Cameralism (redirected from Cameral)

Cameralism 

a special program of studies of administrative and economic disciplines taught in European universities in the Middle Ages and in the universities of Russia from the 1850’s. In Germany, for example, this program included economic, geographic, and other subjects. Cameralism received its name from the cameral managements established in the Middle Ages by princes, dukes, and kings with extensive business activities. The so-called cameral disciplines were taught at special university departments and special schools (cameral schools) for the training of bureaucrats and administrators for the affairs of the high feudal lords; disciplines taught included mainly mining, forestry, and agricultural sciences. Marx characterized cameralism as “a medley of smatterings, through whose purgatory the hopeful candidate for the German bureaucracy has to pass” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Sock, 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 13).