Hörnigk's Theoretical Achievement

Hornigk's book was a product of the mainstream – Cameralist-Mercantilist economics as it emerged to perfection between 1650 and 1750. But in many ways, with his Nine Principles or ‘Rules’ of Economic Development (see later in this chapter), Hornigk was the one who would set the tone for years to come. Even Ekelund and Tollison, who portrayed Mercantilist theory and practice in a rather bizarre way, took Hornigk's Nine Rules of economic development as representing Mercantilist thought in a nutshell (interestingly, they did not bother too much about Cameralism; while getting Hornigk's first rule wrong). On the one hand, Hornigk put into words what many others thought in his day. Economics was symbiotically linked with the big political issues of his day. We must not forget that anti-French publications and discourses reached a climax towards the beginning of the 1680s in the German territories. This had to do with the expansionist, and at times openly aggressive, policies of Louis XIV, the great French Sun King, who strove to turn France into the most powerful state in Europe. For this goal, he was admired and feared at the same time by his contemporaries. Alliances and allegiances were fluid and kept changing; in German politics pro-and anti-French stances were to be found coexisting and alternating sometimes within the same territory. Politics were not quite as ideological yet as they would be in later centuries, especially the twentieth century. Political stances and diplomatic connections could vary in the blink of an eye, with the death of a prince or a new bribe. They were in more or less constant flux throughout the 1660s and 1670s in the territories of the empire – especially as so many of these mini-states existed in the heart of Europe, which increased the demand for, as well as the supply of, itinerant messengers, ambassadors, negotiators and other diplomats, a new class of individuals that made politics and lobbyism increasingly their main business.