Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Chapter 6 - Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Summary
The idea of economic decline has been with us for a very long time. The notion that human societies are bound to follow the cyclical patterns of nature – birth, life, decline and death – is found from the Greek philosophy of Plato to the Arab philosophy of Ibn-Khaldun. Only late Renaissance and Enlightenment Entzauberung – demystification – of the world picture view freed mankind from the cyclical vicissitudes of the blindfolded goddess Fortuna and opened up for rational economic policy to prevent booms and bust. During the last century the theory of decline in the Westmanifested itself in German Kulturpessimismus with Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West (1918), in the United States with Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987), but also as harsh reality in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The combined effects of the present economic crisis, which started as a financial crisis in 2007, and the rise of Asia – particularly China – have again put the subject of economic decline on the agenda in Western countries. In a now virtually forgotten economic bestseller, Institutions Politiques, German Economist Jacob Bielfeld (1717– 1770), an advisor to Frederick the Great of Prussia, has a very comprehensive and – as opposed to Spengler's generalisations 150 years later – very concrete, detailed and specific list of the factors which cause the decline of nations. This paper brings the first ever English translation of this chapter with a brief discussion arguing for a renewed relevance not only of the factors and mechanisms pointed to by Bielfeld, but also of Bielfeld's fact-based and taxonomic approach to economic understanding. An important reason for republishing Bielfeld's chapter on the decline of nations is that it compares so favourably with the narrow focus of modern economic theory on the subject, exemplified in Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail.
Europe at the time of Bielfeld presented a large number of nations from which to draw experiences. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia had produced around 400 independent states in Germany alone, although by 1760 the number had decreased considerably. Due to his position at the Court of Frederick the Great and in Prussia's Foreign Service, Bielfeld had unique access to information from many nations. Precisely because of this privileged access to information, Bielfeld's correspondence was published and translated (from French) also into German and English.
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- The Visionary Realism of German EconomicsFrom the Thirty Years’ War to the Cold War, pp. 203 - 242Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019