8/12/13 Gustav von Schmoller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav von Schmoller

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav von Schmoller (German: [ml] ( listen); June

Gustav von Schmoller
24, 1838 June 27, 1917) was the leader of the
"younger" German historical school of economics. Historical school of economics

Contents
1 Life
2 Work
3 See also
4 Notes
5 Bibliography
6 External links

Life
Schmoller was born in Heilbronn. His father was a
Wrttemberg civil servant. Young Schmoller studied Born June 24, 1838
Staatswissenschaften (a combination of economics, law, Heilbronn
history, and civil administration) at the University of
Tbingen (185761). In 1861, he obtained an Died June 27, 1917 (aged 79)
appointment at the Wrttemberg Statistical Department.[1] Bad Harzburg
During his academic career, he held appointments as a Nationality German
professor at the universities of Halle (186472),
Field Economics
Strasbourg (187282), and Berlin (18821913).[2] After
1899, he represented the University of Berlin in the Opposed Austrian School of Economics
Prussian House of Lords. He was a leading Influenced Werner Sombart
Sozialpolitiker (more derisively, Kathedersozialist, Thorstein Veblen
"Socialist of the Chair"), and a founder and long-time
chairman of the Verein fr Socialpolitik, the German
Economic Association, which continues to exist.[3] Schmoller's influence on academic policy, economic, social
and fiscal reform, and economics as an academic discipline for the time between 1875 and 1910[4] can hardly
be overrated. He was also an outspoken proponent of the assertion of German naval power and the expansion
of German overseas empire.

Work
As an outspoken leader of the "younger" historical school, Schmoller opposed what he saw as the axiomatic-
deductive approach of classical economics and, later, the Austrian school indeed, Schmoller coined the term
to suggest provincialism in an unfavorable review of the 1883 book Investigations into the Method of the
Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics (Untersuchungen ber die Methode der
Socialwissenschaften und der politischen Oekonomie insbesondere) by Carl Menger, which attacked the
methods of the historical school. This led to the controversy known as the Methodenstreit, which today often
appears as a waste of energies and one of the main reasons for the later demise of the whole historical school,
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although as Joseph Schumpeter once pointed out this was really a quarrel within that school. Schmoller's
primarily inductive approach, requesting careful study, comparative in time and space,[5] of economic
performance and phenomena generally, his focus on the evolution of economic processes and institutions, and
his insistence on the cultural specificity of economics and the centrality of values in shaping economic exchanges
stand in stark contrast to some classical and most neoclassical economists, so that he and his school fell out of
the mainstream of economics by the 1930s, being replaced in Germany by the successor Freiburg school.

However, it is often overlooked that Schmoller's primary preoccupation in his lifetime was not with economic
method but with economic and social policy to address the challenges posed by rapid industrialization and
urbanization. That is, Schmoller was first and foremost a social reformer.[6] As such, Schmoller's influence
extended throughout Europe, to the Progressive movement in the United States, and to social reformers in Meiji
Japan. His most prominent non-German students and followers included William J. Ashley, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Richard T. Ely, Noburu Kanai, Albion W. Small, and E.R.A. Seligman.

Since the 1980s, Schmoller's work has been re-evaluated and found relevant to some branches of heterodox
economics, especially development economics, behavioral economics, evolutionary economics, and neo-
institutional economics. He has long had an influence within the subfield of economic history and the discipline of
sociology.

Works by Schmoller

His works, the majority of which deal with economic history and policy, include:

Der franzsiche Handelsvertrag und seine Gegner (The French trade treaty and its opponents, 1862)
Zur geschichte der deutschen Kleingewerbe im 19. Jahrhundert (History of German Small Businesses
in the 19th Century, 1870)
Strassburg zur Zeit der Zunftkmpfe (Strassburg During the Guild Fights, 1875)
Zur Litteraturgeschichte der Staats- und Sozialwissenschaften (1888)
Umrisse und Untersuchungen zur Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs-, und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1898)
Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirthschaftslehre (Layout of General Economics, 19001904)
Ueber einige Grundfragen der Sozialpolitik (About a few Questions of Social Politics, 1904)

After 1881, Schmoller was editor of the Jahrbuch fr Gesetzebung, Verwaltung, und Volkswirthschaft im
deutschen Reich. From 1878 to 1903, he edited a series of monographs entitled Staats- und
sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen. He was also an editor and major contributor to Acta Borussica, an
extensive collection of Prussian historical sources undertaken by the Berlin Academy of Science upon
Schmoller's and Sybel's instigation.

One of the reasons why Schmoller is not more widely known today is that most of his books and articles were
not translated,[7] as during his time Anglo-American economists generally read German, which was the dominant
scholarly language of the time. German having fallen out of favor, the untranslated texts are now inaccessible to
readers without knowledge of German. Two exceptions are:

The Mercantile System and Its Historical Significance, New York: Macmillan, 2nd ed. 1910. This is a
chapter from Schmoller's much larger work Studien ber die wirtschaftliche Politik Friedrichs des
Grossen which was published in 1884. The chapter was translated by William J. Ashley and published in
1897 under the English title above. online edition (http://books.google.com/books?id=autMAAAAIAAJ)
"The Idea of Justice in Political Economy." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science 4 (1894): 697737. in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1008698)

His magnum opus is

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Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre,[8] Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 19001904.

Important recent books on Schmoller in English

Backhaus, Jrgen G. (1994), ed. Gustav Schmoller and the Problems of Today. History of
Economic Ideas, vol.s I/1993/3, II/1994/1.
Backhaus, Jrgen G. (1997), ed. Essays in Social Security and Taxation. Gustav von Schmoller and
Adolph Wagner Reconsidered. Marburg: Metropolis.
Balabkins, Nicholas W. (1988). Not by theory alone...: The Economics of Gustav von Schmoller
and Its Legacy to America. Berlin: Duncker u. Humblot.
Grimmer-Solem, Erik (2003). The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany,
18641894. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Koslowski, Peter, ed. The Theory of Ethical Economy in the Historical School. Wilhelm Roscher,
Lorenz v. Stein, Gustav Schmoller, Wilhelm Dilthey and Contemporary Thought. Berlin etc.:
Springer.
Shionoya, Yuichi (2001), ed. The German Historical School: The Historical and Ethical Approach
to Economics. London etc.: Routledge.

See also
Methodenstreit
Werturteilsstreit

Notes
1. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Schmoller, Gustav". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge
University Press.
2. ^ Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives, 3rd ed., Schmoller, Gustav von.
3. ^ M.J. Bonn "Review: Untitled" The Economic Journal. vol 48 no. 192 (Dec. 1938): 713714. Academic
Search Premier, JSTOR.
4. ^ Charles Powers "Review: Untitled" American Journal of Economics and Sociology 54 no. 3 (Jul. 1995): 287
288. Academic Search Premier, JSTOR.
5. ^ Charles Powers "Review: Untitled" American Journal of Economics and Sociology 54 no. 3 (Jul. 1995): 287
288. Academic Search Premier, JSTOR.
6. ^ Erik Grimmer-Solem, The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany, 18641894 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003).
7. ^ M.J. Bonn "Review: Untitled" The Economic Journal. vol 48 no. 192 (Dec. 1938): 713714. Academic
Search Premier, JSTOR.
8. ^ M.J. Bonn "Review: Untitled" The Economic Journal. vol 48 no. 192 (Dec. 1938): 713714. Academic
Search Premier, JSTOR.

Bibliography
Bonn, M.J. "Review: Untitled" The Economic Journal, vol. 48, no. 192 (December 1938): 713714 (in
JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2225060)).
Clark, David S. Encyclopedia of Law and Society American and Global Perspectives . Minneapolis:
Sage Publications, Inc, 2007.
Grimmer-Solem, Erik. The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany, 1864
1894. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Iggers, Georg G. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the
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Postmodern Challenge (Wesleyan University Press, 1997).

Powers, Charles H. "Review: Untitled" "American Journal of Economics and Sociology," vol. 54, no. 3
(Jul. 1995): 287288 (in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3487093)).
Richter, Rudolf. "Bridging Old and New Institutional Economics: Gustav Schmoller, the Leader of the
Younger German Historical School, Seen With Neoinstitutionalists' Eyes," Journal of Institutional and
Theoretical Economics (JITE) / Zeitschrift fr die gesamte Staatswissenschaft Vol. 152, No. 4
(December 1996), pp. 567592 (in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/40751932)).
Shionoya, Yuichi. The Soul of The German Historical School: Methodological Essays on Schmoller,
Weber and Schumpeter New York: Springer, 2005.
Veblen, Thorstein. "Gustav Schmoller's Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 16 no.
1 (Nov. 1901): 6993 (in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882903)).

External links
Short biography (http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/schmoller.htm)
'A Leftist Criticism of Gustav Schmoller's "On Class Conflict in General"' (1915)
(http://www.punkerslut.com/critiques/schmoller/class.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gustav_von_Schmoller&oldid=557974476"

Categories: 1838 births 1917 deaths German economists Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
Corresponding Members of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Honorary Members of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences Members of the Prussian House of Lords
People from Heilbronn People from the Kingdom of Wrttemberg Prussian politicians
University of Tbingen alumni Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg faculty
University of Strasbourg faculty Humboldt University of Berlin faculty

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