Die classische National-Oekonomie und ihre Gegner

This unsigned 1895 review, attributed to Carl Menger, commends Richard Schüller’s book of the same title as a correction to German economists’ portrayals of classical political economy. Its compact argument moves from the political motives behind attacks on reformers, through the successive distortions of the historical and social-policy schools, to Schüller’s contribution to a more equitable historical judgment.

The review contests the image of classical economists as abstract theorists indifferent to practical circumstances. Smith, Malthus, Say, and Ricardo in his practical essays grounded their arguments in exceptionally rich evidence for their time and urged caution in reform. Their opponents’ hostility arose, on this account, from the interests that reform threatened:

Sie haben indeß den Kampf gegen Ungerechtigkeit, gemeinschädliche Gebundenheit und privilegirten Eigennutz auf allen Gebieten der Volkswirthschaft aufgenommen — Grund genug für die Vertreter reactionärer und am Bestande von Mißbräuchen interessirter Parteien, sie mit ihrem Hasse zu verfolgen.

English translation: They did, however, take up the struggle against injustice, against restraints harmful to the common good, and against privileged self-interest in every field of the national economy — reason enough for the representatives of reactionary parties, and of parties interested in the continuance of abuses, to pursue them with their hatred.

The central conceptual move is to separate the classical economists’ actual methods and purposes from their adversaries’ methodological verdicts. The historical schools, especially in Germany, allegedly substituted caricature for historical understanding. The social-policy school then inherited that verdict while reversing its political charge: figures previously condemned as dangerous innovators became “bürgerliche Reactionäre.” The review treats this reversal as evidence of a new distortion, not an advance in understanding.

Smith und seine Schüler waren keine Bürger unseres ökonomischen Fin de siècle; zahlreiche Erfahrungen, welche die wirthschaftliche Entwicklung des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts uns gebracht hat, waren ihnen selbstverständlich nicht bekannt; im Wesentlichen fühlen sich in den Schriften dieser großen Philanthropen die social-politischen Forderungen der Gegenwart indeß bereits deutlich vorgezeichnet.

English translation: Smith and his disciples were not citizens of our economic fin de siècle; numerous experiences which the economic development of the nineteenth century has brought us were of course unknown to them; in essence, however, the social-political demands of the present already stand distinctly foreshadowed in the writings of these great philanthropists.

Here historical limitation becomes compatible with continuing social relevance. The classics could not possess later economic experience, yet their philanthropic commitments already anticipated contemporary social-policy demands. The review thus challenges the opposition between classical economics and social reform without claiming that classical doctrine supplied every modern answer. Its concluding praise credits Schüller with demonstrating this continuity through extensive scholarship compressed into a small work. The review’s significance lies in its demand that economists recover the classics’ reforming intentions and evidential practices instead of reproducing inherited partisan classifications.