ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relation between cameralism and international politics in the second half of the eighteenth century. The argument is not that the character of cameralist discourse and its practice lent itself to support a specific conception of how international economic development and political stability could be attained and preserved. Yet, cameralists did not refrain from taking up heavily politicised perspectives on these issues. This chapter suggests that the context of Choiseul’s initiative to create a European and indeed global balance of power based on a balance of trade put Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi and Joseph von Sonnenfels at opposite ends of the international political divide. Moreover, it was not only the case that these writers domestically favoured positions that reflected the politics of their rulers. It also appears that the circumstances under which foreign translation and publications of their works were produced were influenced by this political dimension. When some of Justi’s works were translated into Dutch comparatively late, after 1766, they fulfilled a specific political function within the ongoing Dutch debate on trade and international relations and helped pave the way for the ensuing Dutch Patriot movement.
