Dear Arno,
List makes an implicit argument for a kind of supra class national authority but never provides any specifics to its nature--as even Eugen Duhring pointed out. But I challenge you to provide me just one quote from List where he proposes any political or social *programs* for improving the condition of labor.
Moreover, do you disagree with Marx's analysis that behind List's desire to subordinate the economy to the putatively non economic entity of the nation was really the nascent German bourgeoisie's desire to exploit the proletariat at home without having to compete in such exploitation with foreign bourgeoisie; that List has only presented the money grubbing motives of the national bourgeoisie in idealistic terms. Was Marx wrong to argue that the policies recommended by List would allow the German bourgeois "to exploit his fellow countrymen, indeed exploit them even more than they were exploited from abroad," because protective tarrifs require sacrifices from consumers.
"Money is the father land of the industrialist", noted Marx in his List critique, as summarized by Roman Szporluk Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List (Oxford 1988; by the way, while showing List's approval of an international div of labor, suited to imperialist nations, Szporluk argues that List did not resort to race but to natural geographic conditions to justify it.)
Now as for List not being a nascent social imperialist, here is what he writes:
"the ruling section of the peoples of this earth has for some time been segregating itself according to descent...One speaks of a German, a Romanic, a Slavonic race in political aspect. This distinction alone seems destined to exercise great influence upon the practical politics of the future. At the head of the three races stand England, France and Russia...There is hardly any doubt that Germanic race has by virtue of its nature and character been preferentially selected by Providence for the solution of the great task--to lead the affairs of the world, to civilize the wild barbaric countries, to populate those still uninhabitated, for none of the others has the capacity to emigrate en masse and to found more perfect communities in foreign lands...and to keep free of the influences of barbaric and semi-barbaric aborigines."
And List advised England: "Alliance with Germany will remain the the only true means whereby England can make Asia and Africa serviceable for her future greatness, alliance with Germany not as she is today but with Germany as she ought to be and as she could become, with England's help."
These quotes are from his Memorandum on the Value and the Conditions of an Alliance between Great Britain and Germany, and it is this which Neumann argues anticipates the "geopolitics" of Mein Kampf. Your post is non responsive.
Szporluk also writes: "List's preference for large states has raised serious questions about the extent to which such states would be liberal in their international organziation and about his understanding of international relations, international law and international order. Edmund Silberner...believes it is 'astonishing' that List 'should have given to his doctrine the name of "national system,", for it was a system that applied only to the "great nations, the ones List called normal.' In other words, say Silberner, List's system is meant only for nations to carry out a policy of expansion." (p. 129)
Arno cites:
"the mixing of the white race with the black in the third and the fourth generation"
In the fourth generation was not even taboo in the American South.
And let's compare the pithy statements:
List: "businessmen of all germanies, unite!"
" Between the individual and humanity stands the nation."
Marx: "The workers have no country."
best, rakesh