Friedrich List

National System of Political Economy - Volume 2: the Theory Friedrich List

If we wish to remain true to the laws of logic and of the nature of things, we must set the economy of individuals against the economy of societies, and discriminate in respect to the latter between true political or national economy... and cosmopolitan economy, which originates in the assumption that all nations of the earth form but one society living in a perpetual state of peace. -from "Chapter 11: Political and Cosmopolitical Economy" One of the most prominent economic philosophers of the 19th century, on a par with-but espousing quite different thinking than-Karl Marx and Adam Smith explores, in the three-volume National System of Political Economy, a reasoned doctrine of national and pan-national management of trade, a global collaboration between government and business. In Volume 2, he delineates his theory of supportive interconnectedness, discussing everything from the value of the individual's ability to produce wealth to the edge established businesses have over new ones. A close reading of this 1841 classic is an absolute necessity for anyone who hopes to understand world economic history of the last 150 years. German economist and journalist FRIEDRICH LIST (1789-1846) served as professor of administration and politics at the University of Tübingen, but was later jailed and later exiled to America for his political views. His is also the author of Outlines of American Political Economy (1827).