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2020 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

Political Economy in the Habsburg Monarchy 1750–1774

The Contribution of Ludwig Zinzendorf

Author: Dr. Simon Adler

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

Political Economy in the Habsburg Monarchy is an important study of the contribution of Austrian Enlightenment economist Ludwig Zinzendorf to the political economy of the Habsburg monarchy in the mid eighteenth century. Simon Adler provides the first comprehensive analysis, and first ever study in English, of the development of Zinzendorf’s thinking on the economy, commerce and, above all, state finances. Political Economy in the Habsburg Monarchy shows the extent to which Zinzendorf’s insights were part of the wider European movement dedicated to understanding political economy as an independent and important activity. It establishes Zinzendorf, a protégé of the State Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz, as a pivotal figure in the development of Austrian economic and financial policies during the 1750s and 1760s and explains how he challenged cameralism using the most advanced European economic ideas, notably from French writers around Vincent de Gournay. This book is based upon wide-ranging research of primary sources and comprehensive coverage of secondary literature and adds significantly to the ongoing historiographical turn towards political economy in the eighteenth century.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
Scholars have used the concept of fiscal–military state to study the importance of finance in the development of the states in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The term was first used in the late 1980s by John Brewer in a study on eighteenth-century Britain. It has since been employed widely, notably in a comparative context. The term was apposite to describe the evolution of states and their fiscal systems to meet the demands of larger armies and more expensive equipment. A central question was the effectiveness with which economic resources could be mobilised. For Brewer, to cover the increasing costs of warfare, a fiscal–military state had to be able to raise funds through both credit and taxation. Further, a good administrative structure was necessary to support its fiscal and military activities. This became particularly relevant in the eighteenth century when the costs of warfare in Europe increased significantly. Recently, the relevance of a fiscal–military state has also been examined for the Habsburg monarchy in the eighteenth century.
Simon Adler
Chapter 2. Zinzendorf with Kaunitz in France, 1750–1752
Abstract
This chapter first provides background on the long aristocratic history of the Zinzendorf family and explores the relationship between Ludwig Zinzendorf and State Chancellor Wenzel Kaunitz. It then shows how Zinzendorf became a protégé of Kaunitz and in 1750 joined his ambassadorial mission to France as an economic expert. It discusses Zinzendorf’s commercial travels in Brittany and his assessment of the French trading company and navy. The chapter also examines Zinzendorf’s most important output during his stay in France in which he offered to Kaunitz and the Habsburg rulers a comparative account of the French and English economies and state finances.
Simon Adler
Chapter 3. French Intellectual Influence: Melon and Gournay
Abstract
This chapter presents the important intellectual influences on Zinzendorf. It argues that the French economic thinkers Jean-François Melon and Vincent de Gournay provided intellectual inspiration to Zinzendorf. In a comparative approach, the chapter offers an exposition of Zinzendorf’s, Melon’s and Gournay’s writings and discusses their ideas on the economy, on commerce as well as on the money supply and its circulation.
Simon Adler
Chapter 4. The German Translation of Law’s Money and Trade, 1758
Abstract
This chapter throws light on the importance of translations in the eighteenth century. It analyses Zinzendorf’s German translation of John Law’s economic treatise Money and Trade (1705). The translation was printed in 1758 and entitled Gedanken vom Gelde. It showed Zinzendorf’s interpretation of Law’s ideas and why he thought that more than 50 years later they were still relevant to German readers. Zinzendorf’s book was heavily footnoted and followed the typical pattern of eighteenth-century translations. In Gedanken vom Gelde, Zinzendorf brought Law’s thinking up to date by adding arguments from Montesquieu, from the French writers of Gournay’s circle and from the German debates on monetary matters and currency manipulations of the early 1750s.
Simon Adler
Chapter 5. The Development of Zinzendorf’s Thinking on State Credit
Abstract
This chapter sets out Zinzendorf thinking on state credit. Starting with his plans for war finance for the Seven Years’ War, the chapter traces the development of Zinzendorf’s thinking for a robust financial system for the Habsburg monarchy with equal relevance for war and peacetime. The system was based on the creation of a stock exchange together with a new independent political bank. The latter was modelled on the Bank of England. An important section of the chapter is dedicated to Zinzendorf’s detailed survey of 12 European banks which he divided into banks for the expansion of commerce, banks for the increase in the supply of money and political banks.
Simon Adler
Chapter 6. The Financial Expert of the Habsburg Monarchy
Abstract
This chapter is devoted to Zinzendorf’s decade-long career in government and shows how he operated as a sophisticated financial expert. The discussion centres on the type of economic thinker Zinzendorf became, Zinzendorf’s circle of like-minded individuals, his contribution to debates within government, his engagement with the public sphere in the monarchy and the distinctiveness of his ideas to the cameralist theories of Justi and Sonnenfels.
Simon Adler
Chapter 7. Conclusion
Abstract
Ludwig Zinzendorf was a sophisticated economic thinker in the mid-eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy, part of the wider intellectual movement in Europe dedicated to understanding political economy and presenting it as an independent and important activity. Self-educated, polyglot and hard-working, Zinzendorf was formidably well-read and impressively numerate. His output was detailed and analytical. Zinzendorf sought to provide a different kind of economic advice and attempted to open government up to new concepts on the economy. He was a reformer resolute in his determination to propagate the most advanced European ideas and practices. Foreign thinkers, in particular French, provided Zinzendorf with the arguments with which he developed a new system of political economy for the monarchy. For Zinzendorf, who was a pragmatist, tried and tested ideas were preferable to new ones. They could be adapted to a different political environment. In this, and in his desire to generate a more open debate on economic arguments, Zinzendorf attempted to apply a moderate format of Gournay’s French initiative in the monarchy.
Simon Adler
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Political Economy in the Habsburg Monarchy 1750–1774
Author
Dr. Simon Adler
Copyright Year
2020
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-31007-3
Print ISBN
978-3-030-31006-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31007-3