have
lived in the condition of natural freedom in such societies, without
creating republics. In my opinion that is precisely the question
which is put in theology when is is asked whether it were not possible
that men might have continued in the state of innocence, ....
(fxo).
Rather is it probable that increasing vice and license, which
disturbed the internal peace of these societies, was the immediate cause
of adopting civic laws and institutions. When such disorders occurred
the most reputable and reasonable must naturally have set them-
selves up as arbiters, in order to abate the evils and to restore peace.
Justi rejects Hobbes's theory of the inborn propensity to domineer.
402 THE CAMERALISTS
.... This was a way to laws, or a beginning of them. The
approach to civic institutions became closer and closer, while people
were probably not conscious of it. ... (11).
The actual institution of republics was probably not after one
fashion, but (i) through the growth of patriarchal power into
actual overlordship (12); (2) through the respect and eminence
which certain men gained in their societies (13); (3) through
instruction of the people by skilled and experienced men, in the ways
of attaining the comforts of human life (14); (4) the leaders of new
colonies have thereby at the same time founded states (15)
The earliest states were small monarchies, these being the most
natural transition from freedom to civic institutions (16). All
these little monarchies were very mild and differed very little from
the condition of natural freedom The people in their assem-
blies always retained the law-giving power in their hands
The kings and princes had only the right to propose and to convince
by argument (vide Tacitus, Germania, chap. xi). Only in time of
war had the magistrates, according to the testimony of Julius Caesar
(de bcllo Gal., lib. vi), right over life and death. This however was
demanded by the nature of the case, if a commander were to
accomplish anything (17). From this slight removal of the first
states from the condition of natural freedom, as well as from the
unobserved growth of the civic organization, it follows in my opinion
indubitably that men never chose to subject themselves to a severe
form of government. This intention of the peoples is also founded
in the nature of the case. Men would have been the most insane
fools if they had been willing deliberately to exchange their most
precious possession, freedom, for a government under which they
would be slaves. The will of the peoples, upon entrance into repub-
lics, was thus doubtless this: that they would surrender their natural
freedom and subject themselves to the government and laws of another
only in so far as necessary for the ultimate purpose of the republics.
Who however would deny that this will of the peoples must not be
regarded in each and every government ?' Besides this, the impulse
1 Justi's frequent use of the double negative without the affirmative
force makes a puzzle of such a sentence as this, in which the meaning
cannot be positively fixed by the context. I think the above rendering
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 403
to dominate over others is not grounded in human nature It is
merely a consequence of a mediocre understanding. Men undoubt-
edly presuppose that they wish to be ruled by a perfect understanding.
This advantage, this quality, can alone move them to intrust to
another the government over themselves. Indeed, since finally God
has put us in the world with equal freedom, dignity, and rights,
I derive from all this the conclusion that it is the duty and obligation
of every government to limit the natural freedom of its subjects, only
in so far as the ultimate purpose of republics requires, and that always
the best government is the one which without interference with the
ultimate purpose of republics most nearly approaches natural free-
dom. This conclusion, which follows from the origin of republics,
I regard as a fundamental principle, which I shall often use in treat-
ing the sciences of government (18).
Justi appears to have entertained no doubt of the cogency
and conclusivcness of this patchwork of guesses and irrelevan-
cies and non-sequiturs. In contrast with Schroder, Justi had
exchanged the theological for a pseudo-rationalistic major
premise. There is no change in the finality, for practical
purposes, of the pseudo-absolutism which the premise supports.
The twentieth-century mind finds extreme difficulty in believ-
ing that an adult accustomed to reflection could ever have
rested content with the puerilities of either argument. We
flatter ourselves, however, by underestimating the capacity
even of the sophisticated mind for self-deception. The psy-
chological situation, in the case both of Schroder and of Justi,
was first the unquestioned concrete datum, the existing abso-
lutistic state; and second, the problem, to find a thread of
association which would act as binding-twine and hold together
with this datum the remaining assortment of ideas in the
faithfully reflects the ambiguity. The original reads: "\Vt-r \vollte
aber wohl laugnen, (lass dieser \Ville <ler Yolker bey alien und jeden
Regierungen nicht in Betrac lit gezogen \verden miisste ?" I understand
Justi to urge the antecedent probability that every government would
regard the will of the subjects.
404 THE CAMERALISTS
minds of the authors themselves and of their contemporaries.
The effectiveness of the notions which proved to serve this
purpose was evidently derived, not from logic but from sug-
gestion. The datum " absolutistic state" was no more deduced
from Schroder's or Justi's premises than the earth was deduced
from Atlas. A plausible justification for the cameralistic
state was set up, not so much in the uncritical explanation
of its origin, as in the presumption that it was supernaturally
devoted and adapted to its purpose of serving the general
interest.
Throughout Justi's writings the idea of the common good,
as the ultimate end of the state, repeatedly recurs. The impli-
cations of the idea are indefinite, but it unquestionably contains
elements which went into the structure of later democratic
conceptions. 1 A suspensive veto, so to speak, was held over
these democratic elements by the inveterate assumption that
the government was actually conforming to its destiny of
preternatural wisdom and righteousness in the interest of
all concerned, whatever might be the immediate appearances
to the contrary. Thus the actual order of thought in Justi's
political philosophy was, first, the state as it is must be accepted
as the ultimate human recourse for promotion of temporal
happiness; second, the details involved in the conception
"temporal happiness" must be learned by experience; third,
rulers must be relied upon to show the wisdom and righteous-
ness requisite for setting in operation, in due time, the measures
which will secure their subjects temporal happiness.
In a later paragraph (23) Justi emphasizes the crucial
conception in this philosophy, viz., the merging of the wills
1 This may be inferred from the very significant fact that Justi
sometimes uses the still more democratic phrase, Gluckseligkeit dor
Unlerthanen, as designation of the ultimate purpose of the state (e. g.,
36). The whole conception was as yet, however, a matter of rhetoric
rather than a decisive factor in statecraft.
45
of many free individuals into a single will. This conceit was
not the democratic idea of a constantly re-established consen-
sus between the members of the state. It was a notion of
transference of the individual wills to the ruler, and their
fusion in him into a transcendent will. This occurred once
for all. Subsequent generations had nothing to do but accept
the arrangement. The use to which this conception is put is
indicated in general in the opening paragraph of the third
chapter, as follows:
The merging of many wills into a single will is the first moral
ground of republics, and that which chiefly constitutes the civic
condition. If many wills are to be consolidated in a single will,
they must all have one and the same paramount purpose, and this
chief purpose of each must include all their special and incidental
purposes. In short, those who merge their wills must all have a
common paramount purpose which leads all their transactions.
The question then is, Wherein does this paramount purpose consist
which produces the merging of the wills in the founding and building
of republics? This ultimate purpose can be no other than the uni-
versal best [das allgemeine Beste], the welfare of each and every one
of the families which as aforesaid merged with one another, in a
word the common happiness [gemeinschaftiiche Glucksdigkcit] of
the whole state.
At this point a single comment will be sufficient. If Justi's
conception of the general welfare had actually been the prime
consideration in his reasoning, he would have been forced to
make it the major premise of an objective critique of the com-
petence of absolutism to attain the involved results. This
plane of reasoning was beyond Justi. It turns out that, in effect,
the perpetuation of the absolutistic state is the ultimatum in
his system, and that the general good comes to its own only as
a secondary consideration, in so far as it can subordinate itself
to the actually paramount interests of the quasi-absolutistic
governments which posed as embodiments of the welfare of
406 THE CAMERALISTS
their peoples. The striking peculiarity of the transitional
type of thinking which Justi represents was not its insistence
upon the welfare of the people as the ultimate aim. It was
rather its constant resort to the assumption that actual gov-
ernments were more inerrant in their pursuit of this end than
any other available civic system could possibly be. Herewith
we have in principle the whole of Justi's political philosophy.
His elaboration of it, on the institutional side, in the remainder
of this volume is merely an expansion of the corresponding
sections in Staatswirthschaft. We shall find more explicit
description of civic well-being itself, as Justi conceived it, in
the second of his volumes on political philosophy. 1
A general estimate of another factor in Justi's thinking
is pertinent at this point; viz., the evident line of cleavage
between the technological and the idealistic elements in his
books. Justi was apparently only half-conscious, if even so
much, of the mixture of elements. On the one hand he was
systematizing the actual technique of governmental adminis-
tration. On the other hand he was describing the spirit and
details of governments as they should be. If one were to read
him without this distinction in mind one might reach utterly
unwarranted conclusions about the modernness of his philoso-
phy. The reservation must always be remembered that his
theory had no place for an ultimate appeal beyond the authority
of the constituted government, as the last resort of peoples.
The government was the final moral arbiter, against whose
decrees the citizens had no recourse. This was not merely
the working condition, but the philosophical theory supported
the conditions. At the same time, parallel with this theory and
practice, a body of ethical judgments was taking shape which
constituted a standard of politico^ attainment destined pres-
' Der Grundriss einer Guten Regierung. In Fiinf Biichern verf asset,
von Johann Hcinrich Gottlob von Justi, Koniglichem Grossbritannischcn
Bcrgrath. Frankfurth und Leipzig, 1759.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 47
ently to hail existing rulers before the bar of a more highly
evolved justice. This more far-seeing justice shows itself
in Justi's accounts of the purposes and technique of adminis-
tration. The dilemma presented by these two elements had
not yet been frankly admitted. The French Revolution
first brought it into distinct view. In a word it was this : The
proper moral standards of governments are such and such ; the
actual moral standards of governments are much inferior;
there is no recognized means of compelling governments to
adopt the higher standards; does the logic of the civic relation
then require men to leave moral standards at the mercy of
governments, or have men a deeper right to enforce subordi-
nation of governments to the higher sovereignty of morals ?
In the philosophy which Justi represents this inevitable
conjunction of ideas had not been reached. The two anti-
thetical, yet necessarily related conceptions and their corol-
laries were in existence side by side, but they had not been
reconciled, and the need of a reconciliation was not yet dis-
tinctly formulated.
The book just mentioned begins with a version of the
same argument which was presented in Natur und Wesen.
Avoiding repetition as much as possible, we may draw from
the present volume certain details in completion of the account
of Justi's system.
Without the proviso just urged, we should be inclined to
believe we had stumbled upon a prophet of modern democracy
when we read (i) :
The nature, essence, and ultimate purpose [Endzweck] of states
are the only criteria by which to decide what is a good government.
Passing propositions which have already been quoted in
other connections, we read (4) :
Every human being has an energy [Kraft] of his own. If many
human beings combine in a society, there results a composite energy,
which is in proportion to the number of persons. Every person
408 THE CAMERALISTS
in society has a share in this composite great energy. He is thus
much stronger than the isolated man. Participation in the great
energy of society is thus the ultimate purpose of societies. 1
The will of each human being is to promote his own happiness.
When therefore many human beings combine their wills, and resign
to this combined will the use of their energy, i. e., when they set over
themselves a supreme power, and subordinate their particular will
to it, there can be no other intent than that each identifies his own
happiness with the happiness of the whole society. The common
happiness is accordingly the ultimate purpose of civic structures
(5; vide pp. 51 ff.).
1 Justi's form of expression seems to imply in the first place that the
"great energy" of societies is merely the arithmetical sum of the energies
of the individuals. This being the case, one wonders just how he pic-
tured the process of getting out of that total more than was put in. He
evidently assumed that something more than a mere addition took place
in society, but his account of the situation leaves the essentials to be
desired. The chief crudeness in this section of Justi's philosophy is
not in the description of the central fact of a state, but in the absence of
analysis of the sources of the "general will" or "supreme power." The
non sequitur is at once in operation that a certain representative or
repository of this "general will," say the monarch of a European state,
being given, the concurrence of social forces by which that monarch
came into existence has served its day and generation, and has gone out
of business, leaving the monarch virtually absolute. I find no direct
evidence that Justi consciously borrowed anything from Hobbes, but
the assumptions of the former are quite in accord with the philosophy
of the latter. Justi feels at liberty to tell when rulers ought to be ashamed
of themselves, but he has no recourse short of judgments of God if they
do not mend their ways (vide Grundriss, pp. 77 ff.).
* From this point the fallacy of confounding means and ends is con-
stantly on duty. The particular mode of uniting the associated wills is
assumed to be identical with, if not paramount to, the concept "common
happiness." Consequently this particular mode of controlling association,
the absolute state, is substituted as paramount purpose, for a developing
idea of "common happiness" which would hold any means of its own reali-
zation, e. g., any form of civic constitution, as constantly liable to answer
for its results, and to modification as the actual paramount purpose from
time to time seemed to demand.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 409
Hence arises a state, a republic, a "common being" [gemeincs
Wesen]. 1 These three concepts are identical, if one takes the word
republic in the most general sense, as its chief significance demands.
A state or republic, however, is a society of human beings who have
combined with one another in order to promote their common happi-
ness under a sovereign power; or, in other words, a state consists
of many families, that have united their energies and their will with
one another in order to combine the happiness of each particular
family with the common good (6).
Such a society of human beings is called a people [Volk], and it
is a ground of the state without which a state cannot be thought,
that such a people occupies a certain portion of the earth's surface,
which is their peculiar possession, and which we call the country
or land [Land] (8).
When a people thus unites its energy and its will, and intrusts
the use of the combined energy to the master- will; that is, when it
establishes a supreme power, this power rests in the beginning
unquestionably with the people, since it originates through the
unification of their energies and wills. The people can accordingly
either exercise this power themselves and make ordinances about
that exercise, or it can transfer such exercise to others. All power
in the state springs therefore from the people [F0/] which is always
the source of the same. The power therefore, by virtue of which
the people makes ordinances about the exercise of the supreme
power, or transfers such responsibility to others, is called the funda-
mental power [Grundgewdt] of the people, and is distinguished from
the active supreme power, which originates only through the ordina-
tion of the former. This fundamental power of the people is a part
of the essence of the state, and is always present, even with the most
unlimited supreme power. It can be overthrown only by destruc-
tion of the state, either through total subjugation by an alien enemy,
or through internal tyranny (9).*
No precise English equivalent for the content which Justi put into
this phrase can be found.
This is perhaps the most distinct formulation of fundamental
democracy to be found in Justi's books. It would be misrepresentation
if I should try to explain it away. It is simply a partially assimilated
410 THE CAMERALISTS
When a people, by virtue of its fundamental power, determines
how the active supreme power shall be exercised, it ordains funda-
mental laws. These institutions for the exercise of the supreme
power are called the government, and the external ways and means
in which the supreme powe? is exercised are called the form of govern-
ment. ' The form of government of a state can therefore be estab-
lished only through the fundamental laws (10).
In the establishment of the fundamental laws and of the form of
government, the fundamental power ot the people acts as law-giver.
But when this fundamental power, according to the standards of the
established fundamental laws and form of government, makes over
the supreme power to others, it acts not as law-giver, but as party
to a contract, i. e., it makes a contract [Vertrag] with the assumers of
the supreme power, to the effect that they will take upon themselves
and exercise the supreme power according to the standards of the
fundamental law. The fundamental power of the people can thus
not be a judge over the active supreme power, but all affairs and
controversies between them must be adjudicated according to the
nature of the contract (11).*
The supreme power of the state consists in the use of the united
energy by a united will (5). The supreme power then amounts
element of his system. It reflects a phase of reality which has always
haunted men's thinking, and which may be counted on to reopen every
supposed closed system of social philosophy so long as there remains
anything to adjust between the individual and the social factors in the
human process. What happened, however, in Justi's system, was that
working necessity so completely outweighed in his judgment the claims of
popular sovereignty in any applicable sense that political absolutism was
the unimpeached result.
1 Thus Justi identifies fundamental laws (Grundgeseize) and gov-
ernment (Regicrung).
1 Here Hobbesism comes into the open in contrast with the democ-
racy of $9. How and by whom adjudicated, if njt Vy the fundamental
power? Justi avoids that question here, but he has given his practical
answer in the passage already noted in the Staatswirthschaft, viz., "The
king can do no wrong," which any other power in the state has a right
to resist. The unconscious humor of the reasoning is appealing when
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 411
to the performance of two great activities, viz., law-giving and the
execution of law. Hence the supreme power may be divided into
two branches, each of which may be subdivided (13). The various
combinations of these subdivisions give the mixed forms of govern-
ment (14).
The body thus formed has at most only the means [Vermogen]
of activity. To be really active, it must have a peculiar ground of
movement or activity. This can be none other than love of the father-
land or of the form of government. The ground of all moral actions
of men is self-love, and the state, as a moral body, can have no other
ground of activity than love for itself, or for its essence and form.
This love, which is so natural in itself, must fill rulers and ruled, and
thereby all parts of the civic body will be vitalized (15).'
Although self-love is the ground of all moral action of human
beings, yet this self-love requires very judicious guidance if human
beings are really to attain happiness. Man must be virtuous, and
live according to the natural laws if he wishes to be happy. Just
so the civic body would fail to attain its happiness if love for the
Fatherland were not judiciously guided toward this end. The mov-
we reflect that the "contract" alleged is purely unilateral. In exchange
for total transfer of the citizens' freedom to the newly constituted supreme
power, no quid pro quo is provided for in the nature of an enforcible
obligation on the side of this new trustee to discharge the trust according
to the intention of the alleged grantors.
1 In pointing out the defects of Justi's reasoning I am of course not
blaming him for being merely a reflection of his time. Blame and praise
are not in question. The point is to detect precisely the strength and
the weakness of the methods of thinking of which Justi was an exponent.
The object is always to make use of these discoveries in criticism of cur-
rent methods of thinking. We must observe, then, in connection with
this paragraph, that it is a long leap to a conclusion which is not contained
in the previously adduced premises. Between self-love and the love of
the state the minor premise is implied, as already indicated (9, note),
that the only means by which self-love can attain its ends is through the
state as traditionally constituted. Logically the reasoning is the vicious
circle. Psychologically, the relation between self-love and love of the
state is unanalyzed. This latter is no wonder, as the analysis is still
incomplete.
412 THE CAMERALISTS
ing spring of virtue is necessary, and this virtue consists in fulfilment
of duties toward the state and fellow- citizens (16).
The form of government is the special nature of each civic body.
Each body can move only in accordance with its special nature.
Each form of government requires its special spring of action, e. g.,
monarchy, honor; aristocracy, moderation; democracy, love for
equality (vide Staatswirthschaft, above, p. 320) (17).
All forms of government are equally good, so long as they
preserve their ground of activity and their springs of action in full
strength (18).
If the springs of action are corrupted, well-organized mixed
forms of government are preferable (19).
Good organization of the mixed governmental forms depends
on a just balance between the different branches of the sovereign
power (20).
Despotism is not a special form of government, but merely an
abuse (21).
Every state consists of rulers and ruled. This division alone is
essential, and is peculiar to all states. All other divisions are merely
accidental. In monarchical states these two classes are ruler and
subjects. In republics all are subjects of the supreme power, but
not of the persons at the head of the government (23). l
The people, which in the democracy is everything, shrinks
in importance in the mixed forms of government, until in the aristoc-
1 Justi thus implies plainly enough the personal rulership of mon-
archs. In effect there was nothing in his political philosophy which
differed from the Stuart view of divine right. Such passages as p. 159,
in which legislation by a representative body is treated as best, do not
nullify this proposition. Weighed against the whole tenor of his system,
these flashes of modernness must be regarded as a sort of mirage, which
played about the edges of his theory but were not actually assimilated
with it. Justi's views of a representative legislature seem, moreover,
to have been not unlike those of the present Czar. In 1007 the latter
allowed the third Douma to be called, but he refused to acquiesce in its
declaration that he was no longer an autocrat. The boundaries which
Justi draws between the executive and the legislative powers leave the
former still in possession of a different type of sovereignty from that which
today goes with genuine representative government (vide op. cit., p. 163*).
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 413
racy and the monarchy it is only a very trifling something. Finally,
through abuse of monarchy in tyranny the people and its funda-
mental powers are reduced to nothing. The people consists of think-
ing beings. A thinking being, however, can never wholly and blindly
give over the care for its happiness to another. The people therefore
should in all states be something (27).*
The sovereign power and the people are parts of a whole because
the one necessarily demands the presence of the other, and because
neither can exist without the other. So soon therefore as the one
part undertakes anything which is harmful to the other it harms itself
(29)-'
The substance of all duties of the ruler is accordingly to make
his people happy, or to unite the happiness of each several citizen
with the general good. All duties of people and subjects may be
reduced to the formula, to promote all the ways and means adopted
by the ruler for thtir happiness by their obedience, fidelity, and diligence
(30).
The happiness of individuals and of the state consists of freedom,
internal strength, good conditions, and security (31).
Freedom may be separated into two concepts, political and
civic; or the freedom of the state and the freedom of the citizen.
The state is free when it is independent, i. e., when it is neither
wholly nor partially subject to another state. The citizen is free
when he can without hindrance realize his will. But the citizen has
merged his will into another, and this combined will can express
itself only through the laws. Consequently the citizen is free when
he suffers no other limitation of his will than through the laws.
The citizen is therefore really free because he is restrained by nothing
except rules for his happiness, rules to which every free and thought-
ful being must subject himself (32). 3
< Was Sieves' famous mot after all a plagiarism ?
Substitute for "sovereign power" and "people," "employer" and
"employee," and we have the familiar dictum of the classical economics
on the absurdity of supposed conflict of interests between wage payer and
wage taker.
3 Justi omits his apologies to the spider and the fly. The other
elements of happiness are described in terms that have already been
specified. Vide above, pp. 330, 331.
414 THE CAMERALISTS
A ruler must not impair the reasonable freedom of his subjects,
nor allow it to be impaired by his favorites and servants. No one
in his whole state must be directly or indirectly compelled to do or
to forbear from doing anything which the laws, made for the welfare
of the state, do not prescribe (39).
The property of the subjects must be the most sacred and invio-
lable object in the eyes of the ruler and his servants. Hence the ruler
may regard it as his greatest glory if in his private transactions the
subjects refuse to make over their property to him. Thac is always
the most royal mark of the goodness of a government (40).'
The ruler and his ministers should neither directly nor indirectly
interfere with the due process of law (41).
Never, except in the most extraordinary need, should the con-
tributions of the subjects be increased (42).
No war should be fought unless the preservation of the state
makes it unavoidable (43).
The text is then divided into five books, viz.:
I. On the ultimate purpose of a good government, and conse-
quently the general idea of a good government.
II. On the fundamental arrangements by means of which gov-
ernments are made good by nature.
III. On the goodness of the government which springs from
its own moderation.
IV. On the wisdom of a good government.
V. The errors and faults of bad governments.
It is unnecessary to go into further details of the argument.
From these generalizations it would be easy to anticipate the
substance of the elaboration of each topic. The state which
Justi outlines is an organization of people whose conceded
legal and moral rights do not include a voice in making the
laws which they must obey, and they do not include legal or
moral right to call ruler or ministers to account if the laws
which they decree are unjust, or if their administration of
them is oppressive. The few further passages to be cited will
E. g., the story of Frederick the Great and the miller at Potsdam.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 415
serve chiefly to illustrate this proposition. In general the
fact is that Justi's ideal of the achievements of a good state
was in the main intelligent, if no account is made of the stulti-
fication involved in this conception of the means by which the
ideal was to be attained. But in such a case we cannot sepa-
rate the end thus abruptly from the means. Freedom to do
our own experimenting with freedom is one of the proximate
ends which thinking beings propose to themselves if their
thinking is not suppressed; and this freedom to find our own
way to something that may be thought of as an ultimate freedom
is a more importunate aim than the conceivable ultimate free-
dom, if it could be conferred by a superior power.
Justi lays down the major premise: "No one can rule over
reasonable and free beings except with the intention of pro-
moting their welfare and making them happy" (p. 33).
Of the possible meanings of this sententious proposition,
the substance of Justi's system forces us to select this version,
viz., It is impossible to suppose that a ruler would desire any-
thing but the best good of his subjects. That is, it was a
purely ad captandum appeal for acquiescence in the prevail-
ing type of absolutism. With so much granted, all the rest
of the reasoning is unanswerable. 1 Once given an absolute
ruler with his existence justified, and no logic can depose him.
The only refutation possible is through destruction of the
major premise; and of course this was the actual first step
I find no evidence that there was intentional or conscious sophis-
try in Justi's argument. He was apparently a convinced advocate, at
least to the extent that he had not clearly thought out a feasible alterna-
tive; and he was not aware of weakness in his method of proof (vide op.
cit -> P- 35) Whether his occasional praise of the English system im-
peaches his sincerity as an absolutist, or merely punctuates the inco-
herence of his political philosophy, is, to be sure, an open question, but
on the whole, I incline to the view that these irreconcilable elements in
his thinking show that he had not faced the necessity of adjusting the
incompatible doctrines.
4i 6 THE CAMERALISTS
in abolishing absolutism everywhere. Rulers being human
are both intellectually so narrow and morally so fallible that
they are incapable in the long run of performing the function
which absolutism assumes. Then another functionary and
another technique and another philosophy must be substituted.
Justi begins his detailed discussion with a proposition
which reflects the fundamental political conception of which
cameralism was an incident; viz., "To govern is to guide the
actions of other people in accordance with certain purposes." 1
The affair in which Justi was engaged, both as advocate and
as bureau official, was the operation of a legislative and execu-
tive organization conceived as something over and above and
superior to the people, although perforce in certain relations
of and for the people. So far as the relation had been thought
out and realized, it was not by the people, and it was for them
only so far as the persons who wielded the power of the organi-
zation were sufficient centers of light and leading to use it
for the real benefit of the nation in a democratic sense. The
first and typical idea and aim was to magnify the governing
power itself, and the rest of the nation was accordingly rated
as tributary to that paramount purpose. Justi proceeds to
build on his foundations of political philosophy after this
fashion:
Those who govern other men in the unobserved way, if they
are rightly constituted and honorable, will always have as their
object the best good of those whom they rule If the ruled
discover that they are controlled in another spirit, no matter how
simple they are, they will sooner or later break the fetters. Invisible
or unconscious government must consequently have the best good
of the people at heart; or, what amounts to the same thing, it must
succeed in keeping the people under the spell of assumption that its
best good is the foremost purpose. We have then to inquire what
' " Regiercn heisst die Handlungen anderer Menschen nach gewissen
Absichten lenken" (p. 34).
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 417
must be the ultimate aims of those who openly govern other men
(PP- 35, 36).
Thereupon Justi constructs an argument along these specula-
tive lines; not an induction of the actual character of states
as they are, not a frank idealization of kinds of government
as he thought they ought to be, not even a modest inference as
to the requirements to which governments must eventually
conform. Instead of either of these, he actually expatiates
upon considerations partly of the second, partly of the third,
types, and then, as though such considerations were pertinent
evidence, he derives the basic inference that governments as
they are conform to those specifications of morals and long-
term expediency, which entitle them to the implicit acquiescence
of subjects. In short, his major premise is that actual gov-
ernments are essentially what they would be if the men in
power were divinely good and wise. 1
Justi constantly appealed to religious sanctions for beliefs
and actions. No evidence appears that this was a phenomenon
* Three distinct questions emerge here: first, Whether the policy
which this doctrine prescribed was the one best adapted to the stage of
evolution then in progress; second, Whether the philosophy expressed
by the doctrine was a valid generalization; third, What were the actual
effects of the doctrine upon the theories and practices of the period ?
We might answer the first of these questions in the affirmative, as indeed
I am inclined to do, yet we might most confidently answer the second
question in the negative, and we might find that there were most unfor-
tunate and confusing results to be scheduled in answer to the third
question. Our present study has no further reference to the first of these
questions. We are dealing with the second, principally, and with the
theoretical, more than the applied, aspects of the third. Thai is, we are
attempting to get first a clear view of Justi's political philosophy, because
it was the setting in which his cameralism has to be interpreted; and
we are to use this analysis of the principal and subordinate factors of
his system as a guide to the effects that the system, and others of which
it was a type, had upon the course of development in the social sciences
at large.
41 8 THE CAMERALISTS
with deeper roots than mere acceptance of the conventionalities
of his surroundings, and instinctive perception that this was
the type of argumentum ad hominem which would meet with
least express opposition. It is accordingly a matter of course
that he relies upon the claim that goodness will in the long run
be successful, and badness unsuccessful. Upon this ground
he urges that no ruler would be so unwise as to rule simply
in his own selfish interest. Even Machiavelli, he thinks, did
not teach that (p. 36 el passim) 1 and the worst tyrants were
probably not primarily enemies of their people, but they found
that without intending to rouse their hostility they had done
so, and thereafter supposed themselves to be unsafe unless they
ruled with a high hand. This is all a-priori reasoning, monarchy
being taken for granted, and the attempt being made to show
that the aim of monarchy must be the common good. There
is no trace, even in the last book of the volume, which at
hasty glance might seem to furnish the exception, of a genuine
attempt to measure the strength of this probability by induction.
In a word, as Justi expresses it, the outcome of this a-priori
reasoning is, that because it is stupid and wrong for a ruler
to govern with selfish aims, therefore, "His final purpose can
be no other than to guide the ruled to their best good, to pro-
note their welfare by wise measures in a word, to make
them happy."
The chapter ends with a homiletical exhortation apparently
intended both as a play upon the suggestibility of the people
on the one hand, and as the most direct appeal j>crmitled by
good form to the better impulses of princes:
When a ruler in this manner makes his subjects and at the same
time himself happy, something grand is before him in their eyes.
That is the honor, which accompanies all his ways and the glory
which attends the footsteps of all his actions. How beautiful, how
lordly, how glorious, how commendable is it to govern men, when
1 Justi thinks The Prince was a deeply veiled satire. Vide p. 327.
JUSTFS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 419
one makes them happy! That is the greatest, the most exalted of
all human activities, to which a reasoning being can attain, and other
kinds of human honor and glory are not to be compared with it
(P- 5).
The method of proving that men united in societies for
the sake of promoting their happiness is equally speculative,
but the more pertinent fact is that the conclusion did not go
so far as to justify the continuance of an effectively Ideological
attitude of subjects toward their governments after they were
once formed. For practical purposes Justi's philosophy meant
that the people must depend on the government to promote
their happiness, but more than that, they must in the last
resort trust the good intentions of the government even when
it is not apparently working in their interest. That is, Justi
posited absolutism mitigated by laws which the government
itself had made, by considerations of prudence, of religipn,
of benevolence, of reputation, each and all to be valued in
case of collision, not by the people, but by the ruler.
This is the typical confusion of ideas in the philosophy
of absolutism, and especially in the conflict in Justi's mind
between tradition and a valid estimate of social values. His
judgment of political ends reads almost like fundamental
democracy. The limitation of his reasoning is found in his
inability to accept the conclusion of social logic that the histori-
cally developed means of attaining human ends must, in the
long run, command the approval of the groups in which they
function, or be repudiated. He could not advance beyond
the dogma that the government, as constituted, must be accepted
by the people as an automatically self-correcting agency, not
to be interfered with by the subjects. That is, in creating
it men acted as practical utilitarians. In their attitude toward
it since it has been created, they must be essentially acquiescent.
Throughout Justi's writings standards of governmental action
are expressed which are prophetic of inevitable change of
420 THE CAMERALISTS
attitude toward governments. The crucial matter for his
views as a political philosophy, however, is that these ideals
are scheduled merely as standards which it is proper for the
people to desire, and right and wise for rulers to adopt, but
not as rights which citizens are free to enforce. 1
Then Justi reiterates his generality that the common happi-
ness of the state depends on "the three ideas, freedom, inner
strength, and security." Then these ideas are expanded in a
way which makes them quite compatible with the virtual
absolutism previously assumed (pp. 65 ff.).
The discussion which follows (pp. 67-109) of the means
of securing these three elements of happiness, is in substance
nearly identical with the treatment of the same subject in
Stoatswirtksckoft and we pass over all but a few incidental
variations.
For example, the "law of parsimony," of which so much
has been made in later economic theory, is recognized in the
fundamental theorems about political means, viz., first, the
means must correspond with the nature of the thing to be
attained; second, of the possible means they must be the best;
third, they must be the easiest, "for it is a law of nature and
reason that we do not accomplish a thing by means of a greater
force, which might be adequately brought about by a lesser"
(p. 67); fourth, they must also be just, "for reason, justice,
and virtue command us not to apply bad means for good ends."
"These are to be regarded as so many fundamental principles
of a good government, by disregard of which one will always
fall into notable errors" (p. 68). Justi nowhere contemplates
1 He says, to be sure (p. 64), "Whatever is plainly opposed to the
ultimate end and nature of a society can without doubt not be binding
upon the society." In the immediate context, however, he appears to
imply that this cannot be thought of anything that occurs under the
regular forms of law. He has elsewhere expressly denied that sovereignty
can at last be in the people as opposed to the government (vide p. 325).
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 421
any more effective sanctions of these virtuous generalizations
than the conscience of the monarch. If he is not so minded,
there is no appeal except to the inscrutable workings of divine
Providence.
Another betrayal of the abortiveness of the conception
of freedom posited in Justi's philosophy occurs in his elabora-
tion of the concept in 85. He says: "Freedom consists in
the unhindered exercise of his (the citizen's) will. But the
citizens who constitute a state have merged their separate
wills in a single will. This single will can show itself in no
other manner than through the laws." Thus freedom is
defined only in the same breath to be denied. In the state
which Justi contemplated, freedom had only an imaginary
existence. It was a fiction of the philosophy of consolation
applied as a balm to the feelings of subjects whenever they
were wounded. The reality which occupied the place of
freedom was just as much tether for the individual will as the
will of the monarch, expressed through laws which he made,
saw fit to allow.
The light in which the factor of population was contem-
plated in Justi's philosophy appears in the same context. It
was primarily a military consideration, and only secondarily
industrial. That is, in facing the prime problem of the strength
and security of the state against foreign aggression, the neces-
sary factors are found to be, first, well situated and fortified
territory, and enough of it; second, a sufficient population
living in such close community that they can act effectively
together. For, says Justi (84) :
Few people, scattered over a wide territory, cannot repulse
enemies invading from all directions. Thus they have much less
activity than the same number of people who live closer together in
a smaller country. It is easy to show mathematically how much
weaker a million people are who live scattered over a thousand square
miles than another million occupying two hundred and fifty square
422 THE CAMERALISTS
miles, other circumstances being equal. It is consequently essen-
tial to the strength of the state that its territory must be peopled
according to the measure of its greatness. Accordingly, the internal
strength of a state depends upon the situation of its territory, upon
the number of its inhabitants, upon the goods at its disposal, and
upon the talents and moral qualities of the people.
Enlarging, two pages later (p. 86), upon the second of these
conditions, Justi adds:
Two million people have of course more aggregate energy and
strength than one million, other things being equal.
The doctrine of population, taken in this obvious relation,
would seem to have had much less of the character of a distinc-
tive dogma than the commentators upon the history of eco-
nomic theory have represented.
The same may be said of the factor of wealth in this philoso-
phy of the state. It was less a dictum asserting some occult
potency of wealth than a matter-of-course reckoning upon
the obvious. Thus Justi says (p. 87) :
The internal strength of the state depends further upon riches of
all sorts which are required for the needs and conveniences of human
life Just as it is beyond doubt that those states have a much
more permanent ground for their welfare whose soil is by nature
adapted to the production of the necessities of life, so may we also
assert that, other things being equal, that state is always the strongest
and happiest which has to satisfy the fewest needs from other states.
Such a state is in no way dependent upon other peoples, and it will
have within itself all the means which are demanded for strength. A
good government must therefore give its weightiest attention to the
production of such riches and abundance of goods within the country.
Justi continues (p. 88):
I have here with great deliberation based the internal strength
of the state ndl upon riches in gold and silver, and upon the ways
that lead to such wealth, namely, commerce, mining, etc., but entirely
upon wealth in goods. This wealth in goods is also alone the true
wealth of the state which is requisite for internal strength. The
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 423
Spaniards, who imagined that they would be the lords of the whole
world, if they had all the treasures of America in their possession,
and for that reason entirely neglected wealth in goods, were in gross
error. With all their treasures they have since been the poorest
nation in Europe, and they could not be anything else, since they
lacked the real wealth of peoples If, however, a state pos-
sesses the real wealth in goods, and is sufficiently populous, it can
have all the internal strength of which it is capable, with neither
gold nor silver nor commerce nor other intercourse with foreign
nations, in so far as this isolation is compatible with its natural situa-
tion, its circumstances, and its form of government Riches
in gold and silver is only a relative wealth of the state, which relates
entirely to commerce and the interconnection with other peoples, and
is necessary merely on that account. It belongs to the external
strength of the state, and to aggressive power [Angriff], but not to
internal strength and defensive power, to which alone I now refer,
because aggression is not to be included in the happiness of a state.
If a state finds it in accordance with its circumstances and happiness
to have such connections and intercourse with other nations, then
its internal strength will require that it shall seek to export as much
as possible of its surplus in order to increase its relative riches in gold
and silver. Under these circumstances that is the strongest state
which has to look to other states for the fewest satisfactions of its
wants, and which exports the most of its surplus. 1
In confirmation of the general thesis as to the qualified
absolutism which was the ultimate term of Justi's political
philosophy, we may quote from a following section. Having
elaborated the proposition that the internal strength of a state
depends, first, on the fundamental virtue of obedience in the
subjects, Justi continues (p. 93):
The moral quality of rulers, which is demanded for the internal
strength of the state, may be expressed in one word. It is wisdom.
The relation between cameralism and mercantilism is reviewed in
the closing chapter (pp. 586 ff.). It is enough to say here that intimate
acquaintance with the cameralists punctures the myth that their concep-
tions of wealth were utterly bizarre.
424 THE CAMERALISTS
But this concept contains very much. If rulers are wise, they are
everything necessary to make their state strong and their people
happy. This quality, moreover, is so essential to the strength of the
stace that all previous means to internal strength in the largest measure
lose their force, so soon as wisdom is lacking in rulers The
perfection and wisdom of the government is accordingly the chief
means and the foremost quality whereupon the true power and
internal strength of the state rest. It is the soul of all previously
mentioned means, and it gives to them their full effect The
wisdom and perfection of a government, however, consists in the
positing of a wisely chosen plan and programme of government, and
the genuine fundamental rules: in government by the monarch
himself, through his own insight, not merely through his ministers,
and the concentration of all affairs in his strong hand; in his wise
choice of ministers and servants, and assignment of each to a post
of duty in accordance with his qualities and capabilities; in holding
all business and affairs in the most precise order and coherence and
the fighting forces in like order and discipline; and finally in putting
the state in the utmost possible condition of preparation against all
the misfortunes and accidents which must be anticipated. If a
state is governed in this way, and if it possesses at che same time
the before-mentioned means and qualities for internal strength,
it is certainly the most perfect machine for exerting an unspeakable
energy Meanwhile, although a perfectly wise and complete
government will never exist in the world, it is always an indubitable
truth that, of two states which are otherwise completely equal,
that one will always overcome the other, the government of which
is most wisely and perfectly conducted. 1
'The bathos of this conclusion is characteristic of the whole con-
ception of which the paragraph is an epitome. It involves the two factors
pointed out above: first, absolutistic government as the final term in
civic relations; second, homiletical moralizing upon the character that
rulers would have if they knew their best interests, with the implica-
tion that actual rulers are enough like this ideal to make obedience
to them the ultimate duty and recourse of citizens. This remark
applies also to the chapter (pp. 109-28) on "General Idea of a Good
Government"
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 425
In the introduction to the second book, on "The Funda-
mental Constitution of States, by Means of Which Govern-
ments Are by Nature Good," Justi promises to sketch "a sort
of Platonic republic, which to be sure never will be realized.
Meanwhile it is never useless to know how far human provision
can go in a probable way in the direction of the goodness and
excellence of the government " (p. 132). Before fulfilling the
promise Justi estimates in some detail the merits and defects
of different types of government (pp. 132-82). If this passage
were read without checking it up by the rest of his political
philosophy, the conclusion would be necessary that he was
in favor of a form of government more like that of England
in the Victorian period than that of the Stuarts (p. 175). It
would falsify the record to explain away the implications of
this chapter. They are plainly and rather unreservedly
democratic in the modern sense with the monarchical element
retained as an offset to democratic faults and inefficiencies.
If the whole system were contained in a compendium a thou-
sand years old, the higher critics might without remorse assign
this chapter to some interpolator of strange doctrines. The
actual explanation is in harmony with traits which are quite
evident in Justi here and there, particularly in the Staatswirth-
schaft. He allowed himself short flights of fancy which he
did not take much care to guard from confusion with his
working technology. Inasmuch as he opened the discussion
with the notification that he would end it with a castle in the
air, it is easy to infer that his feet left the ground much earlier
than he proposed. He simply permitted himself to rhapsodize.
The chapter is half -conscious Wahrheit und Dichtung through-
out. It is of a piece with the ideal ethics which the author
had previously held up to rulers as a righteous standard, with,
no thought of winning for it available political sanctions. He
meant it, in the unofficial, irresponsible compartments of his
mind which were open to the play of imagination. He was
426 THE CAMERALISTS
sincere about these unassimilated conceits, with a sort of
other-worldly longing that took refuge in them from literal
affairs; but as he gave partial notification in the confession
above quoted, he did not expect to be held accountable for
supposing that such visions could ever be actualized. Even
in the course of this excursus, when he is speaking of the checks
which must be put upon the different branches of government,
he touches his familiar earth with the reservation
The executive power, however, or the king, must, to be sure,
always be so sacred and so inviolate that he himself can never be
required to render such an account of his acts (p. 167).
In his summary Justi says:
If the legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the funda-
mental constitution of a mixed governmental form are so ordered,
as above pictured, we may declare that the government is good in
its nature. The king has all power which is requisite for execution,
and on reasonable grounds he can demand no more. In all external
affairs of state he has completely free hands, and nothing hinders
him from taking the resolves and measures which he regards as neces-
sary for the true welfare of his state. Since in matters of execution
he is not bound to obtain the consent of anyone, he can give to all
his undertakings the utmost swiftness, vigor, and efficiency, and
it is his own affair if his intentions and measures do not remain
secret. In short he has all power to do good, but no power at all
to do evil (p. 173).
Coming to the avowedly Utopian part of his discussion,
he begins as follows (p. 183):
Is then a governmental form possible, in which no errors and
imperfections would inhere, but which by virtue of the excellence of
its fundamental constitution would represent a type of government
which by its very nature would be always and completely good?
If the question were to be taken in all its severity we should be obliged
to answer without reserve in the negative. People themselves are
subject to a thousand limitations and weaknesses. All their actions
are led by their passions, and all too often do these passions raise a
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 427
storm which drives the wisest and best men hither and thither like
so much chaff. How is it to be expected, then, that people can erect
a mode of government which in the strict sense would be completely
perfect ? It is people who erect governments, and who are governed.
They are the stuff for the whole work. How can a highly perfect
work be composed of such meager and feeble material ? If, however,
we understand by the question, whether a form of government is
possible which is freed from all the major mistakes and failures
which we so often find in civic institutions, a form which can assure
to citizens all the security, freedom, and happiness to which by
means of their weak nature they can ever attain, and which at the
same time possesses all the strength and permanence against con-
tingencies within and without of which a state is capable, then we
must answer, Yes. We said above that we would construct a sort
of Platonic republic, which it would be ridiculous to expect to realize
in the present condition of realms and states. Nevertheless, we hope
to give our proposal such a form that fewer faults can be found with
it than with such idealistic structures in the past.
Reducing Justi's fantasy to the lowest terms, it is as follows
(pp. 184-207):
i. We must take men as they are, with all their desires and
passions. Accordingly, when a reasonable and moral people, living
by the side of similar peoples, wishes to choose a constitucion, it
must base its plan on the existence of these desires and passions.
They must be reckoned upon in the plan as the means of making
the structure of the state strong and durable. If we except love,
which is rather a natural impulse than a passion, the strongest among
all human passions is the desire for prestige [Vorzug], or the passion
for honor and glory. 1 Nothing is so natural to man as this passion.
The impulse which the wise Originator of nature implanted in every
man, to hold his own being most precious, in order that he might
1 This passage then is of more than curious significance merely
as presenting a Utopia. It is a first-rate piece of evidence on our funda-
mental theorem that Justi had not focalized the economic interest proper.
He had not heard of " the economic man." His fundamental assumption
was the personally ambitious man.
428 THE CAMERALISTS
take pleasure in maintaining himself and in fulfilling the designs of
the Creator, is that which brings forth the longing for prestige.
Consequently this is the passion of which chief use will be made in
a wise design for a civic constitution (p. 184).
2. Yet we must seek to establish and maintain virtue. All
passions may be evil as well as good, in the degree in which they
are guided and governed; and when they are left to themselves they
always tend rather to bad than to good. The desire for prestige
needs therefore another moving spring, whereby it is guided and,
as it were, geared, in order that it may be held back from excesses.
This second moving spring is virtue (p. 185).
3. A mixed form of govenment, composed partly of aristocracy
and partly of democracy, would serve best in employing these two
motive springs in all their strength. I see no probability that virtue
would be preserved in a form composed of king and democracy.
I would therefore forego the efficiency of a monarchy for the virtue
of a republic. To be sure, Sparta had kings, and virtue was per-
fectly maintained there. But our times are so different from those
of the Spartan republic, that we could not think of such a thing as
subjecting the king to the judicial judgment of the people, and his
morals and management to the guardians of the state. Our times
are so accustomed to combining with the royal dignity great outward
splendor and display, that a king without this frivolous, to be sure,
yet, on account of prejudice, necessary glitter, would be the laughing-
stock of all his neighbors. It will, however, never be possible to
banish vice from a state if it contains that degree of luxury which
so closely borders on vice, if the king and his court are not subject
to the institutions of the state for the maintenance of virtue (p. 187).'
4. It is non-essential what marks of distinction a government
adopts to stimulate the desire for prestige, so long as sufficient skill
is used to create a prejudice in their favor. To this end three means
1 What business Justi has to embarrass a Utopia by consideration
either of Spartan times or of "our times," it would be cruel to ask. He
was evidently not aware that he was trying to stand with one foot in the
clouds and one on the earth. This attempt at a free flight of fancy only
brings out more clearly his conviction that for mundane purposes the
quasi-absolute kings of his experience were necessary.
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 429
must be adopted: (i) the symbols of honor must be publicly bestowed;
(2) they must be given for actual merit only; (3) they must not be
made too common. Under these conditions a laurel wreath is as
effective as a golden crown bestudded with gems. The reason why
our times show so few heroic deeds is that our marks of distinction
are not bestowed according to these specifications (p. 188).'
5. Nobility should not be hereditary, and being obtained for
life only it will be a powerful spur to virtue (p. 190).
6. Virtue must be maintained by laws and morals which are
identical, and there must be a moral censorship [Sittenrichler].
This college must consist of the most eminent, virtuous, and honor-
able men in the state, and the members must have a right of veto
upon an election by the people to a vacancy in the college in case they
know anything to the discredit of the person proposed. These
censors must not have the slightest connection with the government.
They must be the protectors of the fundamental constitution of the
state, the defenders of the laws, the maintainers of virtue and good
morals, the promoters of skill, of the arts, and of science. In all
these particulars they must have a quite unlimited power subject to
the fundamental laws, a power which should extend indeed over all
the administrative colleges of the state, and even over the represent-
ative of the people. They must have power to suspend or depose
and imprison any member of the government who is guilty of treason-
able or corrupting practices. There must be in front of the place
of assemblage of this college a receptacle in which citizens could
deposit testimony about anything of which the censors should be
informed (p. 191).
7. In the form of government which I here propose no one has
a peculiar interest in the welfare of the whole people. It is therefore
not necessary that the people should possess law-giving power.
The power of the people is never free from deficiencies and faults.
The people [V0/], however, which has (sic) little capacity for gov-
erning, is excellently endowed for selecting those who may be charged
with governing. I consequently propose that the whole work of
1 As our plan is to exhibit Justi's system objectively, as an attempt
at social science, rat! er than to examine its psychological presuppositions,
it is needless to comment on this naive mental philosophy.
43 THE CAMERALISTS
government, both law-giving and execution, should be reserved for
the personal nobility, and that the people should have no part in
governing beyond election of the officials (p. 194).
8. The common rabble should not be allowed to take part in'
elections. Electoral right should be based upon the rates paid to
the public treasury. The man who pays 20 Thaler yearly should
have one vote; he who pays TOO Thaler yearly should have two
votes, and for each additional 100 Thaler there should be one vote.
This would not only be just in itself, but it would bring about a more
willing payment of the rates. The personal nobility, as the only
class eligible for election, would not be permitted to vote, because
of their self-interest. In large states a representative system of elec-
tion must l>e adopted (p. 196).
9. The number of the nobility should be one hundred and fifty
in small states, three hundred in medium states, and six hundred
'n large states. Each of these should receive from the state an
annual allowance of three hundred to six hundred Reichsthaler
(p. 200).
10. The officials should be divided in the first place into three
chief colleges: (a) for law-giving, (h) for execution, (c) for judicial
functions. Members should be divided into three classes, one class
rctirin" from office each year (p. 200).
n. There should Ix.- in addition as many other colleges as are
at present customary in European states, but they should be subor-
dinate to the three principal colleges (p. 201).
12. In case of disagreement between the three chief colleges
which cannot be arranger! by conferences within thirty days, it shall be
the duty of the chairman of the colleges, on pain of banishment,
to lay the matter before the college of censors. The latter must
then summon the whole body of the nobility to investigate the
difficulty and to decide it by majority vote. The contending col-
leges must adopt the decision at once, for the total nobility is the
body in which the unlimited power should reside, although it does
not exercise it except in an extremity. Even then it must sometimes
proceed by choosing from its own number a dictator, who for a short
period should unite in his own person all might and power, in order
to save the republic from threatened destruction (p. 202).
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 431
13. Universal liability to military service for a term of six years
would be necessary (p. 204).
It is not worth while to analyze the implications of this
conceit, as Justi himself a third time (p. 206) reminds his
readers that it is aside from the serious purpose of his book.
Even the specifications of this Utopia, however, serve to
emphasize the literal preconceptions of Justi's working philoso-
phy. It was in the first place a presumption of static order
in the state; second, a reliance upon some institutional abso-
lute; third, an overestimate of the relative importance of civic
structure in the whole economy of life.
Passing to Book III, "On the Goodness of the Government
Due to Its Own Moderation," Justi begins with the proposition
that if we cannot have such "governments good by nature,"
the only hope of good government is in the self-enforced
moderation of such governments as actually exist, "for every
unlimited and great power is by its very nature terrible, and
it has harmful effects on the subjects (p. 211).
In dealing with a body of thought which from our modern
point of view is so crowded with half-developed and arbitrarily
correlated ideas, there is always danger of making the anoma-
lies more extreme than they were. No other interpretation
can be put on this section, however, than the following: first,
we must in practice take for granted the absolutism of govern-
ment; second, "a government which 1ms unlimited power in its
hands, and can use that powt-r a< ii plrasis. can never be good
unless it moderates this power by its own initiative" (p. 211).
In other words, this is the literal formulation of the fundamen-
tal political conception which is known by the proverbial
phrase "benevolent despotism." This formula expresses
the cameralistic conception, as the legend, Vital c'est mol,-
symbolizes the ancien regime in France. Justi assumes that
the world being what it is, an absolutism embodied in a king
is a necessity. Yet many things go to make up that other
432 THE CAMERALISTS
conception, "happiness," which royal absolutism might easily
frustrate. This philosophy does not thereupon reconsider
its conclusion that political absolutism is necessary. It leaves
"happiness" at the mercy -of absolutism, with the hope that
the absolute monarch actually will be merciful. The present
section then is virtually a series of memoranda from the side
of "happiness," calling the attention of absolute monarchs
to points which they will observe if they want their rule to
result in the largest output of advantage for the state, in dis-
tinction from their own absolutism.
In other words, this political philosophy started with the lame
and impotent assumption that it is desirable for absolutism to
be good, rather than the assumption that absolutism is not a
good. Then it proceeded along the cautious path of specify-
ing how an absolutism would conduct itself if it were good.
If we were immediately engaged in tracing the course of
political evolution, we should have here an important clue to
the process. Even these dutiful reminders had a cumulative
force. Specifications of happiness presently came to have
another logical value. The inference drawn was no longer
that it is desirable for the absolute government to promote these
things, but that an absolute government is intolerable because
it can jeopardize these things. This is the gist of the whole
matter involved in this part of Justi's argument, and we shall
notice only one or two details.
The first chapter of Book III is dedicated to proof of the
proposition that "unlimited and great power is in its nature
terrible and dangerous." It takes as its point of departure
the theorem: "Every man is inclined to misuse his power"
(p. 212). The moralizings and mental philosophizings which
form the medium of the discussion need not be called to account.
For our purposes it is enough to set down the specifications
of danger which Justi discovered. In the first place, he con-
cluded that even virtuous men who are able to extend their
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 433
power fall into the way of thinking that such extension of
power is good in itself, regardless of consequences to others.
As Montesquieu says, "Even virtue needs limitations" (p. 213).
Great power tends to become arbitrary power (p. 214). Hence
such power is always to be feared (p. 215). The outcome of
arbitrary exercise of power is despotism in which the mere
will of the ruler is the highest law (p. 215). The whole power
of the state in the hands of one person is in itself to be feared,
apart from its resting upon the will of the ruler alone (p. 216).
Platitudes are Justi's specialty, but he seldom puts it on exhibit
more plainly than at this point.
The same level of bathos is maintained in the following
chapter "On the Moderation and Fixing of the Will Whereby
an Unlimited Government Becomes Good." It consists of
such "copy-book commonplaces" as these:
The misuse of unlimited power which is so harmful to the state
consists in the exercise of the will of the ruler according to his pleas-
ure and caprice (p. 222); hence a good unlimited government must
have two chief qualities: (a) its will must be moderated, (6) its will
must be constant (p. 223); the proper moderation of the will of an
unlimited government is through the guidance of reason, which has
no other aim than the best good of the state (p 223); a good ruler
must clearly distinguish his personal will from his will as a ruler
(p. 224); even if convinced that his personal will is a good will, a
wise ruler will not try to make it his governmental will; e. g., he will
not try to impose his religion upon his subjects (p. 226); constancy
of will in the government is necessary to prevent uncertainty among
the governed (pp. 227-32).
In the same general tone Justi proceeds, in chap, iii, to
schedule "the fundamental principles and rules of a good
government." These turn out to be:
The first and chief principle of a good government is unques-
tionably that of benevolence and moderation [Gelindigkeit] (p. 233) ;
(a) Since it is the aim and duty of a good government to make the
434 THE CAMERALISTS
people happy, one of its chief principles must be to make the people
rich (p. 237);' (3) General diffusion of wealth, rather than its
concentration in a few hands, is to be promoted (p. 239); (4) Fraud
and treachery as devices of statecraft are to be rejected on grounds
both of morals and of utility (p. 241) ;' (5) Cunning not involving
treachery may be used (p. 242); (6) "A good government will
observe five fundamental rules: (a) To assure the subjects a rea-
sonable freedom, (b) To regard their property as inviolable, (c) To
withhold its hands from interference with justice, (d) Not to increase
the imposts, (e) Except in actual necessity not to declare war (p. 243).
1 For its value as evidence in another connection the context is worth
translating, viz., "We understand here riches in all sorts of goods which
are based chiefly on a flourishing sustaining system [Nahrungsstand],
and without the same no people can properly be thought of as happy.
.... Today there is no doubt about this principle. If a corrupted
statecraft once believed that the wealth of the subjects must be hindered
in order not to feed the spirit of uproar, or at least of opposition to the
supreme power, we have today gone beyond that petty principle. We
have found that an impoverished people, which has nothing to lose, is
much more inclined to disorder than well-to-do citizens, and the credit
[A nsehtn] of the supreme power is today so well established by reasonable
rules of government, and by standing armies, that there is little to fear
from subjects in this respect There can be no doubt that the
riches and welfare of the subjects should be the main purpose, and the
consequent power and strength of princes the subsidiary purpose, and
not the reverse." (This last proposition is a plain negation of my fun-
damental theorem about cameralism. My justification throughout is
appeal to the whole system against its parts. I repeat that we must not
force upon inconsistent elements a coherent unity which did not exist.
Judged by the rest of the system as contained in Justi's books and in the
workings of the type of government which they formulated, the proposi-
tion quoted must be taken, along with the other idealistic elements, as
a symptom of partially assimilated insight, which would presently give
both to social* science and to governmental policy a changed perspective.)
Justi compares his own with earlier times in this respect in terms
which, taken literally, claimed that this theorem was the contemporary
working rule. Here again was an uncritical mixture of relative truth
and of sheer assertion of ideal value. The latter is demonstrated by
the admission which Justi makes at the close of the paragraph (p. 242).
JUSTI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 435
The fourth chapter of the book, on the restraint which a
good government should exercise in the matter of expense,
is merely a variation of commonplaces which governments
of the type that he had in mind observed or not, according
to the temper of their rulers.
Book IV, "On the Wisdom of a Good Government," is
a very slight variation upon corresponding passages in Staats-
wirthschaft. It contains nothing which in principle modifies
our previously expressed estimate of Justi's political philosophy.
As we intimated above, 1 Justi's confessed knowledge of abuses
in actual operation did not lead him to the conclusion which
has since become self-evident, viz., that the quasi-absolutism
of the eighteenth century was an intolerable anachronism,
In the last book, Justi catalogues enough faults of that type
of government to condemn it without remorse, but his expressed
inferences amount only to the impotent reflection that rulers
who permit such abuses ought to be ashamed of themselves,
and God probably has in reserve for them such averted glances
as are thinkable in the case of his anointed. It would be
profitless to rehearse specifications of delinquencies which
had no further meaning for human programmes.
1 E. g., pp. 406 S. et passtitt.
CHAPTER XVI
JUSTI'S " POLICE YWISSENSCHAFT"
We now come to the most peculiar division of cameralistic
theory, the portion which, next to the fundamental absolutistic
political philosophy, contains most that is antithetic with
English and American theory and practice. In order to repre-
sent it most vividly we shall digest Justi's treatment, translating
as nearly as possible his own words. This will involve not a
little repetition. We cannot fairly represent Justi, however,
without reporting some of his self -iteration. We deal first
with Grundsatze der Policeywissenschaft. 1
The Preface to the first edition of this book is dated, Gottin-
gen, May 11, 1756. A second edition appeared in 1759.
Beckmann says the book had been used by various eminent
teachers as the basis of their lectures on the subject.
Meanwhile, several such introductions had appeared. The
editor refers to Justi's disregard of other writers, 3 and promises
to do his best in the notes to supply the gaps. In his own
Preface to the first edition (reprinted in the third) Justi discusses
the literature of the subject, and in order to show the state of
his information and opinions about other theorists his remarks
must be cited. In substance he says:
1 Jokann Heinrich Gottlobs von Justi, ehemaligen Konigl. Gross-
britannischen und Braunschweig- Lumber gischen Churfurstl. Berg-Roths,
und Ober-Policey-Commissarii, wie auch Mitgliedes der Konigl. Socie-
tal der Wissenschaften in Gdttingen, Grundsatze der Policeyvnsscnschaft,
in einen verniinftigen, auf den Endfiveck der Policey gegriindeten, Zusam-
menhange, und sum Gebrauche academischer Vorlesungen abgefasset.
Dritte Ausgabe, mit Verbesserungen und Anmerkungen von Jokann Beck-
mann, ordentlickem Professor der Oekonomie in Gdttingen . . . . 1782.
AH references are to this third edition.
Vide above, p. 292 ei passim.
436
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 437
This book is the first instalment of the promise to write text-
books on each of the cameralistic sciences. It is the outline of a
course to occupy one semester. It is the first complete treatment
of Policeywissenschaft. The common error has been to boil this
subject in one broth with Staatskunst. We have a countless number
[eine unbeschreibliche Menge] of books which contain the elements
of Staatskunst, but they do not assort their material. Staatskunst
has nothing for its purpose but the internal and external security
of the state, and its chief attention must be given to the conduct of
states toward each other, to increase of the power of the state in
relation to other states, and especially to wise conduct toward
other states. In like manner Staatskunst is concerned, on the other
hand, with adjusting the conduct of subjects toward one another
and toward other states.
Policeywissenschaft, on the contrary, is concerned with nothing
but the preservation and increase of the total "means" [Vermd'gen]
of the state through good internal institutions [Verfassungen] and
with creating all sorts of internal power and strength for the republic:
e. g., through (i) cultivating the land; (2) improving the laboring
class; (3) maintaining good discipline and order in the community.
In the last task it is the tool of Staatskunst in maintaining inner
security.
Other books have treated Policey in connection with principles
of Cameral- odcr Finanz-Wissenschaft, to the disadvantage of each
science, though they are nearly related. Policey is the ground (sic)
of genuine cameral science, and the police expert must sow if the
camera] ist is to reap; yet each science has its fixed and indisputable
boundaries. The one seeks to increase the total "means." The
other seeks to get from this the "readiest means," without harm
to the former*
In other books, Policey is treated along with Oekonomie; e. g.,
Zink, 1 both in his Gntndnss and in his Anfangs-Grundf, starts with
certain general principles of Oeconomic, and then of Policey, and
then treats of more special economic questions first from the eco-
nomic, second from the police standpoint. This leads to constant
' I have not observed an instance in which Justi follows his contem-
porary's spelling of the name.
438 THE CAMERALISTS
repetitions. Moreover, Policey cannot be completely treated in this
way, because it has a much wider scope than economic subjects.
In his Anjangs-Griinde, which is very diffuse, 1 Zink either wholly
forgets many important police subjects, or gives them only a few
lines.
The late If err Canzler von Wolff wrote a large number of books,*
and as, according to his profession, he wanted to be a system-writer
of all sciences, it was to be expected that he would write a Policey.
But the social life of human beings was the mistaken chief subject
of his work, which did not fit into the proper boundaries of the sci-
ences. His book therefore contains many valuable teachings about
Policey, but consistently with his ultimate purpose he mixed them
with so many principles of moral philosophy [Sittenlehre], of the law
of nature, and of prudence [Lebensweisheit], in general, that the work
is of no use as a system of Policey. Sciences must be separated from
each other to be complete, because many useful doctrines will be
overlooked if they are treated together.
Of the few books that remain on Policey proper, we name none
until the present (eighteenth) century. There has been, until late
years, no adequate idea of Policey, as is proved by such examples as
Boter, Griindlicher Bericht von Anordnung guter Policey, Strassburg,
1696; Schrammer, Politic historica, Leipzig, 1605; Reinking,
Bibliche Policey; etc.
Others in this century have a correct idea of Policeywissenschajt
but are not at all complete: e. g., Law, Entwurf einer wohleingerich-
teten Policey. The author was not equal to his undertaking. With
the exception of certain observations about the Policey of various
states, the book contains little that can be used. Again a pseudony-
mous "C. B. von L." published (1739) Ohnverfangliche Vorschldge
zu Einrichtung guter Policey. It is not a system, and contains much
that is chimerical and not pertinent to the science. Lucas Friedrich
Langemack published Abbildung einer vollkommenen Policey, Berlin,
1747. In this brief work the fundamental principles are very well
and philosophically presented, but on the whole it is not specific
i The pot is scandalized at the color of the kettle.
* Again "eine unbeschreibliche Menge," which is a trifle strong for
a critical treatise.
JUbTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 439
enough for a system. The Mecklenburg Hojrath Velter published
several monographs on Policey: e. g., Unvorgreifliclien Gedanken
von Einrichtung und Verbesserung der Policey, 1736; more impor-
tant was Unterricht von der zur Stoats und Regierungswissenscltajt
geho'renden Policey, 1753. The author flatters himself, in the pro-
spectus of the latter book, that he is the first to treat this science
systematically, but no one with an orderly mind will admit this.
The book is not only confused, but leaves out much that should be
included, and has much affectation of wisdom from the ancients,
while betraying defective judgment.
The English and French have produced nothing better. De la
Marc's Traite de Police contains certain excellent and useful things,
but has no well'-grounded and connected system.
It has been said that Zink's book is more available as a text,
because it describes the police systems of other lands, and applies
the general principles of Policey to this or that particular state. On
the contrary, this ought not to be expected of such a textbook. We
should rather require of a textbook on the oconomischen Wissen-
schajten only the general principles, without this or that concrete
application.
"In this book I have followed my usual rule of not citing other
authors. A dogmatic writer 1 must present the subject conclusively,
and if he does this he does not need the authority of earlier writers.
Such citations smack of pedantry, unless they contain historical
facts, or unless some special circumstances call for them."*
Passing to the body of the book, our task is to abstract the
more general conceptions, within which the technology had
its setting, from the applications, which of course make up the
bulk of the contents. The material so abstracted is cumulative
evidence for our interpretation of cameralism. Reducing
Justi's propositions to the most compact form, we have the
following general outline:
1 Probably "didactic" would be nearer to Justi's thought than the
word thus literally rendered.
3 These observations by Justi tell their own story about the state
of the social sciences at his time, and comment would be superfluous.
44 THE CAMERALISTS
i. The name Policey comes from the Greek word r6X, a city,
and should mean the good ordering of cities and of their civic insti-
tutions.
|2, 3. Two uses of the term Policey are common today: first,
and most generally, "All measures in the internal affairs of the
country through which the general means [Vermfigen] of the state
may be more permanently founded and increased, the energies
[Krdjte] of the state better used, and in general the happiness of the
community [gemeints Wesen] promoted. In this sense we must
include in Policey die Commercienivissenschaften, die Stadt- und
Landdconomie, das Forstwesen, and similar subjects, in so far as the
government extends its care over them for the purpose of securing
general correlation of the welfare of the state. Some are accustomed
to call this die wirtkschaftliche Policey-Wissenschaft. This name
is a matter of indifference so long as it is not supposed to designate
a particular science.
3. In the narrower sense we understand by Policey everything
which is requisite for the good ordering of civic life, and especially
the maintenance of good discipline and order [Zucht und Ordnung]
among the subjects, and promotion of all measures for the comfort
of life and the growth of the sustaining system [Nahrungsstand].
We shall treat here the general principles and rules of Policey accord-
ing to the comprehensive idea. In the special elaboration we shall
not stop to consider those things which .are the subject-matter of
other economic sciences, and meanwhile we shall discuss chiefly
the objects of Policey in the narrower sense. 1
1 The difficulty which we find in getting a distinct conception of
Justi's meaning is due to the fact that his own ideas were not clear. His
classifications have largely been abandoned, even by bureaucratic theo-
rists. The change begins to be visible with Rau, Lehrbuch der politischtn
Orkonomie, 1826, etc. In England and America the distribution of
activities, and consequently the theory of them, left no place for Policey
in Justi's sense.
The editor of the third edition adds as his own definition of " Policey,"
the following (p. 26): "The science of governing the various occupations
[Gewerbe] according to the purpose of the state." Of course " Smithism "
was fundamentally a protest against the thing itself, but the thing itself
was the very genius of the cameralistic state. There consequently had
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 441
4. The purpose and consequently the essence of all republics
rests upon promotion of the common happiness. The general
"means" of each republic is the resource which it must use for pro-
moting its happiness. Hence the general "means" must be assured,
increased, and reasonably used, i. e., applied for the promotion of
the common happiness. This is the content [Inbegriff] of all the
economic and camera! sciences. The maintenance and increase
of the general "means" in relations with other free states is the
affair of Staatskunst. Policeywissenschajt, on the other hand, has
for its object the maintenance and increase of the same general
"means" of the state in connection with its inner institutions, while
cameral and finance science has for its task to raise from the general
"means" of the state, by a reasonable use of the same, the special,
or "readiest means," and to put into the hands of Staatskunst and
Policey the means of accomplishing their purposes.
5. The purpose of Policey is therefore to preserve and increase
the general "means" of the state; and since these "means" include
not merely the goods, but also the talents and skill of all persons
belonging to the republic, the Policey must have constant care to
have in mind the general interdependence of all these different
sorts of goods, and to make each of them contribute to the common
happiness.
7. Policeywissenschajt consists accordingly in understanding
how, under existing circumstances of the community, wise measures
may be taken to maintain and increase the general "means" of the
state in its internal relations [Verfassung], and to make the same,
to be a technology of it. The editor continues: "The occupations are
agricultural pursuits, aitisanship, trade, and personal services. The
first part of Policey accordingly treats of the responsibilities of the ruler
with respect to rural employments The second part of Policey
is urban, i. e., the Policey of the handicrafts and trade, as the two occupa-
tions peculiar to towns In the third part I reckon, for example,
medical practice, the ecclesiastical and educational system, etc. The
fourth part, or at all events the appendix, should treat of those abandoned
or unfortunate persons who will not pursue any of the occupations men-
tioned, and hence will or must live upon the diligence of other people;
i. e., beggars, almshouses, houses of correction, and workhouses.
44 2 THE CAMERALISTS
both in its correlation and in its parts, more efficient and useful for
promotion of the common happiness [gemrinschaftliche Gluckselig-
keif\. More briefly, Poeiceywissenschaft consists in the theorems
for preserving and increasing the general "means" of the state, and
for so using them that they will better promote the common happiness.
3. The general principle of Policeywissenschaft is accordingly:
The internal institutions of the community must be so arranged that
thereby the general "means" of the state will be preserved and increased
and the common happiness constantly promoted. 1
9-16. Hence follow three fundamental rules, viz.:
1. Before all things the lands of the republic must be cultivated
and improved.*
The development of the territories may take place in two ways:
(a) through external cultivation; (6) through increase of the popula-
tion, which may be called the internal culture of the lands. The
second sort of culture must be of three chief kinds: (i) Through
attraction of foreigners as settlers; (2) through means which promote
increase of the native inhabitants; (3) through prevention of sickness
and premature death.
2. Increase of the products of the cotmtry and the prosperity of
the sustaining system [Nahrungsstand] must be promoted in every
possible way.
3. Care must be given to securing among the subjects such capaci-
ties and qualities, and such discipline and order, as are demanded by
the ultimate purpose, viz., the common happiness.
Book I is devoted to the subject of "the external cultiva-
tion of the land," i. e., to all measures conducive to (i) removal
of impediments to occupation of the soil; (2) utilization of
the material advantages of the land in all its parts; (3) pro-
viding the citizens with means of obtaining shelter and support.
Chap, i treats of the improvement of the soil for the abode and
1 Vide below, p. 450 et passim.
Vide Grundfeste, I, ai. I cannot decide what difference in meaning,
if any, Justi associated with the two words Cultur and Anbau which he
sometimes seems to use merely as synonyms in oratio variaia and some-
times as cumulative expressions.
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 443
support of the inhabitants. Under these heads, means dis-
cussed are, in general: clearing superfluous forests, draining
ponds and swamps, protecting against flooding from seas or
rivers, bringing barren land under cultivation, construction
of harbors, making streams navigable and digging canals,
exploiting mineral and rock deposits, utilization of land formed
by recent action of the sea, or of islands, distribution of land,
provision for both large and small estates, establishment of
villages and attached arable areas [Fluhre], etc.
Chap, ii deals with the improvement [Anbau] and growth
of cities, and does not vary in substance from the corresponding
passage in Staatswirthschaft. The purpose of cities is said
to be to work up raw material and to carry on foreign com-
merce. All other institutions of cities must end in these two
purposes. Sites should be chosen which are favorable, the
general plans should conform to the needs, the dwellings should
not be left entirely to the caprice of the citizens, protection in
the shape of walls, gates, harbors, canals, water supply, and
drainage must be furnished, decisions must be reached about
extensions of the city, those who furnish material and labor
must be looked after, means must be taken to secure circulation
of sufficient money, wealthy and talented foreigners and arti-
sans must be attracted, the immediately neighboring land must
be made productive, diligence must be stimulated, means of
stimulating foreign trade must be devised, laws and statutes
must be passed, in accordance with the primary and secondary
purposes of the towns, and with the other characteristics of
the locality, city councils must be so organized that proper
correlation of all police activities will be promoted, there must
be special courts for manufactures and for trade, Ziinfte and
Innungen must be discouraged in new factories so far as pos-
sible, and in old hand-trades kept in close bounds.
Chap, iii deals with the convenience and ornamentation
of country and city, and discusses such subjects as roads,
444 THE CAMERALISTS
streets, postal systems, bridges, fountains, reservoirs, water-
mains, paving and cleaning and lighting of streets and alleys,
marking of time by bells, and by night watchmen, inns and
other places of refreshment, market-places, public conveyances,
aesthetic regulations, parks and pleasure gardens, amusements,
etc.
Chap, iv begins the subject of "inner cultivation of the
land, or the increase of population." At the beginning of this
chapter another of the passages occurs to which von Mohl
referred. 1 It is as follows:
All external improvement of a land would be of little avail, if
the same were not satisfactorily settled and populated. This popu-
lating is the internal cultivation which must give to external culti-
vation its soul and life. Hence increase of population is the second
main aim in the cultivation of countries, and just as the sustaining
system will always be more flourishing, the more people there are
in the country, so we must regard it as a fundamental theorem in
this division of the subject that a land can never .have too many
inhabitants. It is easy to protect this theorem against all objections.
However we may disagree with Justi's presuppositions and
with subsequent conclusions, we do not do him justice if we
charge him, as von Mohl and many others have done, with
teaching the opposite of Malthusian conclusions. The fact
is that he never considered the Malthusian problem at all.
He confronted a condition of under-population. The states
for which he spoke needed more population for their purposes,
and it was those purposes for which Justi was the spokesman.
He would have put the case precisely as he meant it if he had
said:
For the purposes of a practical cameralist today, the probability
of over-population may be canceled from the reckoning.
Although it had never occurred to him to pry far into the
relations that determined the limits of population, there is
* Vide below, p. 477.
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 445
nothing in his books to show that he supposed population could
be increased indefinitely.
86-96 develop devices for attracting immigrants. 1 97-108
develop a programme, first, for increasing population, second, for
checking emigration. 2 109-21 are on public hygiene.
Chap, vii, Von der Landwirthschaft, approaches the subject
rather from the approximate standpoint of the agronomist,
than of the economist. It begins (p. 109):
The promotion of the sustaining system in the country demands
in the first place that a sufficient number of rural products shall be
gained. To that end the rural Policey must constantly pay great
attention to those sources through which rural products are derived.
Here then the rural Oeconomica come first to attention, as the chief
means through which the raw materials for the products of the
country are brought into existence. These 3 are: agriculture, the
exploiting of natural and cultivated forests, the mines, and the
thereto appertaining smelting and refining works. In this sub-
division we deal first with agriculture.
Perhaps no part of Justi's cameralism exhibits better than
this division the contrast between the regime which he repre-
sented and the other extreme illustrated by American policy.
We must again call attention to the main question, viz., What
should government do about these matters? The American
answer from the beginning has been, "Nothing! Every man
knows best what he wants, and government has no right to
interfere, so long as each lets his neighbors alone." We have
therefore taken absolute individualism as our presupposition,
and have tried in every way to cover with soothing phrases and
fictions each departure from actual individualism which chan-
ging conditions have required. The most important Factor
in bringing about in reality, through our voluntaristic system,
1 Vide corresponding passages in Staatswirthschaft.
* Also parallel with same topics in Staatswirthschaft.
3 The reference goes back to Oeconomica.
446 THE CAMERALISTS
some approach to scientific use of our agricultural resources,
has been our legislation establishing agricultural experiment
stations, and systematic instruction in rural economy. The
thing that we have thus tardily and cautiously attempted on
the ostensible theory that it is primarily the affair of the indi-
vidual, has from time immemorial been frankly regarded
in the German lands as primarily the affair of governnuent.
It is no part of the present study to inquire about the relative
efficiency of the two policies. Two general remarks only are
in point : first, Englishmen and Americans would have treated
German social science in the nineteenth century more intelli-
gently and would have gained more from it, if they had been
more willing to judge it on its own grounds, and had been
less prone to damn "paternalism" and all its works; second,
whether on a paternalistic or an individualistic theory, much
that cameralistic administration worked out, especially in its
latest forms in modern Germany, is evidently enlightened
wisdom for a commonwealth. Bureaucracy, or no bureaucracy,
the things themselves need to be done, or at least a construct-
ive and coherent policy with reference to them needs to be
adopted. Study of the bureaucratic way of doing them may
tend to confirm most Americans in dislike of that way, but it
ought at least to make them more able to perceive that in point
of results we are at a disadvantage, and that our system is not
vindicated until its technical results compare more favorably
with those of the more paternalistic German system.
We have then in cameralism a body of officials presiding
over agricultural programmes just as a general staff conducts
the administration of a modern army. The Landes-Policey
deals with such subjects as the organization of larger and
smaller rural estates (124), the regulation of acreage devoted
to different crops on these estates (125), the adjustment of
taxation so as best to stimulate agriculture (126), the protec-
tion of cultivators against the interests of hunting or forestry
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 447
(127), regulation of other occupations which might draw the
peasants from cultivation of the soil (128), stimulation of agri-
cultural talent in the peasants (129), inducing production of
raw materials which would not be raised without special
stimulus (130), improvement of the quality of products (131),
employment of "economic inspectors" to supervise all these
things (132), adoption of uniform systems of measuring land
(133), adoption of rules of rotation of crops and other regula-
tions, like the wages of laborers, etc. (134), adoption of special
standards for particular products, kinds of seed to be used,
etc. (135), enactment of ordinances to protect growing crops
from thieves, etc. (136), particular attention to cattle-raising
(137), also to vineyards (138), and to horticulture (139).
In chap, viii cameralistic duties regarding forestry, mining,
and minor industries are analyzed (140-49). "Manufac-
turing and factories" are treated in the same relation in chap.
ix (150-80), and on these two presumptions (152):
A wise government must consequently have two theorems con-
stantly before its eyes, viz.: (i) Everything required fry the need and
comfort of the inhabitants 0} the country is to be produced as far as
possible within the country itself; (2) the government shall see that,
in the interest of the sustaining system, and of foreign commerce,
everything that the land produces shall, so far as possible, be worked
over to its complete form, and shall not be allowed to leave the country
in a raw and unfinished stale. To this end the government must
have precise extracts from the tariff, excise, and license sheets, on
such points as (a) all imported goods, in order to judge which of
them might be produced within the country; (h) all exported goods,
in order to discover whether domestic products in the form of raw
materials, or partially manufactured, are exported.
Thereupon the technique of keeping check upon raw.
material produced or producible in the country, of materials
which must be supplied by other countries, and of tools,
etc., needed for working up the materials is discussed (153-
448 THE CAMERALISTS
55), and then the programme for developing manufactures
(156-80). The whole is merely a somewhat expanded
reproduction of the corresponding part of Staatswirthschaft.
Chap, x treats very briefly the hand industries (181-90),
and chap, xi claims to offer only fundamental principles of
commercial administration, with the intention of devoting
a separate volume to the subject. Justi divides commerce
[Commercien] into domestic and foreign, applying to the former
the name trades [Gewerben], and repeating that a land might
conceivably be happy if the trades flourished, even if there
were no commerce. Then the fundamental condition of a
favorable balance is mobilized as the basic principle of com-
mercial administration. The details are not greatly in excess
of those indicated in Staatswirthschaft.
Chap, xii, on the circulation of money, contains little, for
our purposes, which does not occur elsewhere in Justi's books.
The fundamentally correct conception of gold and silver money
as a "ware," the weight and fineness of which are accurately
given, is repeated (221-23). The last of these paragraphs
is worth quoting as cumulative evidence:
If money and goods are to retain a constant ratio to each other,
no change should occur in either; and if such change could be totally
avoided, it would be a matter of entire indifference whether there
were much or little money in a country. A state which had no rela-
tions whatever with other peoples, and whose inhabitants consumed
all that they produced, would have a constantly unbroken circulation
of money. It would have all the power and strength of which it
was capable, and it would be as fortunate as another state of like
population with ten times as much gold and silver. But since no
state in our part of the world is in such circumstances, changes in
the value of money and of goods with respect to each other often
occur. We must explain the effect of these changes upon circulation.
In general Justi continues (2246?.):
If the amount of money in circulation diminishes, the price of
wares will increase, beginning with the most needless, the influence
JUSTI'S " POLICE YWISSENSCHAFT" 449
extending gradually to all. If the quantity of money in circulation
increases, the most necessary wares will grow dearer. This stimulates
the activity of laborers and has its influence upon all wares. Money
becomes less desirable, interest falls, more wares are produced.
Gradually wares will again become cheaper, and thereby exporta-
tion is promoted, whereby the quantity of money in circulation is
more and more increased and the diligence of laborers more stimu-
lated. Accordingly it must be a first care of the government to pre-
vent diminution of the amount of money in circulation (226).
Lack of confidence and external dangers are prime causes of dimin-
ished circulation (228). Unfavorable trade balance is the most
effective cause (230).
Chap, xiii, on credit, is interesting for the historian of eco-
nomics proper, but is not immediately significant for our
purpose. The same is true of chaps, xiv and xv on means of
encouraging the laboring classes.
Book III, on the moral condition of the subjects, and
maintenance of good discipline and order, has value for our
present inquiry simply as cumulative evidence that the prob-
lem which Justi formulated was essentially patriarchal. The
point of attachment between this division of labor and the
whole purpose of the cameralistic state, appears at the outset,
as follows (270):
If the means of the state in its internal constitution are to be used
for the promotion of the common happiness, the subjects, apart from
the cultivation of the land and the promotion of the sustaining sys-
tem, must also themselves possess such qualities, capacities, and
talents that 'they can contribute their part to the realization of the
common welfare. In this view religion deserves first to be consid-
ered. The members of a community are made by religion incom-
parably more capable of fulfilling their duties as citizens; and a
state can hardly attain all the happiness of which it is capable if
public institutions of religion [ftusserlicher Gottesdienst] are not
introduced. The more this cultus harmonizes with the nature and
essence of men, and with the paramount purpose of republics, the
45 THE CAMERALISTS
more excellent will it be, and ihe more capable will it make the
citizens of the state to work for the common welfare.
The same point of view is adopted in considering the morals
of the people (285 ff.), and also in treating science and
education (295 ff.).
Whether religion, morals, and education are to be regarded
as primarily affairs of the individual, and thus not to be inter-
fered with by government, is a question to which Germany
has always assumed one answer, while the United States has
tried to apply the opposite answer. Our business in the
present connection is not to open the question of principle, but
merely to show the attitude of cameralism toward the question.
The state and its power to maintain itself against all assault
from within or without being the central aim, of course it was
a strictly logical inference that everything which could have
an effect on the strength of the state was properly within the
sphere of state supervision.
It is beginning to be possible for a few people to discern
that the old dilemma between the individual and the state
was purely fictitious in the abstract, and that neither horn of
the dilemma could be taken as the symbol of a concrete pro-
gramme without surprising results. Religion, morals, science,
and education have both individual and social relations, if
we choose to retain that distinction. We are at once in the
region of absurdity if we attempt to run a legal boundary line
between their individual and their social phases. The real
question for governmental theory is not whether they are the
one or the other, but to what extent and in what ways either
phase must be taken account of by the law. The arbitrary
character of the traditional criterion might be inferred from
the historical contrasts between theory and practice. The
German presumption at once runs counter to individual aspects
of each, which dictate a thus-far-and-no-farther to government,
while the American presumption not only gives itself curious
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 45 I
things to account for in our actual practice toward religious
institutions, moral conditions, and scientific needs, but it almost
wholly disappears in our systems of state education.
The chapters on administration of justice (339-59),
and preserving the peace and checking the lesser nuisances and
crimes (360-80), are notable only as indexes of the place
which cameralism assigned to these subjects in the civic struc-
ture.
The last book is a brief discussion of the technique to be
operated by the branches of government concerned with apply-
ing the foregoing principles of police science. Justi says that
in a certain sense the subject-matter of this book forms the
practical part of police science (p. 327). The following para-
graph confirms our account of the cameralistic state (382) :
The law-giving power in police affairs, since the internal arrange-
ment of the state chiefly rests upon it, can unquestionably be exer-
cised by no one but the sovereign power, the destiny of which is to
administer the affairs of the state for promotion of the common
happiness. In whosesoever hands the sovereign power is lodged,
he has also to enact the police laws which are to bind the state as a
whole. If now the sovereign power rests not alone in the hands
of the ruler, but at the same time also with the estates of the realm,
or with representatives of the people, obligatory police laws must
be agreed upon and promulgated by these conjointly. On the same
principle, the police laws which should affect the whole German
Empire should be enacted by the Kaiser and the estates assembed
in the Reichstag.
Again, 384:
Since the territorial sovereignty which the estates of the German
Empire possess is nothing else than the sovereign power in each
particular state, which finds its limitations merely in the proviso
that its exercise shall not extend so far as to prejudice the general
coherence and common welfare of the Empire; the estates of the
German Empire accordingly possess the law-giving power in Policey
affairs; and the above limitation does not prevent them from adopt
452 THE CAMERALISTS
ing such Policey institutions and ordinances as will serve the advan-
tage and prosperity of their respective lands; even if this advantage
and prosperity might not harmonize with the interest of other
German states. Thus they could ordain that no wares should be
imported from neighboring German states for consumption within
their own territories. On the other hand, they could not forbid
the mere transportation of the wares of their neighbors; because
thereby the total coherence of the German states united in a common
civic body would be utterly destroyed.
The following sections (385 ff.) explain how this power
is actually exercised in the name of the sovereign.
To complete our account of Justi's Policeywissenschaft we
turn to the work in which the author has expanded the out-
line just reviewed. With the possible exception of the Finanz-
wissenschaft, the Grundfeste 1 is the most elaborately wrought-
out of Justi's works. We must nevertheless allow our resume*
of the Grundsatze to stand as the best index which our space
permits of the general contents of the more complete treatise.
The system of control outlined in the Grundfeste reflects a
regime which the people of the United States have thus far,
by almost unanimous consent, refused to reflect upon judicially.
They have dismissed it without a hearing, as "unamerican."
Nevertheless, it is safe to predict that the time will come when
thoughtful Americans will be able to deliberate about the system
exhibited in an immature form in these books, to weigh the pur-
poses which the system was designed to serve, and to conclude
that although the methods of control which the purposes pre-
suppose are impossible in America, yet the purposes themselves
must in principle be organized somehow into the most highly
civilized life.
This conclusion must be allowed to rest on the exhibit thus
i It is a fair surmise that Justi got this title from the heading of
chap, xxxiii, in Schroder's Fiirst. Schatz- und Rent-Cammer; vide
above, p. 167.
JUSTFS " POLICE YWISSENSCHAFT" 453
far made of the different police systems. We may add merely
a few notes from the Grundfeste.
In the Preface to the first volume Justi says:
I have often noticed that there are very few people who have a
correct idea of Policey. That which in the narrowest sense is called
Policey, namely the Policey in the cities, is regarded by the majority
as the whole scope of this science. If this very limited signification
were the whole, I should have insufficient ground for calling the
Policey the main defense of states. Both the Grundsdtze and the
present work should make it plain that the scope of the science is
much wider.
Justi complains that most writers on Policey have not
sharply separated the subject from Staatskunst. 1
It will be found [he says] that as a rule those who have treated
Staatskunst have at the same time discussed Policey with Commer-
cien- und Finanz-Wissenschajt. This is the case, for example, with
the latest writer on Staatskynst* If our conception of Staatskunst
or Politik made it include not only all knowledge necessary for the
government of a state, but also all the details of institutions neces-
sary in civic society, those would be right who include in one system
of Politik, Policey, the Finanz-Wissenschaften, and all the other
1 Vide above, p. 328.
'"Baron von Bielfeld, born 1716, Hamburg, of an aristocratic
merchant family, died 1770. He was a friend of Frederick the Great
when the latter was crown prince. Was for a while guest of the latter
in Rheinsberg, and immediately upon his accession entered his diplomatic
service. After' 1741 he was Legationsrath in the foreign department,
later second Hofmeister of a Prussian prince; after 1747 Oberaufseher
of the Prussian universities, but without the least loss of the king's favor
retired presently to his estates. His writings, the most important of
which, the Institutions Politiques, appeared in 1760, suggest not merely
by their French dress, but also by their genial cosmopolitan tone, Fred-
erick the Great, much more than contemporary academic specialists.
Schlozer credits him with the immortal honor of having first introduced
learned politics at courts!" (Roscher, p. 426.)
454 THE CAMERALISTS
economic sciences. 1 But, in that case Staatskunst would be no
special science at all. It would be nothing but a general name for
almost all other sciences. Die Rechtsgelehrsamkeil, die Bergwerks-
Wissenschaften, die Mathematik, die Mechanik, and almost all other
sciences would belong to Staatskunst. For all these furnish knowl-
edge which is applicable in the government of a state, and necessary
for the institutions and practices of civic society. In a word, they
all contain knowledge of means whereby the state may be made
powerful, and the citizens happy. That is the explanation which
Baron von Bielfeld gives of Politik.
Justi declines to accept this description of Staatskunst.
He contends that it has been at all times not a general name
for many and almost all sciences, but a special and self-
sufficient science, sharply distinguished from Policey, Finanz-
und Commercien-Wissenschaft. Then he restates his definition
of Policey thus:
"// is that science which has for its object permanently to maintain
the welfare of the separate families in an accurate correspondence and
proportion with the best common good. 1 ' This definition is supported
by the comment: "The best common good [das gemeinschaftliche
Beste] is the ultimate aim of all civic institutions. But, we can ima-
gine no best common good without the welfare of the separate families.
To make these correspond with each other is accordingly in fact the
main defense of the state, out of which its power and happiness must
chiefly arise." 3
Justi elaborates in this connection his theory of the division
of labor between Staatskunst and the other "sciences." We
have already quoted from the Staatsivirthschaft his principal
propositions on this classification. *
' In this case it is clear that the phrase "die oconomischcn Wisscn-
schaflen," which I have rendered "economic sciences," had a meaning
for Justi which would be more exactly represented to our minds by the
phrase "social technologies."
3 This definition is amplified on p. 4, also pp. 6-9.
3 Vide above, p. 328 et passim.
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 455
A curious measure of Justi's sense of proportion may be
found in the fact that he occupies five out of the fourteen pages
of his Preface with a discussion of the relative merits of differ-
ent printing establishments. His laudation of the publisher
chosen for this work, after relation of sad experiences with
others, one of them named, rouses the suspicion that a motive
less disinterested than zeal for improvement of the art of print-
ing was beneath this discourse. Incidentally he betrays a
characteristic trait of the whole Policey regime, as well as of
his personal theory, in this suggestion:
Perhaps we find here a lack in our Policey. It is without doubt
the duty of the Policey to look out for the quality of wares and work,
and to set the standard below which work shall be regarded as entirely
unfit, and to be made good to the person who suffers injury from it.
I doubt, however, if there is a country in which a standard of passable
quality in printing is enforced. The more our publishing system
becomes a staple ware (sic) the more will such laws be necessary. 1
Having discussed the evils of putting the emphasis in the
state either on the interests of the government, or on those of
the separate families, to the prejudice of the other, Justi offers
the following "general fundamental principle" of Policey-
wissenschaft, viz.:
In all the affairs 0} tlie country, the attempt must be made to put the
welfare of the separate families in the most accurate combination and
interdependence with the best common good, or the happiness of the
whole state. 2
1 Justi's most explicit attempt to explain the etymology of the term
Policey occurs on p. 5, Part I. He quotes from Xenophon's Athenian
Republic to show that the word IIoMTe/a meant "not only the internal
institutions of a state, but the whole governmental system of a community:
and even what we now express by the word republic."
3 The author calls attention to the divergence of this proposition
in form from that in Grundsdtzen der Policcywissenschaft Elnleitung,
{8, p. 7. He explains that the two formulas do not essentially differ.
(Vide above, pp. 442.)
456 THE CAMERALISTS
In the most emphatic terms he declares that this is the single
great object of police institutions, and that all the major and
minor rules of Policey must be derived from this central purpose.
Less fundamental, but more significant for the matter upon
which tradition has most stupidly misrepresented the cameral-
ists in general, is the main theorem which the first part of the
work supports, viz.: "The strength and the permanent happi-
ness of a state rest principally upon the goodness of the climate
and soil of the country. 1 ' Justi is not among the writers whose
attention is given chiefly to agricultural technique. He evi-
dently knew comparatively little about agriculture proper. Of
the extractive industries, mining was the only pursuit about
which he professed to write as an expert. Yet the place which
he assigned to agriculture in his theory leaves no valid excuse
for applying to him the label "mercantilist," if it carries the
traditional meaning "believer in trade as the sole source of
wealth." Instead of accepting this doctrine, Justi urges (27)
that "economic trade," as the phrase went, that is, the trade
of a nation of middlemen, like Holland in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, is a precarious source of national pros-
perity and wealth. He says:
Economic trade is always based on the stupidity and laziness of
other peoples. So soon as a people perceives that it does better when
it gets its wares from the first hand, it is all over with this economic
trade. Upon quite as uncertain ground rest the manufactures of
such a country. A wise and industrious people will always seek to
manufacture its own raw materials. Hence this source of riches
rests on the stupidity and laziness of other peoples, and so soon as
these peoples get their eyes open, they will no longer furnish to
the trading nation a source of riches A nation which, by
virtue of its good and well-cultivated soil, exports a great quantity
of domestic products is also in a situation, according to the nature
and course of commerce, to draw to itself much easier and to retain
even the economic trade, than another nation which has few domestic
products.
JUSTI'S "POLICEYWISSENSCHAFT" 457
From all this it is clear in my judgment, that the success and
permanent happiness of a people rest in a very important degree
upon the good character of its soil and climate, and that a people
which itself produces all its needs (sic) and many domestic goods
is incomparably more powerful and happy than a nation which must
obtain its necessities and wares for consumption from other peoples,
and thus is in a certain sense dependent upon them.
These considerations lead us to two theorems which will be of
great importance in the whole treatment of Policey: First, a prudent
nation must always take care to put itself in stick condition that it
is not under the necessity of obtaining its most important wants [Bediirf-
nisse] and materials from other peoples; second, a nation must seek
in every possible way to cultivate the area which it occupies and to
improve its climate.
This proposition is not only repeated in slightly varied form
in the following paragraph, but the body of the book expands
it, and Justi's whole philosophy presupposes it.
Along with this fundamental principle, Justi next reiterates
his second main theorem (30), viz.:
Since there can never be complete cultivation of the soil without
dense population, our second working theorem is, that a state must
in every way promote population.
These theorems are insufficient without a third, viz.: // a state
has only inhabitants devoted to cultivation of the surface of the earth,
its population can never be dense Consequently we have the
third fundamental principle: that government must constantly pay
the strictest attention to the building and growth of cities and villages
(31)-
A fourth theorem must be added, viz. : The Policey must devote
itself to works and institutions for the comfort of the inhabitants and
the ornamentation of the land (32).
Each of the four books of the first part of the Grundfeste
develops one of these four theorems.
In the Preface of the second volume Justi professes an entire
reversal of literary policy. He says: "The attentive reader
458 THE CAMERALISTS
will be able to judge how great pains I have taken to seek
out the most excellent thoughts of the greatest minds, in order
thereby to strengthen my discussion." The fact is that Justi
was from the start the most expert recoiner of other people's
thoughts that German political literature up to his time had
developed. He had not before approached so near to a con-
fession that he was more a codifier than a first-hand investi-
gator. The Preface is chiefly devoted to a defense against the
criticism of Baron von Bielfeld that Justi had included altogether
too much in Policeywissenschaft. The passage is so character-
istic of the time and of the author that no independent student
of the subject should neglect to read it.
Probably there is no more accurate and detailed contem-
porary picture of the policy behind Frederick the Great's
type of benevolent despotism, at least no picture of the policy
as it was idealized in the minds of theorists, than the views
presented in these two volumes of the Grundfeste, together with
the later work, System des Staatswesens (i 766). As the evidence
already presented is more than sufficient to support our main
contention, we must pass these volumes with the remark that
their contents are cumulative proof of the correctness of the
view we have taken of cameralism in general.
CHAPTER XVII
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES
To complete the exhibit which the compass of this book
permits us to make of Justi's views, we must draw from his
collected miscellanies. Without attempting to organize these
extracts into systematic form, we shall present them in the
accidental order in which they occur in the three volumes. 1
This chapter is therefore in effect an appendix, consisting
principally of notes which serve to emphasize certain features
already referred to in the author's theory.
The Preface to Vol. I of this collection is dated Berlin,
Sept. 3, 1760. It refers to "the present war" (i. e., the Seven
Years' War, 1756-63) as hindering the correspondence with
Austrian publishers, who wanted to get out a new edition of
some of these papers previously published in Teutschen
Memoir es.
The Preface to Vol. I repeats the theme of cameralism
in this form:
Money is today so largely the ground (sic) of all the activity
of the state, that the greatest courage and the greatest bravery of
a people in our time can have little success if it is not provided with
sufficient money, that great motive spring and nervous fluid of all
undertakings which are to attain fortunate results. We must go
farther; we must indeed affirm that the most wholesome and excel-
lent arrangements and institutions of a state will have little success
along with a bad condition of the financial system of the state.
Again, in the same preface (the pages are not numbered) :
I believe that we still lack a species of history which would be
peculiarly useful. The historical books of all peoples are concerned
1 Johann Heinrich Gottlobs von Justi, Gesammelte Politische und
Finanzschriften uber wichtige Gegenstande der Staatskunst, der Kriegs-
wissenschaften und des Cameral- und Finanzwesens 1761.
459
460 THE CAMERALISTS
almost entirely with extraordinary and unfortunate occurrences
with wars and slaughters which peoples have waged against one
another, with narration of extraordinary rascalities and villanies,
and the succession of rulers. In my opinion this is of least value
and least instructive in history. We should have a history from the
earliest times in which the chief attention would be given to the origin
of realms and states, to the efforts to found them and to bring them
into a flourishing condition, to the principles of government in
political, financial, and police affairs, to the attempts to cultivate
and people the lands, to the causes of the growth and decay of realms
and states, and especially to the governmental mistakes which rulers
and ministers have committed. On the other hand, the wars and
other matters which heretofore have filled the histories should be
mentioned only in passing, in so far as they have had a greater or
less influence upon the welfare or decline of civic societies. If a
history were so constructed, we could say that history is a mirror of
human transactions. As histories are now written I believe they
have very little claim to such a title. I have made up my mind to
write such a history. I will give it the title: The History of Mankind
as Citizens [Die Geschichte des Menschen, als Biirger]. 1 In my
opinion such a history, if it satisfied its purpose, would go far toward
extending a knowledge of true governmental and financial principles
upon which the happiness of peoples largely rests, and such a book
could incidentally not fail to be useful to civic society.
Again, in the same preface the author says:
If my efforts in the economic and cameralistic sciences have
thus far received the indulgent favor of the world, I do not credit
this to my own skill. I believe I owe it entirely to my efforts to estab-
lish all the theorems and rules upon the essential purpose of all
states, namely the happiness of the peoples. These are also the
principles on which I base the financial treatises in this collection.
In fact, one can never have other principles in finance. A cameralist
who bases his measures upon other principles cheats his master,
the state, and himself.
Examining these papers in turn, and selecting items which
1 The book never appeared.
JUSTTS CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 461
are most significant for our puq)osc, we have the following
details of varying importance :
A usage that was common in this period, not in Germany
alone but throughout Europe, is illustrated in I, i, in the em-
ployment of the word "philosophy" as equivalent to "science."
The main point of I, 2, is in the paragraph on p. 17:
That which is the decisive factor in human affairs is "the allwise
Providence of the Highest which always has a hand in human activi-
ties and which orders the outcome of all things according to its great
wisdom."
A side-light on the application of Justi's theories to actual
conditions is in I, 6:
Should sumptuary laws be enacted in the interest of the happi-
ness of the state, especially when it is desirable to encourage com-
merce and trade? Of course superfluous display and waste or
luxury [Ueppigkeit] are contrary to the principles of sound morals.
What degree of outlay should be regarded as extravagant is a ques-
tion. It is not at all certain that the outlays which would harm a
single family are for that reason harmful to the whole state. For
strength against possible enemies the state needs available means.
If money were hoarded by the subject, to that extent the sources of
available means would dry up. The good of the state demands
that money should circulate. If the outlays for display and luxury
do not leave the country, they are not harmful to the state (p. 80).
Neither the power of the sovereign nor the total means of the state
lose anything by it. Hence such outlays should not be forbidden.
In the case of luxurious consumption of foreign goods, the best
regulation is by prohibiting import of the same (p. 89). Yet
certain luxuries should perhaps be forbidden: e. g., those that
consume gold and silver in perishable ornaments, or in gilding wood
or the baser metals. Probably, however, even the trades that furnish
these should be allowed freedom, as the amount of gold and silver
permanently lost to the state is trifling compared with the amounts
which craftsmen are able to earn in these trades.
The silver plate owned by the upper classes is so much dead
treasure. It is certain that this is not contributing to the welfare
462 THE CAMERALISTS
of the community [genteincs Wesen], and it is to be wished that this
sort of display could be restricted (p. 91). Vet I cannot conclude
that possession of such things should be prohibited. A special tax
on luxuries would be a wiser means of restraining extravagance.
I, 8, compares the government of a state to a machine, and
makes the analogy a text for an argument for strict ordering
of the civil service. I, n, enters the field of social psychology
in this vein:
Peoples are governed by the help of prejudices [Vorurtheile].
The passions are the first sources and motive springs of all human
actions. If we were controlled by reason only, we should need
neither republics nor forms of government. The strength and
weakness of a state depends accordingly upon the character of the
prejudices with which its citizens are filled, and the wisdom of the
government consists chiefly in producing prejudices by means of
which the state may attain to all the possible power of which it is
capable.
If ever there was a people that needed to change its prejudices,
we poor Germans arc the ones. Since the Saxon emperors (919-
1024), our strength has been steadily on the wane, and for two hun-
dred years we appear to have been the prey of all neighbboring
peoples. Our prejudices cannot be of the sort that put us in posses-
sion of our full strength. It is not the least of our lacks that we are
wanting in the impulse and genius that arc necessary for commerce.
We must change our prejudices so that commerce and manufacture
will rank higher, and will not be beneath the dignity of the nobility.
Is a nobility in general consistent with the nature of republics
(p. 151)? A hereditary nobility stops up a source which could
furnish a great number of rewards for services.
Justi seems to discuss the question seriously (I, 170, et
passim) whether it were not better to give up the idea of
developing commerce and to resume the idea on which the old
German nobility was based power and happiness by conquest.
The chief idea would then be not to have a sufficient army to
repel attacks, but an aggressive policy of conquest. This
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 463
would be to turn the nation into a robber among nations.
After referring to somewhat more admissible causes of war,
Justi continues (p. 175):
Moreover, in our day war is extremely costly. It is more a
sacrifice of unmeasured sums of money than of blood. If therefore
a poor nation should today determine to make conquests its chief
purpose, it would come to a very ridiculous resolve. A people that
today wants to be militant must accordingly also seek to be rich.
There is no other way whereby a people can become rich than
through commerce. If a people had in its power the richest gold
mines, without carrying on flourishing commerce, it would not thereby
be rich. Those foreign peoples who get control of its commerce
will also indirectly have its gold mines in their power. Spain furnishes
a very conclusive example.
Accordingly no people can today reasonably make conquests
its chief purpose without proposing commerce as an equally impor-
tant affair But let us suppose that a militant folk has brought
all Europe under its yoke. Would it therefore be happy ? By no
means. It would without doubt acquire vast plunder, but these
very riches, instead of promoting its happiness, would cause its ruin.
All riches which do not come into the state by way of commerce,
which do not make the industry of the citizens active in their voca-
tions, and which do not incidentally pour themselves into all parts
of the civic body, are the source of all disorders, which will presently
draw after them the corruption and total destruction of the state.
Not tbe German peoples were the real destroyers of Rome, but the
treasures of Attalus (sic) and other riches which came to Rome
through the plundering of so many peoples This destruction
would have been even more rapid if the Romans, after their conquests,
had not become merchants. But even this medicine could not
restore the humors once totally corrupted. They were only a strength
ening by which the wholly emasculated body was able to endure
for a period
All this amply proves, it seems to me, that a people can never
make conquest its chief aim, and thereby promote its happiness.
It proves that no people can be powerful without wealth, and con-
464 THE CAMERALISTS
sequently not without commerce, that a people without sufficient
power would be very foolish if it dreamed of conquests, that the othe*
European powers would soon enough make it repent of its silly
idea; yet, it proves that if a poor people, contrary to all probability,
gained the conquests it had desired, still without commerce it would
neither be happy, nor would it be able to retain the advantages it
had gained.
If, accordingly, all this is established, it naturally follows that
the militant origin of the nobility cannot be sufficient ground for
its devoting itself exclusively to the purpose out of which it originated. '
In I, 13 (p. 198), Justi again explains his doctrine of the
importance of the factor of density of population as a compo-
nent of the strength of a nation. In brief his assertion is that,
other things being equal, a country with a million inhabitants
scattered over a thousand square miles of territory is much
weaker than a country of two hundred and fifty square miles,
with the same population. He continues (p. 199):
The more populous a state, the more prosperous will be its food
industries and trades, and the more active will be the circulation of
money, because all men have need of reciprocal aid and of a thousand
kinds of necessities from each other. If a state has foreign commerce,
it will constantly acquire more riches, with the greater number of
hands that labor on the domestic products and wares. This increased
1 The whole foregoing passage (I, 175-79), it must be remembered,
is incidental to discussion of the question, What is the relation of the
nobility to the state and commerce ? The main point in Justi's mind
was to establish the position that on the principle, noblesse oblige, a nobility
should justify itself by the sort of service which the state most needed.
His argument was that war was not the most radical employment of the
state, that commerce went much nearer to the roots of happiness, and
that, when promotion of commerce was needed, the nobility ought to
serve the state by assuming commercial responsibilities. The context
does not warrant any confident inferences from the passage in its bearings
upon mercantilism. There are traces in it, in the reference to stimulation
of domestic industry, of the actual association of ideas with the more
fundamental processes of production. We find the same cropping out
elsewhere in qualification of the supposed extreme mercantilist theory.
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 465
wealth will always set the industrious hands of the ix>pulation into
more active motion, and the wealth of the stale will the more increase.
This wealth will at the same time attract much folk from the
neighboring states, that barely support life: and thus this wealth
will increase the power of the state. The superiority of a people
depends today as much and more upon its wealth than upon its
numbers. A land which is wisely ruled, and has a flourishing sus-
taining system, can accordingly never have too many inhabitants.
A moral state must look to wedlock for the increase of its popula-
tion. How important to the state therefore are its marriage laws
(p. 200).
The monograph I, 19, is almost the modern "pace-making"
generalization which Professor W. I. Thomas has done so
much to develop. The paper glorifies the type that we now
call "promoters," while it denounces the merely adventurous
varieties of the type. I, 24, expands previous suggestions
about getting the most out of people by a system of honors.
Of the papers in the second division of Vol. I on financial
questions, we need note merely that (i) expands the view
previously expressed, that it is better to farm the Landesherr-
lichen Cammerguter und Aemter than to administer them
directly; (4) adds details on wise forms of taxation; (5) dis-
cusses excise, and a proposed substitute in the form of an occu-
pation tax; (6) gives further details of the duties of a cameral-
ist in connection with forests and forestry; (7) elaborates a
detail under the same head; (8) expands the discussion of
the proposition that subjects are not necessarily happy by
reason of low taxes; (9) enlarges on "Mauthen und Zolle," as
means of promoting commerce; (12) treats of taxation as a
means of developing and managing the sustaining system.
Passing to Vol. II, the first paper deals with division and
balance of power between the main branches of the government
in the fundamental constitution of the state. Justi makes
two primary divisions: first, the law-giving, second, the exec-
466 THE CAMERALISTS
utive power. The former has for its object both the main
purpose of the complete happiness of the state, and also the
subsidiary purposes. Justi slides over, however, into the
conventional legislative, executive, judicial classification, and
a main proposition is that neither all nor two of these branches
of power should be in the same hands. The most tolerable
combination is that of legislative and executive powers (p. 10).
If the executive power is entirely independent of the legislative
power, if the former has at its disposal all necessary resources, the
executive power will certainly attain such preponderance that the
legislative will presently be suppressed (p. 12). Either it will not
be convened at all, or it will be permitted to concern itself merely
with the most insignificant matters. "In all German nations legis-
lation rested at first mostly with the Volk. 1 ' 1
The paragraph continues:
But, because they* put permanently in the hands of the executive
power, or of their kings and princes, the means of execution, namely
the revenues of the state, in such a way that the executive power
had no more need of their co-operation, the result was that in Spain
and France nothing remains of the legislative power of the Volk,
and in most of the German states only a bare shadow. If on the
other hand the legislative power is entirely unlimited, and not at all
dependent upon the executive power, the former will presently abuse
its strength to suppress the executive.
1 I imagine that such a proposition, even with the explanations
immediately to follow, was possible only because of the ambiguity of
the term Volk. Some of the political philosophers of the time could
interpret the personal acts of their own ruling princes as constructively
the action of the Volk. That is, the latter term carried a content of
metaphysical theory. It did not necessarily mean the "people" in an
unequivocal democratic sense.
1 The implied antececJent of the pronoun is the plural "nations"
in the preceding sentence, not the collective and metaphysically con-
:irued noun Volk. The whole explanation would go to pieces under
analysis.
467
The indubitable conclusion is it seems to me that a well-ordered
fundamental constitution of the state will be so arranged that the
two highest powers will always be in a certain sort of interdependence
or equilibrium. This equilibrium depends entirely on their having
the right to hinder each other when the one or the other goes too
far and loses sight of the welfare of the state, or tends to repudiate the
fundamental constitution. 1
The true freedom of the citizen in monarchies would be repre-
sented principally by two circumstances, viz., first, if the laws were
so clear and distinct that the decisions would be rather the decisions
of the laws than of the judge; second, if the accused, especially in
penal cases, were allowed to choose his own judges, or at least to
reject so many of them that the remainder would seem to be of his
own choosing. 2
Another passage occurs (Vol. II, p. 26) in which a leaning
toward the English form of constitution is expressed. More
important than symptoms of this kind is the touch of color
which we find in II, I, 9, Justi's inaugural address at the begin-
1 As in other passages, Justi goes on to speak of details which would
enable the ruler to commit the nation to policies that would constrain
the legislative power to acquiesce in the last instance on the principle
"my country right or wrong." It is not to be denied, however, that Justi's
theory in this passage really in a large measure anticipates the demands
of the constitutionalists of the following century (vide op. cit., pp. 21, 22).
Yet his illustrations of acts which would make an absolute sovereign
into a despot are far from indicating limitations that would remove the
conditions which to the modern mind amount to practical absolutism.
For instance, when Louis XIV declared his natural sons eligible to the
throne, and when Peter I of Russia claimed for the crown the prerogative
of designating the successor, each was an attempt to alter the constitu-
tion, and beyond the proper rights of the unlimited monarch. That is,
Justi argued in most cases for limitation of the monarch by the con-
stitution, not otherwise, and the constitution which he had in mind must
not be thought of as going into any such details as the written or un-
written constitutions of modern states.
I. e., Justi had his eye so closely trained on personal freedom that
he did not properly estimate the degree of its dependence upon political
freedom.
468 THE CAMERALISTS
ning of his professorial work at Vienna. It contains among
other things, an anticipation of the idea of division of labor,
and the dependence of each upon the labors of all, so much
more minutely worked out by Adam Smith.
The address further glorifies "republics," as against the
fantasy of "the state of nature," and is in effect a plea for
acquiescence in the type of rule which the House of Habsburg
represented.
In the course of the address, after an outline of the tasks
that a state must perform in order to insure its happiness, a
passage occurs which is so full of the time-temperament
that we are unwilling to weaken it by translation. It reads
(P- US):
Ohne Zweifel, hochgebietliendt geheimde Conferenzminisler,
und wirkliche gelieimde Rathe, gnadige Herren, wie auch hochst und
hochgeehrleste Anwesende! hat Ihnen alien dieser geringe Abriss nur
Gclcgcnheit gegeben, sich unterdessen an der geheiligten Person
unscrer allerdurchlauchtesten Monarchin, eine weit wiirdigere und
erhabene Vorstellung von der Sache zu machen. Ich bin versichert,
dass sie unterdessen in ihren Gedanken diejenigen weisen und uner-
mudeten Bemiihungen welche diese wahrhaftig grosse Regentin
vor die Wohlfahrt ihrer anvertrauten Volker anwendet, an die Stelle
mciner unzuliinglichen Beschreibung gesetzt haben: und was vor
einc weit lebhaftigere und vollkommenere Abschilderung ist ihnen
nicht dadurch gerathen? Die osterreichischen Staaten haben
zwar allemal das Gliick genossen, das ihre Monarchen den anver-
trauten 7x:pter mit weiser Vorsicht, mit unermiideter Sorgfalt, mit
ciner Giitigkeit ohne Beyspiele, und mit der zartlichsten Licbe
gcgen ihre Unterthanen gefiihret haben. Allein die Hand des
unendlichen Weltbeherrschers, wenn er es seiner allgemeinen Haus-
haltung gemass befindet, dass die Gestalt der Zeiten verandert, der
Wuth der Verwiister des Erdbodens, die sich die Schwa'che ihrer
Nachbam zu Nutzc machen, Einhalt gethan, und die Ruhe des
menschlichen Gcschlechts dargestellet werden soil, bildet manchmal
in dcm Schoossc seiner Vorsehung ausserordentlich grosse Seelen,
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 469
wclche geschickt sind, ein Reich auf einen viel hohern Gracl dcr
Macht und der GlUckseligkeit zu setzen. Wenn also die glUck-
lichen osterreichischen Lander ihren Zepter jemals in weiscn Handen
gesehen haben; wenn jemals die hesten und wirksamstcn Mittcl
ihre GlUckseligkeit zu befordern, angewendet worden sind; wenn
sie sich jemals dem wahren Punkte ihrer Grosse, Macht und GlUck-
seligkeit genahert haben: so ist es itzo, und die gegenwartigen Zeiten
werden das GlUck geniessen, dass unsere spaten Enkel den Zeitlauf
von Oesterreichs vergrossertem Zustande bey ihnen anfangen werden.
Of course this impossible fulsomeness was largely a matter
of prescribed and perfunctory form. It would be absurd to
draw the conclusions from it which literal interpretation of the
language would suggest to modern democrats. At the same
time the fact remains that Justi was a pliant servant of a regime
which called for that sort of conventionality. Discount what-
ever is necessary for the demands of ceremony; discount too
the reservations in Justi's mind, and betrayed frequently in
his books; he remains the spokesman of the type of state of
which Maria Theresia is a symbol. In the remainder of the
address from which the passage is taken he employs rhetoric
of almost equal extravagance to express his pride in the vocation
of preparing youth for service in the administration of the
Habsburg state (p. 137). When a little later he found himself
no longer persona grata in Vienna, he went from state to state
of the same essential type, and left behind no credible evidence
of ever in his responsible moments having entertained the
thought that' in Germany an essentially different type of state
was feasible. The relation of Justi to the modern type of
political theory may be indicated in a perfectly fair illustration.
Suppose that in a hundred years Great Britain shall have
moved as far from her present type in the direction of socialism
as continental states, in becoming constitutional, have moved
from the absolutistic type in the direction of democracy. Sup-
pose that a historian at that date should take John Stuart Mill's
47 THE CAMERALISTS
record in connection with the Land Tenure Reform Association
as proof that he was not a nineteenth-century conservative,
but a twenty-first century radical. The guess would be no
wider of the mark than an interpretation of Justi as other than
a technologist of the Maria Thcresia type of governmental
theory.
In this same address (p. 142), in speaking of the conditions
which enable a state to accomplish its purposes for its citizens,
Justi puts "adequate riches" first, and "complete security"
second, and he continues:
We must not, however, form the same notion of the riches of a
state which we have of the riches of a private person. Not all riches
which a land may contain can be regarded as wealth [ein Reichthum]
of the land. Not chests filled with money in the treasury of the
monarch, not the hcaped-up piles of gold in the houses of private
persons, accumulated by greed and oppression, constitute the riches
of the state. Gold and silver, these lustrous metals, which seem
so l)cautiful to the eager eyes of men, lose all price and all worth
previously credited to them, and they turn again to trifling parts of
the globe, if they lose their ultimate purpose: namely, to be a uni-
versal means of determining the worth of all other sorts of goods,
and to serve for the establishment and promotion of the business
of men. Only that wealth is therefore the real wealth of the state
which is grasped by the busy hands of the inhabitants, and is daily
moved from one employment into another.
Apparently Justi had to defend his claims for the cameral
sciences against suspicion of being on a level with alchemy,
fortune-telling, etc. With changes of detail, his lot was not
unlike the situation in which even now sociology finds itself
when it presents its case to representatives of the older social
sciences. Apparently in part to outflank this phase of opposi-
tion to his subject Justi explained (op. cit., pp. 155-60) the
three methods of obtaining national wealth which he assumed
to be worth considering, viz., (i) mining; (2) commerce;
(3) inducing rich foreigners to become citizens.
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 47 1
The essay, "Proof that a Universal Monarchy Would Make
for the Welfare of Europe and the Human Race" (II, I, 17),
was first published anonymously in 1748. Justi acknowledges
that it is punctured by the consideration that there would be
no assurance of a succession of fit monarchs. It amounts
then merely to a fancy picture. He meant it, however, as a
means of expressing indirectly certain opinions which could
not be published unveiled. In general, he wanted to ring
changes on the idea that princes had no right to govern arbi-
trarily, but that right reason must control them. He took
the round-about way of arguing that it was not necessarily a
misfortune to subjects to have their prince subordinate to an
overlord, because he might enforce the reasonable principles
which might not otherwise prevail.
Justi argues that the present status quo of some hundred
and twenty ruling princes was regarded by the princes them-
selves as synonymous with the happiness of Europe; but he
argued that the personal preferences of these one hundred
and twenty are of relatively little moment (II, 246).
This essay tends to raise the suspicion that Justi was much
more of a skeptic in his early manhood about the prevailing
type of government than he found it expedient to remain. He
very explicitly declares that the curse of Germany is its multi-
tude of independent princes (II, 257).
The last 167 pages of Vol. II (i. e., 406-572) are devoted
to a technically very important monograph on causes of the
debasement of the currency, and means of removing the evil.
The view of gold and silver money which Justi expresses (II,
4276.) is essentially sound. The heading of 16 is: "The
supreme power cannot arbitrarily fix the price of gold and
silver." Again (22), he says: "The conditions of European
states make gold and silver necessary as the material of
money." There were, just before Justi's time, "silver cam-
paigns" in Germany. It was claimed that the currency evils
47 2 THE CAMERALISTS
were due to the fact of the unfair ratio of gold to silver, while
the ratio established by other nations did not correspond.
An act of the Empire in 1737 fixed the ratio at 15-1*5- to I - The
ratio in England and most other countries at the same time
was 14^ to i (II, 468; vide II, 544 ff.).
Justi makes the coinage right a consequence of sovereignty
over mines (II, 472-86). From Vol. Ill we gather the follow-
ing: First, a passage in the second paper (p. 23):
To be rich is to possess in abundance all that is demanded for
the needs and 'comforts of human life, just as he who can procure
for hmself in sufficiency the comforts of life is a well-to-do man.
[Wohlhabender]. According to the foregoing concept, a rich state
is the one which has within itself superabundant provision for all
the needs and comforts of life for a dense population. A well-to-do
or opulent state is one which produces an adequate quantity of the
goods which a dense population requires for its needs and comforts
(III, 26).
In the following pages Justi explains at length that money
is not merely the symbol of goods, but that it is itself a "ware."
"Gold and silver are in a certain sense necessary as money
only in trade with foreign peoples" (III, 31).
If a land possesses only one sort of wares, viz., gold and silver,
in superabundance, the surplus must be enormous if all the needs
and comforts are to be supplied by exchange for it to such an extent
that the gold and silver country will be properly called rich. Of
course in such case the price of gold and silver in the country would
be very low The foreign nations which supplied other goods
in exchange for these metals would make large profits, the metals
would go into the foreign lands, while no surplus of goods would
remain in their place to make the land rich. This is the case with
Spanish America (III, 34).
Another consequence of the supposed conditions is that such a
land is very thinly populated (III, 35).
All this sufficiently proves, in my opinion, that a state which
produces a surplus of only gold and silver, but not of other goods
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 473
demanded for the needs and comforts of life, can never be called
rich. On the other hand a state is always to be regarded as rich
which itself produces these goods in abundance. It possesses the
true riches of nature, which are much superior to those fanciful riches
which arise from the silent conventions of men. It possesses the
essential and the thing itself, and needs not to trouble itself about
the symbols of the same. It is quite independent of other nations,
and need fear no unfortunate consequences if its commerce with
them is cut off. Indeed, if it pleases such a state, it can terminate
all trade with other peoples, and enjoy by itself all happiness which
a wise government can procure.
We may even assert that such a state would be truly rich, if not
a pound of gold and silver were to be found in it; and such a state
would be able to continue all its connection and trade with neigh-
boring nations. This appears to be a paradox, because gold and
silver are necessary, particularly on account of foreign trade, and
the relative wealth as compared with other states has always been
regarded of great importance. Yet, since I have considered the
matter more carefully, I find that what I here affirm is strictly correct.
If it is presupposed that such a state produces in superabundance
all the goods pertaining to the needs and comforts of life, there will
certainly be many in the number which the neighboring nations
do not have in such abundance, which they must constantly seek
in the state in question. It is natural that such a state, which itself
satisfies all the needs and comforts of its people, requires few wares
from other peoples, and hence must have the balance of trade in
its favor, so that it has to pay little to other nations. Now let us
assume that such a state has no money in circulation, but only paper.
Sure enough! This paper, as the sole representative symbol for
which the wares of this state can be exchanged, will be eagerly sought
by the neighboring nations. It is so untrue that this paper will pass
at a lower value than real money, that in proportion to profit antici-
pated a premium will be paid for the paper above the value of the
gold that it represents. This is a natural and familiar experience
with all paper money and bills of exchange of a land to which neigh-
boring nations must pay more than they collect. Both the govern-
ment and the merchants and subjects of this state will accordingly
474 THE CAMERALISTS
rlo the same and more with their paper than if they used gold and
silver coins in their transactions with other nations (III, 36 ft.)-
The third paper in Vol. Ill contains a translation of the
letter alleged to have been written by Colbert to Louis XIV
in 1672, and first published in the Guardian. It has a scheme
of reasons why the French monarch could not subdue the
Netherlands. On the general question of the true power of
states, the essay premises: The state is not powerful because
of extensive territories (pp. 57 ff.); nor because of population
alone (pp. 60 if.); nor because of territories, plus population,
plus riches (pp. 62 ff.); nor even because of invincible armies
(pp. 65 ff.), with frequent and strong fortifications (pp. 73 ff.).
Then the positive doctrine follows:
The true strength and j>ower of a state rests entirely upon the
wisdom and completeness \Vollkommcnheit] of the government
(p. 74). This theorem involves very much. It means not only
that the whole correlation and fundamental constitution of the stale
i.i H'K'd; but the wisdom of the government must display itself in all
parts of the civic body; and it must neglect no kind of affairs
A slate will always be powerful in the degree in which its govern-
ment is completely organized [eingericklct] and wisely exercised;
and of two states, equal to each other in population and riches, that
one will always overcome the other the government of which is the
wiser and more complete (p. 74).
The development or justification of the theorem, which
Justi says will be new to many, is virtually a glorification of
cameralism as the technique of a wise and complete govern-
ment; although Justi admits that all lands are not to be gov-
erned in the same way.
In the sixth essay of the same volume, Justi schedules the
services of religion to the state. In brief these are: (i) It
may stimulate the citizens to cultivate the soil, and to increase
the population. In this respect Catholicism is pronounced
least efficient (p. 147); (2) it may promote diligence and
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 475
skill (p. 151); (3) it may promote civic virtues and stimulate
people to practice them (161).
Justi proceeds to consider the relation of Christianity in
particular to these services (pp. 169 ff.), and he does not think
that this religion is well fitted to be the dominant force in the
state because:
It is entirely heavenly, entirely spiritual, entirely devoted to God,
entirely withdrawn from this temporal life, and dedicated alone to
the future life. It is all too passive, patient, humble, with respect
to the earthly life, and so strongly and openly despises everything
which constitutes the welfare of citizens, that a civic constitution
could not be maintained among other powers by true Christians
only (p. 170).
The first paper in the second division of the volume, a
prospectus of the economic courses to be offered at Gottingen,
is dated June 20, 1755. It has the following variation of
scientific classification :
The sciences either contribute something directly to the discharge
of our duties and the improvement of our external condition or
they serve those purposes indirectly, and put us in a condition better
to fulfil our duties; or they are merely capable of amusing our
immortal soul (p. 222).
The economic and cameralistic sciences are those which teach
management on a large scale with the means of the state, or which
put us in possession of the measures by which the general means of
the republic may be preserved, increased, and reasonably applied to
its ultimate purpose of happiness (p. 223).
One of the impressions which the paper makes, from our
point of view, is that Justi was beginning to increase his atten-
tion to the economic emphasis, and second, that the presump-
tion of the prime and necessary first claim of the state was
still decisive.
Justi urges that the cameralistic sciences belong in the first
of the three groups just distinguished. He calls attention to
476 THE CAMERALISTS
the lively movement at the time in favor of getting these sub-
jects taught in the universities (p. 226); and he repeats his
frequent reflection that, until recently, the learned were simply
engaged in exchanging esoteric views with one another, chiefly
in a language not understood by the people, instead of doing
something that would be of service to the general good. 1
In the sixth paper of the second division there is discussion
of problems of state revenues with respect to different circum-
stances of states and forms of government. In the seventh
paper an open secret of the cameralistic regime is confessed in
this wise:
The distribution and direction of the means of private persons
belong, to be sure, among the subjects which demand the special
care of the government. If the government could bring it about
that no citizen or resident should become entirely inpoverished, it
would thereby perform a service of the highest importance to the
welfare of the state. Ancient governments looked out for this.
Modern governments have neglected it almost completely. It has
been taken for granted that it was entirely a matter of indifference
for the state whose hands held the means and the wealth, if they
were only present and remained in the country. The contrary is
true wisdom.
Special and peculiar measures are demanded of the government
in the case of movable and immovable wealth respectively. Movable
goods are fruits of diligence and skill (p. 343). It is wisdom for the
state to add its encouragement in every way to stimulate diligence
and skill. Immovable goods, on the other hand, belong to the total
means of the state, and the means of a state is the chief ground of
its energies, its strength, and its power [Krajte, Starke und Macht}.
i An explanation which occurs on p. 343 confirms and partially
explains a detail of our knowledge of Justi's personal history, viz.: "Sr.
Konigliche Majestat von Grossbritannien und Churfurstl. Durchl. zu
Braunschweig-Luneburg haben allergnadigst geruhet mich in diesem
beriihmten Musensitze als Dero Oberpoliceycommisarium zu bestellen,
etc., .... zugleich .... Erlaubniss ertheilet in den Oeconomischen
und Cameral Wisscnschaften .... Vorlesungen zu halten."
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 477
It cannot thus be a matter of indifference to the state whether this
portion of its total means, which is in the hands of private persons,
is in good or bad condition, or whether it is well or ill employed.
.... The use and the good condition of private estates, however,
rests to a great extent upon the direction of a wise government over
the same, and upon the proper proportion and distribution of private
estates in the country If the movable goods belong, so to
speak, to the whole world, and circulate from one country into
another, the immovable goods are the real fixed and assured prop-
erty [Eigenthum] of the state. They are the terra firma [Grund und
Boden] of the Volk, because they belong to the country which pecul-
iarly pertains to the total Volk (p. 358).'
As a primary principle, government must see that lands shall
be in the possession of those who will live on them and cultivate
them (p. 359). It is also desirable that the peasants shall have a
proprietary tenure (p. 362). This will tend to increase the rural
population (p. 366).
In the eighth paper in the second division Justi tries to make
his views about population as emphatic as possible. He says
(P- 379):
If one should ask me whether the chief consideration of a genuine
and wise cameralist to which, according to the general principle
of the happiness of the state, his chief care must be directed, and
back to which he must refer in all his measures and operations
could be expressed with a single word and concept, I would without
a moment's hesitation cry out the word POPULATION. Yes! Truly!
POPULATION must be the apple of his eye, as compared with all other
measures. 2
1 The form of expression in the last sentence has a bearing on the
sense in which Justi thought of Volk, i. e., not in the ordinary modern
distributive sense, but as a more artificial collective concept.
2 Vide Grundriss der Policey-Wisstnschaft, p. 77 (vide above, p. 444),
and von Mohl, Gesch. u. Lit. d. Staatswis., Ill, 471. Von Mohl quotes
the second edition. I have referred to the corresponding passage in the
third. It is very evident that von Mohl had practically no knowledge
of the setting of the doctrine of population in Justi's system. In fact,
478 THE CAMERALISTS
Many camcralists who glance at this monograph will certainly
not have expected this word. If they had been asked for such a
leading concept, they would certainly have called out in the loudest
voice: MONKY! REVENUES! "PLUS!" or something of that sort.
Most of them are so entirely convinced that the whole reason for
their existence is to bring together MONEY, or revenues, that all
the philosophers in the world could not convince them otherwise.
I am not now writing for these people. I will at this point attempt
to convince only those cameralists who, along with a good head, have
also a good heart, that money and revenues should at least be only
their second great aim, if they are not to fail of both population and
revenues (p. 379).
Someone will perhaps reply that my theorem might lead too
far. It might be possible for a land to be very well populated, and
to have a surplus of all goods required for the need and comfort of
human life, while still lacking money; or gold and silver, and con-
sequently to be poor in comparison with other states, as a result of
which it would be exposed to various harmful consequences. We
must therefore conclude that riches in gold and silver, if not more
necessary than population, are still equally necessary, and thus
deserve equal attention.
I reply: If a country possesses a surplus of all sorts of goods,
and therewith the true riches, there is scarcely a possibility that it
can suffer a lack of the representative signs of goods, namely gold
and silver. The signs automatically follow the thing which they
represent. The surplus of goods in this country will stimulate other
nations to exchange the same among us for the representative signs,
because the goods will be cheap among us, and the quantity of gold in
the country will presently be in proportion to the quantity of money. 1
he qualified it sufficiently to make von MohPs criticism gratuitous. He
no more believed that population could be fed in unlimited numbers
than Malthus did. For the practical purposes of the states in whose
interest he was elaborating a technique, population was the first consid-
eration, until, as he indicated in Staatswirthschaft, population should
reach three, four, or six times the number at his time. He never
formulated the more general Malthusian problem of population.
1 The last word is apparently a misprint for goods.
JUSTI'S CAMERALISTIC MISCELLANIES 479
We have no instance of a country with a great surplus of goods,
which was still poor in money, provided that such a country carried
on commerce with other peoples. On the other hand, we have
examples of countries which possessed the richest silver and gold
deposits, and still were very poor in the goods of life, and thus in the
true riches. The representative signs at once followed the thing,
they entered the country which had the surplus of the goods of life,
and such a (gold-producing) country remained poor in spite of its
gold mines.
Justi's opponents in the above argument are men of straw
so far as evidence appears in the cameralistic books. He
must have had in mind cameralists of the bureau, men of
affairs rather than of theory, who wanted policies to be shaped
according to the contrary hypothesis. In the next paragraph
(p. 385) Justi continues:
But suppose that a well-populated land, supplied with a surplus
of goods, has not an adequate proportion of the "representative
signs" in gold and silver. This would be a very slight disadvantage.
In the country itself it would have not the -slightest harmful effect.
In respect to domestic circulation [Umlauf] the proportion of money
in the country is wholly indifferent. If the land is only well populated
and has a surplus of goods, exchange will be as lively with little money
as with much. Indeed, it may be dispensed with entirely. Such a
country could, without money, have all the happiness and strength
of which it is capable. 1
Then Justi goes on to say (p. 386) that of course the quan-
tity of money becomes important so soon as we consider rela-
tions with other states. That is, it is important chiefly when
a state is in an aggressive attitude toward others, and its policy
is to harm them.
1 This passage is notable as proof that Justi was not the sort of
mercantilist described as the traditional type. The naivete of his ideas
about the relative importance of a circulating medium is to be noted, but
it does not immediately concern our purpose, except that it was a very
natural incident of his predominantly administrative conception of the
state.
480 THE CAMERALISTS
The true relative defensive strength of a country depends always
upon the larger population, other things being equal; although the
relative aggressive power depends more upon wealth in gold and
silver; or at least the relative wealth has in this connection the most
effect.
In the following pages (pp. 387 ff.) Justi resumes his main
line of argument on population, and elaborates rules for
encouraging a high birth rate. These are: (i) Means of earn-
ing a living must be made abundant; (2) the government
must not be oppressive; (3) the laws must encourage marriage;
(4) the chief means of promotion is that the rights of the pater
familias and of the husband, namely the lordship over his
house and his wife, which so undoubtedly belongs to him
according to the law of nature and of civic society, should be
restored (p. 393 ; vide Natur und Wesen der Staaten, 8. Haupt-
stuck, 240, 241) ; x (5) the state must exercise great care over
the education of poor children, and the training of children
in general (p. 395).
The remaining papers in the collection are so strictly tech-
nical that they add nothing to our knowledge of Justi's more
fundamental reasoning.
* It is more than possible that the first Frau Justi may have had a
mind of her own at this point, and that the domestic troubles of the
house of Justi may have turned on this issue.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS
("INTRODUCTION")
The reasons for treating Sonnenfels as the last in the camera-
list ic series must be reserved for a later volume. More con-
ventional usage extends the present group to the time of Rau. 1
This summary measure of convenience is possible only by
ignoring the essential distinctions of purpose which distinguish
theorists of successive periods.
Roscher divides the history of German economic theory
into three great periods: First, the theologico-humanistic,
from the early humanists to the end of the Thirty Years' War;
second, the " polizeilich-cameralistische" to which no date of
expiration is assigned; third, the scientific, for which no dis-
tinct birthday is designated, but the implication is that it begins
with the favorable reception of physiocratic doctrines in Ger-
many, that is, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
As divisions of this sort are mere uncritical superficialities at
best, we need waste no time upon them, after pointing out
that they are worthless for purposes of precision. They magnify
accidentals, instead of penetrating first to the purposes which
are the ultimate marks of distinction between theorists, and
second, to the methodologies which are the variants of their
procedure.
If we compare Roscher's main analysis with the titles of
his subdivisions, we find that he falls back upon a collection of
uncorrelated characterizations after all. For example, he treats
Dithmar, Gasser, Zincke, and Justi, with others of lesser note
or of equal importance if studied primarily in relation to their
proper groups, under the subtitle, "the older eclectics of the
1 Lehrbuch der politischen Oeconomie, 1826, etc.
481
482 THE CAMERALISTS
eighteenth century" 1 He makes a subdivision under the
"scientific period," for Sonnenfels, with two or three others
of trifling consequence thrown in to keep up appearances,
with the label, "the later absolutistic eclectics." 2 This all
amounts to the veriest parody of analysis. Roscher gravely
declares that in the period from the predominance of Wolff
to the influence of Kant all German philosophy was eclecticism,
and at the same time national economy, from the end of the
Seven Years' War to the outbreak of the French Revolution,
was predominantly eclectic. We should say rather that
"national economy" was still what it had been for two hundred
years, an increasingly circumstantial and subdivided technology
of management of the state, considered as the patriarchate of
the prince, and that it was no more eclectic in principle than it
had been from the beginning. It is always uncertain whether
Roscher's term " Nationalokonomik" amounts to anything
more than a synonym for Justi's " Staatswirthschaft." If
Roscher meant to imply that there was in Germany, at the
period designated, an economic science of any sort differen-
tiated from the general system of civic management, in which
the power of the government was the decisive aim, no evidence
appears that the wish was not father to the thought. In this
period, and notably in Sonnenfels, a new spirit is evident.
The more obvious and extreme corollaries of quasi-absolutism
are challenged, indirectly at any rate, by sentimental rather
than formulated variants consisting of higher valuations of
the claims of citizens as such, in contrast with the older pre-
sumption that whatever the supposed good of the government
demanded must as a matter of course prescribe the terms of
individuals' rights.
Yet Roscher is correct in a way when he continues:
In such a time criticism is far from serious examination of funda-
mental ideas. It is rather busy rubbing down the sharp points,
' Roscher, op. cit., pp. 430 ff. * Op. cit., pp. 533 ff.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 483
reconciling petty contradictions; that is, it is essentially eclectic.
Before the discussion of the Smithian system, all the German teachers
of public management [VolksTvirthschaft], the apostles of physiocracy
and the historical-conservative opponents of the new spirit excepted,
may be classed in two groups absolutistic and liberal eclectics, the
former attached to the two major German powers, especially Austria,
the latter to the medium and petty states of North Germany, par-
ticularly the Hanse cities.
For more than two generations Austrian national economy was
dominated by Joseph von Sonnenfels (1733-1817). He undertook
his professorship of Finanz- und Policeiwissenscfuift at Vienna in
1763. His significant literary influence began still earlier, and a
little later his political importance. The latter constantly grew under
Joseph II. In the troubled times of the French Revolution it encoun-
tered opposition, but on the whole it maintained itself so long that
until the publication of his own handbook in 1845 Kudler followed
the tradition of making Sonnenfels' works the basis of his lectures.
This, to be sure, does not speak well for the intellectual produc-
tivity of Austria, and the fact is that the country had to rely largely
on thinkers from the other German states.
Sonnenfels was the grandson of a Berlin rabbi. His father
moved to Austria, submitted to baptism, and assumed the name
Sonnenfels. He was a pioneer of German culture in Austria, and
some of his experiences remind one of the reception which Adam
Smith found in Scotland for the Oxford English which he had acquired
during his university residence. 1
Of Sonnenfels the younger, Roscher further says:
His general political view is a theoretical and insecurely founded
absolutism, mitigated by the sort of philanthropic ideas which were
prevalent in the second half of the eighteenth century. In a mono-
graph dedicated to Maria Theresia (1771) and entitled "On Love
of the Fatherland," he has much to say about monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy, but with express adherence to the words of Pope,
For forms of government let fools contest,
The best administered is the best.
' Op. cit., p. 534, n.
44 THE CAMERALISTS
He explains the origin of the state in the sense of Rousseau, and the
mottoes of all three volumes of his chief work were taken from
Rousseau. 1 At the same time he declares that the natural condition
of men is the social condition, and following Rousseau's own words,
to be sure, he compared the state with the organism of the human
body. Meanwhile, because "irresistibility is the most essential trait
of the sovereign power, the governments nominated by the aggregate
will are as unlimited as the will was whose .place they have taken."
Religion itself is by no means a positive limitation of the will of the
ruler. It is conceived rather quite in the sense of Joseph II, as a
guiding thread in the hand of the ruler, which the latter should never
neglect, and which was especially necessary in dealing with ordinary
people. Freethinking is also politically a crime, and there is no ground
for the fear that attachment to the laws of society could ever harm
religion and morality. Sonnenfels calls the censorship of books
one of the most necessary police regulations. He urges the shorten-
ing of processes before the courts, and the payment of advocates
by the state: thus impressing the most natural and expert organ of
the opposition into the service of the government. A favorite idea
of Sonnenfels was that in criminal cases the penalty of ascertained
guilt should be determined by the vote of the majority erf the judges;
the question of guilt or innocence however, as well as of the mitigating
or aggravating circumstances, should be settled only by a unanimous
vote. In practice this proposition would in most cases simply lead
to the release of the accused.
On the other hand, Sonnenfels gained a reputation in Austria
for his efforts to abolish torture.* This reform was decided in 1775
by the publication of a tract which was at the same time in defiance
of a decree of 1769 against "all too great freedom in writing," the
1 This is only partially true of the fifth edition, which I have used.
Roscher cites the third. The motto of the fifth edition of Vol. I is from
Cicero, De divin. i-iii, and on the page opposite the beginning of the
General Introduction, is a paragraph from Richard Hey, Observations
on the Nature of Civil Liberty. The motto of the third volume is from
Horace; while only the second takes its motto from Rousseau.
* Among the more creditable facts about Becher is his adhesion
to the same view. (Vide Roscher, loc. cit., p. 284, n. a.)
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 485
same being occasioned by his publications on the death penalty
and torture. Sonnenfels also opposed treatment of the pensions of
civic servants as charity. Again his curt demand that every obso-
lete law should be repealed, ran counter to a well-known maximum of
despotism according to which the ruler is never to admit that he has
erred, and reserves the choice between various fundamental prin-
ciples in dealing with a specific case. That in the case of every law
the purposes of the law-giver should be discussed so as to protect
right principles, is much more emphatically urged by Sonnenfels
than by Justi.
At the same time, it is characteristic of Sonnenfels' absolutism
to be more liberal at the expense of private rights than at the expense
of governmental power. Thus in the case of the obligations at-
tached to peasant holdings of the soil, he speaks, for example, of
the ancient imprescriptible human rights, in contrast with the tra-
ditional rights of possession. 1
The foregoing passage from Roscher has been cited not for
its value as an interpretation of Sonnenfels, but as a commen-
tary on Roscher's use of the term eclectic. The details recited
furnish a content for the word as he employed it. This usage
is to be distinguished from another which to some minds at
least is more appropriate. That is, we understand by eclecti-
cism an attempt to construct a system of thought by combina-
tion of two or more systems which are held by their extreme
adherents to be mutually exclusive, as for instance the Kantian
psychology and the Benthamite ethics. a According to Roscher's
specifications, he meant by eclecticism a certain degree of inde-
pendence in deciding whether traditional conclusions about
details necessarily follow from principles still regarded as funda-
mental. It is in the latter sense alone that Sonnenfels can be
called an eclectic. It is not true that he was a mediator between
the traditional philosophy of quasi-absolutism and a rival
political philosophy. It is true that his attempts to mitigate the
1 Vide Handlung, 5te Auft., p. 53; vide below, p: 549.
* Vide Century Dictionary, title " Eclectic," II.
486 THE CAMERALISTS
consequences of quasi-absolutism must be read at this dis-
tance as clear signs that a new thought-era was in the making.
The times were ripening for a system of political philosophy
which would openly challenge tradition. Specific valuations
were forming in men's minds which would presently amount
to repudiation of the old general theory. The reconstruction,
however, in the case of men like Sonnenfels, had gone only
so far as to produe a half-conscious conflict between the cogni-
tive and the emotional sides of political judgments. To put
it in paradox, Sonnenfels thought as an absolutist, but he felt
as a democrat. Like every other paradox, this is a very loose
statement. It more correctly characterizes the brcaking-up
process of which Sonnenfels was an index than any label which
purports to assign him a precise position in a schematic classi-
fication of theorists. The justice of this dissent from Roscher
will appear as we deal directly with Sonnenfels.
The work which is most important for our purpose, as
reflecting, so to speak, a fin de sikcle phase of cameralism, is
in three volumes, entitled, Grundsatze der Policey, Handlung
und Finanz. 1 The volumes are closely related, but each is
a distinct unit, devoted respectively Vol. I to Policey, Vol. II
to Handlung, Vol. Ill to Finanz. According to the author's
explanation in the Preface to Vol. I, the books were what we
should now call syllabi of the courses which he gave in the uni-
sity at Vienna on the corresponding subjects. This description
must be commented upon further in connection with the
several volumes.
A single observation should precede analysis of these books,
viz.: One feels in passing from Justi to Sonnenfels that a
watershed has been crossed, and that one is within the borders
1 The title-page has the further legend, "Zu detri Leilfaden des
politischen Studiums." The center of the page is occupied by a vignette
of Montesquieu, in itself a critical index of first-rate importance. The
first edition was published in 1765. I have used only the fifth edition, 1787.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 487
of another territory. Speaking literally, the mere fact that
Sonnenfels makes the conscious attempt at modernism in-
volved in adopting a corrected orthography makes the reader
aware of a transition. Typographically these volumes are
not an improvement upon the mechanical style of Justi's
publications. In their contents one detects a somewhat freer
spirit. Judging wholly from the internal evidence, one would
by no means rank Sonnenfels as Justi's equal in intellectual
strength. The later writer appears to have been of a more
receptive than creative type, but although they were in part
contemporaries the impressions which molded him contained
elements which were less active in Justi's world. If one were
called upon to defend this estimate, it might be said that while
Justi seems to have been intellectually more virile, he seems
also to have been less open to persuasion by the comparison of
moral values. Justi's personality betrays some of the signs of
quasi-absolutism at its worst. Sonnenfels shows affinities for
something superior to quasi-absolutism at its best. In spite of
this contrast, we should go astray if we followed the example
of Roscher in affixing a distinctive label to Sonnenfels. We
cannot make such men fit into any schematic classification.
They show that a new type was in the process of evolution.
They do not quite correspond with any general description or
definition. They are not entirely consistent with themselves.
They are partly of one tendency and partly of another. They
show survivals of traits which are logically incompatible with
the presence of other traits, yet the incongruities exist. His-
torical veracity consists in reporting them just as they were,
without attempting to conventionalize them in the image of
any conceptual type whatsoever.
Turning to Vol. I, Policey, we find at once in the Preface
literary symptoms rather favorably contrasted with those
observed in Justi. Sonnenfels begins by explaining why
he finds himself obliged to add a textbook to those already in
488 THE CAMERALISTS
existence. Some of them he thinks are too comprehensive,
others too narrow in their scope. At the same time he names
none of these works at this point, and we are obliged to search
the body of the book for desirable information about his con-
nection with other writers.
The Preface to the fifth edition discusses the criticism of a
reviewer that the Importance of rewards as means of securing
good civil service haA been overlooked in the earlier editions.
Sonncnfels replies that he did not forget the subject, but that
he intentionally omitted rewards from his schedule of means
of obtaining good government. He urges, however, that the
best way to stimulate a high quality of service is to make
distinction the prize of excellence. Rewards of any other
sort are really premiums to the unworthy who do not become
worthy in return for such payments. He contends that civil
servants should be punished for neglect of duty, but should
not receive premiums as means of making them perform the
duties that belong to their positions, and he supports his view
by citing Hume without locating the quotation.
This first volume contains 552 pages, of about 125 words
each, and is divided into 432 sections. As a rule, one of these
sections is a succinct statement of the substance of the author's
view upon the matter to which it refers, and elaboration rather
than addition was attempted in the lectures. The point of
view is partially indicated in the opening sections of the "gen-
eral introduction," 1 viz.:
The isolated human l>eing is not the human being in the state
of nature; his condition would be a condition of constant helplessness.
But he feels his lack. He feels that he is capable of remedying the
This "general introduction " occupies forty-nine pages. It includes
the chapter on computing the population. It was evidently intended
to introduce the three volumes as a whole. It is followed (p. 50) by an
introduction which relates specifically to Policey, the subject-matter
of the first volume.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 489
lack, of improving his condition. Reason, which distinguishes him
from the beasts, enables him to perceive the means by which he may
reach an improved condition. This means is socialization with his
kind [Vergesellschaftung mit seines Gleichen]. The natural condi-
tion of man is thus the condition of society: the domestic, the con-
jugal, the paternal society, are so many steps whereby he comes
nearer to the great society, which includes all others, and which,
since the minor groupings direct their gaze toward the weal of the
separate members, has adopted as its aim the best good of all societies. *
* In a note Sonnenfels comments: "The notion of the isolated human
being is perhaps merely a literary abstraction. Man is always in society,
and as Ferguson, in his Essays on the History of Civil Society, acutely
observes, 'a savage caught somewhere in a forest, no more proves that
man by nature lives alone, than a sheep straying in a forest would prove
that sheep do not flock together.' "
In the Preface to the third volume (5th ed.) the author says: " I have
cited only those books that I have read, and of which I can give assur-
ance that it will pay to consult or read them." The books which he
explicitly mentions will be carefully noted. He seldom locates the pas-
sages to which he refers, and I am unable to decide whether the remark
quoted applies to all three volumes, or whether he intended it to include
authors cited in this casual way. He later refers to Smith's Wealth of
Nations. Although a German translation of the Wealth of Nations bears
the date 1776, the same year in which the original was published, I am not
sure that the version appeared as early as the date would seem to indicate;
and I have no conclusive reason for believing that at the time of making his
first printed allusion to Smith's work Sonnenfels knew it except by title.
If he had actually read Smith and Ferguson in 1787, the leaven was
working in Germany rather earlier than is usually supposed. Even
Ricardo did not discover the Wealth of Nations till long after that date.
The phrase "so many steps, etc.," might be turned into evidence
that Sonennfels repudiated the "social contract" idea, and held the
evolutionary view of the origin of human society. A monograph recently
conceived ii) Berlin and published in Leipzig employs exegesis of this
sort to read into Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson a considerable cata-
logue of sociological concepts which their philosophy had never dreamed
of, viz.: Hermann Huth, Sociale und individualistische Auffassung im
18. Jahrhundert, vornehmlich bei Adam Smith und Adam Ferguson.
Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sociologie. If Sonnenfels had consistently
490 THE CAMERALISTS
Sec. 2 continues:
The great society is the state. The transition into the same
has given the members a new name, has put them into new relation-
ships. The human beings have become citizens, beings who, through
the nature of their self-chosen (sicf) status, have now, as parts, their
relationship to a whole, are united as members in a moral body.
The effect of this unification is unity of ultimate purpose, unity of
will, unity of force.
The three following sections expand the three principal
concepts in the last sentence. Thus (3) :
Unity of ultimate purpose, or of welfare, of the best, which now is
called the best good of the community das gemeinschaftliche Beste]
whereby the best of the single member, that is, private advantage,
remains constantly subordinated to the former, and cannot be other-
wise brought into the account than in so far as it constitutes a part
of the common best of the whole body. In case their private advantage
could not be reconciled with "the common best," the former must
necessarily be subordinated to the latter. Fortunately, however, in
the precise sense, there can be no thought of a contradiction between
the true permanent private welfare and the general welfare. For
upon closer examination it will always appear, either that what is
regarded as private advantage ceases to be such so soon as it works
in opposition to the general advantage; or frequently that a supposed
limitation of the common weal is not actually such The
welfare of the parts is based upon the welfare of the whole; but at
the same time the welfare of the whole springs only from the welfare
of the parts. 1
applied our logic, some of his phrases would have carried him nearer to
Darwin than to Rousseau. But !!
The next section contains typical evidence that interpretation of an
author by phrases isolated from the general tenor of his thought is impos-
sible.
1 Again, if we might credit the eighteenth century with the associa-
tions of the twentieth, we should say that here was a profession of the
most modern democratic political philosophy. What we actually find
here is evidence that valuations were coming into vogue which were
logically incompatible with the prevailing quasi-absolulistic political
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 491
Sonnenfels continues (4):
Unity of the will, which, in case something is involved whose
effects extend to community interests, suspends all contradiction,
upon the principle that no one can at the same time will and not will,
and makes the separate will of the individual subordinate to the
community decision. 1
In 5 the explanation continues:
Unity of force. In so far as the individual energies are necessary
for the attainment of the ultimate end of the community, they
should be exerted in no way except that toward which the community
energy is devoted. Whoever withdraws his share of this energy, in
case the common ends require a given quantity of force, leaves the
philosophy, and that they were accelerating the motion of the social
process toward retirement of the more arbitrary philosophy.
The perception had not yet been reached that this interdependence
of private and public good demanded a different means of adjusting in
practice the claims of the co-operating factors. That is, the rulers still
decided for the people what was for the people's good. This technique
presupposed that the rulers were not only superior in wisdom, but that
they were disinterested judges. Whether the former assumption was valid
or not, the latter was directly contrary to fact. The rulers were to a
considerable extent competitors with the citizens for things desired by
both. That the former should be perpetual arbiters about relations in
which they were perpetually interested parties, was the essential fallacy
of the old regime. I discover no evidence whatever that Sonnenfels
was aware of this weakness in quasi-absolutism. Until theorists arrived
at this perception, they were intellectually with the old re'gime, however
symptomatic their emotions may have been of a changing order.
1 Again the approximateness of Sonnenfels' philosophy must be
pointed out. The alleged principle was thoroughly modern in its abstract
statement. It proves to be still archaic when interpreted by the implica-
tions which clung to it. The crucial matter was to get a technique which
could properly ascertain the social will in contrast with the individual
will. The old regime simply seized the power to make the will of certain
individuals subvert the will of the overwhelmingly larger number of
individuals and count as the will of the society. The essence of quasi-
absolutism remained in force in political theories until the full significance
of this dilemma was admitted.
49 2 THE CAMERALISTS
general activity too weak; but if he turns his energy against the
general purpose the disadvantage is doubled, because the energy
of another person is thereby nullified.
In the sixth section Sonnenfels distinctly asserts the right
of each member of society to take part in deciding what meas-
ures should be taken to attain the common ends, and the con-
sent of all the members is necessary if this decision is to appear
in a law.
In the seventh section, however, doubt is cast upon the
connotations which the generalization had for the author's
mind. It seems to be more a historical hypothesis in the
sense of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, than a moral principle
by which to test the technique of existing societies. By
means of this generalization Sonnenfels accounts for the transi-
tion "from the multitude to society, from anarchy to the sim-
plest democracy." He goes on to say, however, that confusion
must soon have appeared in council, universal agreement
must have been impossible. Decisions of some sort were
necessary. Out of this practical necessity grew the different
forms of government. Then follows (8) enumeration of
democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, with the comment
(9) that:
in these three forms of jzovernrrient nothing essential to society is
modified, but merely the form in which the common will expresses
itself, i. e., either through the majority or through the elite, or through
the autocrat Thus, just as the decisions of all were binding
upon each individual, the same must be the case with the decisions
of those who take the place of all. This obligation on the one side
implies on the other side the right of compulsion, and irresistibility,
and thus the relations between rulers and ruled, between subjects
and the supreme power, were more specifically determined. Originally
(10) the use of the combined forces was determined by the will
of all the citizens. Since now the supreme power combines in itself
the community will, its prerogative is likewise to determine how the
community energies shall best be used for the common welfare.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 493
Gratitude is due to Sonnenfels for reducing this reasoning
to such a bare skeleton that its most serious dislocation is
evident. We can see at a glance, and it is hard to understand
why thinkers of Sonnenfels' ability did not perceive, that this
was merely an illusive collocation of a generalization about
political rights, a hypothesis about historical sequence, and an
utterly arbitrary begging of the essential question of fact about
the institution of monarchy. This special pleading was a
perfunctory excuse for taking quasi-absolutism for granted,
and proceeding to inquire how to make the best of it. If each
member of society has a right to his share in making up the
will of the society, nothing but sheer assertion appears in Son-
nenfels' reasoning to justify the conclusion that the monarch
must be accepted as vicariously exercising that right for all
the citizens, and must be obeyed because his will is virtually
the will of all. Thus, in spite of sentiments which make for
reconstruction of ideas, Sonnenfels' major premise was the
same old impotent makeshift of absolutism, the presumption
that royal power summarizes all the fundamental rights of citi-
zens, and that it is a political datum back of which our theories
of social technique must not pry.
In 11 Sonnenfels further elaborates his concept "welfare,"
and it is in this direction that we find evidences of a force that
was generating as a variant both of the theory and the prac-
tice of quasi-absolutism. While criticism of the social logic
summed up in benevolent despotism was not admitted into
this type of social science, the concept "welfare" was becoming
more intensive and was thus looming up as a factor in the
modification of theory and indirectly of action. The syllabus
continues:
The ultimate purpose for the sake of which men enter society is
that best which they possess neither enough moral nor physical power
to attain alone; which in itself considered is, to be sure, the separate
best of each member. Since, however, this separate best is sought
494 THE CAMERALISTS
by each at the same time, and each by promoting the best of the
other thereby also confirms his own, it is called the community
best. The ultimate purpose of men entering into combination
might be expressed therefore as the indi^4dual best; the ultimate
purpose of combined men as the general best. In civic societies this
best, this ultimate purpose, has been security and convenience of
life, which combined constitute the public welfare.
Security is defined (12) as:
a condition in which we have nothing to fear. The condition in
which the state has nothing to fear is called public security, that
in which no citizen has anything Jo fear is called private security.
When the state is safe against attacks from without, the condition
is called public external security, and if no danger threatens from
its own citizens, there exists public internal security. If neither
the state, from within nor without, nor the citizens have anything
to fear, this fortunate condition is called the general security.
Tha convenience of life [continues the author in 13] is the facility
of providing one's support by diligence. Diligence will find its
support the easier the more diversified the gainful occupations. The
general convenience of life depends therefore upon diversification
of the gainful occupations.
The general welfare [as explained in 14] cannot be maintained
without cost The ruler must be provided with revenues,
which must be in proportion to his dignity. This outlay is made
for the best good of all the citizens. It is therefore proper that the
expense should be borne by all the citizens, but that it should be
drawn from them in a way that will promote the ultimate purpose.
Thereupon follows the definition (15) :
From manifold observations and experiences it is possible to
refer the various rules through which the general welfare may be
maintained, to reliable fundamental principles, and to give them
the form of a science, which is Staatswissenschajt in the most com-
prehensive sense; that is, the science of maintaining the welfare of
a state, the science of governing We are convinced that the
problematical and the variable does not reside in the principles of
the science, but in the circumstances and occurrences to which the
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 495
principles are to be applied. The mere empiricist in politics is
therefore as lictle to be regarded as a statesman as the empiricist in
the healing art is to be regarded as a physician.
When Sonnenfels takes care to warn against confounding
the practical administrator with the empiricist (16), and
when he describes the former as the man who is trained and
experienced in applying the rules of Staatswissenschaft to actual
conditions, he completes his demonstration that he is dealing
with a technology pure and simple. Sonnenfels took for
granted a certain general standard of life. He did not go to
the trouble of justifying the standard, but he counted on it as
a conceded major premise. Then his problem was to set
forth the governmental processes by which that standard
might be reached. Just as there was no question about the
authority of the standard, so there was no inquiry into the
assumption that responsibility for maintaining it belonged
to the government. In principle, therefore, as we have said
above, Sonnenfels was simply one of the series of spokesmen
for the dominant regime of quasi-absolutism. His humani-
tarian sympathies called for qualification of the system in detail,
but they did not produce the slightest variation in essentials
from the typical position of the earlier cameralists.
Sonnenfels replies (17) to the possible objection that poli-
tics is too inclusive to be the subject-matter of a science:
The ultimate purpose of states may be divided into four cardinal
subdivisions, which are connected with one another, to be sure, and
must join hands with one another, each of which stops, however,
with a subordinate end. Staatswissenschaft has accordingly been
divided into four sciences, viz. : external security; internal security;
diversification of gainful occupations; and raising the revenues neces-
sary for the expenses of the state.
The first of these sciences he calls (18) Staatswissenschaft in
the special sense; otherwise known as Staatsklugheit or Politik.
The second is his Polizeywissenschaft (19). The third he
496 THE CAMERALISTS
calls Handlungswissensrhaft (20). The fourth is Finanz-
wissenschaft (21). The extent to which this classification
varies from Justi's may be seen by comparison with pp. 303 ff.
above. 1
There is a surprisingly modern appearance on the surface
of 22, the last of the Introduction. It reads:
Natural science [Naturlehre] in all its parts, jthe mathematical
sciences, physical geography [Erdbeschreibung], the history, laws,
languages, are to be regarded partly as an indispensable preparation,
partly as reinforcing auxiliaries of the theory of Polizey, Handlung,
and Finanz. But the man of affairs, in actual administration, must
know the customs, habits, and statutes of peoples, the reciprocal
advantages and disadvantages of lands, the political conditions of
states, and if he is to participate with advantage in law-giving, he
must know men.
We should compare this dictum, however, with Justi's
prospectus of a school for cameralists, and we should not jump
to the conclusion that Sonnenfels had really advanced beyond
him in discovery of the proportions and relations of govern-
mental technology.
1 The note to 17 is an important literary landmark, viz.: "It may
be for this reason that numerous as are the writers upon special parts
of Staatswissenackaft, the catalogue of those who have undertaken to
cover the whole is extremely small, even if we add to Justi's Staatswirth-
schaft, and Bielefeld's Institutions politiques, St. Real's Staatskunst and
Stewart's Staaiswirtkschaft, together with certain so-called outlines and
elements of the Polizey- und Catneralwissenschaften, and if we honor
the Aristotelian and also the Hanoverian edition of the Wolffian political
books by allowing them to count as principles of Staatswissenschaft."
The "Stewart" mentioned in the note was evidently Sir James
Steuart, and there is more than merely verbal significance in the use of
the term Staatswirthsckaft as translation of his title, Inquiry into
the Principles of Political Economy. Probably no German was fully
aware at this time that the term "Political Economy" stood for a sort
of analysis which had not yet been proposed in Germany, and that its
lines of demarkation ran in quite distinct directions from those of Staats-
utirtkxchaft.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 497
The second chapter of Vol. I, Polizcy, is entitled, Funda-
mental Principle of Civic Science, and its Branches. 1 The
chapter begins with a brief homily quite in the spirit of its
time, upon the importance of a principle to serve as an a priori,
and the qualifications which such a fundamental principle
must possess. In 24 Sonnenfels adds: "The only one who
has referred Staatswissenschaft with all its branches to a uni-
versal principle is, so far as I know, Justi." If Roscher
discovered the bearings of this remark and of the context,
he certainly failed to make them plain to his readers. 2 The
passage is really one of the most compact illustrations to be
found, in any literature, of the crossings of judgments in a
period of scientific reconstruction. If the passage had been
made to order it could hardly have reflected more typicallv
the confusion introduced into theory by attention to new valua-
tions:
On the one hand, Sonnenfels truly interprets Justi as
building his whole theory upon the principle of "general
happiness" [allgemeine Gltickseligkeit].* On the other hand,
the point of the paragraph is its attempt to show that it is a
fallacy on Justi's part to depend on such a principle. In spite
of more evident sympathetic leanings than previous cameralists
had shown in the direction toward which Justi's principle
points, Sonnenfels rejects it as a major premise for civic science.
As we have seen, of the two men, Sonnenfels was far and
away more inclined than Justi to decide, in the concrete, in
favor of the alternative which promised most in the way of
general happiness in the modern or democratic, as distinguished
from the absolutistic, sense. Yet in this connection, instead
1 Hauptgrundsatz der Staatswissenschaft und ihrer Zweige.
* Op. cit,, p. 444. Roscher leaves the impression that Sonnenfels
commended Justi in this passage. The precise contrary was the fact.
a The sense in which Justi interpreted the concept has been discussed
above, p. 323 ft passim. Cf. Index, "Welfare."
THE CAMERALISTS
of praising Justi, Sonnenfels really blames him. His contention
is that "general happiness" cannot be made a test of civic meas-
ures, but that a more ultimate test must be found. Thus
Sonnenfels deliberately commits himself to a form of reasoning
which subordinates in theory the element which in the histori-
cal perspective makes him most conspicuous: and he reproves
Justi for an element in his formal reasoning which had much
less effect on his concrete technology than it had on that of
Sonnenfels himself. As a literary landmark the passage must
be cited in full. We must remember that it occurs as a part of
the argument on the necessity of an adequate logical principle
as the basis of a science. It reads:
The only one who has referred Staatswissensch-ajt with all its
branches to a universal principle is, so far as I know, Justi. He
assumed as such a principle the promotion of general happiness.
That is a true, but not a conclusive principle. The promotion of
general happiness is the object of all states, to be sure, in the period
of their origin, and it is their perpetual aim; for that very reason,
however, it cannot be taken as a principle of verification, or as the
general fundamental, because by means of this fundamental the
goodness of the measures, which consists in their harmony with the
ultimate purpose, must be tested.
To bring out Sonnenfels' thought as distinctly as possible,
we must translate the note to this section, viz.:
In his [Justi's] Staatswirthschaft when a law is to be given, or
any other device is to be decided on, about which it is doubtful
whether it would be advantageous for the state, the question is,
"does the proposed law promote the general happiness?" Here-
upon it must be tested by that principle, as the moral touchstone,
and when the judgment of benefit or injury is reached, the ground
for the judgment is given through that principle (i.e., "general
happiness"). In case, therefore, the promotion of general happiness
is assumed as the chief fundamental principle, the decision will
amount to this: "It promotes the general happiness because it pro-
motes the general happiness."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 499
This passage, by the way, may serve also as a sample of
the evidences which might be cited in support of the estimate
above expressed of the relative intellectual strength of Justi
and Sonnenfels. The former had few qualms about adopting
a frankly opportunistic principle and getting the benefit of
all the conclusions it would yield. The latter tried to be more
profound, but succeeded only in being confused. We shall
see in a moment that Justi's a priori was no more and no less
reducible to an identical proposition than Sonnenfels' sub-
stitute. The chief meaning of the section then is its profession
of faith in a deductive a priori rather than a functional test qf
social values. The next section shows how far Sonnenfels
was capable of going toward a test which was absolute in
form without being functional in essence. Sec. 25 is as follows:
Observation of how civic societies have arisen, and through
what means they have reached their end, will more surely guide to
the real fundamental principle. The isolated man was at the mercy
of every attack by a superior power. His security was not greater
than the forces with which he could defend himself against the
attack. Two men whose physical strength exceeded his own were
already dangerous to his security. He therefore sought to increase
his strength by combination with others. The isolated man felt wants
for the support of his life, sufficiency to satisfy which was within the
compass neither of his strength of body nor of soul nor yet of his
time. He sought to satisfy these wants by putting his diligence at
the service of the wants of other men, from whom he received as
compensation the supply of necessaries which -he lacked. The
isolated man' was deprived of a thousand comforts, the lack of which
he felt, the possession of which would make his external condition
more complete. He sought the comforts through socialization
[Vergesellschaftung] with others. The larger the society into which
he was merged, the greater was the quantity of the resistance which
he could exert in every case, and thereby assure his security. The
more numerous the society, the more frequent its wants, the easier
he found ways, by supplying what was lacking to somebody, to get
500 THE CAMERALISTS
from the same person what he wanted. The more numerous the
society, the more various were its products, and the easier was it
for him to supply each of his wants and comforts. Through. the
enlarging of the society therefore, and according to its bulk, was the
aim of civic societies reached, viz., the security and comfort o] life.
In later times this aim remains ever the same. The same means
will also remain effective.
Continuing the argument in 26, Sonnenfels adds:
The enlargement of the society thus contains in itself all subordi-
nate special means which in the aggregate promote the general
welfare. So soon then as it is proved of an institution [Anstalt], or
of a law that it makes for the enlargement of the society, or at least
does not hinder the same; this proof at the same time carries the
higher conclusion, viz., that the measure promotes, or at least does
not hinder, the general welfare either on the side of security or of
comfort. 1 I take, therefore, the enlargement of civic society, through
promotion of the increase of population, as the common fundamental
principle of Staatswissenschaft, with its included parts: and the
validating principle [Prufsatz] of every measure which is adopted
for promotion of the general happiness is this: Does it tend to
increase or diminish population?*
Further comment upon this explicit statement is unneces-
sary. It confirms our proposition about the uncertain charac-
ter of Sonnenfels' underlying philosophy. It is not our affair
to probe the logical fatuities of the cameralists beyond discovery
of their actual ways of thinking. It is not even necessary to
note that by turning Sonnenfels' method against himself his
1 I will not enlarge on this unconscious confession that the author
at last, in spite of himself, relied upon "general happiness," to give value
to "enlargement of society," rather than the reverse. I simply let him
speak for himself. (Vide pp. 493 and 531.)
* " Of that school of populationists which, after the middle of the
eighteenth century, may count as a revised edition of the mercantile
system, Sonnenfels is unquestionably the most important exponent in
Germany." Roscher, op. cit. t p. 536.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 501
supposed ultimatum is at once reduced to the identical
proposition "Promoting population is the main principle
because it promotes population." We go far enough for our
purpose when we find that Sonnenfels was content with the
generalization that increase of population promotes the general
happiness, and thereupon he persuaded himself that increase
of population is the ultima ratio of civic science. His system
turns out to be a technology in the interest now of " the general
happiness," now of "the promotion of population;" with more
inclination in practice than previous cameralists had shown
to treat the ill-defined concept "general happiness" as the
ultimate end, with corresponding tendency, inadvertent but
real, to revise valuations of all means whatsoever by judgment
of their adaptation to that end.
In the same connection, however, we find a methodological
indication of a more gratifying kind. It adds to the evidence
scheduled above to the effect that, so far as the cameralists
are concerned, it is very easy to overestimate the distance
between previous theories of population and that of Malthus.
Thus, in 27, Sonnenfels speaks as follows:
I must seek to avoid indefiniteness. The population contains
all the means which the common welfare [gemeinschafttiche Wohl-
fahrt] demands. All institutions of the ruler should accordingly
be directed toward maintaining and increasing the numbers of the
population. This number, nevertheless, has its limits, or a so-called
maximum: and these limits are drawn by the nature of states, by
the political and physical situation, and by the circumstances.
Genoa will never reach the populousness of France. The bare
rocks of Malta will never maintain as many inhabitants as fertile
Sicily, the sandy Mark Brandenburg never so many as Bohemia.
This, however, should not, on the other hand, prevent the Senate
of Genoa, the Order of St. John, the king of Prussia, from using
all means to assure for their territories the largest population which
they are capable of supporting. If man with all his efforts can
never be quite perfect, yet it always remains nevertheless a principle
502 THE CAMERALISTS
of morals that man must strive for the highest perfection ! In poli-
tics, as in morals, if small states, less favored than others by nature,
never can become as populous as those which combine larger area
with rich soil, this does not invalidate the principle, the government
should always concern itself with promoting population to its highest
level: that is, the highest level which the means at its disposal make
possible. This explanation will remove most of the objections which
can be made against the fundamental principle of population. I
come then to the application of this principle to the separate branches
of Staatswissenschaft.
Thereupon. Sonnenfels indicates, in a merely formal way,
the application of this fundamental principle of population in
the different divisions of the science. Thus (28-31):
"The greater the number of the people, the greater is the quantity
of the resistance upon which the external security rests." A note
adds: "The smaller states are consequently of their own strength
capable of no high degree of external security. They combine
with others, so that with the same, in respect to the ultimate purpose
of defense, they may constitute a numerous society. Even the
promptness of diplomatic action is affected by the amount of power
at the command of the conferring parties." Then follow the con-
clusions:
(1) "Hence the fundamental principle of Politik."
(2) "The greater the number of the people, upon whose ready
assistance one may count, the less has one to fear from within
hence the fundamental principle of Polizey."
(3) "The greater the number of people, the more the needs,
hence the more various the gainful occupations within the society.
The more hands, the more abundant the products of agriculture
and industry, the stuff for external exchange. Hence the funda-
mental principle of Handlungswissenschaft"
(4) "The greater the number of citizens, the more are" there to
help bear the public expenses. The smaller therefore is the share
of each taxpayer, without decreasing the total amount of the public
revenues. Consequently the fundamental principle of Finanz-
wissenschajt."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 503
"The knowledge of population is therefore, in all parts of public
administration, indispensable. The means of surveying it, as a
whole and in its parts, belong therefore to no branch of Staats-
wissenschajt exclusively. They belong as introductory knowledge
to all."
If we were relying on the proof-text method of supporting
a foregone conclusion, it would be somewhat difficult to explain
away the formal principle either of Justi or of Sonnenfels, so
as to justify their inclusion in the cameralistic series, as above
defined (p. 6 et passim). We have not in any case relied on
detached propositions, but we have attempted to interpret each
writer's single propositions by the whole content of his writings.
We have made his promises and his performance confront each
other, and have tried to find the resultant. In fact both these
writers were centered about the fiscal needs of governments,
and their principles of ' ' welfare " and ' ' population " respectively
were in effect rather less distinctive of a particular type of
cameralism than regimental colors are of distinctive military
tactics.
Chap, iii bears the title "Means of Computing the Popula-
tion." It does not profess to contain a contribution by the author
to the statistical method, and is significant merely an as index
of the extent to which statistical theory had impressed men of
Sonnenfels' type. Beginning with the observation that, from
the earliest times, whether the doctrine of population was
taken as fundamental principle or not, states have been inter-
ested for practical purposes in ascertaining the 'size of the
population, the author distinguishes two methods of computa-
tion, viz., "political calculation," and "actual enumeration."
Under the former head he briefly discusses the uses and
uncertainties of estimates based on (a) the number of
deaths, (b) the number of births, (c) the consumption
of grain. We need notice merely that the authors to
whom Sonnenfels refers as the sources of his information
504 THE CAMERALISTS
about statistics are the following: Bielefeld (sic), Institutions
Politiques, 1760;' Zanoni, "VI. Band seiner Brief e delV agri-
coltura delV arte e del comercio, etc.;" 3 Siissmilch,* Kerseboom, 4
and Melon. s
1 Vide Roscher, p. 426, "Jacob Friedrich von Bielfeld."
These two writers are referred to as having furnished a brief history
of political computation, tracing it back to the middle of the seventeenth
century.
3 Gdttliche Ordnung in den Ver Under ungen des menschlichen
Gcschlechts aus dem Geburt, dem Tode und Fortpflanzung derselben
erwiesen. ist ed., 1742, 2cJ ed., 1761; vide Roscher, op. cit., p. 421.
4 Abhandlung zu eincm Versuche der wahrscheinlichen Menge des
Volkes von Holland und Westfriesland, etc.; vide Roscher, op. cit., p. 421,
"Kersseboom."
s Essai polllique sur le commerce, 1734; German, 1756.
CHAPTER XIX
THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS ("POLIZEY")
The special introduction to the first volume bears the title:
"The Simplest Concepts of Polizey and Consequently an
Outline in Accordance with Which They Will Be Treated."
Assuming that political institutions were, to a much greater
degree than appears probable today, premeditated anticipa-
tions of evils, Sonnenfels makes this formula:
When these measures and devices are assembled, and referred to
certain principles derived from the nature of the social purpose, there
results the science of founding and maintaining the internal security
of the state; that is, die Polizeywissenschaft. 1
The author's own comment will best indicate the relation
of this formula to previous conceptions of classification within
the boundaries of Staatsu4ssensdiaft. He says:
" By this formula I take issue with all authors who have previously
treated the subject. To a certain extent I give Polizey an entirely
different meaning. Perhaps I should say, my reason is because the
formulas hitherto offered seem to me too vague, too ill-defined, some
of them too limited, not including all which belongs within the scope
of Polizey: others too general, embracing much which does not belong
in Polizey. My intention is not, however, to repudiate other for-
mulas, but by means of my own to draw the proper boundaries of
Polizey according to my own views, and to exhaust the concept. I
think I have a right to demand that after the work itself has been
read the judgment should be passed whether I have acted in accord-
ance with my intention." In a note the author adds: "This inten-
tion is to treat the internal constitution of a state in its interdepend-
ence, and in all parts of the public administration, and at the same
time to investigate the sources of law-giving. Consequently I shall
frequently use the words Polizey and Gesetzgebung as synonymous."
1 He refers to Montesquieu, Esprit des loix, Vol. I, chap, xxiv, p. 26.
SOS
506 THE CAMERALISTS
Sonnenfels' further analysis of his method of treatment will
afford the most direct means of comparing his outlook with
that of Justi.
The author proceeds to indicate his line of approach by
pointing out, first (44):'
that in a certain sense Polizey is principally defense against either
intentional or fortuitous occurrences of a harmful nature; second,
every occurrence which hinders the accomplishment of the ultimate
purpose of society must be regarded as harmful; third, from this
point of view Polizey regards every transaction which does not
promote this ultimate purpose as harmful.
In order to perform a harmful act, the will and the ability must
coincide. The law-abiding man has constant opportunities to per-
form harmful acts, but he does not want to. The imprisoned crim-
inal has the will to perform harmful acts, but he is deprived of ability.
Hence Polizey falls into two parts, first, directive, the intention of
which is that no one shall wish to perform harmful acts; second,
preventive, which seeks to make it impossible for anyone to commit
harmful acts even if he has the desire.
The will of the actor is determined by impulses [Beweggrunde],
and the more certainly and effectively the oftener the impulses toward
or against an action occur, or the greater the weight of the single
impulse which operates upon the actor. This is the invariable prin-
ciple of will, in which alone the great secret of law-giving resides.
If the law-giver only knows how to offer his people preponderating
impulses toward the good, he may be assured that he may lead them
as he will.'
The impulses to action are of two sorts first, attractive [ein-
ladend}\ second, preventive. Again, the nature of the advantages
or disadvantages to be anticipated from actions divides impulses
into general and special. The general impulses include all actors
and actions. For that reason they deserve the first rank in law-
giving. There is another reason, viz., there are actions in connection
with which it is difficult or impossible to discover a special attractive
1 The author's own forms of statement are now epitomized.
1 Speaking of identical propositions!
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 507
or preventive impulse. In such a case there remains for the law-
giver only the motive power of the general impulses, which may be
grouped in two classes: morals, and the high idea oj the excellence
0} the laws.
Morals, in the relation in which they are regarded by the law-
giving authorities, are devotion to the general order. As Toussaint
well says, "they very well supply the place of laws, but nothing is
capable of supplying the place of morals." Devotion to the general
order is the effect of combined institutions, which enlighten the
understanding of the citizen to the end that he may pass correct
judgments upon everything which affects the general order, which
guides the inclinations, which controls the passions and directs them
to worthy actions. The whole system of devices to this end I refer
to under the phrase attention to the moral condition.
Next in importance is effort to propagate a high idea of the excel-
lence of the laws; that is, to raise it, among all the citizens, to the
rank of an accepted, incontestable principle, that whatever the laws
command is good; that is, with respect to the whole, necessary;
and with respect to each individual, profitable. Whenever the
supreme power succeeds in establishing this presupposition, it is the
most reliable guarantee for the observance of the laws, through the
violation of which each will then believe that he will harm himself.
But given the willingness to obey the laws, insight into the
special actions that would conform to the laws is not thereby assured.
The ruler must consequently supply this lack by laws which specify
what is to be done and left undone. This is what Hume had in
mind when he said that the laws are to be regarded as reinforcement
of the insight of the individual. The subject-matter of these laws
is internal public and internal private security.
As previously defined, internal public security is a condition
in which the state, that is, the public administration (sicl), whatever
the governmental form, has nothing to fear from the citizens. Volun-
tary obedience to the law, and thus public security, is brought about
through the devotion above discussed. Compulsory obedience
springs from the consciousness of weakness against the superior
powers of the sovereign, or from impossibility of resistance. What
Montesquieu in another connection makes the fundamental prin-
508 THE CAMERALISTS
ciple of a civic structure [Staatsverjassung] may be applied here
with great accuracy, viz., "it is essential," he says, "that through
the order of nature one force holds another in check;" 1 that is, the
quantity of possible powers of resistance on the side of the citizens
must always be smaller than the quantity of the powers of coercion
on the side of the state. Hence the chief attention of the Polizey
and law-givers is demanded to prevent any stratum or single citizen
from attaining to such power that the public authorities may be
successfully opposed.
In 52 Sonnenfels repeats the definition given above of
internal private security, and he proceeds:
All good, which can accrue to the citizen, all bad, whereby his
happiness may be endangered, may be traced back to his business,
his person, his honor, and his goods. 3
It is difficult to understand why the elementary observations
which followed upon the workings of legal mandates and sanc-
tions were necessary or even tolerable in a university lecture-
room. As we have said above in the case of Justi, the most
plausible explanation is that they were of a piece with the
homiletical style of the period, the method of magnifying the
obvious.
The foregoing discussion furnishes the reasons for the sub-
' Esprit des loix, Vol. I, Part II, chap. iv.
*"Auf seine Hondlungen, Personen, auf seine Ehre, und seine
GAter." The ambiguity of the term Handlungen might be used as one
of the stigmata of the untenable analysis in which it figures. The same
is true of the plural Personen, of Ehre as having a possible content not
gathered from the other three categories, and of Cuter, in distinction
primarily from Handlungen, and secondarily from the other two concepts.
The classification serves as basis of the technology which follows, but
the confusion which corresponds with the superficial analysis does not
much affect the larger relations which we are emphasizing, and we may
pass it with this notice. Sonnenfels adds the note (p. 63): "The English
writers compress all into the words Liberty and Property [Freyheit und
Eigenthum]. Freyheit has special connection with Handlvni'^H, Per-
sonen, and Ehre; Eigenthum with Cuter."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 509
divisions of the book. Except in details of classification and
of judgment about minor means, the remainder of the volume
affords little material for our purpose. Roscher has digested
the technical contents of the three volumes in which Sonnenfels
varies somewhat from the other cameralists. 1 The most
noticeable contrast with Justi, in respect to technique, is the
creation of the division Handling co-ordinate with Polizey,
instead of treating subjects falling under the former as subdi-
visions of the latter. In respect to the spirit of the treatment
I am able to adopt Roscher's judgments with but slight modi-
ficcition. 2
"For the development of German national economy,
Sonnenfels may be characterized most accurately in this way:
his standpoint reminds us essentially of Justi's ideas," but
he gave to the ideas an apparently firmer setting in the sort
of reasoning which was conventional in his day; and he was
rather more systematic in developing the consequences of the
ideas. "At the same time the demands of the ought-to-be
play with him a much more significant role than explanation
of the existing. Suggestion of practical propositions is in bulk,
as well as in the interest of the author, much more notable
than the scientific analysis of the subjects in question."
Although we shall be led into somewhat extended discus-
sion of numerous details, we have thus covered in principle
all that our main purpose calls for in the case of Sonnenfels,
and what follows amounts merely to illustrative specifications
under previous propositions.
The first section in the chapter on "Attention to the Moral
Condition" is worth quoting as a summary of Sonnenfels'
ethical preconceptions. He says (61):
Morals are a common subject-matter of religion, of ethics, and
of law-giving; but each treats them in the light of its own purpose;
Op. cit., pp. 536 ff.
* The original should be compared, op. cit., p. 536.
510 THE CAMERALISTS
the first two as an end, the last only as a means, satisfied if corre-
spondence of conduct with the laws can be procured not by the most
lofty motives, but also merely by hope of an advantage or by fear
of punishment. Hence arises the idea of political virtue, which
differs from the concept of virtue demanded by ethics and religion.
Political or social virtue is the facility of ordering one's conduct in
correspondence with the laws of the society. The motor machinery,
whereby this correspondence is procured, does not fall within the
scope of the present explanation, since virtue of a higher order is not
to be dispsnsed with. Meanwhile there is no ground for the anxiety
that political virtue may be dangerous for religion and ethics [Sitten-
lehre]; that would be the case if political virtue and religious virtue
were in antithesis with each other: but this is by no means the case.
For the purpose of the law-giver, to be sure, the first is enough;
yet the second is not thereby excluded* but to a certain extent it is
presupposed by the first. A wise law-giver will always seek to base
social virtue \Gesellschaftungstugend} upon moral virtue, yet from
inadequacy of the means at his command he cannot always discover
whether each member of society in practice bases his social virtue
upon moral virtue. He must therefore be content to take knowl-
edge simply of the body of the transactions, and he leaves it to the
spiritual teacher to introduce the vitalizing spirit of religion.
Of course Sonnenfels is at this point merely a symptom of
the ethical and theological dichotomy which still succeeds in
keeping most of the population of the world under the impres-
sion that virtue is an affair of separate circuits, which may be
operated independently or be brought into communication
with one another. It was no peculiar demerit of his that he
could treat social virtue as different in kind from ethical or
religious virtue. It would simply plunge us into conflict with
speculative moral philosophy in general if we should enter
upon discussion of this part of the analysis. We may simply
allow him to show further, in his own idiom, what working
relation he presupposed between social virtue on the one hand
and religious virtue on the other. In 63 he says:
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 511
The chief and most effective means for the building-up of morals
are religion, education, and the sciences. Among these religion
deserves the first place. Religion is the gentlest bond of society.
Religion instructs through her venerable teachings in goodness.
Religion stimulates to the application of the same through promises.
Religion deters from evil actions by threats. Religion brings about
thorough repentance, which she produces in the sinner, and forgive-
ness, which she offers to the penitent, the improvement of the vicious.
Religion increases therefore the determining as well as the deterring
motives. Law-giving would in countless cases find itself inadequate,
if religion did not beneficently come to its aid. Whenever the eye
of the law-giver, and consequently also the penalty of the judge,
fails to accomplish the end, the exalted principle of the omnipresent
God, as witness and judge of all, even the most secret evildoers, is
the sole means of arresting evil undertakings. The whole world
is consequently in agreement with Warburton, that the doctrine of
a future life of rewards and punishments is utterly indispensable for
every civic society. The ruler may not disregard this leash [Leitrie-
men] given into his hand, and he must take care that every citizen
in the state has religion. From this point of view (64) freethinking
appears as a political crime, because to a certain extent it robs the
state of the means of guiding its citizens most completely. The
chancellor Bacon,*end President Montesquieu have never been under
suspicion as persecutors, yet the former writes: "No one denies God,
except those who have an interest in there being no God;" 1 the
latter: "From the opinion that there is no God comes our independ-
ence or our revolt." 2 Accordingly to them the atheist becomes
either a criminal or a disorderly citizen. Consequently the concord
and happiness of the state depend on intolerance of the declared
freethinkers; and circumstances might often make it necessary for
the public authorities to demand of everyone a visible sign of the
religion "to which he adheres." 3
1 Sonnenfels simply refers to " sermones fideles, etc."
* Esprit des loix, Vol. XXXIV, chap. ii.
3 A note to this section reads: " During the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
a penalty of twenty pounds was imposed upon anyone who absented
512 THE CAMERALISTS
The argument continues (65):
From the necessity of religion, even for the temporal happiness
of the citizens, and the common security, are derived the right and
the obligation of the Polizey to extend its attention to the education
of the people in religious duties, to prevent abuses, and to watch
over the external order of religious functions and worship. The
instruction in the duties of religion, in the rural regions particularly,
is worthy of so much attention, because with the rural population
religion must largely take the place of education, and at the same
time it is the only means of making an impression upon their ways
of thinking. The first object to which the care of the Polizey should
be given in this respect should be sufficient and skilful curates. 1
On the ground of necessity for public morals, education
is then discussed as a section of the duties of Polizey. The
author says (70):
After religion, education has the greatest influence upon morals.
It is, to be sure, a peculiar duty of parents; but not only a son, a
citizen is also to be educated. Education can therefore, on account
of its connection with the common welfare, not be a matter of indif-
ference to the law-giver, and cannot be left by the state to private
whim. Parents must be compelled to give their children the neces-
sary education (71). In order that dependent children may be edu-
cated, academies, foundling and orphan asylums are necessary (72).
It is desirable that public schools should be attended by children
of the upper as well as of the lower classes, for the sake of making
these classes acquainted with each other (73). Sees. 74-79 go
into some detail about alternatives in the administration of found-
ling and orphan asylums, with respect to influence upon public
himself for a month from public worship." The authority for the state-
ment is given as, "Hume, Hist, de la maison de Tudor, Tome V." Evi-
dence of this and like kinds, in spite of occasional appearances to the
contrary, makes it probable that, whenever English sources were cited,
they were usually known to Sonnenfels by name only, or through transla-
tions, usually French.
1 The four following sections elaborate the last proposition, and
specify problems and duties for Religions polizey.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 513
morals, and 80-82 attempt to answer the question whether it is
worth while to'enlighten the people through "the sciences." Son-
nenfels urges instruction in the lower schools about ordinary civic
duties, and he argues for favors, like separate jurisdiction, for the
higher schools, in order that their prestige may be increased. Then
follow hints, rather than programmes, about the availability of
various minor means for promoting good morals (83-98); dis-
tinctions for exemplary citizens, the stage, with necessity of censor-
ship, and as another negative means, the censorship of books. In
connection with this last subject Hume is quoted, 1 to the effect that
the freedom of the press is absolutely assential to England's form
of government, in order that mind and talent may without any hin-
drance act in defense of liberty. "But," answers Sonnenfels, "this
author himself admits that this same means allows the spirit of resist-
ance, of revolt, and other harmful influences to be spread abroad.
He consequently holds the censorship as necessary for other forms
of government, especially for the ecclesiastical state. Perhaps
we are justified in replying to the Englishman, that the goodness
of a constitution which is capable of preservation only by such
dangerous means, must be very equivocal."
But Sonnenfels presently reaches conclusions which have
a firmer psychological basis, whatever be the estimate of them
in current economic or political theory. In 100 he begins
with the premise that law-giving wisdom must provide the
general and special means of preventing vagrancy and idleness
in general. The previous 99 lays down, as a major premise
for this dictum, the proposition that idleness produces immoral-
ity. Whether we should agree or not with the inference that
the government must prevent idleness, there is little doubt
among social theorists today that an orccupation is one of the
primary conditions conducive to moraUty in Sonnenfels' sense
of the term. The special arrangements which he recommends
for repressing idleness fall under the heads: prevention of
begging; careful inspection to see that everyone in the state
* Political Essays,Vo\. II, Part I, "Essay on the Liberty of the Press."
514 THE CAMERALISTS
is earning a living; checking of all useless occupations akin
to vagrancy; diminution of the number of students (because
in Austria they were said to be in excess of the positions requir-
ing highly educated men) ; good discipline of the servant class
(107-14), and as a means of making all these efforts efficient
well-ordered workhouses and penal institutions (119-21).
Everything of the nature of free soup, and indiscriminate
alms-giving, including gifts to begging students, is protested
against almost in the spirit of modern scientific charity (101-
6). The degree to which Sonnenfels relies on constraint, as
compared with his belief in attractive measures, is noticeable
at every step. The second phase of laws relating to the servant
class, viz., their protection against unjust employers, is treated
in 115, 116; and the third phase, provision for reducing
the number of the unemployed servant class, in 117, 118.
While he emphasizes the danger to good morals from all toler-
ance of pandering to sexual vice, Sonnenfels has only the
following as a programme (122):
All that can be demanded of a reasonable Polizey is, not that its
attention shall be carried to the extreme of increasing its numbers
for the purpose of spying and house-visitation, nor that by excessive
severity toward weaknesses it shall give occasion for greater and
more dangerous crimes, but that the Polizey shall restrict itself to
preventing public indecency, and outbreaking offenses, and that it
shall co-operate with parents, relatives, married people, who make
complaints about seduction of their relatives, or disturbance of
domestic order. Beyond that, religion, education, and reduction
of the number of the unmarried must do the most toward the restric-
tion of an evil which it will be possible for no foresight entirely to
uproot.
Finally the chapter concludes with this omnibus paragraph
(123):
The Polizey must, however, exert itself to remove all occasions
through which, directly or indirectly, moral disorders of another sort
may be increased. Here belong, for lessening drunkenness, and the
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 515
evils that flow from it, the restriction of the number of dram shops;
the ordinance that after a certain hour (at night) nothing more shall
be sold in such shops, and at no time to intoxicated persons; exem-
plary punishments for confirmed drunkards; prohibition of lodging
strangers except in recognized inns; and further, measures approved
by monarchs of insight, and readily granted by a head of the church
worthy of immortality, viz., for decrease of the number of feast
days. For it is certain that all time devoted to labor will be rescued
from vice and excess.
The spirit of chap, ii, "On the Means of Awakening a
High Idea of the Laws," may be indicated very briefly. The
fundamental proposition is that:
" on the average in a nation high respect for the law will be less a
result of persuasion than of antecedently formed opinion, that is, of
a favorable prejudice" (124). This prejudice must be aroused
and strengthened. It may be weakened or destroyed. The means
in either case are in the hands of those who give the laws. In repub-
lics, where laws are examined by representations of the people before
they are enacted, the presumption of the goodness of the laws springs
from the nature of the constitution. That is, it is supposed that the
law would have been rejected if its advantages had not been beyond
all doubt. In monarchies, that which occurs in republics before
the acceptance of a law should occur at the promulgation of the same.
This may take place in two ways first, by giving assurance that
consultation with estates, parliaments, councilors, etc., preceded the
decree; second, that every law should have a preamble, setting forth
the reasons why it was necessary for the public weal and bene-
ficial for the individual. "A government which imposes upon itself
the rule of accompanying its laws, so far as possible, with reasons,
shows confidence in its measures, honors the intelligence and integ-
rity of the citizens, appears less to command than to persuade. The
people itself imagines that it obeys less the law than its own insight."
Again (128) it is added: "Even if the law bears only some such
legend as 'moved by the public good,' the people will be inclined to
believe it." Furthermore, the conviction which assumes that the
laws are good is produced by laws of great age, and the invariability
5i6 THE CAMERALISTS
of laws is the condition of their attaining great age (129). Con-
flicting interpretations of the law by experts weaken the presump-
tion in its favor (131). Nothing weakens the prestige of the laws
more than a distinction between obligation before the judge, and
absence of obligation in conscience (132).
Chap, iii, "On Provision for Holding Private Powers in a
Subordinate Equilibrium with the Powers of the State," may
also be epitomized very briefly. The main proposition is
that:
the powers of resistance on the side of the citi/ens must always be
kept inferior to the powers of compulsion on the side of the state
(xic) (136). This persistent antithesis between the citizens and
the state is one of the most essential traits of the pre-democratic
political philosophy. "The forces or means, which might hinder
the state in the exercise of its powers, consist of wealth, of the strength
oj a stratum of society, and of privileges." "While security of prop-
erty is one of the principal advantages to be gained by civic society,
wisdom seeks to prevent the accumulation of excessive private wealth"
(138).' It is not wise to prescribe the limits of wealth which indi-
viduals or families may possess (139); but the stale may set precise
bounds to the wealth of deathless societies. "This necessity has
been recognized in all states,* especially since Edward I set the
example with his 'amortization laws' " (140). "In case the laws
have neglected to provide against too great accumulation of wealth
in families, indirect measures may be adopted with advantage to
correct the evil; as when Henry VII of England allowed the division
of the estates of the nobility among several sons. If he had ordered
the division, it would have been resisted. The permission was
regarded as beneficent. Similar indirect measures may be taken
to limit the growth of deathless societies (141); and parallel action
is wise in the case of societies, parties, and organizations of many
sorts which tend to acquire excessive power (142 ff.). Sees. 149 ff.
deal with cases in which sedition of more or less violent sort breaks
1 Hume is again cited rather vaguely, p. 181.
Illustration cited from Hume, " Leben Edwards /," Geschichle
von England, T. 2.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 51?
out, from actual violation of laws against accumulation of riches or
power, to reflections on the government by public speakers, preach-
ers, teachers, actors, writers, etc.; and different kinds and degrees
of censorship by the police are rather vaguely recommended. The
duties of the police in case of disorderly assemblies are rather hinted
at than specified (155 ff.).
Chap, iv, "On Security of Action," is notable, first, because
it gives evidence that some of the concepts of an innovating
popular philosophy were beginning to call for attention in one
of the more conservative universities of the German countries.
Sonnenfels begins by saying that "security of action" and
"freedom of action" are. identical ideas. "They refer to the
condition in which we have nothing to fear with respect to our
actions." Thereupon he undertakes an analysis of the dis-
tinctions to be made between "freedom," "licentiousness"
[ZUgellosigkeit], and "independence" [Unabhangigkeit]. The
presuppositions of his argument are, first, "the laws of nature;"
second, "the social compact." These make "freedom" a
limited, not an absolute condition, and per contra they estop
licentiousness and independence. Regardless of the method
of the argument, the author urges the sane view, which he
phrases after Pope, that "he who obeys reason is free." He
finds that reasonable freedom or security of action may be
endangered, first, by the ruler, considered as law-giver and
judge; e.g., when he transgresses the limits of the law-giving
power, or when he falsely accuses, or unfairly conducts a pro-
cess in court; second, by fellow-citizens in various relations.
The succeeding discussion of the limits of the law-giving and
judicial power is literary rather than technical, but it marks
a rising tide of demand for laws and administration of them,
in conformity with needs which citizens feel to be reasonable.
In this connection (165-69), Sonnenfels presents his famous
objections to torture as a judicial measure. The infringements
upon security of action by fellow-citizens are scheduled under
THE CAMERALISTS
the heads, "servitude," "chattel slavery," "constraint by
parents, guardians, etc." (171-75).
Chap, v, "On the Security of the Person" (176-293),
covers a wider range of detail with a greater number of
specific topics, than any other main division of the book.
Although in many cases it indicates rather definite policies
about particular problems, yet on the whole it has rather the
force of a catalogue of subjects than of a codification of rules.
Its importance is technological, and a proper estimate of
its value could be made only by technologists in the different
subjects of which it treats. It does not furnish material which
falls directly within the scope of our inquiry. It should be
said, however, that it is another remarkable reflection of the
degree of attention which German administrative theory had
already given to details affecting public welfare. It discusses
a surprising number of relations by which physical well-being
is affected. These range from crimes of violence, to methods
of relieving poverty, caring for the sick, promoting public
hygiene, and securing pure food or pure air. It should be
noticed too that the chapter includes a strong and explicit
argument against toleration of duelling, and also against all
methods of procuring abortions. In the latter connection
Sonnenfels shows farsighted views about the policy which
the government should pursue toward mothers of illegitimate
children.
Chap, vi, "Security of Honor" (294-304), proposes to
treat of honor "considered as respect for the integrity [Recht-
schajfenheit] of a citizen." The viewpoint is indicated by
the propositions: "Whatever deprives the citizen of honor,
therefore, robs him of actual advantages, harms him seriously:
and the legal authority is bound to defend every citizen against
such injuries." The chapter accordingly specifies the following
subjects which should be taken into account in applying the
principle: supposed hereditary dishonor (295-97); supposed
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 519
dishonor on account of certain occupations, court servants,
spies, executioners, etc. (298); loss of honor through insult
and slander (300-303) ; loss of honor through seduction (304).
It should be observed that, whatever be the value of the means
recommended in these connections, the content of private and
public welfare in particulars of which this chapter contains
samples was much more justly estimated in the German civic
theories of the cameralistic period than in the practice of mod-
ern democracies. We have by no means improved in all
particulars upon the civic theories of the eighteenth century.
Chap, vii, "On Security of Goods" (305-51), contains
nothing that calls for special remark, except that it groups with
the crimes against property as ordinarily understood, various
injuries to possessions through oversight [Versehen] (337 ff.).
Under the latter head, Sonnenfels discusses protection against
damage by fire, including building-ordinances, fire-departments,
fire-insurance, protection against lightning, use of firearms
and fireworks, ordinances against vagrants, and various minor
devices.
Chap, viii, "On Penalties" (352-88), although not
strictly pertinent to our purpose, deserves brief notice because
it contains symptoms of the independence of thought about
details which led Roscher to apply the term "eclectic." 1
Sonnenfels begins by questioning the sufficiency of Grotius'
explanation of legal penalties, viz.: "Punishment is an evil
of sensation because of malice of action." The author
comments:
This aphorism, handed down from writer to writer, has given a
one-sided direction to reflection upon the subject. The viewpoint
from which the judge who enforces the penalty regards it, and that
of the law-giver who ordains it are quite different. The first punishes
because the law was disobeyed. The second threatens a penalty
in order that the law may not be disobeyed. With the former the
i Vide pp. 481 ff. above.
520 THE CAMERALTSTS
penalty is a consequence of the conduct. With the latter the conduct
is a consequence of the penalty. With the first the affixing of penalty
is inculpation, with the second it is stimulus. Penalty therefore,
considered as an auxiliary, to protect the law, namely, by exerting
an influence upon the resolutions of actors, and by supplying the
place of other determining motives, is an evil which is attached to
the law as a means 0} influencing against infraction of the same. In
determining penalties, attention is to be paid, first, to the quantity;
second, to the kind of the same.
The attempt to find a principle on which to decide the former
question proceeds by considering four possible criteria, viz.,
the conduct itself, its relation to the state, its consequences,
or its motives; and it reaches the conclusion (357): "The
general means of measuring punishment is, therefore, to be
sought only in the motives of the crime." The following
specifications are deduced:
"(i) The penalty must be as great as necessary to procure the
lawful action or restraint; (2) The penalty must not be greater than
necessary to procure the lawful action; (3) The strongest deterring
motive, that is, the most effective penalty, will always be that which
threatens an evil in direct antithesis with the motive which solicits
to the crime." In explaining the application to be made of these
principles, Sonnenfels recurs to his classification of evils to be
avoided, or of "securities" to be gained. As the evils have refer-
ence in turn to civic freedom, honor, goods, and corporal integrity,
the penalties should correspond. Thus, they should be variations
of "loss of all civic rights; loss of social standing [Standesrechte]-,
loss of rights of the family; loss of legal rights; or, in special
cases, banishment from the country; expulsion from the locality;
infamy; degradation [Standesentsetzung] ; confiscation of goods;
fines; corporal punishment, from minor inflictions to the death-
penalty."
Respecting the extreme penalty, Sonnenfels energetically
opposes the prevailing opinions and practices. He repeats
the theorem which he had published in 1764:
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 521
Death penalties are contrary to the purpose of penalties. Hard,
incessant public labor promises much more for that purpose, and
at the same time makes the punishment of the criminal profitable
for the state. 1
One paragraph in particular, in discussion of this question,
is notable more for its wider implications than for its immediate
bearings. Whether its author was aware or not that he was
betraying tendencies which were ominous for the old regime,
it is evident enough from our present viewpoint that we have
here one of the signs that absolutistic preconceptions were losing
some of their hold. On justification of the right of capital
punishment the author says (377):
The first question which must be investigated is without doubt
in respect to the right. Has the law a right to punish with death ?
If questions have been raised over this point, it was because writers
have fawned upon princes, and have sought the source of this right
in no one knows what form of a majesty derived immediately from
heaven, and assigned to them an unlimited right over life and
death. The source of this awful right is to be sought nowhere except
in the individual man, whose combination constitutes the state.
Man, thought of in the natural condition, has the right to protect
his security in every way, and if the violence of attack cannot other-
wise be warded off, it is his right to carry his defense even to the
death of the assailant. In civil society each separate member has
made over this right of defense to the whole, that is, to the sovereign
power that represents the whole; that is, not a right over his own
life, which no one possesses, but the right of each over the life of
every other who might become an assailant. In that way the
sovereign power acquired the right over all.
Our concern is not with the validity of this reasoning, but
with the fact that Sonnenfels exhibited a tendency to think
1 Reference is made to "die vortreffliche Abhandlung des Marchese
Beccari: Von Verbrechen und Strafen," which appeared almost simul-
taneously with the publication of Sonnenfel's first edition, and supported
his position on this subject,
522 THE CAMERALISTS
for himself about certain parts of the traditional philosophy
of the state.
The purpose of chap, ix, "On Institutions for Maintaining
Internal Security," is particularized in the opening paragraph
(389), viz.:
Under the name institutions we include all persons and devices
which aim at prevention and discovery of every action harmful to
civic security, including the higher as well as the lower stations and
functionaries that have to do in any way with guarding the peace,
with detecting seditious intentions, or dangerous persons, and finally
everything which has to do with punishment of the same.
As a survey of the civic structure which all the cameralists
have contemplated with variations of detail, the following
paragraph (390) is useful, viz.:
As the prerogatives of Polizey have been treated in this work,
the law-giving as well as the executive power lies within the scope
of its functions. The supreme administration of the same can
consequently be accredited only to the highest station in the state,
whatever be the name under which it exists. This is the directing
guidance of the state, where the principal laws and ordinances are
enacted. Execution, however, is, according to the variety of the
objects, committed to subordinate divisions. Moreover, the public
administration usually subdivides affairs, and retains for itself
law-giving, at least in general affairs of the country, or respecting
other more important matters; it turns over the civil and criminal
judiciary functions to special bodies, or so-called Stellen, and restricts
the operations of Polizey in the narrower sense to maintenance of
the public peace, good order, and discipline, to superintendence
over measures, weights, markets, cleanliness of cities, institutions
necessitated by the various dangers and accidents, and especially
over everything which demands emergency action. Since mention
has already been made of the different judicial offices, it remains
for this chapter to treat only of this last significance of Polizey.
The chief difference between Justi and Sonnenfels in this
division of the subject is not that they disagree in principle,
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 5 2 3
but that Sonnenfels has scheduled a larger number of concrete
details to which the principles apply, and that these specifica-
tions have the effect of considerably extending the apparent
consequences of the principles. A striking instance of this is
the argument for abolition of places of refuge (410-15).
Chap, x, "Use of the Institutions in Case of Great Accidents"
furnishes a sort of title for activities which in the nature of the
case cannot be thoroughly analyzed nor formulated, and no
very explicit prescriptions about them are possible. The refer-
ence is to occurrences which may be anticipated in kind, but
cannot be foreseen in time and place, and cannot be averted
by human power. The sort of foresight to be exercised is
suggested by the questions, What sort of accidents are probable
in a given locality ? How does the situation affect the proba-
bility of such accidents? What variations of the probability
are there at different times? Among such accidents, which
permit of provisional prevention ? Then action with reference
to such accidents may be in part thought out in advance by
dividing the calamity into stages, and by determining the sort
of conduct appropriate in each, viz., (i) before the actual
case; (2) during the same; (3) after the same. As an illus-
tration, Sonnenfels takes the case of a freshet in the Dan-
ube at Vienna, and specifies a programme for minimizing the
calamity, before, during, and after. It is evident that this
sketch is not a mere academic exercise, but it has the same
importance for civic conditions which the plans of a commissary
department have for an army.
With reference to the volume as a whole the curious fact
is to be noted that no one who had not been advised of the
author's alleged fundamental principle would discover a sign
of it in any paragraph of the book after the passage in which
it is discussed in the abstract. 1 From that point it disappears,
and no use is made of it whatsoever. A student of Justi who
1 Vide above, p. 500.
524 THE CAMERALISTS
omitted the first forty-two sections of the present volume,
and carefully studied the remaining three hundred and ninety,
would probably find no occasion for doubting that Sonnenfels
was completely in accord with his predecessor in making "the
general happiness" the criterion of civic procedure. The
argument does not close here, to be sure, and the author will
find a use for his alleged criterion later. We shall return to
the subject, and shall find it instructive about the unsettled
condition of the philosophy of which it was a symptom.
CHAPTER XX
THE CAMERALISM OF SONNENFELS ("HANDLUNG")
The title-page of Sonnenfel's second volume, Handlung,
is identical with that of Vol. I, Polizey, except that the vignette
represents "Fortbonnais." 1 If Sonnenfels did not translate
Forbonnais' term commerce by the word Handlung, the scope
of his book would call for the version "industry," in the more
general sense connoted by ordinary American usage, not in
the more technical sense of the German ' ' Industrie. ' ' Although
the activities discussed include gainful occupations in general,
Sonnenfels prefers to consider them as "commerce," and that
term will be used as a translation of his word Handlung. If
all the passages in which it occurs were collated, they would
show a curious lack of precision in his analysis. To what
extent this classification of economic activities of different
kinds under a name proper to some of them and not to others
is cause or effect of important economic misconceptions is a
query which we merely register, without attempting to offer
an answer.
This second part is very largely a discussion of technical
phases of different kinds of business, more than investigation
of economic principles at the basis of all business. The intro-
ductory portions of the book, however, show traits that are
highly useful in marking theoretical tendencies.
The Preface declares that this "outline of political com-
mercial science 2 was not written for men in business, whose
' On' p. 4 of the Preface the edition of Forbonnais' book which t
Sonnenfels used is referred to as " Eltmens du Commerce, vweyte Leydner
Auflage."
* Umriss der politischtn Handlungswissenschaft. I have not found
this expression in the earlier cameralists. It seems to me to be in itself
a sign that there was increasing instability in the notions of classification
525
526 THE CAMERALISTS
theories have been established by long experience, and have
become complete. If I wish to leave the book in their hands,
it is only in order that I may be corrected by them if any errors
have escaped my knowledge."
The Preface continues:
My ambition limits itself to the young friends to whom my calling
commissions me as a guide. If I have in some measure smoothed
their way to their duty, if I have made their preparation for their
calling easier, I have accomplished my purpose.
As an index of the intellectual conditions within which
Sonnenfels wrote, the next paragraph is instructive, viz. :
There is no lack, to be sure, of thorough writings on the subject
of commerce. The English and the French have always recognized
the importance of a subject which may be regarded as the foundation
of public welfare 1 [der oftcntlichen Wohlfahrt], since through multi-
plication of means of subsistence it is the basis of population. The
greatest men in all sciences, publicists [Staatskiindige], historians,
philosophers, have made contributions to the explanation of com-
merce. Mathematicians have believed that they were no less useful
to the world and to their fatherland when they spoke of the advan-
tages of a cloth factory than when they analyzed the profound theory
of the infinite. Their writings meanwhile are rather for the already
educated readers than for beginners. It appears that men of such
ability have been unable to put themselves on the level of the untrained.
Hence the obscurity of their writings. They presuppose knowledge
of which the uninitiated have no comprehension. The latter can-
not grasp conclusions from principles which they do not understand.
and methodology. Although Sonnenfels is far from generalizing eco-
nomic problems in the spirit of an abstract science, the prominence and
relative independence of business questions, as distinguished from fiscal
problems, is a still more meaning sign that general economic problems
were approaching the threshold of consciousness.
1 Perhaps it is mere fancy, but in Sonnenfels' usage this expression
seems to me to connote a less governmental and more popular center
of gravity for the concept " welfare " than was indicated by the corre-
sponding terms of the earlier cameralists.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 527
The profound author of the Elements o] Commerce declares at
the outset that he did not write for those who read only to save
themselves the trouble of thinking. If Forbonnais would admit only
thinking readers, did he reflect that his excellent book would remain
almost unread ? I take the liberty of confessing that my intention
is precisely the opposite of his. I write for those who are not yet
capable of thinking for themselves on this subject. This book is
to introduce them to it. My purpose is to prepare readers for Forbon-
nais.
Sonnenfels presently schedules the Austrian literature
of the subject as follows:
The catalogue of writings to which we can make claim as a
national possession may be read at a glance. It comprises in all
Oesterreich iiber dies mostly credited to Horneck, but partly to
Becher; 1 SchrStters Fiirstliche Schatz- und Rentkammer; 3 Meixner's
Amnerkungen iiber die Beschaftenheit der k. k. Erblande:* a book
which only arouses the wish that such a work might be undertaken by
a more competent and better informed man; and an anomymous
book entitled, Wahre und vortrefliche Mittel, wodurch die k. k. Erb-
kSnigreiche und Ldnder in einen glucklicheren und florissanteren
Zustand geselzt werden ktinnten, under which much-promising
inscription everyone would be likely to expect more than five pieces 4
which are shoved together without connection as without choice,
and of which, for the author's sake, I will attribute the much-profess-
ing title to one of the usual publishers' tricks to make eight paltry
sheets salable.
1 Vide pp. 129 ff. above. Vide pp. 135 ff. above.
3 Not mentioned by Roscher.
4 Sonnenfels' note: "I. Beweis, dass es den dsterreischen Fabriken
eben so leicht seyn werde, ein Konsumme in Pohlen zu finden, ah der
Churbrandenburg. II. Griindliche Anleitung zu regelm&ssiger Spren-
gung fester Steinfclsen u.s.w. III. K. K. Verordnung Kirchengelder und
Kirchenrechnungen. IV. Gonser's Abhandlung -von Torferde. V. Vor-
schlag zur Beleuchtung der StOdte." The author adds: "This Preface
was written in 1769. Since that time several works have been written
which have relations to the Austrian states."
528 THE CAMERALISTS
Four books, or eight, if we reckon Becher's Bedenken von
Manu/acturen in Deutschland, 1 von Vogemont's (or Bogemont's)
Deutschlands vermehrten Wohlstand, Boden's Fiirstliche Macht-
kunstj* and Jorger's Vota Cameralia, from all of which no one would
be able to gather particularly important information. These are
all of this species, however, which Austria up to this time has to show.
The rest of Germany is not rich in writings of distinction, while other
nations are taught about all parts of commerce and finance by the
most excellent works. 3
Not less instructive is Sonnenfels' hypothesis in explanation
of Austria's backwardness in this respect (Preface, p. 8) :
This lack may have its cause chiefly in the difficulty of access
to those sources which occasion the speculations of writers, which
guide them, which must necessarily be made fundamental by them,
in so far as their works are not to remain merely indecisive and
mostly inapplicable thoughts. The strength and population, the
condition of commerce, of manufactures, the various changes, the
occasions of the same, the hindrances, the encouragements, the
increase of diligence, the condition of the public revenues, of the
national credit, all this is in other states known in detail, either from
public registers and tables, or it is readily made known to those who
desire to inform themselves about these matters. Competent men
then look upon it as their duty not to withhold from the state their
observations about the same, and their advice. In this way, as it
were, a whole nation unifies its insight. The number of its coun-
cilors is in certain respects not smaller than the number of its thinking
patriots.
With us such facts are still regarded as state secrets. There
1 I am unable to explain this title except on the assumption that
Sonnenfels quoted from memory and meant the Diskurs. Vide above,
pp. 109 ff.
Vide above, pp. 1 70 ff.
3 It is to be noticed that Sonnenfels does not claim Justi's Staatswirth-
schaft for Austria, although it was a product of the author's work in that
country. It was not devoted particularly to Handlung, to be sure, but
covered the subject to such an extent that the omission is surprising.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 529
may be many important grounds for this reticence, which are unknown
to me. Meanwhile I can cite this secrecy in general as the cause
of that dearth of political writings, the number of which I wish to
increase by publishing these elements. My merit may perhaps be
very slight, if a one-sided estimate is put upon the worth of my labor.
If, however, judgment is so generous as to consider the intention,
the endeavor, to be useful at my post, I have thereby earned at least
a certain measure of thanks.
In the evolution of the methodology of the social sciences
in Germany, no writer seems to me more symptomatic than
Sonnenfels of the tendency toward transition from a technology
of civic management, with the interests of quasi-absolutistic
governments as the determining aim and norm, to a technology
in which a co-ordinate position among the aims and norms
would be assigned to the interests of economic production, and
of popular welfare in a more modern sense than that which was
the content of the concept "welfare" in the philosophy of the
quasi-absolutists. For this reason, the entire introduction
to this volume Handlung must be adopted into this survey.
The alternative title given to the volume at this point is:
Elements of the Science of Commerce, and the particular sub-
ject of the introduction is "The Simplest Concepts of Com-
merce, and its Branches." 1
From one point of view, the work in a pure science upon
which all the subsequent details and applications are based,
is discovery of the categories in which the facts of the science
have to be thought. The methodology of a positive science
is a N rhythmic reaction between observation of isolated facts
and generalization of those facts into categories. From any
stage of discovery the way to an advanced stage is through pro-
cesses of further analysis of facts and assembling new facts,
to learn whether the relationships in which the facts occur are
1 Grundsdtze der Handlungsivissenschait, Einleitung. Die einfach-
sten Begrifle des Handel s und seine Zweige.
530 THE CAMERALISTS
generalized in a valid manner in the categories in use. A
history of economic science might with advantage be written
as an expansion of this proposition. Logically antecedent
to all quantitative formulation of economic laws must be static
formulation of the structural phases of economic processes.
Whatever other merits or demerits may be attributed to the
Smithian type of economic theory, it was the most potent factor
in nineteenth-century thinking in stimulating analysis of the
elementary economic relationships, and of bringing into use
relatively precise terms as symbols of those relationships.
In other words, a first step in passing from every less critical
to a more critical stage of a positive science consists in dis-
placing less adequately analyzed categories for more adequately
analyzed categories, as the qualitative conceptions of the
science. From our present point of view, the value of Sonnen-
fels' introduction to this second volume consists in its exhibit
of such economic categories in a relatively early stage of their
evolution. Their crudity is cumulative evidence in support
of our theorem that the cameralists are radically misunderstood
if we interpret them as economists in the classical sense of the
term. They were political scientists in whose minds distinct
economic categories were not differentiated until the Smithian
influence became a variant of German thinking. Sonnenfels'
own language is the most effective commentary on this
thesis which could be cited. We translate his introduction
in full:
The beneficent influence of commerce upon general happiness
[allgemeine Gliickseligkeit] was long overlooked by political philosophy
[Staatsklugheit]. No attention, no care, no promotion was supposed
to be due to this subject. Not as though Alexander, even in the
irresistible course of his victories, had not cast a glance upon com-
merce, and after the destruction of Tyre had not built Alexandria
as the emporium of eastern and northern wares: but ministers and
monarchs recognized in the son of Philip only the conqueror, and
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 531
only in that character did he seem worthy of imitation. Charles V,
Sully, Elizabeth, Colbert first enlightened, cabinets about the true
advantages of commerce. World-wisdom lent statecraft its insight.
Men who had received from Providence the calling of being teachers
of the nations instructed the world on this subject in deathless writ-
ings. Finally, as the principle gained prevalence the happiness
of the state consists in the number of its citizens 1 people began to
recognize the worth of a business [Geschaft] which, through multi-
plication of the means of support, contributes such a large portion
to this happiness. Thereupon commerce became an affair of the
cabinets. Attention was given to the principles by whose application
the largest number of people may be supplied with occupation. The
collection of these principles constitutes the political science of com-
merce.' Mercantile [die kaufmannische] science is distinguished
from this subject, because the private merchant has for his purpose
the increase of his own private means, without thought whether
thereby anything accrues to the general advantage of the state, or
whether the general advantage is endangered. Yet the political
commerce by no means works against private advantage. The
former seeks to use the latter as a tool to subordinate it as a means
to the general end: that is, to combine the advantage of the state
with that of the individual citizen. 3
1 Vide above, pp. 500 and 523. This is the first recurrence of the
proposition.
Die politische Handlungswissenschaft. The phrase is a snapshot
at the struggle for survival among concepts. The predominant problem
still was, What shall the government do about commerce ? There was
not yet independent analysis of commerce itself, apart from state
policy.
3 Sonnenfels' note to this paragraph is not a model of lucidity, but
it must be quoted to complete the evidence which we must consider in
deciding about the precise stage in the process of critical analysis which
the author represents. The note is on the phrase, politische Handlungs-
wissenschaft, and it reads as follows: "The multiplication of means
of support, through advantageous exchange of that which nature [das
Erdreich] and diligence produce, is taught by Handlungswissenschaft,"
(the adjective "political" does not appear at this point). With reference
532 THE CAMERALISTS
The occupation [Bcschdftigung] of human beings has for its
purpose the placing in their hands the means whereby they may
provide their support. They derive this support through receiving
something as compensation for that which they produce by their
occupation. 1 Thus barter comes into existence, and this is the
business of commerce in the most proper sense (2).
What one should accept as a compensation for that which one
has given must be of such character that one wants it. Want [Bedurfen]
is here not to be understood in the restricted sense which misan-
thropic worldly-wise have given to the word. Desire [Verlangen] for
greater comfort, the means to gratify this desire, the ability to find
pleasure in possession and enjoyment of the same, are not without
a purpose in the plan of nature. They are, to the same extent,
not without a purpose in the plan of Stoats klugheit (vide 10
below). Want [Bediirjniss] means accordingly everything the
use of which can give us advantage of any sort whatever, the
possession of which is meanwhile desired; and these wants,
whether they are real wants, without which human beings could
not exist, or imaginary wants, which the customary mode of life,
the standard of comfort or enjoyment, the pride of men, have made
to this definition, and to the paragraph just quoted, the work proceeds
(Vol. II, p. 3): "This explanation appears to vary from the ordinary
one; i. e., the most advantageous exchange of products. In fact, how-
ever, it leads to the same. For precisely this more advantageous exchange
occurs in order to keep a great number of people employed. Moreover,
exchange itself is the business of commerce, and in this fact is to be found
the explanation of the science which guides this business. Commerce
will also be regarded as the means of increasing the resources [Vermogen]
of the state. The increased wealth of the state is a constant consequence
of commerce, but not the ultimate purpose in the estimate of the state
to which riches without citizens would be useless."
1 Even the word "produce" is likely to have the effect of an anachro-
nism when used as a translation of terms employed at this period. The
word in this case is " hervorbringen. " " Erzeugen," "erzielen" (vide
below, pp. 534, 551. and 558), "verdienen" "gewinnen," and similar
synonyms, with their derivatives, occur without the precise technical
force of the English "produce," "production," etc.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 533
desirable, are equally an object of exchange through which wants
are traded for wants (3).'
If that which one can give for that which is offered were of such
a sort that it were everywhere found in abundance, it would have
no compensating worth, and by means of it, therefore, no exchange
could occur. The object offered in exchange must accordingly be
something which he, with whom the exchange is to occur, wants and
does not possess, or at any rate does not possess in the quantity which
he desires. That is, it must be relatively rare. Commerce is thus
a business which owes its origin to a reciprocal want. What one
may offer to another for the satisfaction of a want, is called a ware
[Waare] (4).
In the exchange of wares many sorts of hindrances presently
appear. It is possible that he who desires to acquire a ware cannot
offer for it precisely the ware which the other party wants at the
moment, or in the quantity in which it is offered, and the offered
ware is either entirely incapable of division, or the division diminishes
its worth. In such a case one must seek to secure what one wants
through a series of exchanges. Then again, that which one pos-
sesses may be of such a nature that it cannot, without difficulty or de-
terioration, be transferred from one place to another; the want may
be so imperative that one cannot wait for the circuit of exchanges.
These difficulties presently led men to look around for a means by
which the difficulties might be avoided, and exchange be made easy.
Something was sought which might, as it were, take the place of all
wares, and be regarded as a universal equivalent [Entgelt] for the
same. Not any stuff whatever could be adopted arbitrarily as such
equivalent. Each of the qualities which was sought in the same
should be a recourse against one of the indicated difficulties of
exchange, and these difficulties pointed to that stuff in which the
qualities were found united (5).
In order to relieve wants in as small portions as was necessary
1 In a context of this sort Bedurfnisst might more properly be
rendered "necessities," but in other cases the translation "want" is
nearer to the sense. I use it, therefore, as the most available equivalent,
although the subjective and objective phases of the words cannot always
be fitted in the translation to the original.
534 THE CAMERALISTS
according to circumstances, that which was adopted as the general
equivalent must necessarily be capable of very great divisibility
without loss of worth. Since, especially after the extension of com-
merce, the objects of exchange often had to be carried long distances,
durability and imperishability were demanded, both in order that
in the exchange itself, or in going from hand to hand, it might not
be used up, and also in order that, without danger of deterioration,
it might be saved up. In order that the carriage should not be difficult
it must be rare. In this way a small piece became an equivalent fora
considerable bulk of wares. At the same time a great sum could be
sent in a small space. But it is probable that only after many unsuc-
cessful attempts would the peoples discover the combination of these
qualities in the precious metals, which had elsewhere been sought
in vain. And therein lies the cause of the almost universal agree-
ment of the nations about gold and silver, which now are regarded
as the representatives of wares, and are called money (6).
After the introduction of money, to be sure, the turn-over [Umsatz]
was no longer called barter, 1 but purchase. But this change in the
words (sicl) did not essentially change the "commerce." The
money did not thereby come otherwise into consideration than in so
far as it represented those wants, or wares, which at another time
could be procured for it. The thing accomplished by the "com-
merce" is still always the exchange of one ware for another, or for
the representative of a ware (7).
Wares with which exchange is effected are either immediately
usable in their original form, or they must be transformed for
use by artificial labor. The occupation which devotes itself to
obtaining [Erzielung] the former is rural management [Land-
urirthschajt]. It embraces the natural produce of the earth, of
grazing, and of the waters. The occupation which makes the
natural products usable through imparting an artificial form,
or which multiplies their use, is called Manujaktur* The manu-
1 In the previous sections Sonnenfels had several times used the same
word Tausch in the more general sense of "exchange." This is the
first time in which the restricted meaning is strictly correct.
In a note the author adds: "Purists" (I do not know whether his
use of the term "Puritancr" in this sense was an intentional or an uncon-
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 535
factures are dependent upon land management. The first attention
of the state must therefore be given to this latter. What land
management furnishes to the manufactures is called raw materials
or stuffs (8).
The original commerce consists therefore in the produce 01 the
earth and of artificial labor, 1 so far, that is, as both come to the
assistance of wants; and in those who devote themselves with their
produce, who furnish the means, of providing in turn their own
wants. This enables us to determine the extent of general com-
merce. It is equal to the sum of the wants of all consumers [Ver-
zehrenden].* In order to extend commerce, either the wants or the
consumers must be increased (9).
The wants of human beings, as already observed, are very limited,
if we attach to the word the strictest concept of real wants. But
in that case the occupations of the citizens will be kept within the
same narrow bounds. The multiplication of wants occurs through
introduction of comforts and of superfluity, both of which make
luxury. All declamations against luxury, therefore, are either not
well considered, or the objections which are urged against it are not
really directed so much against luxury, as against the one-sided waste-
fulness on the part of a few, while the other portion of the nation
ekes out a miserable existence. Luxury, in so far, on the one hand,
scions solecism) "in the vocabulary of commerce speak of Manufaktur
when hammer and fire are not used, as Tuchmanufaktur, Cottonmanu-
faktur. On the other hand, where these two are necessary, that is called
Fabriken, Stahlfabriken, Messing fabriken. Usage has almost abolished
this distinction. The word Fabrik is more general. We hear daily
Tuchfabrik, Cottonfabrik."
1 An explanatory note adds: "The word Kunslarbeit will constantly
be contrasted with Landwirtlischaft in order to indicate the class of
Manufacturatiten." We may translate this obviously inappropriate
term, "suppliers," as a mean between "manufacturers" which offends
modern usage if it includes farmers; and "producers" which would
attribute to Sonnenfels a generalization that he had not made. "The
word diligence [Aemsigkeit] will also be used."
The author's note reads: "The total of commerce is thus the
sum of two magnitudes, the wants and the number of consumers."
THE CAMERALISTS
as it increases the wants of citizens, and thereby perhaps makes it
harder for some to support themselves, increases on the other hand
the occupations; thus it incidentally makes gainful occupations
easier and more numerous; that is, the superfluity of one satisfies
the wants of others. And if here and there a citizen does not know
how to limit his outlays by the rules of private prudence, and ruins
himself, his wasted resources are, in the first place, no loss for the
state, because they merely pass out of one hand into the other, or are
transferred to many persons; second, the ruin of the one may per-
haps have provided the support of ten families of the laboring class
of the nation. With this explanation all, even the most plausible,
objections to luxury may be answered (10).
At the same time, however, the boundaries between useful and
harmful luxury may be determined. For without doubt there is a
sort of luxury which is harmful. All luxury, for example, is harmful,
which contradicts the purpose for the sake of which the state should
encourage it, which does not increase the sum of national occupations,
but diminishes it. This occurs in the case of unnecessary foreign
articles of luxury and also in the case of those which are not made
in the country itself, because these foreign wares always take the place
of a national ware, and crowd the latter out of the sum of national
occupations. One case only deserves to be regarded as an exception,
viz., when the foreign article of luxury has come in, not by purchase
but in exchange for a ware produced at home. In this instance
justice is done in advance both to national consumption and to all
demands of the foreigners who wanted to acquire it by purchase or
in exchange for wants. In this case, however, it is only the extension
of a branch of the occupation. The foreign article of luxury takes
the place of the national product (11).
The outlay that is restricted to domestic products cannot be
increased without end. The resources of those who use these prod-
ucts, and their number, constitute their necessary limits. Commerce
would thus not be greater than the possible national consumption.
There remains, however, the extension of the same on another
side, through increase of consumption. Takers of the wares will
be sought outside the country. The effort is made to supply other
nations with what they need, and through their consumption to
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 537
increase the sum of national occupation. Commerce thus divides
itself into domestic and foreign. Domestic commerce is that which
is carried on between the members of a state (12).
Foreign commerce is carried on with foreigners. It must neces-
sarily be based on domestic commerce, and it must give up something
to foreigners only when it has first satisfied the national wants. Thus
foreign commerce is carried on only with the surplus; that is, with
that which the national consumption can spare. On the other
hand a nation will take either only such wares as it really needs,
or those to the taking of which it is drawn by powerful stimuli.
These two grounds determine takers in general, but a state will be
moved to take from precisely this nation, inasmuch as the same
wares may actually be had from several sides, only through the most
advantageous, or the least disadvantageous conditions under which
a ware is offered. These conditions affect the price of wares, or
their qualities (13).
Scarcely any state or nation, at least under present circumstances,
and with the once introduced mode of life, will be sufficient unto
itself. What it does not possess, it must try to get from abroad
under the least oppressive conditions. To this end external com-
merce furnishes its aid, and in accordance with the division of its
occupation it is divided into two branches, viz., export and import.
It carries out, from the surplus; it brings in for a double purpose, either
to use the imported articles itself, or to export them again, with
advantage, to other nations (14).
This last makes a third branch of commerce, re-export [Wieder-
ausfuhr], called economic commerce [okonomische Handlung]. If its
advantage consisted only in the occupation of persons engaged in trade,
and in the increase of navigation or of wainage, re-export would even
then be highly important for a state. It would be giving occupation to
a part of the citizens at the cost of other nations. But this is not the
whole of the advantage, and the re-exporting state increases thereby
the national stock [Nationalhauptstamm] to the extent of the excess
of the selling price over the price of purchase, which is always a na-
tion's gain if it may not always be the gain of the merchant (15).'
1 A note explains the last clause as follows: "A merchant buys
cloth for 10 in England; the national capital is diminished by 10. The
53 8 THE CAMERALISTS
The less a nation has to receive from others for its own wants,
and the more sales it can make to other nations, the more advan-
tageous is its commerce. But the situation in different regions does
not always afford to countries either the requisite quantity or the
variety of wares necessary for their own consumption and for export.
The commercial states, particularly the maritime provinces, turned
their gaze in consequence toward the islands, sought to subjugate
the same, and to secure possession through settlers transplanted
thither, whence they have the name colonies, or settlements [Pflanz-
orter}. Thence they may now draw a part of their wants, independ-
ent of other states and under self-imposed conditions, and they may
increase without limit the stuff to be exported thither (16).
The wants which are obtained from other states, and that which
is sent abroad, must be transported to the place of sale. This trans-
portation, which is denoted by the word "carriage" [Fracht], may
occur in various ways. The nation receives its own wants through
foreign carriage; and foreigners bring that which they are to receive
by their own carriage; or the nation brings in by its own carriage what
it receives from others, and returns by its own carriage what other
nations buy. In the former case the nation loses the whole advan-
tage of the occupation, which reciprocal carriage was capable of
creating; and its commerce is thus in a certain sense passive. In
the second case the nation appropriates this advantage and its com-
merce becomes more active. Every nation must therefore seek to
receive its wants through its own carriage and to deliver exports to
other nations with its own carriage (17).
Carriage is by land or by water. Land carriage depends on
good commercial roads and a well-conducted carrying system (18).
Water carriage is on rivers or on the sea. River navigation is
promoted by making and keeping rivers navigable, and by uniting
rivers by means of canals and locks. These arrangements cannot
be extended beyond the boundaries of a state. Sea carriage, on the
merchant pays for freight i, for storage, handling, etc., 3, so that the
cloth stands the merchant at 14; but because the ship was a national
ship, and the other outlays were within the country, or paid to citizens,
the national capital has not lost these 4. The merchant sells the cloth
for 18. The nation gains 8, the merchant, however, only 4."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 539
contrary, is of incomparably greater extent. It depends upon a
well-organized and supported merchant-marine (19).
The danger of carrying, especially at sea, would of itself frighten
from undertakings, because only few have enough courage to risk
their whole resources, or a considerable portion of them, for a gain
which is in no proportion to the possible and often very probable
loss. 1 The costs of carriage would also mount very high on account
of this consideration, because the carrier would take into account
the risk which he undertook. The danger of carriage may be
approximately estimated, and according to this estimate the goods
and ships may be made secure for a proportional compensation.
From this making secure the business has the name insurance or
assurance, whereby the courage for commercial undertakings is
produced and increased (20).
In the most favorable situation of a state, it is not possible greatly
to extend commerce, or to maintain already extensive commerce,
without a corresponding sum of money. The presence of money is
necessary from two points of view: the state must in general not
lack money as a promoter of national exertion; in particular com-
merce must not lack an adequate fund for its undertakings (21).
The physical presence of money in a state does not give to enter-
prise the energy which comports with the purpose of commerce.
It is necessary that the money shall do its work, and shall circulate
among the members of society. It is therefore a special duty of the
state to promote the circulation, and to remove all hindrances which
might obstruct the same (22).
In case, however, for whatever cause, the circulating sum of
money is either insufficient, or diminished, means must be sought
to replace the deficiency. The work [Verrichtung] of money is as
follows: to be to its possessors the reliable representation of a certain quan-
tity of wares, to tJie effect that whenever it pleases them they may exchange
the representation for that which is represented. If it is possible for a
state to succeed in procuring, for verbal consent, or for certain other
signs, the same confidence, that, as money represented the wares,
these signs represent the money, these arbitrary signs will then accom-
1 This is almost an exact repetition of Justi, but the proposition was
probably a commonplace at the time.
540 THE CAMERALISTS
plish the work of money, and will temporarily make up completely
for its absence. No care will therefore be too great which the ruler
may devote to the maintenance of public confidence (23).
If commercial enterprises are to be carried on energetically, they
will require great sums. Only a few individual citizens in a state
have the means or the credit, and those who have both have not
always resolution enough to risk so much in undertakings from which
to be sure great gain may be expected, which however are always
exposed to an uncertain outcome. Where the means of individuals
are not sufficient, an association is formed, each member of which
risks only a small sum the more resolutely because in any event
the loss would not impair his fortune; and yet the total of these
separate contributions procures for commerce the adequate fund.
The commercial associations accordingly contribute a large portion
to the extension of commerce (24).
Through export to foreigners and import from foreigners the
commercial nations become reciprocal debtors. The discharge of
these debts with ready money would be expensive, through the car-
riage of the money to the place of payment, and also dangerous; the
money in carriage would be a considerable time unused, and the
business of commerce would be plunged into tedious straggling \Weit-
laufigkeit]. It is possible to avoid these difficulties in whole or in
part, if a state exchanges its claims with another, whereby it dis-
charges its debts in so far as the condition of their commerce with
each other permits. This exchange of reciprocal claims gave rise
to the business of dealing in exchange, which to be sure is only a
private affair, but it is always worthy of public attention, because
it either facilitates or retards general commerce, and in addition fur-
nishes useful information for the guidance of the same (25).
In the present situation of science and knowledge, all cabinets
are in such wise enlightened about the great influence of commerce
that each nation must expect to be crossed [durchkreuzt] in all under-
takings by the states with which commerce is carried on, or through
whose territory the commerce will take its course, whenever it runs
counter to their purposes. It is necessary to anticipate these hin-
drances, and at favorable opportunities, by means of negotiation, to
assure advantageous conditions both for oneself and against other
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 541
rivals. Commercial treaties consequently constitute an important
part of Handlungspolitik (16).
In order to know the status of commerce in itself and relatively
and therefrom to conclude whether the course of affairs conduces to
the utmost expansion of population, states compare the amount
which they have supplied to others with that which they have received.
This comparison of import and export is called the balance: the
plumb line in the hands of the state to show where and in what parts
commerce requires special aid (27).
From the foregoing merely general concepts we see how numerous
and far reaching are the knowledge, purposes, combinations, and
plans which must be made the basis of advantageous commerce;
and the necessity of controlling this important business through the
combined insight of capable men, and incidentally of establishing
for the conduct of commerce a special Kollegium, or a special Stelle,
is thus very obvious. The name in itself is a matter of indifference,
but this Kollegium must embrace in the circuit of its activity every-
thing which can promote the advantage of commerce (28).
The most important features of the main argument in this
volume are discussed in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS
("HANDLUNG UND FINANZ")
In two or three particulars more direct light is focused
on factors of firstrate importance for our argument by chaps,
i and ii of Sonnenfels' second volume, than by an equal portion
of any of the works thus far reviewed.
In the first place a relatively minor matter of methodology
deserves passing remark. Chap, i, on rural management,
occupies 116 pages, and chap, ii, on manufactures, 157 pages:
a total of 273 out of the 564 pages in the body of the book.
Attention is called to this division as a commentary on the
lack of precision in the title Handlung which for reasons stated
above we are obliged to render "commerce." 1 It must be
said, on the other hand, that a considerable portion of chap, ii
is concerned with relations of manufacture to trade, primarily
domestic, so that commerce in the strict sense creeps into the
discussion earlier than the titles of chapters would indicate.
Nor is the mere proportion of pages given to various topics
a safe guide to the logical value assigned to different portions
of subject-matter. It remains true, however, that Sonnenfels'
classification of material under the term Handlung was ex-
tremely uncritical.
In the second place, it must be admitted that we are not
entitled to infer from a book of this type anything very specific
about the actual administrations for which the book offers
a technology. To what extent the government of the German
states as a whole, or of any of them, approached the ideal set
forth in Sonnenfels' theory must be determined by other sorts
of evidence. Neither the original sources nor even the second-
1 Vide above, p. 525.
542
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 543
ary authorities on this line of evidence can be brought within
the compass of our present argument; the former, because they
are inaccessible to investigators on this side the ocean, the latter,
because a digest of the material would require a separate
volume. We must repeat then that we have to do merely
with the theory of cameral administration as it appeared in the
literary versions.
With these qualifications, we may state positively, third,
that one must be disqualified by invincible prejudice if candid
study of this book did not arouse a certain degree of admiration
for the comprehensiveness, and prudent attention to details,
involved in the ideals of cameralism. By comparison with
administrations which attempted anything approaching the
systematic and thorough management here outlined, democracy
as practiced in America has been slovenly, improvident, and
reckless.
In the fourth place, this second volume reflects at its best
the fundamental cameralistic conception of the state. With-
out referring to the more abstract legal theories of the relation
of the concepts "state," "government," "people," etc., the
working resultant of all these was an assumption of a com-
munity pictured as a great landed estate, 'which was such a
unity that every part and member had to be considered as
having an importance for the whole, and the task of the admin-
istration of the whole was to see that nothing was neglected
which might serve to insure that efficiency of every resource
within the whole which might contribute to the well-being of
the aggregate. Whatever our philosophical preconceptions,
they are tending toward a common expression in terms of values
ascertained and agreed upon in the course of experience.
Certain things are found to be worth while. If other things
interfere with those which we judge to be worth while, they
must drop out of competition and give place to the more highly
valued things. Suppose a modern democrat has no tolerance
544 THE CAMERALISTS
whatsoever for the basic political philosophy of cameralism.
He could hardly be intolerant enough to deny that in this book
Sonnenfels has done something worthy of praise. He has
drawn a wonderfully farsighted and inclusive sketch of things
that people must learn to provide for, in some way or other,
before they can make the most of life. It is difficult to show
this without reproducing his discussion in detail, but the follow-
ing pages contain an attempt to digest the argument in a way
that will confirm this estimate.
At the same time our purpose calls for attention to the
embryonic state of the concepts employed in the argument.
We must keep in mind that Sonnenfels' problems were not our
problems. His social science did not correspond precisely
with any division or definition of social science today, much
more than the "rhetoric" of the schoolmen tallied with any
field of knowledge recognized in modern classifications.
Especially must we discriminate between the administrative
problems which he proposed and problems of pure eco-
nomics. The latter are implicit in the former, but as we
have repeatedly pointed out, we misinterpret and misvalue
the theories of this period if we construe them as theorems
applied by their authors to the more general problems of the
abstract economists.
The last proposition is in order at once, when we begin
to examine the concept Landwirthschaft (chap. i). Neither
in England nor in America does anything exist today which
quite corresponds with the activities which Sonnenfels included
under the term. Let us render it as we have in previous cases,
"rural management." The term applies, however, to a con-
ception of the situation which it is difficult for Americans to
keep in mind. The whole national territory is presumed to
be virtually a farm, to be operated for the advantage of the
state; and it is the right and duty of the government to see
that every foot of the farm is thriftily cultivated. The occu-
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 545
pants of the soil are regarded as indentured to the stale, and it
is the right and duty of the government to dispose of their
labor-ability so as to make the land most fruitful, just as it is
the business of the managers of a modern factory to organize
the help so that their combined labor will be most profitable
for the company. That is, "rural management" connoted to
the cameralist, and to the governments of the quasi-absolutistic
states, a plane of administrative function which correlated
individual extractive occupations in a way virtually unknown
in America. Our Department of Agriculture, our Geological
Survey, our irrigation and forestry enterprises, our agricultural
colleges and experiment stations are recent and partial approxi-
mations to certain features involved in the German system;
but they rest upon a quite different theory of the relation of
the state to individuals, and for that reason are essentially
unlike much that cameralistic "rural management" included.
On the other hand, this phrase did not include the special
technique of extractive industries. Both sides of this formal
description of the concept will be illustrated by details in the
following re'sume'.
Sec. 30 begins with betrayal of the complexity of the classi-
fication which the author adopted. He says:
Rural management is regarded in Polizey as the occupation which
provides means of life; in its commercial functions [Handlnngsleis-
tung] as also providing the material [Stofi] .
It is added at once that the phrase is used to include the
procuring of raw material from all three realms of nature, "the
vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the mineral
kingdom." Sonnenfels proposes, however, to deal principally
with agricultural management, including stock-raising, in so
far as the latter is combined with the former; and "only
in the political aspect, not in practical technique, which it is
the business of the so-called Oekonomie to treat." The stand-
546 THE CAMERALISTS
point from which tne discussion starts is further indicated
(31) by the specifications:
"Considered from the side of the state, the perfection of rural
management consists in the best possible utilization of the earth 1
in accordance with the demands of subsistence [Unterhalls] and of
commerce." A note adds: "From the side of the proprietor, it
is the best combination of the largest yield with the least expenditure"
[Vorauslage].
This resuk will have to be sought:
I, by utilizing all the earth; II, by utilizing it in the best way
as respects systems of cultivation; and III, by utilizing it as required
by relations to the other connected or dependent occupations. The
use of all the earth, and the best use of the same, coincide in many
ways in obstacles and in furtherance.
Sec. 32 seems to start upon the trail of a cardinal sociologi-
cal distinction, but it is immediately dropped, and nothing is
done to follow out the fundamental implications of the distinc-
tion. The first sentence reads:
The earth is either private property, or the means of the state.*
The dictum follows that:
In order to make full use of private property, the proprietor must
have first the necessary power, and second the necessary motives.
'The word is Erdreich. We might of course render it "land,"
but this would immediately force upon it an interpretation as equivalent
to that term in its later technical sense. Our version is chosen to avoid
that anachronism and to preserve the archaic connotations of the term.
* " Das Erdreich ist entweder Privateigenthum oder Vermogen des
Staates." This juxtaposition of Eigenthum and Vermdgen brings out
the fact previously noted, that the two terms are sometimes used inter-
changeably, and sometimes with an approach to respect for their ety-
mological distinctions. The result is uncritical and fallacious German
usage. Translation into English usually makes the matter worse. It
is a correct general proposition that at this period the class of writers we
are dealing with were unconcerned about precise discrimination between
the ethical, the legal, and the merely objective material connotations
of the two words.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 547
Lack of means for rural management may be regarded from two
sides (33) ; namely, the poverty of the rural folk as a class, or of the
particular cultivator. The former condition comes from such
unavoidable circumstances as first, wars, loss of cattle, failure of
crops, the poverty of the present possessor, or only from his tempo-
rary embarrassment.
Each of these types of misfortune is treated as deserving of pub-
lic attention. Means of extinguishing fires are to be provided by
the local administration; the dwellings are to be in village groups,
not scattered over the land, and the garden plots are to be located
between the houses instead of behind them, the barns to be separated
from the houses, etc., in order that there may be the minimum dan-
ger from fire with the maximum facility of controlling it. Districts
should also maintain systems of mutual fire insurance; proprietors
should be made to see that their interests demand such precautions.
In case such protection is lacking, the cultivator who is embarrassed
must be assisted either by the proprietor or by the state. Mere
negative help, which is customary, i. e., remission of the dues, does
not meet the case. Active help must be given, e. g., lumber, building
materials, farming implements; seed must be furnished gratuitously,
or at least on the easiest terms. If the individual proprietors are not
in a position to do this, it must be done by the state. The alternative
is sterilization of the soil, declining value of the revenues of the state,
and diminishing population. To remedy these conditions is more
expensive than to prevent them. The direct and indirect conse-
quences of cattle diseases are among the important objects of public
attention. To prevent them veterinary schools should be introduced
(36), and the causes of the diseases should be investigated. 1 The
price of salt, and provision that farmers shall have easy access to
it are important in this connection, and should be carefully looked
to by the state. In case of failure of crops, as in case of fire or war,
the cultivator must be helped either by the proprietor or the state
to raise his crops the following year. The state must take measures
to prevent exorbitant or oppressive terms in case of loans by individ-
A note states that the so-called Ecole vtttrinairt was opened in
Vienna in 1766. At first only treatment of horses was attempted, but
attention was later extended to all species of farm animals.
548 THE CAMERALISTS
uals (37). In case an individual proprietor is too poor properly to
cultivate his tract, the state is in danger of suffering loss of a portion
of its dues. There is therefore no reason why the state should not
have the right to require that the proprietor should permit others
to cultivate the land on shares, or to purchase it. The very circum-
stances which have caused the embarrassment of the proprietor may
make such purchaser or farmer hard to find. The flocking of per-
sons of means to the cities leaves the cultivation of the soil to an
inferior class of people. In case forced sale is necessary, the state
should provisionally take over the property at a fair price, in order
that the possessor may not be compelled to make too great sacrifice
(38). Land is often uncultivated, not by reason of the perma-
nent but the temporary poverty of the possessor (39). It is an
unpardonable mistake of the law-making power to aggravate this
helplessness by exaction of the usual dues. The proprietor who
has allowed the tenant to fall into arrears should be declared to have
forfeited the amount.
Laws should seek to prevent excessive debt by setting a limit to
the amount which may be borrowed (40). An exception should
be made in case the loan is necessary for actual cultivation of the
land, and the conditions of loans for that purpose should be made
especially favorable, and should be under the oversight of the proper
officials.
Unthrift on the part of proprietors will be checked by the intro-
duction of supervisors of rural management [Landwirthschajtsauj-
sicht] v4i), consisting of the officials of the circuit [Kreis] to whom
a subordinate might be added, and the private managers subordinated
to these. 1
A second means of preventing neglect of proper cultivation is
afforded by the dues to the state (42). That is, every piece of
arable land should be taxed on a moderate estimate of what
it would yield if properly cultivated. Thus the occupant will
be compelled to cultivate the land or to pay dues for land which
yields him no crop, while the industrious cultivator receives as it
1 The word Oekonomieaufseher is used later in the section apparently
as a designation for the officials constituted supervisors of agricultural
management.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 549
were a reward for his industry, in being assessed only on a medium
rate of yield.
If these means are not sufficient to secure good cultivation, a
third remains. It seems severe, but it is not if the others have failed
(43), viz.: In case a piece of land has remained uncultivated two or
three years, unless the proprietor can offer to the supervisors an ade-
quate excuse, it shall be declared forfeited, and transferred to some-
one who will cultivate it. Such a provision is based on the claim
which the state has upon the private property of the citizens, for
proportional contribution for maintenance of the whole. The
forfeiture here proposed can no more be regarded as an invasion of
property rights than the law of limitations. The security of property
is only conditionally assured by the state, viz., in case the private
proprietor does not impair the property of the state.
The lack of courage on the part of the cultivator has its ground
in the opinion that his labor is lost, and that he will not reap its fruits
(44). The insecurity of property, the rate of taxation, and the
excessively favored love of hunting, on the part both of the sovereign
prince and of the private owners, may be regarded as the chief causes
of this lack of courage, and the multitude of idle days may be added.
In case the insecurity of property has its origin in the defective
fundamental order [Grundverfassung] of a country, it will always
be difficult for the laws to limit the evil (45).' If the private posses-
sors .considered, however, that such fundamental order made against
their own advantage, they would not oppose abrogation of the same.
The right which is based on ancient possession is made very question-
able through the older and imprescriptible rights of mankind.*
Where the tenants in a certain sense are regarded only as farmers
1 The term Grundverfassung, in the idiom of this period, had the
effect of a pun. It seems to have carried partially a literal and par-
tially a derived meaning. That is, the concept in the author's mind
seems to have been a blur of the two notions, land tenure and constitution
in something approaching the modern sense.
8 This is the passage cited by Roscher in support of the proposition:
"It is characteristic of Sonnenfels' absolutism to be more liberal at the
expense of private rights than at the expense of governmental power."
Vide above, p. 485. Roscher's point appears to be well taken.
55 THE CAMERALISTS
[Pachtinhaber] the lords of the soil think they do wisely when they
transfer a thrifty farmer to the holdings of a negligent one. Instead
of increasing the industry of each, they ruin both. The negligent
one shirks work because he is negligent, because this negligence is
rewarded, and he keeps hoping for the same reason to be transferred
to a better cultivated location. The thrifty one is discouraged and
refuses to make improvements which would give occasion for another
transfer. Since this right has such great influence upon the condition
of rural management in general, we cannot but approve a system
which would assure to the peasants a tenure for life at least, and
the abolition of this freedom of transfer. 1
The evictions [Abstijtungen] which the officials are sometimes
empowered to make must also be reckoned as unfavorable to the
security of property (45, 46). They must consequently never be a
one-sided procedure. Even the economic supervisors must have
their hands bound in this respect; how much more the private
owners.
The tiller of the soil will work only hard enough to maintain
life, if all the rest of his produce is taken from him by landlord and
government (47). Experience proves how little statesmanship
there is in the proposition, "The peasant is most industrious when
he is miserable."
Sees. 48 and 49 recite some of the hardships which hunting rights
inflict on cultivators of the soil, and point out the depressing effect
of these hardships upon cultivation in general. The author observes
that the restrictions which the laws ostensibly put on these rights arc
always ineffective in practice. The indemnities allowed to the farm-
ers are awarded by the parties who inflict the losses, and conse-
quently do not compensate the loser, while it is impossible to repair
' A note (p. 55) speaks of "Die okon. Gescllschafl zu Petersburg."
The note continues: "The organization in 1765 offered a prize on this
subject: 'Is it to the advantage of the state that the peasants should
jxwsess property ? Docs this question do credit to a government ? to
our century ? to mankind ? ' The better solutions are the monograph
which received the prize, under the title, La Felicite publique and another
by Bearde de 1'Abbayc. Meritorious also were those of Woelnor, Mark,
Ocder, and Merkel."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 55 1
the damage done to the national productiveness in general. The
time and loss of rest expended on protecting crops against game
are a great drain on the resources of the country. An ordinance of
Joseph II, dated January, 1786, is called a long-overdue attempt
to protect the general welfare of many against a very equivocal
pleasure of the few.
The depressing influence of fast days and other holidays upon
agriculture is referred to again in 49, and complaint is made that
"the obstinacy or the caprice of the pastor" determines whether the
peasants shall be permitted to take advantage of good weather on such
a day, after protracted rain, to make sure of the crop for which they
have toiled earlier in the season. While Sonnenfels here betrays
independence of ecclesiastical tradition, yet one detects in his tone
no such bitterness toward the clergy as is frequently exhibited by
Justi.
In 50 the author verges upon economic generalization in the
Smithian sense. Thus he says: "The more incentives to labor
are presented to the farmer, the greater will be his diligence. The
first motive for him is the support of self and family; the second, the
tribute [Entrichttmg] to which he is bound; the third, the desire
to lay by something in case of need, for the improvement of his con-
dition, or for his family. The products of the soil must not fall below
a value which affords the hope that all three motives may be satisfied.
In determining this price the interests of agriculture seem to be
to a certain extent opposed to those of other kinds of business [Hand-
lungsgeschajte]. If the price of agricultural products is high, the
price of every manufactured product must rise, whereby one of the
principal qualities of a ware, cheapness, is lost. If the price of agri-
cultural products is low, it is not sufficiently encouraging for the
farmer, and he finds it to his advantage to produce 1 less, because from
half the crop He can then receive a like sum, and save himself trouble,
time, seed, etc. Only the medium price remains therefore where
the interests of both branches can be combined. This medium price
may be considered in its essence or merely numerically."
The subject is continued in 51: "In its essence the medium
price is always and everywhere the same: the price, namely, which
> Erzielen; vide above, pp. 532 and 534.
552 THE CAMERALISTS
stands in such relation to the condition of commerce in general 1 that
thereby land management may get its proportional share of the gain
which comes from commerce. This sharing in the general advan-
tage is not only just, it is also necessary. The state is under obliga-
tions to observe and maintain equality between the members of society
according to the degree of their reciprocal contribution to the general
welfare. Where this equality is not observed the neglected part
lacks those encouragements which must be the spur to and the real
soul of diligence. It is also unavoidably demanded in order that
the worth of the agricultural products may procure for the seller
adequate means of satisfying his other wants, that in the degree
in which the wants either rise in price, or otherwise, as through the
prosperity of commerce, the prosperity of the working class, and
with the same the number of their wants increases the farmer shall
find enough in the price of his products to procure either the higher-
priced or the more numerous wants. If his way" to this result is
closed by an arbitrary fixing of the price, it would follow in the one
case that his wants would not be satisfied, whereby he would be forced
to interrupt his labor; or, in the other case, his condition would be
at least relatively more unfortunate than that of the other working
classes. The peasant class would consequently be abandoned,
because it would be eager to improve its lot by going over to the other
classes. Those that would remain in the class would be without
means, or would avenge themselves by indolence for the unrighteous-
ness of society."
The conclusion is drawn in 52: "It is consequently necessary
from so many grounds to assure to land management through the
medium price its share of the gains of commerce. But the regulation
of the medium price cannot occur through the taxes, but through
the reciprocal agreements of purchasers and sellers in the market
place, if no hindrances are otherwise placed in the way of the free-
dom of these compacts.' If the varying market price of several
ordinary years is compared, and the average reckoned, this will be
' The word is Handlung, and with the variation noted in $50 it
illustrates the lack of uniformity in usage throughout the book.
* A note cites as such hindrance the ancient right of the lord to an
option on the produce before it is taken to market.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 553
taken as the numerical mean, which is variable according to circum-
stances."
Still further, in 53, Sonnenfels has an elementary statement of
the demand side of price, with the corollary that "the state must see
that the number of sellers is not too great, and also that a proportional
number of customers for agricultural products may be assured."
In 54 natural variations of demand and supply are further discussed
in contrast with forced variations, e. g., through constraint upon the
peasants to pay their taxes at a certain time. The closer this date
is to the harvest the greater the disadvantage to the farmer. The
cheapness of farm products at such a time is one of the principal
causes of the ruin of agriculture. "The state has therefore not
merely to moderate the fiscal burdens upon agriculture, but to pre-
vent cheapening of the produce by spreading the payment over
various periods." 1
The sections just epitomized (50-54) are notable for
several reasons. In the first place, they present the familiar
conception of the state as a something which is set over against
the component elements of the nation. In the second place,
they consistently presume that the state can and must regulate
prices. In the third place, they show that some of the elemen-
tary facts of market valuation, which eventually show the
impotence of statute law against economic law, were beginning
to make an impression. Sonnenfels does not go very far
toward drawing the involved conclusions, but the difference
between him and Justi in this connection is not so much in
variations of view about particulars, as in the extent to which
Sonnenfels betrays a sort of premonition that something deeper
than laws of the state is the key to the situation.
Sec. 55 analyzes demand into that of national and that of foreign
consumers. As to the former^ it is not enough that there should be.
a favorable proportion between agricultural products and consum-
ers, i. e., 'a large population; it is at the same time necessary that
1 A note names Michaelmas (September 29) as the time shown
by experience to be fairest for the payment of agricultural taxes.
554 THE CAMERALISTS
this population shall be distributed so that local demand and supply
shall be balanced. Otherwise the purchasers will control prices
at one point, and sellers at another. The former situation tends to
ruin agriculture. Hence disproportionate flocking of people to
chief cities is the main cause of the decline of agriculture (56).
Those states therefore are most prosperous in this respect which
have numerous provincial cities in which the landed gentry reside.
Here manufactures will also spring up, and become middle points
of consumption, through which money will circulate uniformly in
all localities. If these intermediate cities did not exist, this division
of consumers might be otherwise secured, e. g., by forbidding the
nobility not in the service of the government permanently to leave
their estates, and by distributing over the country those consumers
that are not necessarily located in the capital, e. g., factories, alms-
houses, universities, a great number of cloisters, etc. From the
same point of view 57 discusses the operation of intermediate tariffs
between provinces of the same state; the inference is that both
agriculture and the state suffer if artificial barriers limit the extent
of the market.
But the demand of national consumers cannot, at the present
rate of population, assure to agriculture the price necessary for its
encouragement (58).' Hope of foreign markets alone can stimu-
late the farmer to cultivate all his land, and give him courage for
better cultivation. This hope will be animated by freedom of export.
"Opinions about the advantage of free trade in grain, and about
the limits of the freedom, have varied among times, states, and writers
(59). Early times did not consider agriculture in connection with
commerce, and fear of scarcity long restricted export of grain. On
the contrary, writers of eminence have urged unlimited freedom in
this respect at all times and places. The purpose and the effect of
free export of grain must be to assure a sufficiently remunerative
price for agricultural products without embarrassing national con-
sumption. This combination is secured in a freedom of export
which is not directly limited in quantity but by rise of price above
1 The number that the land could support per square mile (German)
is estimated by Sonnenfels as 1,500; this after comparison with Siiss-
milch's estimate of 2,750, and Vauban's of 2,361.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 555
an accepted mean. In application this principle will have the expres-
sion: Everyone has freedom to export grain so long as the price at
such and such markets does not exceed such and such figures." 1
"If administrative policy adopts this view, it rests on the prin-
ciple that the mean price is a sign of adequate supply [Feilschajt]
(60). If this is not the case the state is infallibly and immediately
informed of it by the advancing price. At the same time the counter-
influence begins to work. Export ceases, and the national market
contains what had been exported. Thereupon the price falls. The
mean price and therewith freedom of export are restored.
"England began in 1689 to furnish the other nations an illus-
tration that freedom of foreign trade in grain not only supports the
cultivator in this industry, but is also capable of bringing agriculture
to perfection (61). Since that time other nations have tried still
harder to promote agriculture, and through this effort foreign trade
in grain has been greatly hindered. All the more must the law-giver
remove the internal hindrances and must assist the merchants by
external means, e. g., premiums on export, etc., so that they can
compete with the merchants of other nations."
These sections have been reviewed at such length because
they contain a neglected link in the chain of evidence which
accounts for the tendencies in political theory, both abstract
and technological, for the following half-century. The
remainder of the chapter is of minor importance for our chief
purpose. If affords cumulative evidence, however, of the
minuteness with which cameralism analyzed elements of
national prudence.
The immediately following sections (62, 63) refer to the prob-
lems of utilizing lands that for various reasons are wholly or partially
uncultivated. Sees. 64-79 develop the same problem in connection
with such details as means of assuring a proper proportion between
cultivators of the soil and other classes; discouragement of luxury;
restriction of the numbers of the servant class; the loss of labor
X A note begins with the words: "Die Oekonomisten, ein Zweig
der Encyklopedisten, fodern eine unter alien Umstlinden freye Ausfuhr."
The same use of the term Oekenomisten occurs in a note to 61.
S5 6 THE CAMERALISTS
through military service; colonization of laborers; means of making
new settlements prosperous; reclamation of waste lands through
clearing of forests, the draining of swamps, the construction of dykes
and protection of the same. Sees. 80-107 elaborate the following
proposition: "In order that the earth may be used to the best pur-
pose in respect to cultivation, it is necessary: 7, that the rural folk
shall possess the necessary knowledge of cultivation and of agricul-
tural improvements; II, that no hindrances shall stand in the way
of applying their knowledge; III, land which is devoted to other
purposes than cultivation must be managed with skill." 1
The center of attention under the first clause is the introduction
and development of various sorts of agricultural schools, and means
of scattering the information gathered by such schools among the
peasantry. 8
The second clause deals chiefly with hardships that come
from the methods of concentrating or dividing the land, from
the taxing system, or from survivals of feudal liabilities. On
the first subject it is asserted that "the French economists are
in general in favor of cultivation on a large scale, and assume
1 In this part of the book the following are referred to: "Wiegancl,
tier Verfasser des verniinftigen Landwirths;" no further clue is given;
"Young, Politische Arithmetik;" Ingram, in Enc. Brit., title "Arthur
Young," says: ". . . . in 1774 his Political Arithmetic, .... was soon
translated into several foreign languages." Other references are:
Nickols, Avant et Defavant, de la France, etc., e*dit nouvelle d'Amst. ;
Principes de la legislation universelle, author not named, but cited as repre-
senting "die franzosischen Oekonomisten;" Arbuthnot, Sur I'utilitf des
grandes Fermes et des riches Fermiers, traduit par Freville; Trait 6 poli-
tique et oeconomique sur les communes, ou observation sur I' agriculture, sur
I'origine, la destination et I'etat actuel des biens et communes, etc.; Getting,
Prcisschrift in dem hanoverischcn Magazin, p. 764; Peningthon, Rffte-
xions sur les avantages qui resultent du portage des communes pour itre
dffraichis et mis en clos; Schlettwein in dem hanov. Magazin, 704.
For instance, "An ordinance of the Austrian states, to the effect
that the calendars for the common people should not be printed, without
previous approval of the oconomischen Gesellschaften. These societies
are considered among the most important of these educational agencies.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 557
as certain that it is not possible to cultivate small holdings
profitably" (p. 128). In the same connection Arbuthnot is
cited as representing English opinion to the same effect. The
third clause is devoted to three classes of uses of the land by
which agriculture is the loser: meadows, common pastures,
and tracts reserved for beauty.
Chap, ii, on manufactures, begins with the definition:
"Manufactures, in the most extended and literal sense, are
all occupations which give a new form to any stuff whatsoever."
Millers, bakers, and all similar workers are expressly included
in the class of manufaturers. More specifically, manufac-
turers are those species of artisans who make a stock, or so-
called merchants' goods. 1 In the more proper sense,
Manufacture is the correlation of all the kinds of labor which
are demanded in order to make a ware complete, that is, to make
it marketable. The manufacturer is accordingly the citizen who
guides this correlation.
The purpose of manufactures, from the standpoint of the indi-
vidual manufacturer, is to provide support and gain; from the stand-
point of the whole stale, to increase the occupations; in other words,
through manufactures to give work and employment to a part of the
people which land management does not employ.
The paragraph continues:
From this point of view, from which manufactures must be
contemplated by the public administration, the designation by which
the economists 2 mean to depreciate the value of artisanship and of
the whole class of manufacturers, is a senseless play on words. The
amount advanced to manufactures is called by them "an unproduc-
1 Welche Verlag oder sogenanntes Kaufmannsgut machett.
3 The context brings out most clearly the shade of meaning which
Sonnenfels associated with this particular use of the term Oekonomisten;
that is, it was pretty nearly coextensive with the class Physiocrat and
it did not mean, as it did later, "one who is studying problems relating
to wealth." It meant "one who adheres to the peculiar theory about
sources of wealth advocated by the physiocrats."
558 THE CAMERALISTS
tive outlay" [unfruchtbare Auslage]; the class of manufacturers, "the
unproductive class," because, in the physical sense of the word,
they do not create [hervorbfingen] anything. The essential thing
is, however, not whether manufactures create, but, whether they
enlarge occupation, that is, whether they increase the means of sup-
port for the people, and herewith the population, the welfare of the
state from within, the security and prestige of the same from without.
This is the effect of manufactures. They themselves really originate
[erzielen] nothing; they are however the immediate occasion for
the origination of the stuff, which without the transformation of
artisanship would have no worth and consequently would not be
originated.
A note illustrates the author's meaning by the specification:
"Without the prospect of linen, flax would have little or no use.
Worked into Brabantian lace the price rises to such an extent that
the worth of the stuff entirely disappears." The text continues:
Manufacturers "are the immediate occasion for the enlargement
of agriculture, for they increase the consumption of the necessities
of life, which would otherwise be reduced to the demands of the culti-
vating families, and consequently would be without value. They
even occasion a real growth of national wealth. For, although,
according to the calculation of the physiocrats, in the case of an arti-
ficial product all parts of the investment [Vorauslage] can be resolved
into products of the soil [Erdreich], yet in the case of wares disposed
of abroad the gain of the merchant cannot be classified under that
head, but is a real addition either in equivalents of wealth [Numera-
rien] or in wares taken in exchange. 1 More than that, when the
Genevan clock-maker constructs of brass and steel worth perhaps
two gulden a clock which he sells abroad for thirty gulden, and then
in exchange for the thirty gulden imports fifteen measures of grain,
is not his skilled labor quite as fruit-bringing for Geneva as that of
a fanner who has got fifteen measures from his field ? On the other
hand, when a state raises a surplus of agricultural products, but is
1 A note adds the illustration: "A bale of cloth stands the merchant
in the marketplace of Sinigaglia 1,500. He sells it for 2,000. The gain
of 500 is increase of the mass."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 559
surrounded by states that are devoted to agriculture, its surplus
will find no sale, and because there is no prospect of disposing of it
no surplus will be raised. But a silk factory is established. The
laborers engaged in it consume the produce of the field. The silks
are exported. The state receives in exchange their worth. Is
it not indifferent to the state whether it exports grain in its original
form, or grain transformed into silk ? Only, that the skilled labor
obtained a sale which agriculture could not have obtained; only,
that the skilled labor furnishes a growth in occupation and so a growth
in population."
Sec. no draws the conclusion, which serves as the presump-
tion of the rest of the book:
Manufactures are thus, in the economy of the state, not unfruit-
ful, but a useful and an indispensable enlargement of occupation. In
the arranging [Anordnung] of manufactures the grades of promotion
are to be measured according to their contribution to the purpose
of the state, that is, according as the general mass of occupation is
enlarged and made more permanent. The general mass of occupa-
tion, however, gains only when artisan labor is a means of multiply-
ing the products of agriculture. 1 Those manufactures accordingly
deserve the first attention for which national stuff is either actually
in hand, or might be had with little trouble. Without observing this
consideration, agriculture not only loses a possible sale, and conse-
quently a portion of the occupation which it could appropriate; but
the manufacturing labor will be dependent upon those nations which
furnish the raw stuff. Therefore the occupation of the people, from
this side also, will exist only by favor [bittoveisc], that is, only so long
1 A note expands the argument in this way: "The harm which may
come to a nation in the various branches of its welfare is affirmative or
negative. The affirmative is diminution of the greatness which it pos-
sesses: if, for example, one thousand of the citizens emigrate, or a half-
million capital flows out without compensation. The negative is failure
to realize the growth which is within the power of the nation: if, for
example, the foreign trade is conducted with foreign carriage, whereby
the nation loses the cost of carriage in the selling price. In the calcula-
tion of political commerce, gains not made are entered on the debit side.
That is, what might have been gained and was not is reckoned as a loss."
560 THE CAMERALISTS
as the nation from which the raw stuff is received either docs not
work it up itself, or it is not taken under more favorable conditions
by another nation, or for some reason or other the supplying nation
makes the export of the stuff more difficult, or finally for political
reasons the supplying nation stops production of this stuff altogether.
Continuing the argument, m proceeds:
It is worth while to draw out the consequences of such a situation
still farther, in order to reach conviction of another truth, viz.: that
it is less harmful never to have extended occupations above a medium
number, than ultimately to lose something from a greater number.
In the former case, to be sure, the state will enjoy only a moderate
degree of prosperity, but it will maintain itself on that level. In
the other case the reversal of its prosperity will be almost without
limits. In such circumstances many people lose their occupation.
That is, they no longer receive the sum of money which they pre-
viously used for their support. Since it is not easy at once to absorb
an unemployed number into the ranks of the general gainful agen-
cies, the laborers who have lost their employment will be reduced
to the most miserable circumstances, and perhaps find themselves
compelled to emigrate in order to find ways of earning a living. I
will not follow out the consequences of diminution of the number
of marriages and other harmful accompanying effects, but restrict
myself to the most immediate.
The section closes with a brief but clear indication of the
different effects of a contraction of the market through with-
drawal of the purchasing power of the unemployed.
It would be difficult to epitomize the remainder of the chap-
ter, and a very general description must suffice. It must be
said with emphasis that this chapter would repay study today.
The men who are engaged in callings which apply this sort of
knowledge usually prefer to get their information by doing
the thing itself, rather than by consulting books. The men who
are responsible for the parliamentary process of enacting public
demands into law do not as a rule in this country attain emi-
nence as students of comparative legislation. The programmes
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 561
of more than a century ago do not appear to impress them as
likely to throw light on the problems of modern life. The
fact is that democracy has yet to learn how to co-operate as
effectively on the basis of its fundamental conceptions, as
quasi-absolutism did on the basis which democrats repudiate.
The German benevolent despotisms of the eighteenth century
took a more comprehensive survey of the different factors
which must lay the foundation of general prosperity than
American democracy has learned to take. These benevolent
despotisms accordingly planned more intelligent co-operation
of their interests and agencies than Americans have yet devised.
The German system wasted at the governmental end, on the
expenditures of the court, and on the military system, much
that this prudent thrift at the popular end enabled states to
save. On the other hand, we lose in actual convenience, com-
fort, and security of life much that the German paternalistic
system secured. Without surrendering any principle of
democratic political philosophy whatsoever, Americans may
well study the details of German quasi-absolutistic adminis-
tration, in order to learn from it elements of public and private
prudence which our pride of individualism has caused us to
neglect, and greatly to our own hurt.
The remainder of the chapter elaborates an analysis along
these lines:
A manufacture occupies more people in proportion to the amount
of preparation necessary before the stuff which it handles becomes
complete wares, and in proportion to the generality of its use (112).
The more common use of a ware depends upon it's sale to the greater
part of the people; that is, it must be of a quality and price which
the small means of the great numbers can purchase (113). It
would be at bottom to the advantage of manufacturers to give to their
wares the four features: cheap price, good quality, external beauty,
and variety. Shortsighted manufacturers should be compelled
to recognize this principle, so that they would not in the end make
562 THE CAMERALISTS
foreign purchases more desirable, and thus diminish the amount of
home occupation (114). In order to be able to sell wares of a poor
quality at a high price, the manufacturer must be in a position to
control the supply, and it must be something that the public needs.
If competitors enter into rivalry, the conditions are reversed. The
conjunction of the above conditions alone can insure to manufac-
tured articles those qualities which will multiply their sale (115).
So soon as an occupation yields profits, it is attractive enough for
itself; hence, to promote the active combination of factors above
named, not only affirmative means are necessary, but also negative,
i. e., removal of all hindrances to industry and zeal, e. g., monopolies,
exclusive societies, special privileges, manufactures supported by
the prince, exclusive guilds, and disproportionate levies upon a
manufacture. Examination of these hindrances in order will call
attention to principles which may never be neglected in conducting
manufactures (116-32). l
Throughout this discussion the word Zusammenfluss defies
translation. Collating all the passages in which it occurs
one would decide that the concept which the author generally
associated with it was "concurrence of all the conditions neces-
sary to insure the four qualities of manufactured goods
enumerated above." In certain cases it is plainly used in the
sense of "concourse," either of buyers, or sellers, or laborers,
or capitalists, as the case may be. In other passages it means
"agreement between competitors;" in others it apparently
puts the emphasis on the competition itself; while again the
1 While containing no distinctly new view, these sections show decided
advance in maturity over Becher's treatment of Monopolium and Propo-
lium. Vide above, pp. izSff. Sonnenfels' major premise throughout the
discussion is that the maximum powers of the state are not developed
unless the conditions are maintained in which goods are manufactured
within the nation in conformity with the four specifications. A very
fair anticipation of the modern argument against governmental conduct
of industry appears in 126 ff. In 130 the reference occurs: " Sur les
compagnies et les maitrises traduit de PAnglois. Chinki histoire
Chochin chinoise, p. Coyer."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 563
chief reference seems to be to the idea of a confluence of manu-
facturing enterprise into channels that would provide a suffi-
cient supply of goods. Sonnenfels apparently regards the word
as a sort of technical term, but it is not confined to a precise
idea.
Passing to another phase of the subject the analysis con-
tinues :
If the hindrances mentioned are out of the way, the zeal of indus-
try will be unrestrained, and its fortunate consequence will be the
perfection of manufactures. Each of the qualities which we have
specified as necessary to this perfection springs from a multitude
of separate parts, knowledge of which is necessary, and it will not
be practicable in considering them not to cast side glances at foreign
commerce (133).
Thereupon still more intensive analysis is undertaken of
the qualities of wares posited as essential, and of the conditions
requisite to insure them. Sees. 134-68 might be set apart
under the title, "The Elements Which Enter into the Price of
Manufactured Goods." Sees. 169-82 might be entitled,
"The Elements Which Enter into the Quality of Manufactured
Goods." Under the corresponding title, "The Elements
Which Enter into the Beauty of Manufactured Goods," we
should mark off a briefer passage, 183, 184. In a general
way an appropriate designation for the remainder of the chap-
ter (185-202) would be, "Factors Involved in Assuring
Variety of Goods." The details are largely technical primarily
on the side, of manufacture, or trade, or administrative policy,
as the case may be; and so do not fall immediately within the
scope of our inquiry; but the underlying criterion gives the
discussion its principal significance. The persistent question
is always by implication ultimate: "What line of conduct
will conduce to the largest consuming ability of the largest
number of people, and so to the strength of the state ?"
The passage cannot be dismissed without certain minor
564 THE CAMERALISTS
observations. Thus, the discussion of the terms "cheap"
[wohlfeil], "price," and "value" reflects a critical spirit quite
in accord with that of Adam Smith. 1
The proposition with which Sonnenfels covers the whole
subject of the price of manufactured goods is :
The price at which the manufacturer can part with his wares
comprises the sum of all the separate outlays which were made up
to the time of sale, with addition of the profit (136).
This decidedly empirical formula is then translated into
detail. The elements of price upon what the author puts
emphasis are:
buildings, lumber, and all other common necessities, purchase of
material, wages, carriages, insurance premiums, import and export
duties, interest on the capital, exchange, in case of wares requiring
foreign purchases, and profit.
The discussion does not deal with abstractions, but general-
izes business prudence. The spirit of the whole may be illus-
trated by such a passage as the following:
Not even for the advantage of a manufacture established in the
province is it advisable to put restrictions on removal of raw material
to another province. For this outgo will not occur so long as buyers
are to be found in the locality of its origin who offer acceptable terms
of purchase. If it were desired however to give the manufacturer
a one-sided advantage, this would amount to promotion of industry
[Aemsigkeit] at the cost of land management. Then only can the
state hope for permanent advantage when it supports both at the
As evidence we may quote the note to 135, viz.: "Die Oekono-
misten erklaren den Werth: Das Maass des Bodens welches in dcr
Erzielung enthalten ist. Dieser BegrifT, ist eben so undcutlich, als
unrichtig. Das niimliche Maass Erdreichs von besserer oder schlech-
terer physischen Beschaffenheit mit besserer oder schlechterer Bestellung
tragt mehr: also wiirde die namliche Sache von verschiedenem Werthe
seyn. Der Verfasser des VVerts (Works ?) Essai sur le commerce en
gineral, Part I, chap, i, selzt dem Maasse des Erdreichs noch die Arbeit
bei, welches den Werth zwar naher bcstimmt, aber immer zu metaphy-
sisch ausdrtickt."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 565
same time . . . . ; so long as the producer can get a proper price
for raw material, constraint is unnecessary; so soon however as the
manufacturers take advantage of the constraint of export duties and
try to oppress the producer, the latter abandons the unremunerative
production, and the manufacturer suffers from lack of material
(141)-
The effect upon cost of raw material of duties on imports
and exports is discussed at considerable length. Again, the
effect of numerous holidays upon the price of manufactured
goods is analyzed, and on the ground of the advantage of the
state, the term in this case meaning the necessary material
prosperity of all classes, the advisability of reducing the number
is urged, in spite of the church. 1 Further (153), different
situations in which scarcity of laborers is the decisive factor
are intelligently treated. A paragraph follows (154) on the
advantages of the division of labor. It refers to the classical
passage in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations,* and it borrows
from that passage the illustration of pin manufacture. Smith is
referred to merely as " one of the more recent English writers,"
and no indication appears that Sonnenfels had discovered in
him any radical importance. The inventiveness of manufac-
turers, turned to construction of machinery which saves labor
and diminishes that item of cost, is next in order (155). In
this connection a qualification is entered which plainly illus-
trates the difference between the purpose which Sonnenfels had
in mind and the sheer capitalistic standard :
For the state, cheapness of manufactured goods is merely a sec-
ondary purpose, which must not be opposed to the paramount pur-
pose, viz., the multiplication of occupations. Everywhere, therefore,
where the ways to occupation are in such precise equilibrium with
1 In this connection we read (152): "Man liest bei Goldasten in
den Reichshandlungen;" and a little later, " Fortbonnais in Disc, praelim.
zum Negotiant anglois."
* Book I, chap. i.
566 THE CAMERALISTS
the population that the portion of people whose place would be
taken by machines could not be utilized for other labor, the introduc-
tion of machines would be harmful. This would be approximately
the situation of a state which had no foreign commerce of any con-
sequence. The same consideration is to be kept in view in the case
of agriculture. The introduction of agricultural machinery would
diminish the class of rural folk, and for the state nothing is so desir-
able as to see this class as numerous as possible.
In connection with the subject of export and import duties,
as a factor of the price of manufactured goods, another indica-
tion to the same effect appears (157). Referring to "the
almost universal assumption that customs dues are to be
regarded as a profitable branch of the public revenues,"
Sonnenfels says:
Since increase of price in the first instance contradicts the para-
mount purpose of commerce it is necessary to criticize this theorem.
As certain as it is that the revenues of the state must cover the expen-
ditures, so certain is it also that inappropriate means may be selected
for raising these revenues. Those objects then will be inappropriate
in which the first purpose of the state, viz., to have a large population,
is hindered, because the impost has an influence on occupation;
in which case what may be gained on the one side may be more than
lost on the other, and in which by virtue of their very nature, no fixed
basis of assessment can be assumed; in which, finally, the collection
of the money revenues is not in accord with the main purpose, for
the reason that although large sums are collected the main purpose
is not promoted; or if this purpose is reached, the revenues would
have to be raised to an impossible amount. All of this may be
proved in the case of customs [Af&uthe]. 1
The argument is continued in 158-65. The claim is
urged that import duties are taxes on consumption and tend
to diminish the output of wealth. They are only admissible,
under ordinary circumstances, when they do not have this
> The author refers to his Abhandlung vom Mauthwesen in the tenth
volume of his collected works.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 567
effect. An export tax discourages foreign use of the ware,
and so limits domestic occupation.
Consequently the finances purchase their momentary advantage
at a much too high price, through the loss of land management
whose stuff is in less demand, and through the harm to industry
whose earnings are in the same degree lessened.
On the distinction between two kinds of commerce noted
above, a passage (p. 242) is a commentary. Speaking of the
part played by general frugality if it does not descend to a
stinginess which limits the national output more than foreign
trade extends it, Sonnenfels says:
A state which in the last analysis possesses only an economic
trade, cannot carry exclusiveness [Hauslichkeit] in its mode of life
too far without provoking other states, whose trade is based upon
their own products, to imitate this policy with equal vigor.
A sample of a different sort will show how minutely Sonnen-
fels' technology calculated cause and effect from the standpoint
of the state. It occurs in the sections on the relations of the
qualities of goods to price. The custom of requiring of young
artisans a certain number of Wander jahre before they were
allowed to work at their trade in their own locality had been
referred to as on the whole tending to vagrancy. The author,
however, adds (174):
Considered from one point of view, however, these migrations
should not be abolished, but better regulated. Only the most
talented should be sent abroad, and that with the previous knowledge
of the state, and with certain assistance. According to their branch
of trade the. places to which they should go should be designated,
and they should be recommended to the embassies at those places.
In this way the emigrations would be profitable in gaining for
domestic wares the envied perfection of foreign goods. 1
1 In continuing the subject of the effect of the quality of products
on price, Sonnenfels cites (note to 176) Savary, Dictionaire du Commerce,
T. IV, art. "Reglement," and Justi, Abhandlung von Manufacturen,
Fabriken Reglements.
568 THE CAMERALISTS
A little later (179) Sonnenfels epitomizes the objections
to Meisterrecht, and particularly to Manufaclurreglement, die
Inspektionen und Beschauanstalten, in a volume translated
from the English, with the title rendered from a French version,
Versuch iiber die Meisterschaften, The author's name is not
given. The book urges the abolition of the institutions named.
The reasons are evidently those of very narrow selfishness.
Sonnenfels takes the position that every one of them may be
answered in favor of continuing existing or similar regulations
and supervision, by consideration of the general welfare. A
little later, speaking of the policy of encouraging settlement
of skilled laborers from abroad, Hume, Geschichte des Hauses
Tudor, T. Ill, is cited as authority for the statement that
Henry VII, instigated by an outcry of women, drove 15,000 arti-
sans, mostly French, from London. Sonnenfels charges
England with still maintaining essentially the same attitude. 1
1 Further references in the chapter are as follows: "In den Briefen
dcs La Porte," cited from memory, p. 273; in a note on p. 279 the author
remarks: " Die Errichtung der Manufacturhauser ist vor Justi schon
von Bodcn in seiner furstlichen Machtkunst, von Schrodern in seiner
fiirstlichen Schatz- und Rentkammer, u. a. m., als ein niitzliches Mittel
angcpricsen wordcn;" then follows reference to Justi's monograph,
Von Manufacturen und Fabriken. Justi is blamed for giving Schroder
an empty compliment for proposing that manufactures should be assisted
by a scheme of landesfurstlicken Wechscl, an impracticable notion, in
Sonnenfels' opinion. Fortbonais, Elem. du Com., chap. Hi, reappears,
p. 283, and, in the same note, Hume, Polit. Essays of the Balance of
Trade (sic); alie Physiokraten are referred to at the same point, the
implication being that they universally support a prohibitive policy with
respect to imports; Rcimarus, Handlungsgrundsatze, is named without
indicating the reason; a second note on the same page (p. 283) contains
a rather pointed criticism, viz., "England, France, even Holland, has
prohibitions of imports, and what amounts to the same thing, high
entrance rights. When therefore many a writer confidently asserts
that commerce flourishes most in stales where universal freedom of trade
rules, we are justified in demanding that these states shall be specified;"
and finally (p. 299), Nickols; vide above, p. 556.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 569
We pass to chap, iii, "On Foreign Commerce." In the
previous chapter Sonnenfels had shown a decidedly oppor-
tunistic attitude toward regulation of foreign trade. On the
whole, he is inclined to assume that artificial restrictions of
the spontaneous course of trade are likely to work more harm
than good. At the same time he holds firmly that it is entirely
within the competence of the state to enforce all sorts of restric-
tions, provided they actually tend to promote the main end,
viz., the multiplication of '^occupations," and thus the increase
of population. Besides details under this principal proposition,
and technical specifications with which we are not concerned,
the chapter contains little that is germane to our purpose.
A leading theorem is that, "The ground of speculation
is knowledge of foreign countries" (p. 205). The author's
expansion of the idea shows sagacity of a high order, and again
it must be said that Sonnenfels might be read at this point
with profit by everyone who is directly or indirectly connected
with foreign trade or the diplomatic intercourse which is based
upon commercial interests. The rudiments of the duties of
diplomatic and consular representatives, as so long and well
understood in Germany, and so tardily practiced in America,
are distinctly set forth. Sonnenfels writes rather as a learner
from other nations on this subject than as a eulogist of German
policy. For example, he remarks (207):
England especially has selected as ambassadors men of funda-
mental insight into the commercial system; such were ''die Kecne,
Castres, Fallqucucr, Porter, Walpole" in Spain, Portugal, Turkey,
and France. 1
1 A bibliographical item is to be noted. Sec. 221 expands the con-
clusion: "Summing up both sides, we may say with Raynal: 'Fairs and
markets in themselves are a mischievous recourse, but occasionally they
are serviceable.' " A note adds: "Histoire polit. ft phil. des etablisse-
mens de deux Indes, T. IV. Der Verfasser fuhrt die Erfindung der
Messen zu dem ;ten Jahrhundert zuriick: als durch die Einfalle der
THE CAMERALISTS
The drift of the chapter may be gathered from a part of
the closing section (223). The opening sentences read:
In order therefore not to diminish the useful class of merchants,
the state should make common cause with them. Instead of grant-
ing letters of nobility to rich merchants upon retirement from business
it should rather ennoble the merchant only upon condition that he
shall continue to carry on commerce, and shall bring up his children
to the same occupation. The state should offer nobility to him who,
with certain resources, passes from another stratum into the ranks
of the merchants. On occasions where distinctions are to be drawn
between classes of the people, for instance, at court festivities, the
state should include the merchant class among the distinguished.
The protection of the state must be extended to the large, as well
as to the small trades, etc. 1
The standpoint of chap, iv, "On Colonies" may be indi-
cated in brief in accordance with the analysis in 224, viz.:
Colonies have the significance and the purpose, first, of promoting
external security; second, of promoting commerce; third, of promot-
ing navigation.
A fundamental presumption is frankly expressed in 225,
viz.:
The mother state will have the preference over every other
country in drawing from the colonies those wants which it will either
use itself or again export. And in general, whenever a decision must
Franken und Barbaren in Gallien die Handlung durch ungeheure, und
unzahlige Gebiihren gehemmet ward. Die erste Messe war zu St. Denys
gestiftct worden. S. den Art. Foire in der Encyclopedic, welche Turgot
zum Vcrfasser hat." The following section (222) has a reference to
"Coyer, La noblesse commerfant."
1 This note follows: "Die Selige Kaiscrin liess einst dem ganzen
Handelsstand die Adelung anbieten. Viele aus demselben machten
von diesem Anerbieten Gebrauch, und fiihren dann auch geadelt den
Handel immer fort. Die Erhebung in den Freyherren, und nachher
in den Grafenstand, und die Stelle eines K. K. Hofraths hielt H. Fries
nicht ab, seine Geschafte mit eben demselben Eifer fortzusetzen, als er
vorher gethan hat."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 571
be made between foreigners and the colonists, the state will seek
to secure the advantage for the latter. Whenever, on the other hand,
a question arises between the state and the colonies, the state appro-
priates the advantage to itself, and deals with the colonies in complete
accordance with the principles of foreign commerce. That is,
everything which the colonies supply will be accepted only in the
simplest form. On the contrary, whatever is supplied to the colo-
nies they must consent to take in the most complete form. Thence
the mother state derives the increased advantage: it gets its wants
in the easiest and supplies the wants of the colonies in the most
profitable way, since it increases occupation at home through the
consumption of the colonists. These advantages are all the greater
since the home government prescribes laws for the colonies, and can
exclude all rivals from trade with them. Consequently the mer-
chants of the mother state are to be regarded as to a certain extent
monopolists as respects the colonies.
After a few more specifications to the same effect, Sonnen-
fels shows that he is by no means in sympathy with the policy
which he faithfully analyzes. He says (228):
Such are the chief principles in accordance with which mother
states treat their colonies: principles of armed power, against
defenseless weakness, to the injustice of which the lust of expansion
and the mercantile spirit blind all nations When the English,
who regard private property in their own island as so inviolable, but
treat with contempt the property of inoffensive peoples in other parts
of the world, when they, even yet in our century, take possession of
every island on which they land, in the name of his British Majesty,
are they nevertheless in the eyes of mankind the honorable
[achtungswiirdig] nation in which the concepts of freedom and
right seem almost exclusively to have been preserved? .... But
however many the advantages which are drawn from the colonies,
their possession will continue only so long as the colonists are
kept in the ignorance, out of which time, the efforts of rival
nations, and the confluence of favoring conditions, will sooner or
later, but certainly, some time remove them, and will put an end to
their dependence.
572 THE CAMERALISTS
A note comments:
This was written in the year 1763; the outcome of the war with
America converts it into a prophecy.
Chap, v, on "Land Carriage, "calls for two observations only.
In the first place, we may note its bibliographical citations. 1
In the second place, we must recognize the continued atten-
tive elaboration of administrative detail. The chapter con-
tains hardly more than titles of subjects which have to be dealt
with in securing all possible advantage to the state from means
of internal communication by land, but merely as a programme
or as a catalogue of items to be kept in view by the state, it is
a notable reflection of the cameralistic spirit. The details
to be dealt with by government under this head are all con-
sidered as "means of increasing the national occupation."
They vary from construction and repair of roads, the encourage-
ment and control of carriers, the provision and regulation of
inns, stables, and storehouses for the men, animals, and goods
engaged in transportation, to maintenance of the various trades,
wheelrights, saddlers, smiths, etc., necessary for conducting
the repairs incidental to land traffic.
Substantially the same is all that need be said of each
remaining chapter in the book. In the first place, the printed
Viz.: first, referring to Cromwell's "Navigation Act" of 1651, a
note remarks (p. 351): "Ich kenne nur den Verfasser der Handlungs-
grundsdtze zur wahren Aufnahme der Lander, etc., 13, welcher gegen
wahren Vortheil dieser Akte einen Zweifel zu erheben scheint." On
p. 356 the following occurs: " Das Werk von Bergier, Histoire des grands
chemins d' Empire, ist alien unentbehrlich, die diesen Theil der Verwal-
tung zu besorgen haben. Gautier, Von Anlage und Baue der Wege und
Stadtstrassen aus dem Franz., ist eine kleine Schrift von vieler Brauch-
barkeit." Again, p. 358: "Sur les Corvees ist bereits in der Sammlung
von Mirabcau aus Schriften unter dem Namen: Ami des hommes, eine
schone Abhandlung eingeschaltet." On p. 363 the vagrant observation
appears: "Kines ungenannten Anmerkung iiber den Gebrauch und
Nutzen des Intelligenswesens."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 573
sources to which the author acknowledged himself indebted
must be noted. 1
In general it may be observed that dependence upon Forbonnais
becomes more evident from this point. On p. 367 is this note: "Es
kann meine Absicht nicht seyn, von der Marine anders zu handeln, als
nach der allgemeinen Verbindung derselben mit der politischen Handlung.
Um wenigstens sich nur einen Begriff derselben zu machen, wird La
Science de la Marine par Villeneuve, und das Dictionairc de la Marine
zureichen."
On admiralty law, the author remarks (p. 375): " Die Quellen dieser
Seerechte sind des Harmenopolus Sammlung der legum Rhodiarum; die
Spanische Sammlung von 1057, welche unter dem Namen consolato del
Mare bekannt, das wisbysche Wasser- und Seerechtsbuch, die olero-
nischen und hanseatischen Seerechte, die liibekischen Seerechte, von
denen Stein eine Abhandlung entworfen hat; die englische Akte; die
ordonnance de la marine von Luclwig dem XIV. Hierzu sind die Ver-
trage, und das Seeherkommen zu rechnen: von welchen in dem fiir die
innerdsterreichische Sehiffahrt entworfenem Editto Marino einige
Anwendung gemacht ist." A sentence or two before this passage,
Sonnenfels refers to Curland, Grundsdtze des europaischen Seerechts,
and this work was apparently his leading authority.
Referring to the history of men's efforts to improve inland water
communication, a note (p. 382) says: "Diese Geschichte hat H. Oberlin
in 3 lateinischen Werken gesammelt und bis auf unsere Zeiten fortge-
setzt. I, Prisca; II, media aevi; III, jungendorum marium fluminumque
omnis aevi molimina. Die osterreich. Staaten sind von vielen Fliissen
durchstromt, deren Vereinigung moglich ist, und worviber viele Entwiirfe
gemacht worden. Besonders miissen irgend in den Archiven, oder
Registraturen die Entwiirfe vom Philibert Luchese, iiber einige Fliisse
der Monarchic aufbehalten seyn. Vielleicht sind die Entwiirfe, welche
H. Maire iiber die Vereinigung der Fliisse, in den sammtlichen Staaten
des Hauses Oesterreich heraus gegeben, und in einem sogenannten
Memoir e raisonne sur la circulation inter ieure du commerce, etc., erklart
hat, nicht durchaus ausfiihrbar; aber dass es ein grosser Theil derselben
ist, kann nicht gezweifelt werden und die Entwiirfe zeigen: wie vor-
theilhaft die Handlung aller erblandischen Provinzen unter sich ver-
bunden werden konnte."
In chap, vii, on "Insurance" chiefly marine insurance the only
writer directly referred to is Forbonnais (p. 394, et passim).
In chap, viii (ix), on "Money," Justi is apparently the guide whom
574 THE CAMERALISTS
In the second place, these chapters are cumulative evidence
that the center of gravity in Sonnenfels' system was shifting
its position. It does not appear that he was conscious of it.
He does not directly substitute another aim for the strengthen-
ing of the state which had been ultimate with the other cameral-
ists. He returns frequently to some variation of the constant
theme that the state must look out that the proper thing is
done in all these relations, but the reader cannot fail to detect
an infusion of more of the spirit of gain for the sake of gain,
which distinguishes the specifically commercial from the typi-
Sonnenfels mainly trusts. On p. 423 he mentions him, and in a note
(p. 426) he says, of the particular monograph referred to (Ursachen des
verderbten Miinzwesens in Dentschland, und Mittel dagegen): "Dieser
Vorschlag ist eigentlich nur eine Zuruckfiihrung der Miinzenbenennungen
zu ihrem Ursprunge." In a previous note (p. 525) he says: "Die
Schriftsteller welche von den Grundsiitzen der Miinzpragung handeln,
haben iibej diesen Gegenstand so viele Dunkelheit verbreitet, dass sie
Anfiinger ganz kleinmuthig machen. Diese Dunkelheit riihrt daher,
well sie den Grundsatzen eine Menge angewendeter Rechnungsbeispiele
mit untermengen, die nicht zu den Grundsatzen, sondern Zum prak-
tischen Theile des Miinzwesens gehoren."
Sec. 291 cites Melon, Essai politique sur le commerce, 2te. Aufl.;
also, Dutot, Reflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, and
Fortbonnais, Anfangsgriinde, II. Tom., chap, ix, "De la circulation."
In chap, ix, on "The Circulation of Money," there is a reference
to "Montesq., Esprit des loix, Liv. 22, "Principes sur le commerce;"
to Hume, Essay of the Balance of Trade;" to " folgende Stelle Ustaritzes,"
viz., Theorie & pratique du commerce, Cap. Ill am Ende; Vol. Ill, p. 150,
has the reference: " Ustaritz, Consider, sur les financ (sic) d'Espagne;"
to "Plinius, paneg. Traj.," to "X. Band meiner gesammelten Schriften:
Abhandlung von der Ursache der Theurung in grossen Stddten und dem
Mittel, ihr abzuhelfen;" on p. 494 Hume is quoted again as authority
for the statement that although during the minority of Edward (VI ?)
interest was prohibited in England, the rate was 14 per cent. (Inciden-
tally we may note that Sonnenfels uses "die Interessen" interchangeably
with "die Zinsen.") Raynal is cited (p. 496) as authority for tracing
disbelief in the justice of interest to the Middle Ages. The Justinian
Code is cited (p. 499): "4. Buch, 31. Tit., 26. Gesetze," and five pages
CAMERALTSTICS OF SONNENFELS 575
cally political standpoint, and which was, consciously or uncon-
sciously, the animus of theSmithian political economy. Although
Sonnenfels had only in the faintest degree begun to generalize
economic problems in the Smithian manner, his dealing with the
technique of the subjects treated in the last half of this volume
was distinctly an approximation to the Smithian method.
For various reasons, Vol. Ill, Finanzwissenschaft, must
be much more summarily treated than the other two. A few
of its general characteristics, however, should be pointed out,
and this may be done in the form of disconnected notes.
later "der Verfasser des Werks, Des corps politiques." On p. 508,
referring to the advantages of a low rate of interest, a note begins:
" Dieser Gegenstand ist vorziiglich in englischen Schriftstellern behandelt
worden." Child and Culpeper are named. Then follows the remark:
"In der Sammlung von politischen Abhandlungen, die in V Banden
1750 zu Amsterdam bei Schenchzern erschien, sind die verschiedenen
fur und wider die Interesseherabsitzung in dem Parlemente gehaltenen
Reden, aufbehalten, am ausfiihrlichsten sind Lockes Briefe, welche unter
dem Titel: Betrachtung iiber die Miinze, Geldzinse, Finanz und Handlung
gesammelt sind. Auch die Vorrede, welche Fortbonais der Uebersetzung
des British Merchant vorausgesendet hat, ist eine eigene und mit vieler
Griindlichkeit geschriebene Abhandlung iiber die gesetzmassige Zinsherab-
setzung." On p. 519, "Dio Kassius" is drawn upon for an illustration
of the effect of a sudden increase of money in circulation in raising prices,
and at the same time lowering the rate of interest, and Hume's " Essay
of the Balance of Trade" is again referred to (p. 520). In chap, xi, on
"Trading Companies," Raynal, "Hist, polit, et Philos., etc.," is again
used as a source; in chap, xii, on "Exchange," Fortbonais, chap, viii,
again appears to be the author's point of departure, and Dutot (op. cit.)
is once more named. Siegel, Einleitung zum Wechselrechte, and the same
author's ''Corpus juris cambialis, welches Herr Usal fortgesetzt hat,"
are listed at the end of the chapter. Chap, xiii, on " Commercial Treaties,"
mentions "die kleine Schrift Les wantages que le Portugal pourroit tirer
de son malheur." Chap, xix, on "The Balance of Trade," quotes Hume
"in dem Versuch iiber die Handlungsbilanz." At the same time it is
asserted that "die Physiokraten halten die Berechnung der Bilanz fur
uberflussig." The volume closes with the note: "S. X. Band meiner
gesammelten Schriften Abhand. von der Mauth."
576 THE CAMERALISTS
The title-page is a duplicate of that of the first two volumes
with the exception that the vignette represents Maximilien de
Berthume, due de Sully.
In the Preface of the first edition the author indicates his
purpose to occupy an intermediate position between two
classes among the numerous writers on the subject, viz., first,
those who have exaggerated their systems into Utopias; second,
those who have tried to reduce policies of oppressive exploita-
tion to an art. These latter talk only of enriching the treasury.
They ask how much may be taken from the citizen without
bringing him to the threshold of extreme poverty.
These contemptible hirelings of tyranny resemble the hunting-
dog that scares up the game for the hunter in order to feed on its
entrails.
A third type which, to be sure, is very small, aims at a quite
different purpose, viz., the honor of standing for the interest of the
people [des Volkes]. These have to reckon with the ruler, and to
challenge every expenditure which exceeds reasonable needs.
In this passage Sonnenfels applies the word Kammeral-
schriftsteller to a class of writers on finance who correspond
to the term Oekonomieaufseher, as used above. 1 That is, he
asserts that they knew nothing of the broad principles of finance
but fill their books with the most minute details of private
thrift. These petty people should have confined their pride
entirely to writing for zealous administrative employees, who
might have read their books with advantage. According to
this passage, then, Sonnenfels repudiated the name "cameral-
ist;" but that was a matter of words, and it does not separate
him in fact from the series of writers whom we are considering.
As between the types thus characterized Sonnenfels hints,
rather than directly says, that he intends to write with a view
to the general prosperity, rather than chiefly in the interest
of the national treasury. He declares that he proposes to
' Vide p. 548.
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 577
write principles of finance, not a finance encyclopaedia; and
he advertises the freedom and independence with which he
intends to treat the problems. In this last respect he gives
the impression of protesting too much. His language serves
chiefly to remind the reader of the difficulty of making any
presumption except the governmental one tolerable to rulers.
Although Sonnenfels praises the magnanimity of the empress,
which had protected his freedom of teaching, we read between
the lines that he was consciously approaching delicate subjects,
and he wanted to conciliate the civic powers as much as possible.
The Preface to the present edition contains a paragraph
which expresses the author's attitude toward bibliography,
viz.:
In respect to the books to which I have referred in this as well
as in the first and second parts, I have this to say: that my inten-
tion in such references was not to furnish a literary encyclopaedia.
The reader or student does not want a mere list of writings, brought
together from catalogues and unreliable journals, without selection
and very often without knowledge. He wishes to get acquainted
with good writings, from which he may extend the principles which
he has gained, and in which he may find further information about
this or that subject. With this purpose alone in view I have listed
books, and none others than those which I have myself read and of
which I can give assurance that they will repay the trouble of con-
sulting or reading them.
It is perhaps a virtue rather than a fault of the first two
volumes, that they appear to have been drawn more from obser-
vation than from previous writers. Whether it is a virtue or
not, the internal evidence does not strongly sustain a literal
version of the above claim to personal acquaintance with all
the books cited in the parts already discussed. In this third
part the citations are more frequent, but this fact merely
reflects the state of the available literature.
It should be noticed too that the volume now before us is
THE CAMERALISTS
full of vivid side-lights upon the issues which were then seething
in all the political pots of Europe. Nowhere did the funda-
mental issue, government for the sake of the citizen or the
citizen for the sake of government, come to more distinct
definition than in policies of taxation. The day after the
Preface to this fifth edition of the third volume was written,
the Assembly of Notables at Versailles was dissolved. Reduced
to the concrete, the Revolution was an assertion that taxes
should thereafter leave Frenchmen a living. The Revolution
told the rest of Europe that the battle could be won. In this
academic book one feels the tug of the vested interests upon the
earnings of the masses, but what is better, one feels the force
of a moral judgment that the masses must not be sacrificed to
institutions. There is no assertion of a new social principle
here. There is, however, assertion that old social principles
must be applied with changed emphasis. So understood
the book is a vivid document of political reconstruction.
On p. 2 Sonnenfels gives his definition of the science of
finance, viz.:
The more necessary is it, therefore, for those interested in this
important part of administration to be guided by well-considered
principles according to which the revenues of the state may be most
advantageously raised. These collected principles are the science
of finance [Finanzwissenschaft].
The author's formulation of the standpoint from which
these principles are to be considered may be summarized as
follows: In the first place, we may reduce the general process
of financial administration, according to his analysis, to four
stages, viz. : first, estimate of the needs of the state, and draw-
ing up a corresponding budget [Staatsaufiuandsuberschlag];
second, determination of the resources of the state; third, by
comparing the former with the latter, discovery of the propor-
tion of the resources which it will be necessary to use in order
to cover the needs; fourth, the technique of assessing and col-
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 579
lecting the revenues. Without attempting to reproduce the
author's doctrines of the limits within which the idea of the
ordinary and extraordinary needs of the state must be denned,
we note, first, that the sources of revenue are divided into
two classes, viz. : the mediate and the immediate contributions
of the citizens (15). The former class includes revenues from
all those sources which are the common property of the citizens :
crown estates, regalian rights, etc. The second class includes
all revenues which are derived from payments by individuals.
As an ideal principle, the former class should cover the ordinary
expenses of the state, while the latter should be the means of
discharging the extraordinary expenses (18, 19).
Then follows a most characteristic and illuminating propo-
sition, viz.:
The contribution to the extraordinary expenses must be arranged
according to the multitudinous circumstances in which the state
finds itself, always however without allowing attention to wander
from the well-being of the citizens, which remains under all circum-
stances the ultimate purpose of every expenditure (20).
More than a mere verbal variation is involved in this dictum.
Instead of the conventional Wohl des Staates, or the noncom-
mittal phrase which occurs in the Preface of the first edition,
"die Sache des Volkes," we now have "das Wohl der Burger."
Of course it would be absurd to rest an important conclusion
upon a single phrase. It is hardly probable that Sonnenfels
was distinctly aware of meaning anything different by this
phrase from the ideas conventionally associated with the terms
in more frequent use. A difference between two stages of
civilization might be expressed in the contrasts between the
conventional concepts connoted by the technical phrases der
Staat, or das Volk, and the democratic phrase, die Burger.
The two former presuppose an entity in antithesis with the
individual citizens, or a mystic collectivity in which the r61e
of the individual citizen is an after consideration. The latter
580 THE CAMERALISTS
phrase connotes a conception that there is no whole except that
composed of the individuals whose co-operation gives reality
to the state. Even conceding that Sonnenfels consciously
meant less by substitution of the new phrase than it means
to us, the fact that he made the substitution may legitimately
be taken as a straw showing the direction of his own thought
and of current opinion. A change of emphasis was taking
place. The state as a self-existent entity was becoming less
real. The individual was becoming relatively both more real
and more important.
As a means of locating Sonnenfels with reference to another
important principle, the opening of 32 is significant, viz.:
The sources of national income are agriculture and industry
[Aetnsigkcit], under which latter everything is included which
increases the so-called numerical riches [numerHren Reichthum] of
a state.
Sonnenfels has been called the " systematizer of mercan-
tilism." Such a phrase would have to be defined very precisely,
and so as to remove most of its proper meaning, before it could
be accepted as covering the facts.
There is no more vigorous nor progressive passage in the
three volumes than the discussion (85 ff.) of exemptions from
taxation. Sonnenfels tersely disposes of the claims to freedom
from taxation on the part of nobility, clergy, and scholars
respectively. In a word, his argument is: first, these classes
cither are citizens or they are not; second, if they are, this
general designation, and the consequent advantages from the
protection of the community, carry with them the general obliga-
tion of sharing in the costs of government; if they are not
citizens, then it would be well for them to consider whether
they would gain by release of the state from the obligation of
protection which it owes to all citizens. As to the claim that
these classes perform a special service to the state, which entitles
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 581
them to exemption, Sonnenfels declares with rather unusual
warmth:
I at least lay my hand on my conscience, in order to concede
that the community could do without my writings better than it
could dispense with the labor of the rustic who produces our bread
by the sweat of his brow. But I am treating the matter more seri-
ously than it deserves. Every social stratum contributes after a
certain proportion its share to the common well-being. These
contributions therefore cancel one another, and the duty to contrib-
ute remains the completely equal responsibility of all. 1
In the course of the discussion of clerical claims to exemption
from taxation the author incidentally utters another opinion,
which may not properly be construed as intentionally asserting
all that would now be found in it. As a symptom, however,
of the fluid condition into which political philosophy was
lapsing it is decidedly instructive. Sonnenfels had shown his
reasons for concluding that no claim to exemption could be
maintained by the clergy on the ground of special divine right
or through the claims of an external power, such as the Roman
court, and he continues:
The concessions of princes are the only remaining ground for
the daim. Now, in so far as this exemption is a concession of the
ruler, it carries with it, like every concession of this sort, the tacit
qualification, provided the public welfare is not too nearly affected
thereby; in which case it is not alone revocable, but it must be revoked,
because no power extends so far as to [be free to] harm the community
for the sake of an individual or a class (91).
Quite as democratic in form, but perhaps even more vague
1 A note refers to "Justi, Staalswirth. 407," with the comment:
"He is the only writer in whom I remember to have read a claim for this
exception in the case of scholars. He demands it also for the clergy,
but for both only in the case of their personal dues; and he later finds
himself obliged, for the same reasons, to call for the same exceptions in
the case of all in the military and civic service of the state."
582 THE CAMERALISTS
in application, were Sonnenfels' principles for distributing
the burdens of taxation. Thus he says:
The payments of the individual citizen must be reckoned accord-
ing to a double relation: to his own means, and to the means of
the other tax-payers With reference to the former, this prin-
ciple must govern: the dues must not be so great as to impair the
earning-power of the citizen, or to affect his courage to continue
earning. That is, whatever is necessary to the continuance of his
earning must be free from tax; e. g., first, the necessary support;
second, the advance [Vorschuss] or the necessary and useful outlays
without which the income cannot be gained at all, or at least in full;
third, a portion of income large enough to stimulate the citizen to
continued labor.
In pursuing the argument, the author adds:
Men whose hearts are of steel and whose temper is hostile to the
citizens have tried to make it a principle that a people will be the more
industrious, the more it is loaded with taxes The difference
tetwecn stimulating and discouraging taxes consists in this: the
former increase the motives for industry, .... the latter diminish
the motives to labor Even if the slate had a right, therefore,
to extend the taxes to the limit of support and advance, the self-interest
of the state would forbid use of this right. The greater sum of one
year would be purchased too dear at cost of the deficit of the following
years through loss of energy and decrease of national zeal for labor
[Arbeitsamkeit] (99).
In the same connection Sonnenfels betrays uncertainty
bout the precision of the two tests of taxation which he has
proposed. Thus he says:
Certain writers have ventured to define numerically the fraction
of income which may be taken for taxes. Men of insight cannot
fail to have seen the impossibility of finding such a general numerical
ratio. . . . . '*
In the following section another angle of the subject is
encountered :
In order to determine the ratio of the payments for taxes to the
CAMERALIST1CS OF SOXNENFELS 583
means of other tax-payers, this seems to be taken for granted as an
infallible principle, viz.. The portions to be paid should be to each
other as the incomes of (hose who are liable to taxation (100).
That is, as the context explains, if one citizen has an income
of 100, and another of i, the tax of the former should be 100
times that of the latter. But Sonnenfels at once points out
that this principle cannot be accepted without modification,
for, "suppose we consider not the sum which this principle
would take from the two citizens respectively, but the sum
which would be left to each after the payment." The one
might still be left in affluence after the payment, the other
might be crowded below the means of subsistence, and. the
exact principle is still left in question by the conclusion:
One sees that no point can be assigned for even an approximate
comparison of the abundance of the one with the misery of the
other.
In the next paragraph the attempt is made to help out this
vagueness by another specification, viz.:
Nevertheless one must be fair enough to admit that this striking
inequality is not the consequence of the disproportion in the lax, but
of the incomparability [Unebenmasses] of means, i. e., of the differ-
ence in the strata of civic society, and that the demand to reduce to
equality, by means of a finance system, this difference which, at least
in larger states, is not accidental, would be senseless. The thing
to be considered, in the case of definition of the reciprocal relation
between citizens, is that this inequality shall not be increased by a
disproportionate burden of taxation. This end will be approached
as near as possible by applying the following principle: "The sums
to be paid shall be to each other as the net incomes of the taxable
citizens; that is, as the sums which remain to each after subtraction
of support and advance."
In the closing section of the chapter (104) the general
marks of a good financial system are summarized as follows:
The same will have to raise the sum reckoned with reference
584 THE CAMERALISTS
to the general national income and adequate for the needs of the
state, in so far as the domains [Regalien] and accidental revenues do
not yield" the same according to a provincial apportionment cor-
responding to the balance of money, from the citizens assessed without
exception, in proportion to their net incomes, covering short specified
periods, at the time which is least inconvenient, through its own
system of collection, which must be as simple as possible.
Sonnenfels regards the Regalien as either essentially taxes,
and to be treated as such, or as auxiliaries of Polizey and
Handlung. He declines to elaborate the subject therefore on
the ground that Justi was strongest at this point, and may
be regarded as the best authority. 1
This epitome of Sonnenfels' views about finance in general
contains all that is necessary for our purpose about his ideas
of taxation. He enters at some length into argument with
the physiocrats, but his position may be inferred from what
has preceded. We may note his use of the phrase, "die einzige
Abgabe," for the physiocratic Vimpdl unique which has passed
into the modern "single tax." We may also note that while
the critique by which Sonnenfels defended his position was
quite different from the major premises of the modern single-
tax argument, his discussion contains the rudiments of all
that has been said for and against the "single tax" as an expe-
dient.
On the whole, Sonnenfels regards the consumption tax
\Verzehrungssteuer] as the least oppressive to the tax-payer,
and for these reasons:
First, because it is in proportion to earnings; second, because
it is collected at the time when the citizen has the means of payment;
third, because it is collected in rates which the payer feels less than
any other form of tax (180).
1 Reference is made to " Staatswirthschaft, System des Finanxwesens
und seine 2 Quart bande iiber die Polizey, unter detn Titel: Die Grund-
feste zur Gliickseligkeit der Slaaten."
CAMERALISTICS OF SONNENFELS 585
A single quotation from chap, x, on "Financial Schemes,"
may complete our study of Sonnenfels. He says:
Financial schemes are in great part the offspring of the spirit
of selfishness, which clothes itself, however, in the garb of zeal for
the public good. This must arouse the distrust of the financial
administration, and as the anonymous author of the Versuchs tibcr
die Staatseinkiinfte says, always rouse the more suspicion against them
the more they promise. Every proposition looking to the improve-
ment of the income of the state is a financial scheme. However
they may be dressed up, these schemes fall into three classes: I,
those which propose to facilitate collection, and incidentally to dimin-
ish cost of collection; II, those that propose to increase the amounts
raised on actually assessed objects; III, those that propose to assess
new objects. Before dealing with these in detail, the following two
observations may be advanced: I. Every proposition which promises
no other advantage than increase of public revenues in general, or as
the hirelings are accustomed to express themselves, den Nutzen
des atterhSchsten Aerariums, deserves no attention. For the incor-
rectness of the principle, the public revenues must constantly be raised,
has been exposed. A proposition which aims at the one-sided advan-
tage of the treasury is a scheme for exaction. II, Every pioposition
which promises larger sums for the state treasury, in spite of the
fact that the payers are to pay less, unless it discovers fraud c*- incom-
petence in the collection, is at first glance to be rejected. It prom-
ises a numerical increase by means of a subtraction. That is, it
promises a monstrosity.
CHAPTER XXII
SUMMARY
1. It would be superfluous to argue with students of the
social sciences that German experience is instructive. What-
ever our opinion of the purposes which German polity has
proposed, or of the methods by which the purposes have been
pursued, the efficiency of the German civic system is beyond
dispute. As an adaptation of means to ends, it operates with
a remarkably low rate of waste.
2. In order to give this factor of efficiency its full valuation,
we must look back of German polity to German political
philosophy. Here too, for purposes of interpretation, we are
under no necessity of approving or disapproving the German
conception of the state. We are merely bound to understand
it. Americans cannot interpret German polity correctly so
long as we assume that its basic thoughts are identical with
our thoughts. Whether they ought to be or not is beside the
mark. The Germans have done what they have done while
aiming at a somewhat different goal from ours, while assum-
ing a somewhat different social reality from that which we
presuppose, and while consequently applying a somewhat
different scale of values to details of available ways and means.
3. In spite of the necessary inaccuracy of a brief theorem,
especially when it is antithetic in form, the contrast between
German and American conceptions of civic experience may be
stated approximately as follows: From the beginning the
Germans have regarded the state as primarily a unit, and only
secondarily an aggregate. From the beginning Americans have
regarded the state as primarily an aggregate, and only secondarily
a unit. This contrast is the necessary starting-point for
American interpretation of German polity. The theorem
586
SUMMARY 587
is commonplace enough to American students of comparative
politics. It is indeed merely a variation of the familiar proposi-
tion that German political theory is primarily collectivistic,
while American political theory is primarily individualistic.
Americans have not given all the attention that would be
profitable to the bearings of this fact upon valuation of German
political experience.
If rigid and consistent logic ruled human conduct, the fore-
going formulas would not be as true as they are, nor on the
other hand would the degree of truth in them have permitted
the degree of similarity which actually exists between individual-
istic and collectivistic states. In all social affairs we are dealing
with relativities, not with absolutes. We have to do with
proportions, and emphases, and emotional attitudes, not with
fixed quantities. We find accordingly that there are certain
collectivistic types of civic conduct, but they are by no means
confined to states properly classed as primarily collectivistic.
In certain types of situations the most individualistic states, as
though with one accord, have recourse to the most extreme
types of collectivistic conduct. In like manner, the most
collectivistic states tend, in certain situations, toward individu-
alistic types of conduct. No state, therefore, can be truly
described as a product of either collectivism or individualism.
Each state is a resultant of individualistic and collectivistic
factors in the mental operations of its citizens and of other
peoples. To use a different figure, we may say that in Ger-
many collectivism has been the constant predicate, while
individualism has furnished the varying modifiers. In America
individualism has been the predicate, while collectivism sup-
plied the modifiers.
4. Nor must we allow ourselves to be distracted by the
fact that the German conception of the unity of the state has
often lent itself to perversions which no theory could excuse.
The state has not only been regarded as exterior to the citizens,
588 THE CAMERALISTS
as above and beyond them, as identical with the government,
but the government has sometimes been regarded as merely
an emanation from the prince, and the prince has been accepted
as a ruler by divine right, even when he respected no law that
might have restrained his arbitrary will. 1
We must remember, on the other hand, that individualism
as we know it in America has, in its turn, too often degenerated
into license of some to invade the rights of others. The argu-
ment from perversion cuts about as deep on the one side as on
the other. This argument is insufficient either to cast down
collectivism or to set up individualism. The legitimate con-
clusion from the facts is that neither policy is a self-sufficient
principle for control of civic action. Neither policy has been
finally correlated, in theory or in practice, with its necessary
correctives. The purpose of this book has not been to argue
for the one policy nor for the other, but simply to summarize
the evidence contained in the cameralistic books as to the
way in which the collectivistic idea was interpreted by the
Germans during the cameralistic period. This retrospect is a
necessary preliminary to intelligent interpretation of subse-
quent developments in German civic theory and practice down
to the present.
5. According to the cameralistic conception then, the state
was a magnified family with a big farm as its property.' The
unity of this family with its estate was symbolized by the prince.
Its interests were represented by the prince in such a way
that no one could very clearly discriminate between the per-
sonality of the prince and the interests of the state. The unity
of this farm -patriarchate-principality was so impressive that
at first very little occasion seems to have been found for dis-
tinguishing between the concepts "welfare of the prince," " wel-
1 Vide Index, titles "Slate, Theory of," "Quasi-absolutism."
2 Vide Index, titles "Cameralism as Political Theory and Practice,"
"Cameralism, Meaning of," "Cameralists," etc.
SUMMARY 589
fare of the state," "welfare of the people" (considered collect-
ively), and "welfare of the people" (considered individually).
It is approximately true that the cameralists did not distinctly
entertain the last of these conceptions. They implied it from
the beginning. They insisted upon valuations which became
motives of the German democratic movement after the Napo-
leonic period. 1 They furnished schedules which might be
adopted as the programme of a rather thorough individualism;
yet on the whole their theory, as far as it was published, treated
all civic problems as questions of situations within a literal or
mystical unity of prince and people. In the last analysis,
the knowing and feeling and willing for this unity was to be
done by the prince. On the other hand, the good citizen lived
and moved and had his being as a sort of organ of a body whose
center of consciousness was the prince. 2
Of course the relationship did not present itself in precisely
this form to the cameralists. We are expressing it in our terms,
not in theirs; yet it is not sure that a single one among them
would have rejected our form of statement. 3
In general it may be said that political evolution in Ger-
many, as everywhere else, has been a variation of adjustments
between the extreme conceptions, on the one hand that the citi-
zens may, can, and should exist only as functions of the state,
and on the other hand that the state may, can, and should exist
only as functions of the citizens. The latter conception was
latent rather than patent among the cameralists. It is not
within the scope of this book to inquire whether there is a pos-
sible synthesis of the foregoing thesis and antithesis. We are
dealing with men who would have said, and after a fashion did
say, that the two views are mutually exclusive.
1 Vide Index, title "Democracy, Symptoms of."
* Vide Index, title "Welfare and Kindred Terms."
3 Vide Index, title "Biological Analogy." Similar references might
have been multiplied.
590 THE CAMERALISTS
6. Considering the state then as an organism of which the
prince was the head and (again in modern idiom) of which
territory and population composed the tissues, the cameralists
easily reduced the questions of civic polity to this double
problem: How may it be well with this state-organism in its
internal operations and in its external relations ? l
By a process which does not fully appear in its elements in
the cameralistic books, the cameralists arrived at the major
premise that all the problems of "internal and external se-
curity" resolved themselves into the question of the princely
revenues. We must remember that the social preconceptions
of the cameralistic period were thoroughly static. Publicists were
apparently no more certain than every other social class that the
human lot was a permanent arrangement of social strata. It was
assumed that a certain standard of life was appropriate to each
stratum, and that, maintenance of this standard of life being
assured, it would be impertinent and presumptuous for mem-
bers of any stratum to long for satisfactions in excess of the norm
for their social level. If then the conduct of the different strata
of society could be so ordered by the state that the total
activities of the people could be made to result in an increasing
margin of material return, above the aggregate demands of the
different class standards, the state might appropriate that surplus
without injustice or hardship to the individual.* This, in a
word, was the programme which the cameralists undertook to
formulate. It might be expressed in this way: Given the
resources of a territory, the labor capacity of the population, and
the customary wants of the different strata, how may the state
.so exploit territory and people that the customary wants may be
.supplied, with an increasing surplus which may be claimed as
public revenue ?
7. Cameralism was accordingly in no sense an abstract
Vide Index, title "Security."
Vide Index, title "Taxes, Burdensome vs. Non-burdensome."
SUMMARY 591
philosophy, except as every human action connotes to the
philosophical onlooker some implied preconceptions. Cameral-
ism was an administrative technology. 1 It was not an inquiry
into the abstract principles of wealth, in the Smithian sense. 3
It was much more closely analogous with grub-staking a
prospector or financing a street railroad. It was a theory of
managing natural resources and human capacities so that they
would be most lucrative for the prince in whose interest the
management was conducted. To be sure, just as any other
human activity tends to suggest generalizations, this camera-
listic technology visibly expanded its conceptions from rule-of-
thumb thrift to somewhat comprehensive industrial, commercial,
and political principles. It even cast its conclusions occasion-
ally at last in forms which seemed almost to anticipate abstrac-
tions of the classical economists. On the whole, however,
cameralism remained a technology, not a philosophy. It was
analogous with the rules of banking which one might learn in
the course of practical business. It was not like the philosophic-
reasoning in the economic treatises. Not until the Smithian
influence began to be felt in Germany did questions of material
ways and means cease to be treated on the one hand merely as
matters of domestic thrift, on the other hand, merely as matters
of political expediency. 3 It is accordingly a fundamental error
to treat the cameralistic technology as a system of economic
generalizations in the nineteenth-century sense. The theoreti-
cal setting of the economic ideas was the paramount political
opportunism of the period. The provincialisms of the came-
ralists were more essentially political than economic.
8. In expansion of the last proposition we may specify
that tradition has very seriously misconstrued cameralism, in
' Vide Index, title "Cameralism as Political Theory and Practice."
* No one in the cameralistic series came as near to the Smithian
type of generalization as several British predecessors of the author of
The Wealth of Nation:.
3 Vide Index, title "Economy and Related Terms."
59 2 THE CAMERALISTS
consequence of treating it as a system of doctrines about nine-
teenth-century economic problems. The truth is that the
cameralists had not come within sight of those problems.
They were trying to answer the questions of expediency pro-
posed to them by the political opportunism which animated
the statecraft of their period. The controlling principle of
that type of politics was, let each state look out for its own
interests. This meant a policy of readiness for aggression or
for resistance to aggression. The foremost consideration was
ways and means to protect the state in the constant struggle
with other states. In this situation there was no more use
for doctrines of abstract economics than there was in the latest
special session of Congress, when the main concern was not
scientific tariff legislation but the most skilful trading of votes
in the interest of particular constituencies. The wonder
is not that the cameralists held narrow economic views, but
that their ideas of economic relations contained such a small
proportion of error.
The supposed economic fallacies of the cameralists might
he expressed as details of the policy known as mercantilism.
It would be irrelevant to open the question of the merits or
defects of the mercantilist policy in its historical time and
place. It would be futile to deny that the cameralists were
mercantilists. The significant fact, however, for the develop-
ment of the social sciences, is that mercantilism was not an
economic generalization at all, as we now understand that
phrase. It was a fiscal expedient. It is as fallacious to infer
fundamental economic doctrines from the mercantilistic
programmes as it would be to impute strange notions of
essentials of economics to the American legislators who prefer
a tariff to an income tax. 1 There is not a line in the cameralistic
books which forbids the conclusion that their authors under-
i Vide Index, titles "Mercantilism" and "Mercantilism, Its Rela-
tions to Cameralism."
SUMMARY 593
stood as clearly as the physiocrats, or as modern economists,
that the extractive industries are the ultimate sources of wealth.
The mercantilists did not differ from the physiocrats about the
ultimate sources of wealth, but if they had expressed them-
selves in the modern way they would have said that was "a purely
academic question. " The real difference between mercantilists
and physiocrats was on fiscal policy. The former held that it
was wiser fiscal policy for governments to put their strength
into promotion of commerce than into encouragement of the
extractive industries. The latter insisted on inverting the
proposition. This disagreement about practical policy no more
proved a difference of opinion about basic economic relations,
than opposite views about the expediency of a corporation tax
in America today would prove that the opponents believed in
antagonistic systems of abstract economics.
In particular, it has been supposed that the mercantilists,
and especially the cameralists, held fantastic views of the
nature of wealth. This tradition is not supported by the
cameralistic books. Their essentially sane assumption about
wealth does not appear more clearly anywhere than in Justi's
propositions. 1 If a reader had heard none of the misrepre-
sentations of mercantilism, however, study of the cameralistic
books would impress him from the start with the authors'
sense of the urgency of fiscal needs; but he would find nothing
which could legitimately be interpreted as an essentially
different view of what constitutes wealth from that which the
most enlightened modern economist would exhibit if he owned
an elevator full of corn, but needed to raise ready money. 11
Less prominent in the list of alleged errors of the mercan-
tilists, and particularly of the cameralists, is their supposed
misconceptions on the subject of population. It is frequently
implied, rather than positively slated, in allusions to these
Vide above, p. 339.
Vide Index, titles "Gold and Silver," "Money," and "Wealth."
594 THE CAMERALISTS
writers, that they supposed increase of population might go
on without limit. In fact, so far as they are to be judged by
their books, they knew as well as Malthus did that population
must always be in proportion to the food supply. 1 They
believed that the German lands were undercultivated and
therefore underpopulated. They believed that there was no
immediate prospect of exhausting the resources of German
soil, and therefore it was good governmental policy to promote
increase of population by every possible means. They were
no more guilty of economic misconception because of this
judgment than Kansas farmers are when they advertise for
laborers from outside the state to help harvest their crops.
But the gravest of all the errors of cameralism is supposed to
be its connivance with paternalism. On this count we may
as well confess judgment at once, but our plea is that the facts
do not constitute a fault in the historic sense. The Germans
three or four hundred years ago confronted a task which was
hardly less appalling than that which Russia is facing at present.
The statesmen of the time saw certain elements of the problem
much more clearly than we can see them today. In a word,
the great masses of the Germans were infants infants in
knowledge, infants in experience, infants in feeling, infants in
judgment about the conduct of life. They lived in straightened
circumstances. No affluence of natural resources stimulated
their ambition and allured them to effort. They loved the piti-
ful measure of comfort which they could command, and they
were timid, even if they were wistful, about enterprises that
might improve their condition. How might the dormant
powers of these unaroused folk be awakened and enlisted in
the task of making the most of themselves and of their material
conditions ?
The method by which the German leaders undertook this
task was something like the method by which a levy of raw
' Vide Index, title "Population."
SUMMARY 595
recruits is made over into a regiment of disciplined soldiers.
The Germans were divided up into some hundreds of squads,
each controlled by a territorial prince who was within limits
absolute in his own land. This was of course not a scheme
invented out of hand. It was a stage in the historical evolu-
tionary process. The arrangement corresponded to the condi-
tions and fitted the conditions. Populations largely of peasants,
and the remainder mostly artisans who had been incubated in
the quasi-communistic guild organizations, and had never
learned to walk alone, populations politically and economically
in their swaddling clothes, and needing, first, nursery care,
then tutors and governors to bring them to maturity this was
the situation in which that paternalism culminated which
Americans have been taught to despise. The regime would
have been impossible in America, because of the difference in
conditions. It has been more than justified by its results in
Germany.
9. As was intimated in the Preface, 1 the chief motive for
this study was a desire to find out whether history had treated
the cameralists fairly, and if not to learn the lesson of this
unfairness for methodology in the social sciences. So far as
the facts are concerned, it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the
statements in the Preface. The cameralists have been mis-
understood and misrepresented simply because their own
center of attention was ignored, and they were judged as though
they were trying to deal with the problems which interested
their critics. The consequence has been that a series of writers,
unsurpassed by authors of any other period as exhibitors of
the social forces which were conducting the evolution of their
time, have either been neglected altogether, or they have been
represented as freaks, with unimportant relations to the social
process in which they occurred.
The cameralists not only gave voice to the constructive
1 Pp. xxi, xxii.
59 6 THE CAMERALISTS
civic ideas of an era, but the system which they formulated
contains all the essentials of German polity today. From the
close of the cameralistic period, and the turning of German
political thinking from its natural course by the Revolution on
the one hand and Smithism on the other, down to the formation
of the VereinfUr Socialpolitik in 1871, so many factors enter
into the reorganization of German social science that it is easy
to overlook the permanent cameralistic elements. To under-
stand modern Germany which is directly and indirectly exert-
ing such manifold influence upon the whole world, it is neces-
sary to take account not only of present activities in Germany,
but of those formative purposes and tentative institutions
which the cameralists represent.
The wider methodological generalization is that every
process of thought has its telic coefficient, which must be
accurately computed if the thought is to be objectively esti-
mated. In other words, we must know what the thinker is
consciously or unconsciously trying to do with his thought, in
order to value it correctly in the scheme of intelligence.
If the camerali.sts had been trying to determine the laws of
wealth, or value, or distribution, their thinking would have had
one force. Since they were attempting no such thing, but were
trying to work out a civic technology which would incidentally
provide for the necessities of citizens, and thereby furnish the
prince with money enough to pay his bills, their thinking has
a quite different force. Historical interpretation of the cameral-
ists not only turns the strongest light upon the later evolution of
fii'ic theory and practice in Germany, but it furnishes a typical
case for illustration of the theorem that every system of thought
must he interpreted in connection with its peculiar purposes.
INDEX
INDEX
Absolutism. Vide Quasi-absolu-
tism.
Accidents, public anticipation of,
523-
Adams, H. C., 159.
Agriculture, 155, 187, 214, 215, 230,
242, 283, 456 ff.
Alexander, 530.
A natomiren, 114.
Ancien rtgime, 431.
Arbuthnot, 556 ff.
Aristotle, 33, 210, 220, 221, 227,
295-
Artisanship, promotion of, 54.
Attila, 334.
Aufnahme, 300.
August, Elector of Saxony, 2, 38,
3'3-
Bacon, 511.
Balance of power, 332.
Balance of trade, 350, 541.
Baumstark, xvii.
Bearde de 1'Abbaye, 550.
Beccari, 521.
Becher, viii, xx, 25, 107-34, 136,
137, 290, 484, 527, 528, 562.
Beiers, 245.
Benevolent despotism, 78, 118,
43i 5 01 - '
Bentham, 485.
Bereitestes Vermiigeii (cf. Vennii-
gen), 154-
Berch, 231.
Bergier, 572.
Beschriebene Gesetze, 27, 28.
Besold, xviii, 132.
Beyer, 240.
Bielfeld, 267, 453 ff., 258, 496
54-
Bierling, 240.
Biological analogy, 50, 589.
Bluntschli, xiii, xiv, xviii, xix.
Bode, 170, 528, 568.
Bornitz, xviii, 132.
Boter, 438.
Botero, 133.
British Museum Library, xxv, 311.
Bryce, James, 64, 67.
Bureaucracy, no, 446.
Caesar, Julius, 402.
Calvin, John, in.
Cameralism, as political theory
and practice, 3, 51, 54 ff., 66, 70,
7i, 72, 74, 75, 81, 83, 86, 87,
89, 109, no, 145, 146, 151 ft".,
188, 197 ff., 246, 252, 280, 282,
293, 301 ff., 307ft., 37 iff.,
376 ff., 423, 451 ff., 459, 476 ff.,
59 1 -
Cameralism, meaning of, vii, xiv,
1-20, 36, 43, 46, 51, 54 ff., 69,
73, 82 ff., 106, JIT, 116, 123,
135. rsS, l6 7> I( >5 ft- 213,
220, 224, 246, 251, 260 ff., 272,
277, 283, 294, 370, 394 ff., 434,
439, 477 ft-. 405 ff -> 53> 543 ''",
555, 572, 5 8} *, 590, 591 f., 595-
Cameralists, xi, xiii, xv, xix, xx,
xxi, xxiv, 6, 1 8, 105, 126, 148 ff.,
197, 280, 576, 589.
Cameralu'esen, 280.
Cameralu'issenschaft, and kindred
terms, 18, 189, 211, 220, 222,
227, 229, 231, 234, 235 ff.,
239, 240, 254, 256, 273, 280, 282,
283, 297, 298, 299, 315 ff.,
37 'ft-
599
6oo
THE CAMERALISTS
Cammer, 148, 197, 229, 269, 279,
316.
Capital, concept of, 251, 277 ff.
Capitularies, 311.
Carlowitz, 205.
Casters, 569.
Cato, 230.
Censorship, 46.
Census, 46.
Chamber sciences, viii.
Charlemagne, xiii.
Charles I, 325.
Charles V, 531.
Child, 575.
Chinki, 562.
Chommel, 245.
Cicero, 484.
Cohn, 14.
Coinage, theory of, 52, 103.
Colbert, 63, 133, 474, 531.
Colbertism, 12, 13.
Collectivism, 586, 589.
Collegium fundamental, 305, 307.
Colonies, theory of, 570 ff.
Columbia University Library, xxv.
Columella, 214, 217.
Commerce, theory of, 52, in, 126,
174, 225, 343 , 376, 448 ff.,
496, 52, 525 ff-, 542 ff., 567.
Community, and related terms
(cf. Gemeines Wesen), 104, 112,
227, 228, 229, 2i)i), 315.
Conrad's // undit'orterbuch, 2.
Consumption, theory of, 563.
Corporation tax, 592, 593.
Cornell University Library, xxv.
Cossa, viii.
Coyer, 562, 570.
Cromwell, 572.
Culpepcr, 575.
Curland, 573.
Daniels, W. M., 159.
Darjes, viii, 226, 267-84.
Darwin, 490.
Democracy, symptoms of, 145, 318,
394 ff-, 485 ff-, 526, 576, 578,
579, 589-
Dickinson, 108.
Diestel, 21.
Diminishing returns, 98.
Dio Kassius, 575.
Dithmar, viii, 106, 177, 186, 215,
222-31, 235, 239, 240, 269, 296,
297, 309, 48i.
"Divine right," 101, 137.
Dohler, 190, 199.
Du Fresne, 229.
Dutot, 574.
Eclecticism, 481 ff., 485, 519.
Economy, and related terms, xxiv,
12, 19, 36, 49, 50, 57, 109, 113,
126, 127, 130, 151, 172, 186, 187,
188, 193, 195 ff., 199 ff., 202,
209, 210, 21 r, 214, 217 ff., 220,
221, 222, 223, 226, 227, 228, 231,
2 35-38, 240, 241, 242 ff., 245,
247, 250, 253, 254, 255, 256, 268,
269, 270, 273, 274, 275, 276, 278,
280, 282, 283, 288, 290, 293, 297,
301, 305, 306, 307, 312, 316, 326,
329, 366, 376, 437 ff-, 445, 459 ff.,
482, 483, 496, 531, 534, 544 ff.,
548, 555, 55 ff-, 564, 5 ( >i.
Edward I, 516.
Edward VI, 574.
Eichhorn, K. F., 64.
Eigenlhum, 251, 477, 508, 546.
Eiscnhart, 41.
Elizabeth, 511, 531.
Rncyklopedisten, 555.
Ernst, Her/xjg, 60, 62, 166, 194.
Ethics of ruler, 100.
Eudaemonism, xx.
Extractive industries, 169, 205.
INDEX
601
Fallquener, 569.
Ferguson, 489.
Finanz, 149, 174.
Finanzwirthschaft, 132.
Finanzwissenschaft, 70, 399, 437
ff., 453, 496, 502, 575 ff., 578.
Fiscalists, 6.
Fischer, F., 223.
Fischer, P., 244.
Forster, 207.
Fond. Vide "Capital."
Forbonnais, 525, 527, 565, 568,
572, 574, 575-
Frederick the Great, 63, 259, 264,
266, 267, 268, 414, 453, 458.
Freedom, 30, 80, 263, 330, 331,
413 ff., 420, 421, 467, 508, 517.
Frensdorff, 286, 287, 289, 290,
291, 306, 310.
Freville, 556.
Friederich Wilhelm I, 239.
Fttrstenau, 231.
Fries, 570.
Ganser, 527.
Gasser, viii, 186, 206-21, 222, 223,
224, 227, 228, 296, 297, 309,
481.
Gautier, 572.
Geburtsbrieff, 58.
Gelekrsamkeit, 275.
Gemeines Wesen, 104, 112, 227,
228, 229, 299, 315, 409.
Gentzke, 240.
Geoponica, 230!
Georg, Herzog, 21.
Gerhard, 175-84, 193, 206, 248,
296.
Gesellschaft, 318.
Gcsetzgebung, as synonym for
Polizey, 505.
Gleichmann, 174.
Gatting, 556.
Gold and silver, theory of, 131,
157 ff., 168, 205, 339 ff., 347 ff-,
448 ff., 471 ff-, 593-
Goldast, 565.
Government, forms of, 117 ff.
Government, purpose of, 88, 98,
99, I2 3-
Great Elector, 63.
Gross, 236.
Grotius, xv, 519.
Grundfeste, 167.
Gundling, 174, 206, 238, 240.
Hamilton, A., 148.
Handlung (cf. "Commerce"),
149, 496, 502, 525 ff., 552.
Harmenopolus, 573.
Harvard University Library, xxv.
Haugwitz, 288, 310.
Haushalter, 312.
Haushaltungskunst, 109, 297, 301,
34, 3S, 3i6, 329, 366, 367.
Haushaltungswesen, 227.
Hecht, 290.
Heeren, xxiii.
Hegel, 321.
Henry III, 325.
Henry IV, 217.
Henry VII, 516, 568.
Herrmann, 177.
Hey, 484.
Hobbes, 401, 408, 410, 492.
Horn, 190.
Hoffmann, G. A., 225, 244.
Hoffmann, J. A., 174, 225.
Hohberg, 245.
Hohenthal, 187.
Hornick, viii, xx, 107, 129 ff., 136,
137, J 55, '60, 290, 527.
Hume, 268, 488, 512 ff., 516, 568,
572, 575-
Huth, 489.
6O2
THE CAMERALISTS
Ickstatt, 229.
Inama, 40, 130, 185, 186, 206, 223.
Individual, concept of, 323, 450.
Individualism, 587, 589.
Ingram, ix, 556.
Interest, as civic force, 332.
Jerusalem, Abt, 233.
Jesuits, 335, 336.
Jevons, viii.
J6rger, 528.
Joseph II, 63, 483, 484, 551.
Josephus, 311.
Justi, G. H., 286.
Justi, J. H. G., viii, xx, xxii, 2, 86,
87, 91, 92, 116, 120, 146, 167,
176, 180, 183, 199, 203, 205, 206,
209, 225, 226, 229, 230, 248, 259,
260, 268, 284, 285-480, 481,
487, 496 ff., 498, 503, 505, 509,
522 ff., 528, 539, 551, 567, 568,
573. 58i, 593-
Justice, Osse's idea of, 32 ff.;
Justi's rules of administrative,
337 .
Justinian Code, 574.
Kameralwissenschaft, 2.
Kammer, 18.
Kammeralschriftsteller, 576.
Kammtrgericht, 2.
Kant, xviii, 482, 485.
Kautz, Julius, ix, xx.
Keen, 569.
Kerseboom, 504.
Klenck, 170, 171.
Klock, viii, 34, 132.
Klugheit, 191.
Konigliche Bibliothek, xxv.
Kolde, 62.
Kottencamp, 260 ff., 264.
Kressen, 177.
Kudler, 483.
Landwirthschaft (Wirth), 445, 534,
544 ff.
Langemack, 438.
La Porte, 568.
Lau, T. L., 173, 225.
Lau, 438.
Leib, J. G., 172, 182, 190.
Leibniz, xviii, 287.
Leipzig, University of, 31, 39.
Leopold I, 63, 290.
Lexis, 2.
Livy, 311.
Locke, xv, 492, 575.
Lohneyss, 40, 69.
Loen, 263 ff., 265.
Louis XIV, 467, 474, 573.
Louis XVI, 121.
Luchese, 573.
Ludewig, 215 ff., 223, 233, 260,
296.
Luxury, theory of, 535 ff.
Machiavelli, 327, 418.
Malthusianism. Vide "Popula-
tion."
Maimbourg, 61.
Maire, 573.
Malthus, 444, 501, 594.
Manufactures, 160 ff., 174.
Manufactures, productiveness of,
557 ff., 561 ff.
Marc, De la, 439.
Marchet, G., xix, xx, 136.
Maria Theresia, 288, 310, 311,
468 ff., 483 ff., 570.
Mark, 550.
Marperger, 172, 190.
Maximilian I, 2.
Means (Mittel) (cf. Vermogen),
249, 251, 258.
Meixner, 527.
Melancthon, 22.
INDEX
603
Melon, 504, 574.
Mercantilism, 7, 8, 14, 131, 133,
159 ff., 187, 265, 363, 366, 422 ff.,
456, 464, 479, 500.
Mercantilism, relation to cameral-
ism, 10, 12, 63, 151 ff., 1598.,
580, 59*-
Mercantilists, ix.
Merchants, protection of, 570.
Merkel, 550.
Meusel, 267, 292.
Mill, J. S., 285, 469 ff.
Mining, 358 ff.
Mirabeau, 572.
Moser, J., xviii, 63.
Mohl, R. V., xiv, 12, 13, 242, 256,
444, 477 ff-
Monarchomachi, 324, 325.
Money, theory of, 131, 157 ff.,
448 ff., 47 iff-, 478 ff-, 593-
Monopolio, no, 128 ff., 562.
Montesquieu, xv, 393, 397, 433,
486, 505, 507, 511, 574.
Moritz, Herzog, 21, 22.
Moritz of Sachsenzeitz, 61, 94.
Moser, J. J., 268, 284.
Nahrung, and related terms, 72,
189, 228, 236, 250, 254, 434,
442.
National management, 19.
Nationals konomik, 19.
Navigation, value of, 53.
Nickols, 556, 568.
Niebuhr, xiii, 295.
Oberlin, 573.
Obrecht, Georg, 2, 25, 34, 40 ff.
Obrecht, J. T., 42 ff., 201.
Obrigkeit, and similar terms, 25,
114, 1 1 6, 1 1 8, 124.
Oekonomieaufseher, 548, 576.
Oppenheim, 108.
Ordnung, 30.
Osse, 2, 21 ff., 45, 146, 166, 206,
208, 271.
Palgrave, ix.
Pascal, 94.
Paternalism, 446, 594.
Penalties, 519 ff.
Peter I, 467.
Philip of Macedon, 531.
Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse, 2,313.
Philippi, 264 ff.
Phlogiston theory, 107.
Physiocrats, viii, ix, 483, 568, 575,
593-
Pliny, 574.
Ploetz, 64.
Policey, 26, 28, 30, 33, 35, 37, 38,
46, 55 ff., 70, 74, 88, 1 10, 115,
126, 149, 160, 166, 174, 202, 218,
222, 225, 240, 253, 254, 257, 258,
265, 269, 297, 301, 326, 329,
376, 399, 487, 502, 505 ff.
Policeywissenschaft, 91, 167, 224,
226, 227, 228, 229, 231, 234, 256,
328, 336 ff., 495 ff., 505.
Political economy and kindred
terms. Vide "Economy."
IIoXiTefa, 283, 284, 455.
Political ethics, 100, 103.
Political science, and related terms
(cf. Stoats-, etc.), 70, no, 178,
180, 183, 191 ff., 209, 211, 227,
235 ff., 241, 35, 52-
Politische Handlungsu'issenschaft,
S3 1 -
Poly polio, no, 128 ff.
Pope, 483.
Population, theory of, 15, 97, 265,
341 ff., 421 ff., 444, 464 ff-,
477 ff., 500 ff., 503, 531, 553 ff.,
566, 593-
Population, as norm of civic wel-
fare, 531.
604
THE CAMERALISTS
Porter, 569.
Pragmatism, 275.
Price, theory of, 551 ff., 563 ff.
Production, and similar terms,
532, 534, 551, 558.
Property (cf. Vermogen), 250,
374, 477, 546.
Propolio, no, 128 8., 562.
Pufendorf, xviii.
Quasi-absolutism, 63, 73, 74, 76,
77, 78 ff., 88, 89, 122, 124 ff.,
137 ff., 145, 162, 181, 194, 198 ff.,
262 ff., 265, 320 ff., 324, 325, 326,
328, 373, 374, 397, 403 ff-, 405,
408, 412 ff., 415 ff- 423 ff.,
431 ff., 466 ff., 482, 485, 491,
493 ff-, 495, 588.
Ranke, Leopold, xii.
Rau, ix, 294.
Raynal, 569, 574, 575.
Ready means (cf. "Means"), viii,
154, 157 ff-, 250, 441-
Regalien, 297.
Reichskammer, 2.
Reichthum, 154, 156, 157 ff.
Reimarus, 568.
Reinking, 438.
Religion, civic value of, 474 ff.,
511 ff.
Rcntwissenschaft, 227.
Republic, 112, 126, 181, 182, 251,
295, 299, 3 * 7, 3 8 > 320, 324, 409,
468.
Revenue, significance of to camc-
ralists, viii, 156 ff., 161 ff., 277,
279.
Ricardo, 489.
Richter, 267, 268, 275.
Rohr, 185-205, 209 ff., 221, 222,
227, 245, 273, 284-
Roman law, 300.
Roscher, Wilhelm, ix, xi, xii, xiii,
xvi, xviii, xix, xx, xxii, 18, 19, 22,
27, 61, 62, 63, 77, 83, 108, no,
127, 130, 132, 135, !7o, 171, 172,
173, 175, 186, 187, 207, 222, 223,
225, 231, 232, 233, 234, 238,
259, 263, 267, 268, 272, 273, 284,
286, 291, 292, 310, 311, 453,
481 ff., 485, 487, 497, 500, 504,
59, 519, 527, 549-
Rossig, xviii.
Rousseau, 484, 490, 492.
Rudolf II, 43.
Ruprecht von der Pfalz, 108.
Savery (Savary), 245, 567.
Savigny, xiii.
Scclelon polUicum, 114.
Schlettwein, 556.
Schlozer, 453.
Schmeizel, 240.
Schmoller, G., xx, 7, 8, 10.
Schonberg, 205.
Schrammer, 438.
Schreber, 174, 223, 224, 225, 231.
Schroder, viii, xx, 34, 107, 132,
135-74, 177, !86, 189, 190, 197,
203, 204, 205, 212, 269, 279, 290,
361, 374, 382, 403 ff-, 452, 527,
568.
Schroderismus, 135.
Seckendorff, viii, xx, 2, 41, 60-106,
109, no, in, 119, 135, 166, 175,
186, 190, 194, 217, 201, 212, 213,
221, 269, 285.
Security, 332, 334, 420, 47, 494,
5075., 517 ff., 522 ff., 590.
Seligman, E. R. A., 293.
Seminar method, 308, 309.
Serra, 133.
Siegel, 575.
Sieyes, 413.
Single tax, 584.
Smith, Adam, vii, x, 3, n, 12, 19,
69, 84, 105, 154, 156, 167, 168,
179, 2 4, 246, 248, 272, 285, 298,
3(56, 316, 322, 366, 373, 378, 382,
468, 483, 489, 530, 551, 564, 565,
574, 575, 59i-
Social concept, 112.
Social conditions, duties of mon-
archs toward, 335 ff.
Social contract, 198, 517.
Social psychology, 72.
Social sciences, crudeness of, i.
Social strata, 114.
Societal, 318.
Sonnenfels, viii, 2, 86, 146, 260,
481-585.
Spencer, H., 179, 300, 301.
Spener, 94.
Staathalter, 324.
Staaisgelahrtheit, 177.
Staatshaushaltung, 50.
Staatsklugheit, 177, 178, 190, 237,
244, 495, 530, 532.
Staatskunst, 70, 178, 305, 327, 376,
399, 437, 441, 453 ff-
Staatslehrt, 178.
Staatswirtschaft, xxiv, 293 ff., 305,
315, 498.
Staatswissenschaft, xiv, 241, 494 ff.,
498, 500 ff., 503, 505.
Stadtwirthschaft, no, 482.
State, Becher's definition of, 113;
Zincke's concept of, 252; Justi's
concept of, 323, 331, 400 ff., 450,
474; Sonnenfels' concept of,
490 ff., 499, 553, 579 ff. ; Ger-
man vs. American idea of, 586,
588, 589.
Statecraft, Justi's precepts of,
332
Steuart, 496.
Stewart, D., 179.
Stieda, 206, 224, 229, 231, 235, 236,
237, 259, 268, 289, 296.
Stinzing, 206.
INDEX 605
Sitsser, 106, 176, 223, 224, 225,
238 ff.
Stollen, 177.
St. Real, 496.
Struven, 177.
Subjects, duties of, 365 ff.
Sussmilch, 504, 554.
Suetonius, 311.
Sully, 63, 531, 576.
Surplus, 154 ff., 242.
Tacitus, 402.
Tamerlain, 334.
Taxation, 174, 381, 590.
Tax-dodging, 99, 580.
Taxes, burdensome vs. non-bur-
densome, 49, 590.
Thorn, 229.
Thomas, W. I., 465.
Thomasius, 22, 23 ff., 40, 45, 166,
171, 206, 208, 209, 210, 215, 240.
Tillinghast, 46.
Toussaint, 507.
Towns, management of, 369 ff.
Transportation, by land, theory
of, 572.
Traders, value of, 53, 127.
Treasury, public, necessity of,
254 ff., 142 ff.
Turgot, 570.
Ueberfluss, 154 ff.
Usal, 575-
Ustaritz, 574.
Utilitarian symptoms, 280.
Utopia, Schroder's, 143; Justi's,
425 ff.
Value, theory of, 564 ff.
Vauban, 382, 554.
Varro, 230.
Velter, 439.
Vereinfur Social poliiik, 596.
6o6
THE CAMERALISTS
Verfassung, 34, 70, 341, 399. 44i,
508. 549-
Vergesellschaftung mil seines Glei-
chen, 489, 499.
Vergil, 230.
Verldger, 128.
Verm&gen, 76, 250, 251, 307, 327,
366. 367, 373 ff-> 375, 4t 44O,
532, 546.
Villeneuve, 573.
Vogemont, 528.
Volkswirthschaft, 290, 483.
Walpole, 569.
War, ethics of, 99, 102.
Warburton, 511.
Weakh, theory of, 131, 154, 156 ff.,
168, 171, 203 ff., 253, 339 ff.,
422 ff., 470, 592, 593.
Weise, C., 237.
Weitzel, xiv.
" Welfare, " and kindred terms, 30,
39. 58, 74, 86-88, 96, 112, 142,
173, 180, 181, 194, 226, 227, 236,
243, 244, 249, 250, 260, 262 ff.,
264 ff., 310, 319, 323, 324, 325,
329, 404 ff., 413, 454, 461, 490,
492 ff., 497 ff., 501, 503, 524,
526, 530 ff., 579, 589.
Wiegand, 556.
Wildvogel, 177.
Wirth, 276, 296.
Wirthschaftslehre, 12.
Woelnor, 550.
Wolff, xviii, 438, 482, 496.
Young, Arthur, 556.
Zanoni, 504.
Zedler, 186.
Zincke, 206.
Xenophon, 230, 284, 455.
Zarncke, 21.
Zimmermann, 232.
Zincke, 14, no, 225, 229, 232-66,
268, 284, 297, 309, 316, 437 ff.,
439, 481.
Zinzendorf, 108.
Zschackwitz, 224.
Zusammenfluss, 562.
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