ABSTRACT
Some of the weaknesses of The Natural System of Political Economy may be ascribed to List's background and previous experience. Although for a short time he had once been a professor at Tiibingen, he was no academic. He was a politician, a journalist, and a businessman. His treatise for the French Academy - written in great haste - was his first attempt to give a systematic account of his economic doctrines. It did not turn out to be a balanced scholarly monograph. Each chapter might have been an article written for a newspaper. It was List the journalist, rather than List the economist who was responsible for the sweeping generalisations, the exaggerations, and the personal attacks upon his opponents.
