The National System of Political Economy
By Friedrich List
MORE than thirty-three years have elapsed since I first entertained doubts as to the truth of the prevailing theory of political economy, and endeavoured to investigate (what appeared to me) its errors and their fundamental causes. My avocation (as Professor) gave me the motive to undertake that task–the opposition which it was my fate to meet with forcibly impelled me to pursue it further.My German contemporaries will remember to what a low ebb the well-being of Germany had sunk in 1818. I prepared myself by studying works on political economy. I made myself as fully acquainted as others with what had been thought and written on that subject. But I was not satisfied with teaching young men that science in its present form; I desired also to teach them by what economical policy the welfare, the culture, and the power of Germany might be promoted. The popular theory inculcated the principle of freedom of trade. That principle appeared to me to be accordant with common sense, and also to be proved by experience, when I considered the results of the abolition of the internal provincial tariffs in France, and of the union of the three kingdoms under one Government in Great Britain. But the wonderfully favourable effects of Napoleon’s Continental system, and the destructive results of its abolition, were events too recent for me to overlook; they seemed to me to be directly contradictory of what I previously observed. And in endeavouring to ascertain on what that contradiction was founded, the idea struck me that
the theory was quite true, but only so in case all nations would reciprocally follow the principles of free trade, just as those provinces had done. This led me to consider the nature of
nationality. I perceived that the popular theory took no account of
nations, but simply of the entire human race on the one hand, or of single individuals on the other. I saw clearly that free competition between two nations which are highly civilised can only be mutually beneficial in case both of them are in a nearly equal position of industrial development, and that any nation which owing to misfortunes is behind others in industry, commerce, and navigation, while she nevertheless possesses the mental and material means for developing those acquisitions, must first of all strengthen her own individual powers, in order to fit herself to enter into free competition with more advanced nations. In a word, I perceived the distinction between
cosmopolitical and
political economy. I felt that Germany must abolish her internal tariffs, and by the adoption of a common uniform commercial policy towards foreigners, strive to attain to the same degree of commercial and industrial development to which other nations have attained by means of their commercial policy. [From the Preface to the First Edition]
Translator/Editor
J. Shield Nicholson, ed. Sampson S. Lloyd, trans.
First Pub. Date
1841
Publisher
London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Pub. Date
1909
Comments
First published in German. First translated 1885.
Copyright
The text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of List courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.
- Translators Preface to the First Edition
- Introductory Essay, by J. Shield Nicholson
- Memoir
- Extracts from the Authors Preface
- Book I, Chapter 1
- Book I, Chapter 2
- Book I, Chapter 3
- Book I, Chapter 4
- Book I, Chapter 5
- Book I, Chapter 6
- Book I, Chapter 7
- Book I, Chapter 8
- Book I, Chapter 9
- Book I, Chapter 10
- Book II, Chapter 11
- Book II, Chapter 12
- Book II, Chapter 13
- Book II, Chapter 14
- Book II, Chapter 15
- Book II, Chapter 16
- Book II, Chapter 17
- Book II, Chapter 18
- Book II, Chapter 19
- Book II, Chapter 20
- Book II, Chapter 21
- Book II, Chapter 22
- Book II, Chapter 23
- Book II, Chapter 24
- Book II, Chapter 25
- Book II, Chapter 26
- Book II, Chapter 27
- Book III, Chapter 28
- Book III, Chapter 29
- Book III, Chapter 30
- Book III, Chapter 31
- Book III, Chapter 32
- Book IV, Chapter 33
- Book IV, Chapter 34
- Book IV, Chapter 35
- Book IV, Chapter 36
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Appendix C
- Appendix D
APPENDIX B.
THE following instances (among others) in which the State has, with general assent of the public, interfered with the liberty of individuals in respect to their separate action, are adduced by the late Mr. Justice Byles.
The State provides defences against external aggression.
It conducts treaties with foreign nations.
It preserves internal peace and order.
It is the corner-stone of family ties, family duties, family affection, family education, by regulating and enforcing the marriage contract.
It institutes and protects property.
It regulates the transmission of property.
It enforces the repair of highways by the several districts through which they pass, or by those who use them.
It obliges each county to make and repair its own bridges.
It maintains ports and harbours.
It surveys and lights the sea coasts of the realm.
It coins money, and prohibits interference with this monopoly.
It regulates the issue of promissory notes payable to bearer.
It provides a uniform system of weights and measures, and proscribes the use of any other.
It assumes the distribution of intelligence by post.
By the patent and copyright laws it gives bounties on the exertion of the inventive faculties, in the shape of a
monopoly for a limited period.
By requiring a public specification, explanatory of every patented discovery or invention, it takes care that the secret shall not be hidden from the public or die with the inventor.
It imposes a bridle on the acquisition of property by corporate bodies.
It protects the public health by the prohibition of nuisances of thousands of kinds, and by making provision for their removal.
By the quarantine laws it prevents the importation of contagious diseases.
It provides for the cleanliness of towns.
It regulates the fares of hackney carriages and controls the drivers.
It forbids inoculation for the small-pox, and artificially promotes vaccination.
It assumes the distribution of insolvents’ estates.
It provides for the maintenance of the poor.
It forbids perpetuities by avoiding all attempts to tie up property beyond a life or lives in being and twenty-one years afterwards.
Though it tolerates all religions, it does not leave the virtue and
happiness of the multitude without the support and direction of an established faith and worship.
In the above cases Government interferes on behalf of
the public. But there are others in which it does so to protect the helplessness or inexperience of individuals. Thus:
It shields infants by avoiding their contracts and protecting their persons and property;
And married women;
And persons of unsound mind;
And in many ways the helpless labouring poor.
It forbids the truck system.
It regulates the employment of women and children in mines and factories.
It controls pawnbrokers—grinding the tooth of usury, and securing facilities for redemption.
It prohibits and punishes, as we have seen, the use of unjust weights and measures;
And the sale of unwholesome provisions;
And the adulteration of coffee, tobacco, snuff, beer, tea, cocoa, chocolate, and pepper.
To guard against fraud, it directs the form and manner in which wills shall be executed.
If a man gives a money bond with a penalty if the money is not repaid at a day prefixed, the State forbids the penalty to be enforced.
A purchaser of gold or silver articles cannot tell whether they are real gold and silver or not, or how much of the weight is precious metal, and how much is alloy. The State steps in to his assistance, and requires the assay mark of a public officer.
A man buys a pocket of hops. He cannot always open it to see whether it is of the growth alleged or of uniform quality. The State interferes and makes it penal to mark or pack falsely.
An attorney sends in his bill. The client cannot tell whether the charges are usual and fair. The State intervenes and provides a public officer who is empowered, not only to correct, but also to punish overcharges.
The State compels the professional education of medical men and attorneys.
The above are but some instances of the mode in which nearly all governments have found it for the advantage of the community to interpose.
What is the interposition of Government?
Simply the concentrated action of the wisdom and power of the whole society on a given point; a mutual agreement by all, that certain things shall be done or not done for the general benefit.—’
Sophisms of Free Trade examined,’ by a Barrister (the late Mr. Justice Byles), 1870.