Jakob Mauvillon (8 March 1743 – 11 January 1794), son of Eleazar Mauvillon, was an 18th-century figure in German liberalism. He was born in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

of French Huguenot descent. He was a professor of politics at Brunswick. He advocated a radical

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups ...

philosophy, which included proposals for the privatisation of all the schools and the postal system, to be funded privately rather than by taxes. He speculated that the security functions of the state might also be voluntarily funded. Besides advocating laissez-faire in economic matters he also "expresses a radical libertarianism that centers on freedom of the press and expression" as revealed in a letter to the librarian of the

Herzog August Bibliothek The Herzog August Library (german: link=no, Herzog August Bibliothek — "HAB"), in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, known also as ''Bibliotheca Augusta'', is a library of international importance for its collection from the Middle Ages and ear ...

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...

, Ernst Theodor Langer. He said he thinks that "the real barbarians are those who put obstacles in the way of press freedom, and hinder research in theology, philosophy and politics; in short, those who issue decrees about censorship, edicts about religion and who forbid people to read or to think."Wood, Dennis. Benjamin Constant: A Biography, Routledge (UK) 1993, p. 123 He died in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

. Mauvillon was a mentor to the French liberal Benjamin Constant.

Notes and references

1743 births 1794 deaths Writers from Leipzig Technical University of Braunschweig faculty {{Germany-academic-bio-stub