Adam Müller

Adam Müller (1779 to 1829) was a German-Austrian conservative philosopher, literary critic and political economist who worked within the Romantic tradition. Born in Berlin, he studied law, philosophy and natural science at Göttingen, where he was a student of Gustav Hugo, and his friend Friedrich von Gentz persuaded him to take up political science. He converted to the Catholic faith in Vienna in 1805 and later lectured in Dresden on German literature and political science. His 1809 work The Elements of Statecraft propagated political romanticism: against modern contract theory he set the idea of an organically grown monarchical corporate state, and against the economic theory of Adam Smith, whom he disliked throughout his life, he proposed a strict social bond of property. Othmar Spann later based his anti-liberal views on such Romantic ideas.