Baroque and Cameralism: Towards an Intellectual History of Economic Thinking

The Baroque, as an era and style in architecture, music, and literature, shares analogies with the history of early political economy. The main purpose of this article is to show that the use of the notion of the Baroque in the intellectual history of economic thinking provides a better understanding of both the corpus of works and the motivations of the authors. It is common to refer to the era preceding classical political economy as mercantilism or cameralism, as its German version. A close acquaintance with the most prominent figures of cameralism — such as Johann Joachim Becher and Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi — raises questions. How can we understand such amazing productivity and desire to work simultaneously in such different fields, not limited to agriculture, finance, security, police, ethics, but touching upon law, natural philosophy, and natural sciences, humor, and such questions as making paints or turning sand into gold? Why are they so versatile and multifaceted? Why such immense mobility and desire to impress, charm and at the same time to create verbose intrigue, to intentionally obscure their meaning, to bring about a certain level of confusion? Why this manner of writing and the famous projectionism — those which are courageous and comic at the same time? In some cases, it is the juxtaposition of the two labels that will give a better understanding of the corpus of texts — Baroque and Cameralism. In addition, states had new demands for maintaining a permanent army, for building roads and buildings, for displaying grandeur and glory. The festive splendor of Versailles needed a Baroque man. Many obscure manifestations of economic thought become clearer through the prism of Baroque terms. The corpus of works exhibits vitality, excess, a desire for a new pathos, and optimism.