HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

List was born in Reutlingen, Württemberg, Germany in 1789. Unwilling to follow the occupation of his father, who was a prosperous tanner, he became a clerk in the civil service, and by 1816 had risen to the post of ministerial under-secretary. In 1817 he was appointed professor of administration and politics at the University of Tübingen, but the fall of the ministry in 1819 compelled him to resign. As a deputy to the Württemberg chamber, he was active in advocating administrative reforms.

List was eventually expelled from the chamber and, in April 1822, sentenced to ten months' imprisonment with hard labor in the fortress of Asperg. He escaped to Alsace, and, after visiting France and England, returned in 1824 to finish his sentence, finally being released on undertaking to emigrate to America.

He resided in the United States from 1825 to 1832, first engaging in farming and afterwards in journalism. The discovery of coal on some land that he had acquired made him financially independent. It was in America that he gathered from a study of Alexander Hamilton's work the inspiration which made him an economist with his pronounced "National System" views.

In 1832 List returned to Germany as United States consul at Leipzig. He strongly advocated the extension of the railway system in Germany, and the establishment of the Zollverein was due largely to his enthusiasm and ardor. In 1841, List was offered the post of editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a new liberal newspaper which was being established in Cologne. But he "declared that ill-health prevented him from accepting the post - which eventually went to Karl Marx".

List's latter days were darkened by many misfortunes; he lost much of his American property in a financial crisis, ill-health also overtook him, and he brought his life to an end by his own hand on November 30, 1846.