Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Lothar Dargun’s Egoismus und Altruismus in der Nationalökonomie (1887)

Böhm-Bawerk’s short review examines Dargun’s proposal to give altruistic economic conduct a theoretical standing equal to that of self-interest. It first reconstructs the book’s program and historical argument, then challenges its diagnosis of economics. The governing distinction is between a welcome extension of economic inquiry and a fundamental reconstruction of the discipline.

Dargun, a legal historian whose research had brought him into contact with social questions, presents the book as the first of a series of sociological studies. As Böhm-Bawerk reports his position, economics has developed only the self-interested half of its subject:

Die Theorie des Egoismus sei im Wesentlichen vollendet. Sie bilde aber blos eine Hälfte dessen, was die Nationalökonomie zu leisten habe.

English translation: The theory of egoism is, he holds, essentially complete. But it constitutes merely one half of what political economy has to accomplish.

For Dargun, a comparably complete theory of altruistic action would make economics a genuinely general science of economic life. His analysis distinguishes egoism, altruism, and their mixture, “Mutualismus,” before examining their relationships to ethics and economic usefulness. It culminates in a historical hypothesis: egoism and altruism alternate in wave-like movements, especially visible in property arrangements. Individual ownership gives way to communal ownership and then returns; contemporary developments, on this account, point once more toward communal forms.

Böhm-Bawerk acknowledges the originality of these ideas but resists the claim that they would transform economics. His objection attacks both premises of Dargun’s proposed completion of the discipline:

Erstens ist leider! die „Theorie des Egoismus“ in ihr bei Weitem noch nicht vollendet; und zweitens hat auch schon die bisherige Theorie auf den Altruismus nicht vergessen.

English translation: First, alas! the "theory of egoism" is in it far from complete as yet; and second, even the theory as it has stood hitherto has not forgotten altruism.

The first point denies that the analysis of self-interest is finished; the second distinguishes limited theoretical treatment from failure to recognize a phenomenon. Böhm-Bawerk makes the latter distinction concrete through household provision:

Wenn sie über gewisse Thatsachen, wie z. B. über die altruistische Ernährung der Familienglieder durch den Hausvater, nicht viel gesprochen hat, so geschah dies nicht deshalb, weil sie hier das Walten des Altruismus übersah, sondern einfach deshalb, weil über jene Erscheinung nicht viel zu sagen, an ihr nicht viel zu erklären war.

English translation: If it has not said much about certain facts, as for example about the altruistic feeding of the members of the family by the head of the household, this happened not because it overlooked the operation of altruism here, but simply because there was not much to say about that phenomenon, not much in it to explain.

This example supplies the review’s methodological hinge: a motive’s acknowledged presence does not by itself determine how much explanation its manifestations require. Böhm-Bawerk nevertheless concedes that altruistic economic actions have received insufficient attention. Fuller treatment would fill a perceptible gap, but would not first make economics worthy of its name. Closing with praise for Dargun’s originality and acuteness, the review welcomes further sociological work while locating its contribution within an existing, still unfinished economic science.