Friedrich List & Franz Neumann

[Greg Nowell]

Neumann's Behemoth is a great work.   It is true that
List was a major influence on Nazi autarchic policies.
List also advocated an getting a colonial empire on the
British/French model.  But I would not want to put
Nazism on List's shoulders, there were a lot of
nationalist imperialists who didn't got "quite that
far."    As for racism, List was race conscious but not
of the Nazi variety.  He advocated inter-racial
breeding on the theory that it made for stronger
humans.

List wasn't really an advocate of autarchy to the same
extent as the Nazis.  He did think industrialization
was a good thing, and that tariffs were needed to
prevent the emergence of a tradedeficit that would
cause the banking system to collapse (and prices along
with it).

A more radical autrachic theory was advanced in 1800 by
J.G. Fichte, der Handelstaat Geschlossne (the Closed
Commercial State) which has not been translated in
English but is available in French and Italian as well
as German.  Fichte thought that self-sufficiency was
the best way to avoid the imperialist excesses of
international capitalism, and that as such it was a
road to peace.  Autarchic theory is deeply rooted in
German experience and I think the Nazis could have come
up with their ideas with or wihtout List.

--
Gregory P. Nowell
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Milne 100
State University of New York
135 Western Ave.
Albany, New York 12222

Fax 518-442-5298