THE difficulty of presenting an accurate concise account of recent and contemporaneous economic thinkers and their thought is great. They have not acquired a perspective. In some cases, even, there can be no certainty that the thought is quite complete. A hundred years hence what is here written may seem inconsequential, and the important thinkers and thoughts appear slighted. Obviously, too, such an account opens an easy door to bias. Nevertheless, certain advantages are to be gained from the attempt at a record which is more than a mere catalogue of names and dates. The younger reader or the busy man sees a reference to Schmoller or Graziani or Molinari, or he picks up a translation of some text by Laveleye, Loria, or another, and if he has in mind some general characterization of the conditioning factors in the author's work, he is enabled to meet the book with some basis for independent judgment. It is desirable as helping one to become oriented in the world of thought around him, and to realize that all the time he is advancing in a broad stream of ideas which issues from many points of view. The following chapters also serve to round out the foregoing discussion of various general tendencies, as it were, capping the climax with a summary of existing schools. And the significance of national boundaries in the molding of economic thought is further emphasized. Partly with the idea of lessening the difficulty of this part of the work, certain limits have been arbitrarily set and should be noted in advance. Thus no attempt has been made to cover the field since 1900. Though it would be unreasonably artificial to draw a "dead line " through that year, and some later developments will be referred to, the discussion virtually ends with the closing of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the field in space is not all-embracing, for no attention has been given to the economic thought of Russia, Scandinavia, Holland, and Spanishspeaking countries. The three first named have each produced excellent economists. It still remains true, however, that the stream of economic thought would not be different had these men not written; while no ground of continuity demands a discussion of them. CHAPTER XXX RECENT ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN GERMANY AND ITALY1 Germany. As already stated, Smith's system of economics at first had little effect on German thought, only to be rather closely followed later. Then Rau's Lehrbuch held the field down to the last generation; Thünen and Hermann, two of Germany's greatest theorists, had little influence during their own lifetimes. Scope and Subdivision of the Science. - This sketch--for it can be no more - of the more recent developments in German thought may well open with Roscher, whose System appeared in 1854, being notable for its historical tendency and breadth of view. And the first point that demands attention is the German notion of the scope and subdivision of the science. Roscher put first the Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie, dealing with general theory and the interrelation of economic phenomena. Then came his treatment of technics and of the economic activity of the state; and finally finance.2 Somewhat similar tendencies appear in more recent works. Thus Conrad (Grundriss, 1900) divides the field into (1) National 1 The most valuable source is found in Die Entwickelung der deutschen Volkswirthschaftslehre im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1908, — especially the Erster Teil. See also Palgrave's Dictionary; Phillipovich, Quart. Jr. Econ., Jan., 1891; Taussig, ibid., Oct., 1894; Cohn, Hist. of Pol. Econ., Suppl. to Ann. of Amer. Acad., 1894; Handwörterbuch d. Staatsw. under the various names, manuals of Ingram, Eisenhart, etc. Cusumano's Scuole Economiche della Germania is a valuable older work; also Meyer, Die neuere Nationalökonomie in ihren Hauptrichtungen (3d ed., 1882). 2 The titles of his volumes were: I, Grundlagen; II, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues; III, Nat. ök. des Handels u. Gewerbfleisses; IV, 1, System der Finanzwissenschaft. ökonomie, dealing with laws of cause and effect in economic phenomena; (2) Volkswirthschaftspolitik, treating of the functions of state and society; (3) Finance; (4) Statistics. Also Wagner, after first developing a Grundlegung in which he defines and correlates such fundamentals as economic motives and property, distinguishes theoretic national economy from the practical branches; and finance, though it is a part of the latter, is given a separate place. Indeed, Wagner comments upon the fact that there is no fundamental logical basis for any of these divisions; simply expediency warrants it. Not unnaturally those opposed to the historical method give historical economics a distinct and less important place. Menger (1883), for example, distinguished three branches: historical, theoretical, and practical, the last to cover state policy and such particular practical subjects as finance. Phillipovich's distinction between systematic and evolutionary-historic economics (Grundriss, 1893) further illustrates the idea. This relatively sharp separation between theoretical and practical or applied economics, which is on the whole an admirable characteristic of German thought, is doubtless to be associated with the Kameralistic origin of German economics. To the police (Polizei) and finance of the Kameralists, the theoretical system of Smith was added. Furthermore, it is generally true that in Germany to-day a close relation between state and university obtains which leads to an emphasis of the practical or political aspect of the science and to a certain admirable realism. As Cossa remarks, however, the distinction between pure theory (science) and practice (art) must not be confused, as it has been by some writers, with the distinction between the general and the special, although very often the former distinction leads to a treatment of subjects according to the latter. The prominence given to statistics may well be observed, Conrad and others having pointed out its place as a distinct branch of economics. In general, in these matters, German thought is not so different from that of others as formerly. Germans realize that their 1 Introduction to Political Economy, p. 401. |