Section XX.. Private Economy. (continued.)

Private Economy. (Continued.)

If we abstract from cameralistic science as it was understood in the last century, what it has in common with all economy,(150) and therefore with public economy, next that which belongs to the aggregate of governmental economy, there remains only a number of rules, such as those which govern the principal branches of private business, and which indicate how they are to be carried on with the greatest advantage to those who engage in them. Such are forest and rural economy, mining science, technology, including architecture, and all that concerns founderies, and commercial science. Now that the expression cameralistic science is altogether obsolete, the aggregate of these might be designated by the name private economy. Obviously, we should have here, neither a simple nor pure science, but only a compilation of natural-philosophical and economic lemmas. Thus, in agriculture, for instance, a knowledge of the different kinds of soil, of the tillage of land, of the different plants and animals etc., belongs to the domain of natural science; while all that relates to the cost of production, the employment of capital, the wages of labor, the exchange of products, net product and the price of land, are purely politico-economical. The political economists also require a knowledge of the natural side of the cameralistic sciences. Such a knowledge is indispensable to every detailed and living theory, and especially to the application of economic science to practice. The great difference lies in this, that the cameralist interests himself in the production of material goods for their own sake, while the political economist regards them only in their relations to national life.(151)

It would seem, moreover, that political economists, especially in Germany, have attached too much importance to putting formal bounds to their special science. Why not rather follow the example of the students of nature who care little whether this or that discovery belongs to physics or chemistry, to astronomy or mathematics, provided, only, very many and important discoveries are made?(152)