He protests against the doctrine of Smith and against modern political economy in general on the ground that it presents amechanical,atomistic,and purely material conception of society,that it reduces to nullity all moral forces and ignores thenecessity of a moral order,that it is at bottom no more than a theory of private property and private interests,and takes noaccount of the life of the people as a whole in its national solidarity and historical continuity.Exclusive attention,hecomplains,is devoted to the immediate production of objects possessing exchange value and to the transitory existence ofindividuals;whilst to the maintenance of the collective production for future generations,to intellectual products,powers,possessions and enjoyments,and to the State with its higher tasks and aims,scarcely a thought is given.The truth is thatnations are specialised organisms with distinct principles of life,having definite individualities which determine the course oftheir historical development.Each is through all time,one whole;and,as the present is the heir of the past,it ought to keepbefore it constantly the permanent good of the community in the future.The economic existence of a people is only one sideor province of its entire activity,requiring to be kept in harmony with the higher ends of society;and the proper organ toeffect this reconciliation is the State,which,instead of being merely an apparatus for the administration of justice,representsthe totality of the national life.The division of labour,Müller holds,is imperfectly developed by Smith,who makes it to ariseout of a native bent for truck or barter;whilst its dependence on capitalon the labours and accumulations of pastgenerationsis not duly emphasised,nor is the necessary counterpoise and completion of the division of labour,in theprinciple of the national combination of labour,properly brought out.Smith recognizes only material,not spiritual,capital;yet the latter,represented in every nation by language,as the former by money,is a real national store of experience,wisdom,good sense,and moral feeling,transmitted with increase by each generation to its successor,and enables eachgeneration to produce immensely more than by its own unaided powers it could possibly do.Again,the system of Smith isone-sidedly British;if it is innocuous on the soil of England,it is because in her society the old foundations on which thespiritual and material life of the people can securely rest are preserved in the surviving spirit of feudalism and the innerconnection of the whole social systemthe national capital of laws,manners,reputation,and credit,which has been handeddown in its integrity in consequence of the insular position of the country.For the continent of Europe a quite differentsystem is necessary,in which,in place of the sum of the private wealth of individuals being viewed as the primary object,thereal wealth of the nation and the production of national power shall be made to predominate,and along with the division oflabour its national union and concentrationalong with the physical,no less the intellectual and moral,capital shall beembraced.In these leading traits of Müller's thought there is much which foreshadows the more recent forms of Germaneconomic and sociological speculation,especially those characteristic of the "Historical"school.
Another element of opposition was represented by Friedrich List (17891846),a man of great intellectual vigour as well aspractical energy,and notable as having powerfully contributed by his writings to the formation of the German Zollverein.
His principal work is entitled Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie (1841;7th ed.,1883:Eng.trans.,1885).
Though his practical conclusions were different from Müller's,he was largely influenced by the general mode of thinking ofthat writer,and by his strictures on the doctrine of Smith.It was particularly against the cosmopolitan principle in themodern economic system that he protested,and against the absolute doctrine of free trade,which was in harmony with thatprinciple.He gave prominence to the National idea,and insisted on the special requirements of each nation according to itscircumstances and especially to the degree of its development.
