Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1899
Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s 1899 review evaluates the J–Z volume of Ludwig Elster’s economic dictionary, published in 1898. Its favorable assessment rests on the quality of individual contributions, qualified by objections to conceptual formulations and uneven geographical coverage. Schullern explicitly presents his discussion as selective:
Wir wollen uns im folgenden darauf beschränken, einige besonders wertvolle Artikel namhaft zu machen.
English translation: In what follows we shall confine ourselves to naming a few particularly valuable articles.
The selection reveals his standards for economic reference writing: scholarly authority, explanatory clarity, and substantive completeness within limited space. His praise of the treatments of colonial policy and internal colonization brings these criteria together:
Eine treffliche Darstellung der Colonialpolitik in ihrer Entwickelung und gegenwärtigen ausserordentlichen Bedeutung bietet uns Consul Dr. Zimmermann; die Frage der innern Colonisation behandelt Sering, soweit Deutschland, Russland und England und das römische Reich in Betracht kommen, naturgemäss in grösster Kürze, aber in allem Wesentlichen erschöpfend.
English translation: Consul Dr. Zimmermann offers us an excellent account of colonial policy in its development and its present extraordinary importance; the question of internal colonization is treated by Sering, so far as Germany, Russia and England and the Roman Empire come into consideration, naturally with the greatest brevity, but exhaustively in all essentials.
Conciseness is thus a virtue when it retains the essentials and accommodates comparative coverage. Schullern also commends Grünberg on socialism and communism, von Heckel on taxation and finance, and Lexis on crises. Rathgen’s article on bankruptcy earns approval for bringing out the phenomenon’s specifically economic dimension, while Schanz’s discussions of bills of exchange and exchange rates help dispel misconceptions.
The review’s principal conceptual objection concerns Kehm’s account of wages as an advance settlement of the worker’s entitlement to part of the product. Schullern questions whether this definition coheres with treating labor itself as a commodity. The applicability of general price laws does not settle what the entrepreneur purchases: on Kehm’s premise, the object would be the worker’s share in the future product rather than labor as such. Schullern nevertheless acknowledges the article’s clarity. His criticism of von Below’s treatment of usury follows a related distinction: a predominantly juridical account requires an economic definition, even if elements of one are already present.
Geographical coverage supplies another test of usefulness. From an Austrian perspective, Schullern objects that Neukamp’s treatment of itinerant trades confines itself to German legislation despite the subject’s relevance to Austria. Discussions of unfair competition and housing likewise connect the dictionary to contemporary reform and empirical inquiry; he hopes that investigations associated with the next census will improve the evidence available on housing.
The concluding recommendation balances these reservations against authoritative contributors, current information, a useful subject index, and readable two-column printing. Schullern particularly recommends the dictionary to readers unable to acquire the second edition of the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. His endorsement therefore combines scholarly appraisal with attention to the practical accessibility of economic knowledge.
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