Translating early capitalism: Cameralism, Mining and the Struggle for a Good Science of Things.

From Melchior von Osse (1506-1557) to Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1720-1771), the cameralists have been characterised by a steady and explicit struggle for their credibility. Through the example of the Saxon mining districts and their capitalist transformation in the 15th and 16th centuries, this article illustrates two particular challenges that these princely advisors found themselves confronted with. The thesis is that the simultaneous emergence of highly differentiated economic landscapes and multilayered bureaucratic structures made the cameralist profession both necessary and prone to fail. The Prince's growing and convoluted domestic economy demanded authors who attempted to restore or at least simulate clarity and central controllability. However, the complexity of economy and administration had become far too great to be mastered and understood by single individuals. In this sense, the history of cameralism is not without tragedy. The world that demanded these authors was also a world that could no longer be translated into the unity of a book.