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The Influence of Friedrich von Wieser on Joseph A. Schumpeter Presidential Address History of Economics Society May, 1982
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2009
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References
1 The author is Professor of Economics, Michigan State University. I am indebted to Carlin, Edward A. and Henderson, John P. for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.Google Scholar
1 Schumpeter, Joseph A., History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 6. Apropos of natural science, Schumpeter undoubtedly understated the role of the past in its development, a matter now clearer after the work of Thomas Kuhn.Google Scholar
2 Harris, Seymour E., ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), p. 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Suranyi-Unger, Theo, Economics in the Twentieth Century (New York: Norton, 1931), p. 319.Google Scholar
4 It also might be mentioned that Schumpeter grew to adulthood during a period of growing skepticism and pessimism regarding the future of European (not merely Austrian or Austro-Hungarian) civilization.Google Scholar
5 See Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 120, regarding Otto Bauer and Rudolf Hilferding.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 For example, Jacob, Oser, The Evolution of Economic Thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 2nd ed., 1970), p. 413.Google Scholar
7 Arthur, Smithies, in Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 18Google Scholar; and Oser, , Economic Thought, p. 413.Google Scholar
8 Hutchison, T. W., A Review of Economic Doctrines, 1870–1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 191–192.Google Scholar
9 In Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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11 In Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 In ibid, p. 41.
13 In ibid, p. 106.
14 Erich, Schneider, Joseph A. Schumpeter, Kuhn, W. E., trans. (Lincoln: Bureau of Business Research, University of Nebraska, 1975), p. 1.Google Scholar
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18 Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. ixCrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kuhn, W. E., The Evolution of Economic Thought (Cincinnati: South-Western, 2nd ed., 1970), p. 403Google Scholar. Paul, Samuelson has written: “Being the son of Schumpeter, I am the grandson of Bohm-Bawerk and Menger. Being the son of Leontief, I am the grandson of Bortkiewicz and am the great-grandson of Walras.”Google ScholarSamuelson, Paul A., The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, Merton, R. C., ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1972), vol. 3, p. 684.Google Scholar
19 Haberler, , in Harrison, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, pp. 25–26; and Schneider, Schumpeter, p. 51n.3.Google Scholar
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28 Quoted by Schneider, , in Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 57.Google Scholar
29 Ibid, pp. 54, 57.
30 Ibid, p. 62.
31 Ibid, p. 108.
32 For the view that much of his important later work is “either stated or foreshadowed in his early work,” see Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. ix and also pp. 27, 108, 127 and passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 One also can speculate as to the influence of, or interests shared with, Eugen Ehrlich, a principal figure in the sociology of law and Schumpeter's colleague at Czernowitz (1908–1911). Schumpeter wrote that Ehrlich's legal realism (“studying the actual legal ideas and habits of the people … and in making generalizations from these, rather than the abstractions of jurisprudence …”) was “produced in a small Austrian university under the most unfavorable circumstances imaginable…” Schumpeter, , History of Economic Analysis, p. 794. One suspects at least mutual moral reinforcement if not also substantive influence.Google Scholar
34 Fritz, Machlup, in Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 95Google Scholar; and Haberler, in ibid, p. 29. Schumpeter, Joseph A., Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoreticschen Nationalokonomie (Munchen und Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908), p. ix.Google Scholar
35 Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 Hutchison, , op. cit., pp. 191–192.Google Scholar
37 ibid, p. 192. Of course, one cannot expect affinity to mean identity. Thus, for example, although, as Johnston (Austrian Mind, p. 84) notes, both Wieser and Schumpeter shared a “horror of ideology,” the two disagreed as to the significance of the Austrian psychological approach to economics. Suranyi-Unger, , Economics, p. 69Google Scholar, Emil, Kauder, A History of Marginal Utility Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 122Google Scholar; see also “On the Concept of Social Value,” in Schumpeter, Joseph A., Essays, Clemence, Richard V., ed. (Cambridge: Addison-Wesley, 1951), pp. 1ffGoogle Scholar.
38 Schumpeter, , History of Economic Analysis, p. 795n.29Google Scholar. The only reference to Wieser in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper, third edition, 1950)Google Scholar is a citation that Wieser, had hinted at the Barone solution in his Natural Value, which first appeared in 1889 (p. 173n.2).Google Scholar
39 Schumpeter, Joseph A., Imperialism and Social Classes, Bert, Hoselitz, ed. (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), pp. ix-x.Google Scholar
40 Gottfried, Haberler to Samuels, Warren J02 24, 1982.Google Scholar
41 Fritz, Machlup to Samuels, Warren J., 03 2, 1982.Google Scholar
42 Howey, Richard S. to Samuels, Warren J., 02 24, 1982.Google Scholar
43 Friedrich, von Wieser, Das Gesetz der Macht (Vienna: Springer, 1926)Google Scholar, translated by W. E. Kuhn, with an Introduction by Samuels, Warren J., as The Law of Power (Lincoln: Bureau of Business Research, University of Nebraska, forthcoming), chapter 12, sec. 5.Google Scholar
44 Ekelund, Robert B., Jr., “Power and Utility: The Normative Economics of Friedrich von Wieser,” Review of Social Economy, vol. 28 (09 1970), pp. 179–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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46 Schumpeter, Joseph A., Ten Great Economists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 301.Google Scholar
47 ibid, p. 301; compare Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 21.
48 Harris, , ed., Schumpeter: Social Scientist, p. 44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
49 Schumpeter, , History of Economic Analysis, p. 12.Google Scholar
50 The following discussion is based in part on my Introduction to the translation of Das Gesetz der Macht (supra note 43) and my “A Critique of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy,”Google Scholar to appear in Charles, Wilber, Capitalism and Democracy: Schumpeter Revisited (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar
51 Schumpeter, , Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, pp. 145, 160.Google Scholar
52 Ibid, p. 74.
53 Schumpeter, , Ten Great Economists, p. 217.Google Scholar
54 Friedrich, von Wieser, Natural Value, William, Smart, Trans. (London: Macmillan, 1893Google Scholar; first published as Der Naturliche Werth, 1889), pp. 58–60, 242, and passim. For Schumpeter's view, see his “On the Concept of Social Value,” pp. 2, 4, 6.Google Scholar
55 Jouvenel, Bertrand de, On Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), p. 177.Google Scholar
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57 Ibid, p. 211.
58 Ibid, p. 215.
59 Ibid, p. 215.
60 Ibid, p. 302.
61 Ibid, pp. 151, 214.
62 Ibid, pp. 216ff, 379, 385–386.
63 Ibid, p. 355.
64 Ibid, p. 289.
65 Ibid, chapter 19.
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