Joseph A. Schumpeter: Review of René Maunier’s L’origine et la fonction économique des villes (1913)

Joseph A. Schumpeter’s German review assesses Maunier’s account of urban origins and economic functions through a distinction between empirical synthesis and theoretical explanation. He admires the breadth of the historical material while questioning the claim to a distinct sociological method. His opening acknowledgment establishes the scale of the achievement:

Es ist kaum möglich, in einer kurzen Rezension eine Uebersicht über den Inhalt dieses reichen Buchs zu geben.

English translation: It is hardly possible to give, in a short review, a survey of the contents of this rich book.

For Schumpeter, the subject’s complexity calls for the collection and interpretation of descriptive evidence. Economic location theory offers a developed theoretical apparatus, but the appropriate balance between description and theory depends on the particular problem and the state of knowledge. Maunier’s success therefore does not establish the general validity or autonomy of his procedure:

Wenn daher der Autor von einer besondern soziologischen Methode spricht, die er anwende, so liegt darin ein Anspruch auf eine höhere Weihe von Allgemeingültigkeit und auf Absonderung von andern modi procedendi, der kaum gerechtfertigt ist.

English translation: When, therefore, the author speaks of a special sociological method which he employs, there lies therein a claim to a higher consecration of universal validity and to separation from other modi procedendi, a claim which is hardly justified.

This reservation frames, rather than cancels, Schumpeter’s praise. Maunier’s strength lies in concentrating material from different periods and countries into an intelligible account of spatial agglomeration, extending beyond the city understood solely as a legal-historical institution.

The first part distinguishes undifferentiated and differentiated cities. In the former, external pressures such as coercion or the need for protection bring ethnically homogeneous groups together. Spatial concentration has political, legal, and social consequences without immediately establishing an economic community: inhabitants initially retain their earlier economic practices. The transition is gradual:

Mit der Zeit erst entwickelt sich eine Differenzierung ihrer Funktionen in bekannter Weise, wodurch diese Städte zu differenzierten werden.

English translation: Only in the course of time does a differentiation of their functions develop in the familiar manner, whereby these towns become differentiated ones.

Differentiated cities can also arise directly through the arrival of outsiders performing distinctive economic roles. In that case, an industrial and commercial division between town and countryside exists from the outset. Schumpeter strongly approves this account and its connection between types of urban formation and characteristic spatial forms.

His judgment becomes more qualified in the discussion of local occupational specialization and organization. Maunier dismisses existing explanations too readily and gives excessive explanatory weight to the distinctive personality of occupational groups and the strength of their social bonds. Schumpeter finds these considerations suggestive but insufficient without complementary causes; they also risk treating consequences of organization as its origins.

The final part examines industrial movement from established locations to new ones. Schumpeter values its extensive evidence and treatment of non-economic causes, while regarding the distinction between deconcentration and displacement chiefly as an aid to exposition, not a substantial advance in pure location theory. His concluding assessment preserves the review’s central balance: Maunier provides a durable conceptual framework joining dispersed legal-historical and economic research, even where particular distinctions remain unstable and methodological claims exceed what the analysis establishes.