The cameralists: A public choice perspective

Juergen Backhaus and Richard Wagner

Public Choice, 1987, vol. 53, issue 1, 3-20

Abstract: We think that cameralism offers much interesting material to public choice scholars. Treated purely as a matter of intellectual history, cameralist thought reflects an integrated treatment of considerations that today are commonly apportioned among the disciplines of economics, political science, and public administration. The unified cameralist perspective centered on the theory and practice of statecraft should surely be congenial to public choice scholars. But there is also much opportunity for scholarship on the economic and political history of the German states during the cameralist period. While we have suggested that the various German states constituted what might be considered a competitive industry in the provision of collective services, comparatively little is known about how the various economic and political processes actually operated during this period. For instance, rules of dynastical succession surely conflict with the competitive model; there is little dynastical succession in economic life. Our quick, and far from complete reading of the history suggests that there may have been much less dynastical succession than is commonly believed, and that the management of states changed hands more frequently than commonly thought. A prince who mismanaged his country frequently had to mortgage its revenue sources, or even parts of the entire country, to a more successful competitor. Similarly, treaties of succession would establish claims on the prince's throne after his death. But we have little solid evidence to offer about this; we do think, though, that public choice scholarship could bring many valuable insights to bear on this period. Indeed, the various writers within the German Historical School have in many cases left a rich legacy concerning political economy to which public choice scholars could bring valuable perspectives and fresh questions. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1987

Date: 1987
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00115651 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:53:y:1987:i:1:p:3-20

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/BF00115651

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().