For a study of economic theory in Scandinavia prior to 1720,
it is necessary to go to the documents in which statesmen moti-
vated their economic legislation; before that date there was no
literature of systematic economic theory. The first Scandinavian
economists were firm believers in the mercantilistic system then
in vogue, not only in Scandinavia, but in all Europe. There
was, however, some interesting dissent in Sweden, the result of
several factors. The Great Northern War had left both Sweden
and Denmark-Norway a heritage of difficult economic prob-
lems. Shorn of most of her Baltic empire, Sweden painfully
realized her smallness, and resolved, in the words of Carl
Carleson, to recover, by good management at home, what had
been lost abroad. ²

Unlike Sweden, Denmark-Norway had lost no territory,
but economic recovery was there, too, of paramount impor-
tance. In both countries, therefore, the duty of the state to pro-
mote and to regulate business for the public good was readily
accepted. The interest in economic theory was, furthermore,
in keeping with the utilitarian and scientific spirit of the
enlightenment. It was no mere coincidence that three eight-
eenth century Swedish technologists, Anders Bachmansson,
Andr. Gabr. Duhre, and Mårten Triewald, after studying in
England returned to Sweden to take offices in the economic
administration, contributed to the rise of rationalistic thought,
and emerged as early writers on economic theory. ³

A practical attitude dominated the age; science seemed the
key to the mysteries of all nature; and "political arithmetic," or
mercantilism, was honored as the definitive science of econom-
ics. ⁴ When, in the 1750's, the absolute monarch in Copenhagen
relaxed his censorship on discussions of economic policy and
permitted works on economic literature to appear, one of the
pioneers, F. C. Lütken, eloquently expressed the need for that
difficult ideal, scientifically objective method. Although con-
ditions in the Scandinavian countries were favorable to an
indigenous development of the mercantile theory, Scandinavian
economists nevertheless owed much to foreign writers, espe-
cially, in the beginning, to the English. References to Hobbes,
Locke, Josiah Child, Sir William Petty, Davenant, John Graunt,

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