Urbanization and industrialization for a more humane civilization, individual freedom, democracy and rule of law
In List’s mind, economic progress was inseparable from progress in civilization, which in his opinion meant a liberal model according to the British experience (List, 1841, pp. 48-52, 56, 130, 139).
His insistent and repeated criticism of cynical British power policies towards its emerging competitor states should not make us forget that Britain was his model country, both in its civilized liberal political regime at home and in its imperial strength. It was List’s firm belief that religious and political freedom could be attained only through industrialization and vice versa (ibid., p. 142). This had to be enacted through the legal system, establishing a rule of law, of just and egalitarian law. This spirit runs throughout his writings:It has been the experience of all ages and of all countries that freedom and industrial progress are like siamese twins. (List, 1837a, p. 153)
In the manufacturing State the industry of the masses is enlightened by science, and the sciences and arts are supported by the industry of the masses. (List, 1841, ch. 17, p. 200)
The greater the advance in scientific knowledge, the more numerous will be the new inventions which save labour and raw materials and lead to new products and processes. (List, 1837a, pp. 66-7; see also pp. 64, 67-9, 79)
List pointed out how manufacturing, as opposed to agriculture, creates a higher potential for diversification of social activity and enhanced possibilities for utilization of individual abilities, especially mental abilities, thereby enhancing and harmonizing equal rights to develop one’s abilities and happiness with social welfare and prosperity (List, 1841, ch. 17, p. 200). In the typical German idealist and rationalist Renaissance tradition, as opposed to the materialist Enlightenment tradition and to the irrational Romantic tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, List argues for the humanistic and liberating benefits for the individual of the industrially based urban lifestyle (List, 1837a, p. 69). This urban-oriented tradition is very strong throughout German history. We find the same ideas with, for example, Cusa in the fifteenth century, with Leibniz 150 years later, and with Karl Bucher (1893) and Georg Simmel (1902).