Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff

Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff or Seckendorf (December 20, 1626 – December 18, 1692), German statesman and scholar, was a member of the House of Seckendorff, a noble family which took its name from the village of Seckendorf between Nuremberg and Langenzenn. The family was divided into eleven distinct lines, widely distributed throughout Prussia, Württemberg, and Bavaria.

Biography Seckendorf, a son of Joachim Ludwig von Seckendorf, was born at Herzogenaurach, near Erlangen. As a youth, he became a protégé of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, Ernest the Pious, and he was educated at the Ernestine Gymnasium, Gotha. His father, was actively engaged in the Thirty Years' War and was executed at Salzwedel in 1642 for his dealings with the Imperialists of the Holy Roman Empire. Entering the University of Strasbourg in 1642, the means for Seckendorf's higher education came from Swedish officers who were former comrades of his father. He devoted himself to history and jurisprudence, and at the end of his university years Duke Ernest gave him a position as hofjunker in his court at Gotha, where Seckendorf laid the foundation of his great collection of historical materials and mastered the principal modern languages. In it, he described the situation of the country, the government institutions, and Seckendorff's recommended way to manage the prince's holdings, including his demesne and monopolies, so as to maximize state revenues. Seckendorff held a paternalistic view of the economy, advocating state involvement in population growth, education, usury prevention, trade regulation, contract law, and resource allocation. With view to economics, Small terms Seckendorff "the Adam Smith of cameralism."

In Seckendorff, government consists in maintenance of the common advantage of things spiritual and material, with the final end of human actions being the glory of God, with the authorities serving as "God's deputies." This includes the religious duties of the prince, restored by the Reformation.

To Seckendorff, the four chief duties of the prince are: (1) establish power as a means of suppressing disorder, (2) establish good laws and ordinances to promote righteousness and peace, (3) serve as supreme adjudicator, (4) use all means necessary in the establishment of institutions to protect the foregoing activities from foreign and domestic enemies.

According to Seckendorff, subjects are not slaves of the ruler or the state; rather, they are under the government of (divinely-appointed) authorities so that their welfare and souls are protected according to both natural and imperial law. The government is to "cherish" its subjects. Nevertheless, the dignity of government is treated as an end in itself.