2,793 works, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
Could prosperity under protective tariffs prove that protection worked—or might freer trade have produced more? In this 1919 scholarly article, Marianne Herzfeld reconstructs Karl Zinzendorf’s answer from his largely unpublished writings, especially his 1771 treatise on customs duties. She locates his case for free trade at the intersection of Austrian administrative experience and engagement with English economic thought. Affordable, good-quality goods for consumers, rather than privileges for producers or an accumulating stock of money, emerge as his measure of successful commercial policy. Herzfeld also traces the limits of that position: luxury duties, agricultural preferences, and concessions to administrative feasibility. Her account distinguishes a sustained theoretical challenge to commercial restrictions from both practical opposition among officials and the more systematic achievement of Adam Smith.
American gold and silver reached Spain, yet economic expansion took firmer hold elsewhere. For Marianne von Herzfeld, this divergence tests the claim that more money necessarily produces progress. Her 1926 article challenges inflationist interpretations of history, especially Werner Sombart’s account of capitalism’s emergence, without denying that monetary expansion can alter economic development. She distinguishes rising money incomes from increased productive capacity: initial profits may stimulate output, but competition for scarce resources raises costs. Lasting change depends on who receives additional purchasing power and whether they consume it or finance new productive combinations. Combining monetary analysis with attention to historical causation and entrepreneurship, Herzfeld shows why explaining bullion flows is not enough: one must also explain the different uses to which their recipients put them.