Joseph A. Schumpeter: Review of Adolf von Wenckstern’s Staatswissenschaftliche Probleme der Gegenwart, Volume I (1910)

Schumpeter’s brief review identifies Wenckstern’s volume as a gathering of popular scholarly essays drawn from earlier public addresses and periodical articles:

In diesem Bande hat der Verfasser eine Reihe von populärwissenschaftlichen Essays zusammengefaßt, die teils schon Gegenstände von Vorträgen und Reden, teils von Zeitschriftartikeln gewesen sind.

English translation: In this volume the author has brought together a series of popular-scientific essays which have been in part the subjects of lectures and addresses, in part of journal articles.

The listed subjects range from Schmoller and academic social reform to socialism, workers’ rights, trade treaties, monetary conditions, economic policy, and public finance. Schumpeter does not examine these topics individually. Instead, he conveys the volume’s intellectual unity through Wenckstern’s own statement in the preface:

«Das innere Band zwischen ihnen ist, so fühle ich es, das Maßhalten im Urteil, das Streben, überall gerecht zu werten und aus noch so verschieden anmutenden Anschauungen das Gemeinsame oder zum mindesten das Aehnliche herauszustellen.»

English translation: "The inner bond between them is, so I feel it, moderation in judgment, the endeavour to appraise justly everywhere and to bring out from views that appear ever so different what is common to them, or at least what is similar."

The organizing principle is thus a practice of judgment: moderation, fair assessment, and the search for common ground across apparently divergent views. Schumpeter’s selection foregrounds this conciliatory orientation without supplying an independent verdict on its success. The review’s limited but definite contribution is to situate the essays by their origins, range, and declared method; it offers no developed critique or substantive economic thesis of its own.