Menschenbild und Wirtschaftsordnung: Der Menschenbegriff im Kameralismus und in der National?konomie

Abstract

AbstractThis essay addresses the construction of human nature in cameralism and early German political economy. It suggests that the emergent economic sciences in Germany propounded a vision of human beings that stressed the psycho‐physiological roots of human behavior in general, and of economic activity in particular. In this vision, human beings possessed a body and soul whose constant interaction gave rise to needs and desires, and thus to the drive to behave as economic agents. Here the cameralists and early German political economists adopted conceptions of human nature current in the ‘Sciences of Man’ of the Enlightenment. This stress on the non‐rational, psycho‐physiological aspects of human nature prevented the theoretical construction of a stable human social life, and in this way justified the continued need for governmental oversight and control of economic activity.