Political economy analysis concerns the way politics and the economy affect each other. Starting out from clearly defined behavioural assumptions, it examines the influence of individuals and social groups and studies how their interaction shapes economic policies, economic performance, and the distribution of power and wealth. This is emphatically not what we are getting here. Simon Adler's book—based on his Ph.D. thesis produced at Cambridge—does not present a rigorous analysis of economic policymaking in the Habsburg Monarchy of the mid-eighteenth century; rather, it concerns the history of economic thought as it applied to economic and, in particular, fiscal policies. Specifically, the book is about the intellectual output of Ludwig Zinzendorf (1721–1780), a bureaucrat and government adviser in Maria Theresa's Austria.
The book divides roughly into two parts. The first (chapters 2–5) presents a number of memos and other works Zinzendorf wrote or translated into German. There was one about French trade, several about credit, banking, and the role of stock exchanges, and—what seems to be most important given that it is discussed in a particularly long chapter—a translation of John Law's treatise Money and Trade Considered. In each case, Adler presents a detailed summary of the text. Moreover, he carefully traces the intellectual influences that shaped Zinzendorf's thought, paying much attention to French authors such as Jean-François Melon (1675–1738) and Vincent de Gournay (1712–1759). With regard to translations, Adler points out where Zinzendorf's original contributions lay, that is, where he added emphasis or footnotes with critical remarks or additional information. The second, much shorter part of the book (chapter 6) is about Zinzendorf's political role; here, Adler discusses his tasks in government.
Adler is focused on Zinzendorf's thinking to an extent that blocks out almost anything else. There is very little context, except the intellectual one provided by the mostly French thinkers who influenced Zinzendorf. We learn nearly nothing about the economy of Habsburg Austria and Hungary, about the political situation (granted, the wars with Prussia are mentioned in a couple of places), about how the monarchy was governed, and about which problems—fiscal or otherwise—Maria Theresa faced. Where such information is provided, it is either vague or factually incorrect. For example, interest rates were not “generally” 10 percent “before the discoveries of the mines in the new world,” and they did not drop solely because of the import of bullion to Europe (53) but for a whole bundle of reasons. Moreover, short-term loans always commanded higher rates than long-term credit. In any case, silver imports from the Americas into Europe did not play a significant role from the end of the fifteenth century onward, as Adler claims (127); this happened half a century later.
Adler covers the research context even less. For example, one of Zinzendorf's early memos touched on demographic developments. He assumed that France in about 1750 had 19.4 million inhabitants and had lost ca. two million people over the first half of the eighteenth century (42). This matched what back then was common knowledge. Political arithmeticians were convinced the country was doomed to depopulation. However, modern research has found that the opposite was true. Between the death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the revolution, France's population grew by one-third, with the highest growth rates being achieved between the 1710s and ca. 1740. As Adler does not discuss mundane details like this, his readers are unlikely to even wonder why educated contemporary observers got it so wrong, and if they do wonder, they will certainly find no answer in this book. A couple of pages further down, they will come across the remark that “French agricultural output in 1732 reached a maximum of 52 million septiers a year” (44). Leaving aside the fact that “a year” is redundant, one is left to wonder what output Adler is talking about. Wheat? Wine? Tobacco? Was there only one agricultural product? Moreover, the septier was a measure whose volume varied enormously between markets: in Abbeville, it was roughly 126 litres, in Amiens—32 litres (also, the septier's volume normally differed for oats and other types of grain). In places like this, it becomes evident that Adler's summaries of Zinzendorf's writings are not even very good summaries.
Occasionally Adler does address the relationship between Zinzendorf's ideas and actual policies. This would have been an excellent opportunity to come to grips with non-intellectual influences on his writings, but that opportunity is missed. For example, Adler states that Austria's monetary policies were in line with Zinzendorf's ideas (124). He goes on to illustrate this with examples from the 1740s—a decade or more before Zinzendorf expressed his ideas. As causes normally do not follow consequences, readers may wonder first, how original Zinzendorf actually was, and second, whether he had an interest in advocating policies that had been pursued all along. Could it be that he was an opportunist out for promotion or material gain? Needless to say, questions like this are not even asked in this book—after all, Zinzendorf is the hero.
Throughout, Adler has the slightly patronising habit of telling his readers some information is “revealing,” “very instructive” (33, 65), or “valuable” (62), or that a difference of opinion was “significant” (79), without revealing what made it instructive, valuable, or significant. In sum, if one wants to quickly check what Zinzendorf had to say on certain issues, such as banking or population, this book is the perfect place to look it up (the index is very good). As a piece of economic historiography, Adler's generally uncritical and often poorly informed approach makes the book a disappointment.
