第82章 Chapter V(58)

He refuses to Smith's system the title of the industrial,which he thinks more appropriate to the mercantile system,anddesignates the former as "the exchange-value system."He denies the parallelism asserted by Smith between the economicconduct proper to an individual and to a nation,and holds that the immediate private interest of the separate members of thecommunity will not lead to the highest good of the whole.The nation is an existence,standing between the individual andHumanity,and formed into a unity by its language,manners,historical development,culture,and constitution.This unity isthe first condition of the security,wellbeing,progress,and civilization of the individual;and private economic interests,likeall others,must be subordinated to the maintenance,completion,and strengthening of the nationality.The nation having acontinuous life,its true wealth consistsand this is List's fundamental doctrinenot in the quantity of exchange-values whichit possesses,but in the full and many-sided development of its productive powers.Its economic education,if we may sospeak,is more important than the immediate production of values,and it may be right that the present generation shouldsacrifice its gain and enjoyment to secure the strength and skill of the future.In the sound and normal condition of a nationwhich has attained economic maturity,the three productive powers of agriculture,manufactures,and commerce should bealike developed.But the two latter factors are superior in importance,as exercising a more effective and fruitful influence onthe whole culture of the nation,as well as on its independence.Navigation,railways,all higher technical arts,connectthemselves specially with these factors;whilst in a purely agricultural state there is a tendency to stagnation,absence ofenterprise,and the maintenance of antiquated prejudices.But for the growth of the higher forms of industry all countries arenot adaptedonly those of the temperate zones,whilst the torrid regions have a natural monopoly in the production ofcertain raw materials;and thus between these two groups of countries a division of labour and confederation of powersspontaneously takes place.List then goes on to explain his theory of the stages of economic development through which thenations of the temperate zone,which are furnished with all the necessary conditions,naturally pass,in advancing to theirnormal economic state.These are (1)pastoral life,(2)agriculture,(3)agriculture united with manufactures;whilst in thefinal stage agriculture,manufactures,and commerce are combined.The economic task of the state is to bring into existenceby legislative and administrative action the conditions required for the progress of the nation through these stages.Out ofthis view arises List's scheme of industrial politics.Every nation,according to him,should begin with free trade,stimulatingand improving its agriculture,by intercourse with richer and more cultivated nations,importing foreign manufactures andexporting raw products.When it is economically so far advanced that it can manufacture for itself,then a system ofprotection should be employed to allow the home industries to develop themselves fully,and save them from beingoverpowered in their earlier efforts by the competition of more matured foreign industries in the home market.When thenational industries have grown strong enough no longer to dread this competition,then the highest stage of progress hasbeen reached;free trade should again become the rule,and the nation be thus thoroughly incorporated with the universalindustrial union.In List's time,according to his view,Spain,Portugal,and Naples were purely agricultural countries;Germany and the United States of North America had arrived at the second stage,their manufactures being in process ofdevelopment.France was near the boundary of the third or highest stage,which England alone had reached.For England,therefore,as well as for the agricultural countries first-named,free trade was the right economic policy,but not forGermany or America.What a nation loses for a time in exchange-values during the protective period she much more thangains in the long run in productive power,the temporary expenditure being strictly analogous,when we place ourselves atthe point of view of the life of the nation,to the cost of the industrial education of the individual.The practical conclusionwhich List drew for his own country was that she needed for her economic progress an extended and conveniently boundedterritory reaching to the sea-coast both on north and south,and a vigorous expansion of manufactures and commerce,andthat the way to the latter lay through judicious protective legislation with a customs union comprising all German lands,anda German marine with a Navigation Act.The national German spirit,striving after independence and power through union,and the national industry,awaking from its lethargy and eager to recover lost ground,were favourable to the success ofList's book,and it produced a great sensation.He ably represented the tendencies and demands of his time in his owncountry;his work had the effect of fixing the attention,not merely of the speculative and official classes,but of practical mengenerally,on questions of Political Economy;and he had without doubt an important influence on German industrial policy.