Jan Mittelstaedt - country gentleman - economist and his retrospective utopia

This paper presents ideas of Polish gentry economist from 19th century Jan Mittelstaedt (1819‑1890). He was probably the last polish conservative thinker openly defending serfdom and hostile to idea of giving peasants full property of land. Mittelstaedt supported model of great landlords’ ownership in polish agriculture and free trade in international relations, openly backed agricultural specialization of polish economy. He fought against nearly all political and cultural consequences of modernization but eagerly followed technical progress. As an economist he mixed fundamental ideas of classical political economy and his own excentric ideas. In Mittelstaedts economics religion and virtue are the last sources of economic welfare. He thought that is still possible the restoration of major role of Christian Religion in culture and ordinary life. As a consequence of this ideas he promoted concept of ‘common union of men of virtue’ stressing other people to moral conduct. However Mittelstaedt thinking seems archaic, it has many similarities to contemporary catholic free market thought, following both – technical excellence of capitalism and moral tradition of Christianity.