Friedrich List is a German expert from National system of Political Economy. In his view, he think Germany should become industrialisation and more protectionism. He think in Germany the whole confederation should become absolute free trade. In the international trading he think Germany should focus Germany’s best industry instead of the weak one, in order to protect Germany’s industry. Furthermore, List think each state in the country should not charge each other raw materials tax to increase the industry produce. He created the Zollverein, it helped the trading inside Germany became more easier and less compete between the states inside Germany. At last, he made the Germany’s economic uniform successes.
During the nineteenth century in Germany, lots of new ideas of economic and policies were developing. For example the international trading were starting to increase, many land owners were trying to increase their farm production, and trade them to the international markets. The scientific knowledge during this time helped the Germans improved the agricultural productivity. Also the German technology level increased during this century because they imported the English machines and learned many skills from England. They established schools for machinists and engineers.
At the beginning of nineteenth century in Germany, most of the German people were still farmers. They were using so many nature way in daily lives. They travel by foot
or horses, roads were in really bad condition. But when the time moved on to nineteenth century, the living condition improved a lot. More people move to the cities because of the economic events and jobs were happening in the cities. In this time period, international trading were starting to increase, however most of the farmers were living in the country side, it makes them so hard to take their goods to the market. Yet the first railroad was started to operate in the year of 1825, List strongly advocated the extension of the railway system, because he think that the railroads is very important to the economic grown. German people used the railroads to connect each cities, also transport the agricultural products, sources of coal and iron for the factories. Many land owners sees it as a new economic opportunities and they wanted to increase the production in their land and sells their products to the international markets. Furthermore, the railroads make it easier for the farmers to transport the goods. However because back in this time period all the German states had their own custom, laws and taxes. It make it so difficult to uniform the German economic and political system. The German technology level increased during this century because they imported the English machines and learned many skills from England. They established schools for machinists and engineers.
In Sheehan’s book ‘German History 1770-1866’, from page 487 to 500 he had described how was the economic and political system in Germany back in the nineteenth century. Although the economic events were increasing in Germany, in the book Sheehan stated that the policies and laws back in The confederation Germany were a barrier. First, about the economic events were increasing. But the confederation Germany were not an uniform country. All the states in the confederation have their own different custom, taxes policies and law. It makes different states have different economic development levels.
Furthermore, the economic gap between the states and cities were big too. Second, different states and cities had different developments makes it extremely hard to make a uniform of the economic policies. In the book, Sheehan also talked about the political issues in this time period. The states and free cities’ relationship was very tense. In the book Sheehan in page 488 he quote from Mack Walker “the political direction of local self-government in Prussia was opposite to the political direction of self-government in individualised country because the starting points were different…”. When different states and cities in their different situations they have to make different policies. It was really difficult to link them together, Sheehan states that each cities and states policies and economics were shaped by their locations and social structure.
Sheehan think during this time in Germany, in both politic and economic way were still pretty divided. The reason why he took this position is when we look back in this period, in economic way, Germany is in an union. They were trying to reconstruction the economic. However that union were not completely united. They all have different laws, rules and customs. They have very limited commons since they all developed in different way. According to Roussakis’s book ‘The Zollverein, and the uniting of Europe’, Roussakis talked about the struggle of Germany’s economic unity. He states on page 23 in his book ‘Three-fourth of Germany’s twenty-five million people were farmers. Since most of the citizens were farmers, it was really hard to develop the same economic policies and laws because policies cant apply to all the states since they have different situation at that time. In the book Roussakis also provided more detail about the the differences between East Germany and the West Germany. Based on his book, in the east are more town and small markets, in the west were more urban. From his information we can see the market size are
different between the east and west. It means they have different goods to sell, different prices also the west would have more to offer including their wages and more job can be offer. During this time, German’s industry was so much behind than Britain. Because again different places have different develop level and law, custom were the main barriers for the development. The availability of private capital was next to nil, thus the economic and political environment strongly favoured the state owned industry. It slowed down the German industry and made them far behind other countries since the environment are more leaned on the state owned one. When the government don’t support the private industry is very hard from them to develop new technology and compete to the state owned industry because they don’t have enough economic support. The technology can really effect the economic development. It’s one major thing that stop the German government to joint each states’ laws and custom. Progress for the economic unification was very slow and hard because all the economic proposal for reform have opposition from one state to another. Is hard for them to agree the proposal if it doesn’t meet what they were looking for and it might effect to their own benefit.
According to Sheehan, back in the time urban life were changed, so the relationship between the cities and the country sides were also changed. Even the economic, population and markets were growing, and keep increasing their size, the surrounding suburb area still remain the same. Also the agricultural area became more agricultural because the manufacturing technology had never really improved. Even they did have some improved of industry, it was still too hard to against to Britain’s cheap goods. Trading in side the confederation were hard. Since each states had their own laws the customs process would be extremely long.
In summary, List’s work of balanced between economic factors, each states policies, the states and the country’s benefit, industrialisation did lead to Germany’s reform and uniform became a huge success. List thought that agricultural was not as important than industry. Which lead Germany became one of the best industry country back in the nineteenth century. He saw the economics grown are not only based on the labour, but also different factors such as the transport, a stable administration. Complete laws and rules, encourage German to develop the industry and investments. Bought the machines and learn skills from other countries, improve the education system. These factors all help Germany to uniform the economic and politics. The way he thought that when all different states were under different condition would be hard to uniform, had given the needs for economic growth. From free trade and no taxes it all help with the growth. He saw how the train can help countryside to deliver materials and goods to the consumers. His works and ideas inspire the world and helped Germany to uniform as one country.