Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi

Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717-1771) was a German cameralist and one of the most prolific writers on political economy and public administration in eighteenth-century Europe, the author of more than fifty works on economic, technological and philosophical subjects. He argued that a well-run monarchy should protect private property and pursue moderate, reformist governance while still directing manufacturing and trade through active state intervention, a position that bridged the cameralist tradition of comprehensive state economic administration with emerging liberal economic ideas influenced by Montesquieu and French economic writers. His career took him to a teaching post in Vienna, an administrative post as director of police in Gottingen, work in Copenhagen and Altona, and an appointment as Prussian Inspector of Mines, Glass and Steel Works, before he was imprisoned in 1768 on charges of financial misappropriation and died in custody in 1771.