Post-Keynesianism meets Friedrich List: bringing the nation back in economics

Abstract

This study compares Friedrich List’s political economy with post-Keynesianism. First, I present the salient commonalities between their theoretical and meta-theoretical presuppositions. Second, I identify the affinities between their trade theories. Third, conceptually distinguishing the nation from the state, I show that List’s political economy is nation-centric, demonstrating that national culture and national identity play a significant role in economic development, while post-Keynesian economics pays little attention to them, despite its meta-theoretical affinities with List’s political economy. Finally, we conclude that integrating List’s political economy into the post-Keynesian framework may facilitate the development of a more realistic economic theory.