BUQUOY, Georg Franz August de Longueval, Freiherr von Vau...

Die Theorie der Nationalwirthschaft nach einem neuen Plane und nach mehrern eigenen Ansichten dargestellt ...

Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1815. [bound with:] —————. Das nationalwirthschaftliche Prinzip oder was zulegt alle nationalwirthschaftliche Anstalten bezwecken müssen. Erster Nachtrag zur Theorie der Nationalwirtschaft. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1816.[and:] —————. Erläuterung einiger eigenen Ansichten aus der Theorie der Nationalwirthschaft nebst Tabellarischer Uebersicht des Zusammenhanges der wesentlichen Gewerbe unter einander und mehreren Beyträgen zum technischen Theile der Nationalwirthschaft. Zweyter Nachtrag zur Theorie der Nationalwirtschaft. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1817.[and:] —————. Begründung des Begriffes vom reellen Werthe in nationalwirthschaftlicher Hinsicht. Ferner: Theorie des Steuerwesens in nationalwirthschaftlicher Hinsicht. Endlich: Zusammenstellung der wesentlichen Verrichtungen bey dem Bleichen, Färben und Drucken der Wollen-, Seiden-, Baumwollen-, Leinen-Zeuge und Garne, nach Grundsätzen der Chemie und Physik. Dritter Nachtrag zur Theorie der Nationalwirtschaft. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1818.Four parts in one vol., 4to, pp. [2], 306; [307]–330; viii, [331]–[442]; [iv], [443]–524; with a folding engraved plate to the first part; spotting to the title of the first part, with some other light offsetting throughout; still a very good copy in contemporary half calf over marbled boards, a little rubbed, gilt lettering-piece to spine. First edition of each part of a very rare early work of mathematical economics. In a letter to Léon Walras of 28 June 1883, Carl Menger, after thanking Walras for sending him a copy of Théorie mathématique de la richesse sociale, and sending him a copy of Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre in return, turns to mathematical economics. Specifically, he notes that there has been a long list of precursors of Walras and himself, quite apart from Cournot, Gossen and Jevons. He then lists seven books which he deems worthy of Walras’ attention: Canard (1801), Kröncke (1804), Buquoy (1815), Rau (1826), Fuoco (1827), Mangoldt (1863) and Thünen (1842–50).Born in Brussels into a distinguished noble family and educated in Vienna and Prague, Buquoy (1781–1851) took over his uncle’s entailed estates in Bohemia at the age of 22, where he set about introducing improvements in the various local industries, such as glass manufacture. The several glass factories were renowned for the quality of their production, especially of hyalith (black opaque glass, in imitation of stone), the recipe for which was discovered by Buquoy himself in 1816; the finished articles were sold in Prague and Carlsbad and also exported to a wider European market, including Vienna and Budapest. Although a student of law and philosophy, Buquoy’s interests were broad, and included mathematics, technology, physics, chemistry and, of course, economics.Die Theorie der Nationalwirthschaft, here with its three supplements, is Buquoy’s major work. Written at a time of great industrial, financial and economic change, it reflects, and benefits from, the wealth of material available to Buquoy as a non-specialist economic thinker. That he was an amateur may explain his relative obscurity and lack of treatment by scholars. Schumpeter tantalizingly calls Buquoy ‘a very interesting man’ and states that ‘man and writings are forgotten unjustly, so I think’, but does not elaborate any further.In the Theorie, Buquoy reveals himself in essence a follower of Adam Smith, but believes free trade to be unsuited to countries in unfavourable geographical situations and that true prosperity is more likely to be gained in the proper regulation of production and consumption. The first (‘technical’) part deals with the source of wealth, the second (‘political’) part with the management of it. For Buquoy, the sources of wealth are: a) the extraction of raw products (agriculture, forestry, mining, fishery), b) the refining of such products by technology, and c) trade. The political part, itself in four sections, defines preliminary economic concepts, and discusses mercantilism, physiocracy and the theories of Adam Smith. It is in the second supplement, published in 1817, that algebraic formulae are explicitly used and that Buquoy develops a formula for ‘natural price’ which eclipses the simple price formulae of Verri and Frisi.R. M. Robertson writes: ‘Most of von Buquoy’s works are on what he calls the “technical” part of political economy. The word “technical” is an apt one, for he discusses the law of physics applicable to the proper loading and towing of wagons … Even his brief section on commerce deals largely with such things as measures, weights, tariff rate-making, and the like. In his section on agricultural techniques, however, there is a brief passage in which he treats the problem of maximization. This analysis is so strikingly modern that it deserves a detailed report’. Robertson then describes the relevant mathematical argument, adding: ‘Except for the fact that he is not considering total revenue and total cost as a function of output but rather as a function of depth of plowing … this is the marginal-cost-equals-marginal-revenue statement of the problem of maximization, with both the necessary and sufficient conditions given’ (‘Mathematical economics before Cournot’, Journal of Political Economy LVII (1949), p. 527).Buquoy’s work had a direct influence on Rau, who praised his use of mathematics in the Handbuch der Nationalwirthschaftslehre (1820), and, possibly, on Goethe; they had met in Carlsbad in 1807 and Goethe had a copy of the present work in his library.Humpert 867; Kress S.6144; Menger, col. 73; not in Goldsmiths’; apart from the one at Harvard, OCLC adds copies of the first three parts at Syracuse, and of the first part only at Berkeley and Chicago; for the letter from Menger, see Walras Correspondence, no. 566; on Buquoy, see the entry in the new edition of the Lexikon der ökonomischen Werke (Düsseldorf, Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanzen, 2002).

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