This book provides an overview of two hundred years of German economic thought, from the Staatswissenschaften of the eighteenth century to National Socialism and the Social Market. Whereas classical economics, from Smith through Ricardo to Marx and Mill, emphasised value, distribution and production, German economic thought had a long-running tradition of human need and the varying conditions for order. These ideas are brought together by a conception of rational action and, therefore, a rationalistic appraisal of welfare and order. By taking this perspective, the usual contrast of market and planning approaches to economic organisation is subsumed by an approach which focuses on the construction of order in economic processes. This book highlights the continuity of this practical approach of German economists through the two centuries under consideration - from the Cameralists to the Ordoliberals.

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: from Cameralism to Ordoliberalism; 2. Cameralism and the science of government; 3. Die Vernunft des List. National economy and the critique of cosmopolitan economy; 4. Historical economics, the Methodenstreit, and the economics of Max Weber; 5. The Handelshochschulen and the formation of Betriebswirtschaftslehre, 1898-1925; 6. The Logical Structure of the Economic World - the rationalist economics of Otto Neurath; 7. Capitalism, totalitarianism and the legal order of National Socialism; 8. The genealogy of the Social Market Economy: 1937-48; 9. The New Economic Order and European economic integration; Bibliography; Index.