Profile Major Works Resources

Joseph von Sonnenfels, 1733-1817.

Highly powerful and influential Austrian Neo-Cameralist, and perhaps the most far-sighted of them. Joseph von Sonnenfels was not over-enthralled by the absolutist state and had a very practical sense of administrative policy.  Sonnenfels advocated liberal tax reforms and government expenditures to promote general public welfare. 

Joseph von Sonnenfels was born of modest family of assimilated Jews from Moravia.  He served in the Austrian army, before enrolling at the University of Vienna in 1754, graduating in 1758.  He worked for a while as a journalist, unable to secure an academic position.  Finally, in 1763, Sonennfels managed to persuade the Empress Maria Theresa to establish a chair in policy and cameralistics ("polizei- und cameral wissenschaft") at the University of Vienna in 1763.  Sonnenfels originally relied on the works of Justi and Forbonnais for his lectures.  But in 1765 Sonnenfels produced his own three-volume textbook.  Sonnenfels's Grundsätze remained the standard textbook at Vienna until 1848.  His second volume (dedicated to commerce) contains an extensive discussion of civilizational progress, linked to exchange and the division of labor.  Despite his attachment to public welfare as the object and measure of State policy, Sonnenfels remained a Mercantilist in his policy outlook, encouraging the promotion exports and curtailing of imports. 

Sonnenfels lived to see the rise of Classical economics, and modernized his views a bit.

  

  

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Major Works of Joseph von Sonnenfels

  • Grundsätze der Policey, Handlung, und Finanz, 1765-67 v.1, v.2, v.3 [1768 2nd ed., v.1, 1770 3rd ed, v.1] [1771 v.2] [1776 ed, v.3] [1787 5th ed., v.1, v.2, v.3][1804-05 7th ed., v.1, v.2, v.3] [1819-22 8th ed, v.1, v.2, v.3]
  • Briefe über die Wienerische Schaubühne, 1768 [bk] [1884 ed]
  • Über die Liebe des Vaterlandes, 1771 [bk] [1785 ed]
  • Ueber die Abschaffung der Tortur, 1775 [bk]
  • Politische Abhandlungen, 1777 [bk] [1964 repr]
  • Sonnenfels gesammelte Schriften, 1783-87, ten volumes. 1783: v.1, v.2, v.3, 1784: v.4, v.5, v.6, 1785: v.7,  1786: v.8,  v.9, 1787: v.10
  • Ueber den Geschäftsstil: Die ersten Grundlinien für angehende österreichische Kanzleybeamten, [1785 ed, 1787 ed; 1820 repr]
  • Uiber Wucher und Wuchergesetze, ein Vorstellung, mit Anmerkungen, 1789 [bk]
  • Zu Herrn Hofraths von Keess Abhandlung Ueber die Aufhebung der Wuchergesetze, 1791 [bk]
  • Oratio, qua rectoris munus in universitate Vindobonensi, 1794 [bk]
  • Handbuch der inneren Staatsverwaltung mit Rucksicht auf die Umstande und Begriffe der Zeit, 1798, v.1, v.2
  • Ueber die Stimmenmehrheit bey Kriminal-Urtheilen, 1801 [1808 ed]
  • Ueber die öffentliche Sicherheit: oder, Von der Sorgfalt, die Privatkräfte gegen die Kraft des Staats in einem untergeordneten Verhältnisse zu erhalten, 1817 [bk]
  • Briefe von Sonnenfels: als Beitrag zu seiner Biographie (ed. H.Rollett), 1874 [bk]

 
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Resources on J. von Sonnenfels

 

 
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