ABSTRACT
Eighteenth-century German economic thought was associated most closely with cameralism, the study of national finance. Cameralism represented an economic theory in which public revenue was the sole measure of economic prosperity. Not surprisingly, there was little room for the individual entrepreneur in such a field. Owing to the burgeoning influence of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say, political economy began to gradually displace German cameral science around 1800. By 1814 Say’s Treatise had been translated into German and was beginning to make an impact on German economics.
