Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Emil Sax’s Das Wesen und die Aufgaben der National-Oekonomie (1885)

Böhm-Bawerk’s short scholarly review situates Sax’s 1884 book within the methodological controversy stimulated by Carl Menger. Its central judgment is that Sax’s considered, impartial examination supports Menger’s position while correcting important restrictions in it. The review moves from praise of Sax’s intellectual disposition to specific methodological revisions, a reservation about his proposed system, and a brief assessment of further conceptual inquiries.

In der Sache selbst ist Sax im Wesentlichen zur Annahme des Mengerschen Standpunktes gelangt.

English translation: In the matter itself Sax has essentially come to adopt Menger's standpoint.

For Böhm-Bawerk, this agreement carries weight because Sax actively resists one-sidedness. His willingness to recognize the partially justified core of opposing positions makes his proximity to Menger evidence of the latter’s strength, rather than mere partisan alignment. Nevertheless, Böhm-Bawerk acknowledges that Menger’s polemical reaction had sometimes overshot its mark. He welcomes Sax’s corrections, several of which coincide with his own earlier criticisms.

These corrections concern both the basis and scope of economic theory. Sax emphasizes the empirical character of the “exact” method and accepts the eventual integration of disciplines studying social life into a unified social science. Most importantly, he rejects the restriction of exact economics to actions governed by self-interest. Sax distinguishes individualism and collectivism as general tendencies of social formation; within both, egoism, mutualism, and altruism operate in differing combinations.

Wie nun die socialökonomischen Erscheinungen aus allen diesen Grundkräften heraus erwachsen, so ist es auch Aufgabe der nationalökonomischen Forschung, den Einfluss aller — nicht blos des Egoismus — zu erforschen und darzulegen.

English translation: Just as social-economic phenomena grow out of all these fundamental forces, so it is also the task of economic research to investigate and set forth the influence of all of them — not merely of egoism.

The decisive conceptual move is thus to broaden causal analysis without abandoning exact inquiry. Economic research must account for the full range of forces producing its objects. Böhm-Bawerk finds Sax’s accompanying systematic outline logically conceived, but doubts whether its divisions preserve the connections within the subject matter.

Dasselbe ist interessant und logisch gedacht, erweckt aber im Referenten das Bedenken, dass es durch allzu scharfe Gliederung den Stoff nicht so sehr abtheilt, als zerreisst.

English translation: It is interesting and logically conceived, but it awakens in the reviewer the misgiving that, by an all too sharp articulation, it does not so much divide the material as tear it apart.

He leaves this objection provisional: only an executed system could show whether its classifications clarify or fragment economic phenomena. The closing paragraph commends Sax’s treatment of practical economics in relation to pure theory and his inquiry into the distinction between economy and technology, while judging the latter inconclusive. The review’s methodological significance lies in this combination of allegiance and correction: it endorses Menger’s general orientation while insisting on an empirical grounding, a wider account of motivation, and caution toward excessively rigid system-building.