Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk · 1887
Böhm-Bawerk’s short review evaluates Graziani’s prize-winning contribution to the German and Italian debate over entrepreneurial profit. Its structure moves from acknowledgment of the author’s learning to a reconstruction of his Ricardian explanation, then to rejection tempered by praise. The opening establishes the distinction between scholarly accomplishment and explanatory success:
Eine endgültige Lösung zu bringen, ist ihm wohl ebensowenig als seinen zahlreichen Vorgängern gelungen.
English translation: In bringing a definitive solution he has succeeded just as little as his numerous predecessors.
Graziani treats the entrepreneur’s entire income as profitto: a unified, distinctive income category, essentially different from both interest and wages and governed by different laws. Böhm-Bawerk locates the decisive move in the division of the product between workers and entrepreneurs. With workers’ share more or less determined by subsistence costs, profit becomes the remainder left after wages. This reconstruction exposes the point at which the reviewer’s disagreement with Ricardo also applies to Graziani.
Das Unzulängliche dieser Erklärung hat Referent seinerseits an einem anderen Orte (Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzinstheorien S. 106 ff.) gegen Ricardo nachzuweisen gesucht, und die vorliegende Schrift hat ihn von seinem damaligen Urteil in keinem Stücke abgebracht.
English translation: The inadequacy of this explanation the reviewer has for his own part sought to demonstrate against Ricardo in another place (Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzinstheorien, pp. 106 ff.), and the present work has not moved him from the judgment he then formed in any particular.
The review invokes an earlier critique without reproducing its demonstration; its verdict should therefore not be mistaken for a developed alternative theory. Its significance lies in recording Böhm-Bawerk’s resistance to the Ricardian explanation of profit while preserving respect for its defender. The closing praise credits Graziani with skill, erudition, and scientific promise, linking these qualities to the school of Cossa and Ricca-Salerno even as it calls his theoretical position untenable.
This work was divided into 1 sections when it entered the library's research corpus—an apparatus for search and citation, not necessarily the author's own table of contents. Each title opens its summary.
Put a question to this work; the Librarian answers from its 1 sections and cites the passage.
Ask the Librarian