LIST, list. ( 1789 1846). .‘ German economist. lle was born at. Reutlingen in Wiirt temberg. lle was the son of a well to-do tanner, lint. a. he had no taste for his father's trade, he en tered the public service as a clerk and rose rapidly until in 1s10 he attained the position of ministerial under-secretary. In 1817 he was appointed professor of political economy at Ttibingen, but with the fall of the Ministry which he sup ported he was forced in to re sign his professorship. lle was elected member of the Diet of WOO temberg. hut was expelled in 1822 for his censure of the acts of the Government, and was condemned to ten months' imprison ment. lie escaped, however, seeking refuge suc cessivel• in Baden, Alsace, and Switzerland. In 1825 he came to Pennsylvania, where he tried farming, but soon abandoned it to become editor of a German paper in Beading. In 18•7 he published a pamphlet entitled Outlines of a Ne• System of Pot/Jiro! Economy. in which he de fended the doctrine of protection. The discovery of coal upon his property placed him in easy circumstances and he turned again toward Ger many, having, received an appointment as United States Consul at Hamburg. But on his arrival in Europe in 1830 lie found that the Senate had failed to confirm his appointment, and though about 1833 he was appointed Consul at Leipzig. he was persona non grata to the Saxon Gov ernment and held the post for a short time only. At this time he was much interested in the establishment of railroads. and his insistenee upon their advantages led to the building of the road between 1.ci1wig and Dresden, and con tributed to the further development of the Ger man system. Ile was tireless in his advocacy of protection and railroads, and in the form ition of associations of manufacturers for the culti vation of I he inthienee of this class. In 1837 he
went to Paris, where he wrote several letters for the -Augsburg m•ine whit'i were published in 1841 in it ye hi me under the title of Das national(' Syst, in dor politischen ibbnomie.. In 1843 he established at the rcinsblatt. in which he advocated a national com mercial system and a national fleet He visited Austria and Hungary in 1844. and Fnglat-d in 1840• for the purpose of forming a commercial alliance between Germany and that country. in which his efforts were a d successful. Depressed by the failure of his plans. the loss of his health and property, be shot him-. If in a tit of insanity. For his biography. consult: 6(111-Audit (Berlin, 1878), and Jentsch (ib.. 1901) : also Friedrich List, f in I nod in Opfer fur dos I ater hind. (Stuttgart, no date: anonymous). See also article List" in Palgrave, Dictionary of Polittral Economy (London, 1894-99).
The chief contribution of List to economie thought is contained in Das nationale System der politisehen Oc•onomie. ID this work Ile empha sizes the idea that the economic policy of a nation should be such as to develop all of its resources, thus placing it in a position of independence. To this end he defended a protective system as necessary for a nation which has not developed its industry and commerce, although he regarded free trade as the goal toward which all nations should tend. He advanced few ideas in defense of protection which had not already been ad vanced by Alexander Hamilton. with whose work he was presumably familiar: he was. moreover, much indebted to A. •Altiller for his ideas.