List, Friedrich

List, Friedrich (frē`drĭkh lĭst), 1789–1846, German economist. The first professor of economics at the Univ. of Tübingen, he was elected (1820) to the Württemberg legislature. For his advocacy of administrative reforms he was sentenced to imprisonment but was released on condition that he would emigrate to the United States. There he engaged in various enterprises, and in 1832 he was returned to Germany as U.S. consul at Leipzig. Insisting upon the necessity for a commercial association of German states and the full development of productive powers in those states, he became a ceaseless advocate of a customs union (Zollverein). He urged a policy of economic protection for young industries and nations. Many of his influential ideas were subsequently adopted by the U.S. government. List's most important work is The National System of Political Economy (1840, tr. 1904).

Bibliography

See M. Hirst, Life of Friedrich List and Selections from His Writings (1909, repr. 1965).

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List, (Georg) Friedrich

(born Aug. 6, 1789, Reutlingen, Württemberg, Ger.—died Nov. 30, 1846, Kufstein, Austria) German-born U.S. economist. He first gained prominence as the founder of an association of German industrialists that favoured abolishing tariff barriers between the German states. Exiled in 1825 for his liberal views, he went to the U.S. In his Outlines of American Political Economy (1827) he maintained that a national economy in an early stage of industrialization required tariff protection to stimulate development. After becoming a U.S. citizen, he returned to Germany as U.S. consul at Baden (1831–34) and Leipzig (1834–37). His best-known work was The National System of Political Economy (1841). Financial and other difficulties eventually drove him to suicide.

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List, Friedrich 

Born Aug. 6, 1789, in Reutlingen; died Nov. 30, 1846, in Kufstein. German economist, representative of the school of vulgar political economics, and spokesman for the interests of the German industrial bourgeoisie.

In 1817, List became professor of government at the University of Tübingen. He was a founder of a general association of German industrialists and merchants. His basic work is The National System of Political Economy (1841), in which political economy as a science was replaced by what he termed national economy, a system of recommendations on economic policy for the emerging German bourgeoisie. He developed the idea of “protectionism for infant industries,” which required the active intervention of the state in economic life, and attempted to develop a theory of productive forces, considering “educational capital” such as scientific discoveries and advances in craftsmanship to be a basic element in these forces and a major source of a nation’s wealth. List defended the chauvinist idea of German hegemony in Europe. He looked upon war as the “blessing of the nation.” Several of List’s ideas were later employed in Nazi geopolitics.

REFERENCES

Marx, K. Teorii pribavochnoi stoimosti (vol. 4 of Das Kapital), part 1, ch. 4.
Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., vol. 26, part 1.
Smit, M. N. Ocherki istorii burzhuaznoi politicheskoi ekonomii. Moscow, 1961.
Roll, E. A History of Economic Thought. London, 1956.
Roussakis, E. N. Friedrich List, the Zollverein and the Uniting of Europe. Bruges, 1968.

IU. A. VASIL’CHUK