Joseph Alois Schumpeter · 2012
The supplied file is a brief administrative annual report, not a theoretical essay or edited volume. Its scope is the activity of Schumpeter’s national-economics seminar in the winter semester 1915/1916, with an editorial note situating the report in his surrounding teaching. Its main claim is institutional: the seminar is intellectually alive, but its development is constrained by war, inadequate funds, insufficient books, and the absence of a fully differentiated institute.
Im abgelaufenen Wintersemester wurde das Seminar des Unterzeichnenden von 17 Mitgliedern besucht.
English translation: In the past winter semester the seminar of the undersigned was attended by 17 members.
Schumpeter begins with a factual register, but immediately turns attendance into evidence of resilience. The war is not merely background; it unsettles the rhythm of academic work, especially through students’ uncertain military obligations. Yet the seminar still generates more work than its meetings can accommodate.
Die Zeitumstände und die Unsicherheit der meisten Teilnehmer über ihre militärischen Verpflichtungen bildeten stetige Störungsmomente, doch standen mehr Arbeiten für die allwöchentlichen zweistündigen Zusammenkünfte zur Verfügung als zum Vortrag gebracht werden konnten.
English translation: The circumstances of the time and the uncertainty of most participants regarding their military obligations were constant sources of disruption; nevertheless, more papers were available for the weekly two-hour meetings than could be presented.
The report’s central conceptual move is to define economics as a seminar practice that must connect beginners, advanced students, practitioners, research training, specialized professional knowledge, and service to public administration. Schumpeter’s complaint is therefore not simply that money is scarce, but that scarcity prevents the proper institutional differentiation of the discipline.
Alles das wird in dem Moment besser werden, in welchem das Institut im Meerschloss eröffnet sein wird. Erst dann wird wirklich sachgemäßer Betrieb und eine Konkurrenz mit ausländischen Universitäten überhaupt möglich sein und daran gegangen werden können, wirklich fachmäßige Ausbildung sowohl für wissenschaftliche Arbeit wie auch für Spezialgebiete der Praxis zu bieten, Interessenten Arbeitsgelegenheiten zu geben und auch der Staatsverwaltung in wirtschaftspolitischen Fragen Dienste zu leisten.
English translation: All this will improve at the moment when the Institute is opened at the Meerschloss. Only then will a truly proper operation and a competition with foreign universities be at all possible, and it will become possible to set about offering genuinely professional training both for scholarly work and for specialized fields of practice, to give interested parties opportunities to work, and also to render services to the state administration in questions of economic policy.
This passage gives the report its broader relevance: it is an early statement of Schumpeter as an institution-builder. The seminar is imagined not as a lecture adjunct, but as an economic research and training apparatus able to compete internationally, support independent work, and address concrete policy problems. The appeal for a new special allocation of one thousand Kronen follows from this institutional vision.
Schon die vor drei Jahren gewährte Subvention von 500 Kronen für Bücheranschaffungen hat auf den ganzen Betrieb belebend gewirkt und den dringendsten momentanen Bedürfnissen abgeholfen.
English translation: Already the subsidy of 500 Kronen granted three years ago for the acquisition of books has had an invigorating effect on the whole operation and has met the most pressing immediate needs.
The structure of the seminar confirms this view of economics as both theoretical and policy-oriented. The principal theme for the semester was the effect of grain tariffs on the national economy, divided into related reports on history, classical theory, incidence, land prices, and related questions.
Für die Arbeiten des Seminars im abgelaufenen Wintersemester wurde zunächst ein Hauptthema gewählt, über das innerlich zusammenhängende Referate verteilt wurden, und zwar die Wirkung der Getreidezölle auf die Volkswirtschaft.
English translation: For the work of the seminar in the past winter semester, a main topic was first chosen, on which internally connected papers were distributed, namely the effect of grain tariffs on the national economy.
After this coordinated topic, the seminar discussed additional submitted papers, including Vico’s sociology, Schopenhauer’s theory of the state, and the economic process in wartime. The appended editorial context also notes Schumpeter’s developing interest in social classes and economic democracy. Taken together, the file presents a compact portrait of wartime academic economics: ambitious, interdisciplinary, policy-conscious, and materially fragile.
Daran schloss sich der Vortrag und die Diskussion von sonstigen eingelieferten Arbeiten in der gewöhnlichen Weise.
English translation: This was followed by the presentation and discussion of other papers submitted in the usual manner.
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