Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Summary
This volume attempts to present a period of around three hundred years of the Germanlanguage tradition in economic theory. The German tradition originated as part of a larger Continental tradition in economics, the origin of which can be seen as the massive impact of Italian economist Giovanni Botero's 1588 bestselling On the Greatnesse of Cities— soon incorporated into a larger work on the Reason of State— which appeared in about 45 editions in Italian, Latin, Spanish, French and German between 1588 and 1666. Reflecting the cosmopolitical nature of Jesuit activism, Botero's connection to Germany and Mitteleuropa was strong. His first four publications appeared, respectively, in Krakow, Würzburg, Nürnberg and Frankfurt. Before the Thirty Years’ War— which marks the starting point for the present volume— there were already four Latin editions of Botero's Greatnesse of Cities published in Germany.
The broad and cross-disciplinary social science tradition started by Botero came to dominate economics in Germany more and longer than in other nations. We can find partial explanations for this in the fact that Germany— compared to countries like Holland, England or France— was a relative latecomer: eine verspätete Nation. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Germany also consisted of many states— several hundred states after the Thirty Years’ War (1648) and still around 30 three centuries later. We can speculate if the diversity and large number of small competing states with small populations may have encouraged researchers to be cross-disciplinary. To paraphrase Adam Smith, the small size of the partly regional markets for social sciences may have limited the division of labor. This may also have reinforced a cultural tendency to attempt to understand large and complex structures in a holistic way: the desire for a Ganzheitslehre.
German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762– 1814) certainly thought German political diversity, rather than unity, would cause increased learning and emulation:
How fortunate we are in this regard that there are still so many distinct and separate German states! What is so often said to be to our disadvantage can perhaps work to our advantage in this important national matter.
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- The Visionary Realism of German EconomicsFrom the Thirty Years’ War to the Cold War, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019