Happiness and Projects between London and Vienna: Wilhelm von Schröder on the London Weavers’ Riot of 1675, Workhouses, and Technological Unemployment

This essay situates Wilhelm Schröder’s 1686 Princely Treasury and Exchequer (Fürstliche Schatzund Rent-Cammer) within the context of manufacturing projects in London and Vienna and debates over happiness they engaged. Conceptualizations of happiness have been seen as chief differences between Germanophone and Anglophone political economy. This comparison shows that Schröder was deeply engaged with English economic thought, particularly in the milieu of his fellow members of the Royal Society. In many respects, he shared their attitudes. However, due to the way he situated happiness as shared between the prince and the common man, Schröder came to differ on the issue of labor-saving technology and its use in manufacturing workhouses. Despite championing absolutism, Schröder related studies of natural science, technology, and society in more integrated and less hierarchical ways than was usual for the Royal Society.