Gustav von Schmoller

Gustav von Schmoller
Gustav von Schmoller by Nicola Perscheid c. 1908
Born(1838-06-24)24 June 1838
Died27 June 1917(1917-06-27) (aged 79)
Academic career
FieldEconomics
School or
tradition
Historical school of economics
InfluencesKarl Wolfgang Christoph Schüz [de]
ContributionsInductive approach to economics

Gustav Friedrich (after 1908: von) Schmoller (German: [ˈʃmɔlɐ] ; 24 June 1838 – 27 June 1917) was the leader of the "younger" German historical school of economics.

He was a leading Sozialpolitiker (more derisively, Kathedersozialist, "Socialist of the Chair"), and a founder and long-time chairman of the Verein für Socialpolitik, the German Economic Association, which continues to exist.[1]

The appellation "Kathedersozialist" was given to Schmoller and other members of the Verein by their enemies. Schmoller disavowed the "socialist" label, instead tracing his thought to the heterodox liberalism represented by Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, John Stuart Mill, Johann Heinrich von Thünen, Bruno Hildebrand, Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, Lorenz von Stein, and Émile de Laveleye and radicals such as Frederic Harrison and Edward Spencer Beesly.[2] His goal was to reconcile the Prussian monarchy and bureaucracy "with the idea of the Liberal state and complemented by the best elements of parliamentarianism" to carry out social reform.[2][3]

  1. ^ Bonn, M.J. (1938). "Gustav Schmoller und die Volkswirtschaftslehre". The Economic Journal. 48 (192): 713–714. doi:10.2307/2225060. JSTOR 2225060.
  2. ^ a b Grimmer-Solem, Erik (2003). The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany, 1864-1894. Clarendon Press. pp. 197–198.
  3. ^ Nau, Heino Heinrich (2000). "Gustav Schmoller's Historico-Ethical Political Economy : ethics, politics and economics in the younger German Historical School, 1860-1917". European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. 7 (4): 523. doi:10.1080/09672560050210098. S2CID 154920944.