The Wedel-Jarlsberg-Controversy: Defending the Existing Order against the Reform-Movement in Late Eighteenth-Century Denmark

Abstract

In this chapter, Jørgensen explores the discursive position of the opposition against the reform-movement in the so-called reform period in late eighteenth-century Denmark. By taking up the little-known case of the literary controversy surrounding the conservative Danish author Frederik Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg, the chapter emphasizes the importance of including the perspective of oppositions to mainstream economic thoughts attributed to the Enlightenment age. By analysing political pamphlets of Wedel-Jarlsberg and his main respondents, Jørgensen argues that the criticism that oppositional authors aimed at the reform-movement were founded on moral rather than theoretical economic concerns. The chapter concludes with a broader European perspective on oppositional forces in the history of enlightened reform.