Joseph A. Schumpeter, “Vorwort” (1933)

Schumpeter’s preface introduces a Festschrift honoring Arthur Spiethoff’s sixtieth birthday. It explains both the intellectual grounds for the tribute and the volume’s organizing purpose: an international inquiry into the condition and next tasks of business-cycle research. Its movement is from Spiethoff’s methodological significance, through the contrast between his achievement and his public visibility, to a defense of the collection’s varied contributors and approaches. The preface supplies this framework without describing individual chapters or attributing a common theory to their authors.

Spiethoff’s importance, Schumpeter argues, exceeds his recognized standing as a business-cycle researcher. As an heir to the German historical school, he has developed a distinctive kind of theory while preserving and transforming that tradition. The methodological lesson lies in the work itself: particular investigations demonstrate how historical understanding and analytical competence can cooperate more effectively than a declaration of principles could establish.

Es lehrt durch sein Beispiel eine bestimmte Art zu arbeiten und öffnet Wege, die auch zu anderen Zielen führen.

English translation: Through its example, it teaches a particular way of working and opens paths that also lead to other goals.

The sentence makes Spiethoff’s research exemplary without reducing it to a transferable formula. What others can learn is a mode of inquiry whose usefulness extends beyond its original subject. Schumpeter describes its prospect as a positive economics built through the conjunction of historical spirit and analytical skill. Spiethoff’s recent work on “Wirtschaftsstile” offers outsiders a particularly clear outline of this intellectual project; the preface invokes it as evidence of his broader significance, without expounding its concepts.

Recognition nevertheless remains uneven. Spiethoff’s devotion to teaching, rigorous self-criticism, and modesty limit the wider influence of his ideas. Beyond his friends and students, and especially outside Germany, he is known chiefly for his indispensable contribution to business-cycle research. This narrower international reputation helps explain the birthday volume’s chosen subject. The inquiry honors the achievement most widely associated with him while Schumpeter’s opening insists that it does not exhaust his importance.

The collection’s diversity is therefore substantive rather than merely ceremonial. Established authorities appear alongside younger scholars, and business-cycle specialists alongside economists working in other fields. Schumpeter calls the result a colorful mosaic, corresponding to the variety of economic life itself. He explicitly treats this breadth as an intellectual gain:

Er ist repräsentativer und belehrender geworden als er wäre, wenn nur etablierte Autoritäten und nicht auch werdende, wenn nur Konjunkturspezialisten und nicht auch andere Ökonomen zu Worte kämen.

English translation: It has become more representative and more instructive than it would be if only established authorities and not also emerging ones, if only business-cycle specialists and not also other economists, were given a voice.

The volume’s authority thus comes partly from widening participation, not simply assembling prestigious names. Its structure also broadens the original plan. Contributors were initially asked to assess the field’s present condition and identify its next step. Some instead address particular aspects or individual problems, answering the general questions indirectly through research. Schumpeter welcomes this variation because it reflects the discipline’s development:

Je mehr sich die Konjunkturforschung konsolidiert, um so mehr muß das Interesse an Einzelfragen in den Vordergrund treten.

English translation: The more business-cycle research consolidates, the more interest in individual questions must come to the fore.

Specialized contributions need not detract from an inquiry into the whole field: they can reveal its priorities through concrete viewpoints and results. This defense echoes the opening portrait of Spiethoff, whose methodological significance likewise emerges through achievement on particular questions. The closing thanks to foreign contributors places that intellectual exchange within an international scholarly tribute, to be presented on 13 May. The preface’s central claim is that both exemplary scholarship and a productive collective inquiry advance through substantive work, methodological breadth, and openness to different contributors.