What is the State For?: Karl von Dalberg's Critique of Liberalism and the Defence of Enlightened Absolutism

Karl von Dalberg (1744–1817) was the scion of a prominent aristocratic family in the Holy Roman Empire. He served as the Empire’s last Reichskanzler (1802–1806) before its dissolution by Napoleon, and subsequently as Prince—Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806–1813), implementing Napoleonic reforms in the Rhineland. In the 1790s, he had been active as a political theorist and a member of Friedrich Schiller’s intellectual circle in Jena. Dalberg’s early text of 1793, ‘Von den wahr...