Public and Commonweal Enterprises in Germany

Abstract

The term “public sector” is a relatively new and controversial term with several meanings. It dates back to the terms “Staatswirtschaft” (State Economy) and “öffentliche Finanzwirtschaft” (Public Finance). The original meaning of the term “Staatswirtschaft” was the production of goods and services by the state to cover its own needs. Under the leadership of the cameralists, farm land and buildings, forestry land, mines, factories producing porcelain, cloth, paper, weaponry and metal goods enabled Germany’s princes as the embodiment of the state (L’Etat c’est moi!) in the age of Absolutism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to retain expensive courts, to equip standing armies for the first time and build up a civil service with tenure. The cameralists (from the Latin ‘camera principis’ = prince’s treasure chamber) endeavoured to increase the prosperity by increasing the wealth of the state and developed the economy in a planned fashion by means of trade and in particular foreign trade (mercantilism). Important representatives of the cameralist school of thought were Kaspar Klock, Johann Joachim Becher, Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff, Joseph von Sonnenfels and Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi.