SECKENDORFF, Veit Ludwig von.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Teutscher Fürsten-Stat, oder: gründliche und kurtze Beschreibung welcher gestalt Fürstenthümer Graff- und Herrschafften im H. Römischen Reich Teutscher Nation, First edition of the the founding treatise of Cameralism, and the first outstanding treatise on public administration and policy in Germany following the Seven Years War.Described as "the Adam Smith of Cameralism" (Small, p. 69), Seckendorff used his experience as chancellor to Ernest the Pious, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to devise a science of public administration to reconstruct the more than 300 independent German principalities recognized by the Peace of Westphalia. "Behind the descriptive and pedagogic program there is a definite social vision and a definite policy. The given end being a numerous and well-employed population, protection and internal freedom of industry and trade - which will of itself eliminate obsolete craft guilds - compulsory elementary education, and a system of taxation based upon the excise - which by bearing lightly on the higher incomes will increase employment - are the principal means envisaged" (Schumpeter, p. 168). The work influenced the administrative policies of German states well into the 18th century.Only one copy of this first edition is recorded in auction records.

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