RAUKarl Heinrich (1792-1870), German political economist, was born at Erlangen on 23d November 1792. He pursued his studies, devoting himself principally to the (so-called) cameralistic sciences, from 1808 to 1812 at the university of his native place, where he afterwards remained as a privat-docent. In 1814 he obtained the prize offered by the academy of Gottingen for the best treatment of the question, How the disadvantages arising from the abolition of trade guilds might be removed. His memoir, greatly enlarged, was published in 1816 under the title Ueber das Zunftxoesen xtnd die Foi gen seiner A ufhebung. He was then favourable to the continued existence of trade corporations on a reformed basis, but afterwards abandoned this view. In the same year appeared his Primx lineae historic ]*)litices. In .1818 he became professor at Erlangen. He competed successfully in 1820 for a prize offered by the academy of Haarlem for the best essay on the causes of poverty; and in the same year he published a translation, characterized by Roscher as “free, but very good,” of Storch’s Cours d’Économie Politique, with notes and additions of his own. In 1822 he was called to the chair of political economy at Heidelberg, where the rest of his life was spent, in the main, in teaching and research. He took some part, however, in public affairs: in 1837 he was nominated a member of the first chamber of the duchy of Baden, and did good service in that capacity; and in 1851 he was one of the commissioners sent to England on the part of the Zollverein to study the Industrial Exhibition. A result of this mission was his account of the agricultural implements exhibited at London (Die landwirthschaftlichen Gerathe der Londoner Ausstellung, 1853). He was elected a corresponding member of ...the French Institute in 1856. After a useful and honourable career he died at Heidelberg on 18th March 1870.
His principal work is the Lchrbuch dcr politischen Oelconomic (1826-37), an encyclopaedia of the economic knowledge of his time, written with a special view to the guidance of practical men. The doctrines are, in the main, those of Smith and Say; hut they are treated in an independent manner, and the conclusions of his predecessors are modified, especially by giving larger scope to the action of the state. The three volumes are respectively occupied with (1) political economy, properly so called, or the theory of wealth, (2) administrative science ( Volksxmrthschaftspolitik), and (3) finance. The two last he recognizes as necessarily admitting of variations in accordance with the special circumstances of different countries, whilst the first is more akin to the exact sciences, and is in many respects capable of being treated, or at least illustrated, mathematically. This threefold division marks his close relation to the older German cameralistic writers, with whose works he was familiarly acquainted. It is a consequence in part of his conformity to their method and his attention to administrative applications that his treatise was found peculiarly adapted for the use of the official class, and long maintained its position as their special textbook. He was the economic teacher, says Roscher, of the well-governed middle states of Germany from 1815 to 1848. The book has passed through many editions; in that of 1870 by Adolf Wagner it was transformed into a new book.
In the earlier part of his scientific life Rau tended strongly towards the relative point of view and an historical method in economics. But, though in his great work he kept clear of the exaggerated abstraction of the Ricardians and rejected some of their a priori assumptions, he never joined the historical school. To the end he occupied a somewhat indeterminate position with respect to that school; on the whole, however, he more and more subordinated historical investigation to immediate practical interests, and in his economic politics moved in the direction of limiting rather than extending the sphere of state action. His general merits are thoroughness of treatment, accuracy of statement, and balance of judgment; he shows much industry in the collection and skill in the utilization of statistical facts; and his exposition is orderly and clear. Roscher finds in his earlier works a spirituel charm which disappears in the later.
Besides the publications already mentioned, he was author of the following:— Ueber den Luxus, 1817; Ansichten der Staatswirth-schaft 'init besonderer Beziehung auf Deutschland, 1820; Malthus und Say iiber die Ursachen der jetzigen Handelsstockung, 1821; Gruxidriss der Kameralwissenschaft oder Wirthschaftslchre, 1823; Ueber die Kameralwissenschaft, Entwickelung ihres JVesens und ihrer Theile, 1825; Ueber die Landwirthschaft der Bheinpfalz, 1830; an academic oration De vi naturae in rempublica.m, 1831; and Geschichte des Pfluges, 1845.
Rau founded in 1834 the Archiv der politischen Oekonomie und Polizeiwissenschaft, in which he wrote a number of articles, afterwards issued in separate form: amongst them may be named, those on the debt of Bauen, on the accession of Baden to the Zollverein, on the crisis of the Zollverein in the summer of 1852, on the American banks, on the new English poor law, on List’s national system of political economy, and on the minimum size of a peasant property. This enumeration will give an idea of the extent and variety of his researches.
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