Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie.: Erster Band [all published]. Der internationale Handel, die Handelspolitik und der deutsche Zollverein.

Stuttgart & Tübingen: J. G. Cotta,, 1841. A severe critique of classical economics First edition of List's major work, among the earliest and most substantial attacks on the free-trade economic model offered by the classical school of political economy. List's justification for protectionism, what came to be known as the "National System", had an enduring influence across Europe and America. List "denounced Adam Smith and his disciples as the 'cosmopolitan school' and held that universal free trade was an ideal that could be achieved only in the far distant future. For the time being, he argued, each nation should foster the development of its own manufactures by import duties and even outright prohibitions. Only by such means could countries like Germany, Russia and the United States ever hope to achieve the industrial efficiency that would enable them to compete on equal terms with Britain... In recent times, List has been hailed not so much as a spokesman for protectionism as a champion of the ambitions of underdeveloped countries. No doubt he was one of the first to recognise the role of national power in the international division of labour and present-day advocates of the dependency school of economic development may legitimately regard him as a forerunner" (Blaug, p. 129f). Octavo (199 x 118 mm). Contemporary quarter sheep, spine lettered in gilt, marbled sides, brown endpapers, light blue speckled edges. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. 20th-century bookseller's ticket of Robert Wölfle to front pastedown. Binding fresh and well-preserved, a few leaves a little browned else generally clean and bright; an excellent copy. Blaug, Great Economists before Keynes, 1986; Goldsmiths' 31957; Humpert 8113; Kress C.5545; Mattioli 2049; Printing and the Mind of Man 311; not in Einaudi or Menger.