Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen on Cossa’s Del consumo delle ricchezze (1899)

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s review assesses Emilio Cossa’s contribution to the economics of consumption through a concise account of the book’s two-part structure. The first, larger part offers a critical history of consumption theory in the spirit of Luigi Cossa, moving from methodology to Smith, Malthus, Mill, Say, and others. Schullern emphasizes how this historical treatment exposes both the importance of consumption and the reasons for its scholarly neglect.

The theoretical second part places consumption within the economic process: economic rationality governs consumption as well as production. Consumption is neither an isolated activity nor the fundamental phenomenon from which the whole economy can be derived. Yet, as the resultant of economic activity, it may provide the clearest expression of humanity’s economic condition. This integration rests on a precise definition:

Der Begriff des Consums wird im 1. Capitel genau abgegrenzt; er besteht in der Verwendung von Gütern zum Zwecke der Erhaltung und Förderung des Menschen, wobei immer nur eine Bedürfnisbefriedigung hervorgerufen, nie aber das Gut als Gut erhalten wird.

English translation: The concept of consumption is precisely delimited in the first chapter; it consists in the use of goods for the purpose of the preservation and advancement of man, whereby only a satisfaction of need is ever brought about, but never is the good preserved as a good.

The definition connects consumption to human maintenance and advancement while distinguishing the satisfaction of needs from the preservation of goods. Schullern then singles out two findings concerning how consumption is organized:

Das Verhältnis zwischen den Bedürfnissen und dem Güterverbrauch wird im zweiten Capitel dargelegt; dabei treten zwei wichtige Erkenntnisse zutage, dahin gehend, dass der Güterverbrauch bedingt ist durch das Verhältnis, in welchem die relative Wichtigkeit der verschiedenen Bedürfnisse zur Zusammensetzung des dem Subjecte verfügbaren Gütervorrathes steht, und dass die einzelnen Bedürfnisse nicht nach einander, sondern in einer durch den Culturgrad bestimmten Coordination befriedigt werden.

English translation: The relation between needs and the consumption of goods is set forth in the second chapter; in this connection two important findings come to light, namely that the consumption of goods is conditioned by the relation in which the relative importance of the various needs stands to the composition of the stock of goods available to the subject, and that the individual needs are satisfied not one after another, but in a coordination determined by the degree of culture.

Here consumption depends both on the relative importance of needs in relation to available goods and on culturally conditioned coordination among needs. The argument therefore concerns more than successive acts of satisfaction: it addresses the patterned allocation of resources.

Schullern follows the remaining chapters from practical principles and family budgets to consumption’s effects, absenteeism, and its relationship with production. He records discussions of the impossibility of general overproduction, money and credit in relation to crises, excessive consumption, and excessive saving, without separately adjudicating these claims. His concluding endorsement rests on the book’s clarity, orderly exposition, and attention to neglected dimensions of the subject. Its relevance lies in making consumption a sustained object of economic inquiry and opening questions for further research.