ABSTRACT
The study explores the influence of Sonnenfels’s police and cameral sciences on the Political Codex. Whereas the original documents have been lost during the fire of 1927 in Vienna, this chapter is based on a newly discovered body of documents in the Chotek family archives in Prague. A thorough study of these documents proves that the theoretical outline was accomplished already in the Umriss of 1781 and amended in the Beitrag of 1808, in which a constitutional part was added. The Political Codex was indeed a constitutional project, but it sought to codify relations between social classes. In compliance with Sonnenfels’s political thought, it sought to establish equilibrium between classes and motivate the subjects to economic activities.
