Gustav von Schmoller
Schmoller held that economics must study how economic institutions and structures develop in history and cannot rest on abstract theory alone, and he looked to an active social policy of the state to integrate workers into society.
Placement
Head of the Younger Historical School of economics and chair of the Verein für Sozialpolitik: against Menger in the Methodenstreit he defended historical and institutional study over abstract theory; an early mentor of Weber.
Key ideas
- Historical-ethical political economy
- Social policy as a task of the state
Students: Werner Sombart
Influence
Influenced 3
Émile Durkheim
influenced disputed
Durkheim’s 1887 survey of German moral science discusses Schmoller’s work among those of the German ethical economists; the text of the survey was not read. Durkheim, “La science positive de la morale en Allemagne”, Revue philosophique 24 (1887); Wikisource, appendix to Deploige/Durkheim, Le conflit de la morale et de la sociologie (1912), names Schmoller among those he analysed – survey text itself not read
Evidence: AI draft
Émile Durkheim › 1858–1917
Werner Sombart taught
taught ✓
Sombart studied with Schmoller in Berlin and took his doctorate in 1888, under Schmoller according to the LeMO biography. Deutsche Biographie, “Sombart, Werner” (F. Lenger, NDB 24, 2010); Deutsches Historisches Museum, LeMO, “Werner Sombart 1863–1941”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Werner Sombart › 1863–1941
Max Weber
influenced
In his early years Weber had Schmoller, head of the Verein für Sozialpolitik, as his mentor, and the Verein commissioned the East Elbian survey that was greeted with acclaim and controversy. SEP “Max Weber” (S. H. Kim), §1 and §2.1
Evidence: AI draft
Max Weber › 1864–1920
Works
Economic-historical monograph, written in Strasbourg, on the guilds of the cloth makers and the weavers; the NDB calls it Schmoller’s most important monograph in economic history.
Schmoller’s systematic presentation of economics in two parts (1900, 1904), repeatedly reprinted: the historical study of economic structures and institutions is its central task.
Position
Schmoller is on the map as the head of the Younger Historical School of economics. In 1872 he gave the programme speech at the Eisenach meeting of socially engaged scholars, the so-called socialists of the lectern; the Verein für Sozialpolitik that followed in 1873 became the leading association of German-speaking economists, and he chaired it from 1890 until his death. He held that the historical study of economic structures and institutions is the central task of economics, and he expected a state social policy to integrate workers into society. When Carl Menger demanded a deductive, abstract theory in 1883, Schmoller defended the priority of historical-empirical work in the Methodenstreit. His reputation fell as neoclassical theory advanced, but recent scholarship values his work on economic, legal and administrative history and sees in him a precursor of institutionalism. For the early Max Weber he was a mentor, and the Verein commissioned Weber’s survey of East Elbian rural labour; Werner Sombart took his doctorate with him. Durkheim’s survey of German moral science of 1887 is reported to discuss Schmoller’s work among those of the German ethical economists, a link that has not been checked in the text and is marked as disputed.
Life & context
Gustav Schmoller was born on 28 June 1838 in Heilbronn and studied political science, philosophy and history in Tübingen from 1857 to 1861, where he took his doctorate in 1861 under Karl Schüz with a prize essay on economic views in Germany during the Reformation. He worked at the Württemberg Statistical Bureau under his brother-in-law Gustav Rümelin and became associate professor in Halle in 1864 and full professor in 1865. In 1872 he was called to Strasbourg (rector 1874–75) and in 1882 to Berlin (rector 1897–98), where he taught until 1913; he was ennobled in 1908 and sat in the Prussian Academy, the State Council and the House of Lords. He died on 27 June 1917 in Bad Harzburg.
Further main works
- The Strasbourg Guilds of Weavers and Tailors (Die Straßburger Tucher- und Weberzunft, 1879)
- Outlines and Studies on the Constitutional, Administrative and Economic History of the Prussian State in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Umrisse und Untersuchungen zur Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte besonders des Preußischen Staates im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, 1898)
- Political Economy, Economics and Their Method (Die Volkswirtschaft, die Volkswirtschaftslehre und ihre Methode, 1893)
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