Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1899
Schullern’s review introduces Antonio De Viti de Marco’s collection of three revised and expanded studies, published in Rome in 1898. Its structure follows the book’s three subjects—mercantilist thought, public borrowing, and state property—but its principal judgment concerns the theoretical importance of the second essay.
The first study receives a brief endorsement for clarifying Antonio Serra’s distinctive economic outlook:
Die erste Studie betrifft die ökonomischen Anschauungen Antonio Serra's, eines der hervorragendsten Vertreter des Mercantilismus in Italien, dessen Eigenart in den vorliegenden Ausführungen scharf und belehrend hervortritt.
English translation: The first study concerns the economic views of Antonio Serra, one of the most eminent representatives of mercantilism in Italy, whose distinctive character emerges sharply and instructively in the present discussions.
Schullern devotes most of his account to De Viti de Marco’s comparison of extraordinary taxation with public loans, initially domestic non-repayable loans and subsequently other forms of borrowing. He reports the conclusion that loans impose less pressure than extraordinary taxes, do not draw later generations into contribution, and provide the least costly means of making capital available to the state. Borrowing also increases the population’s capacity to support public purposes; it is neither the cause nor a necessary condition of unproductive public expenditure.
The conceptual move highlighted here is from the distribution of fiscal burdens across generations to the productivity of expenditure in the present and future. Schullern notes that De Viti de Marco connects this inquiry with value through time and with the problem of crisis. His praise is explicitly methodological:
Die Darstellung ist durchaus theoretisch, von grosser, logischer Schärfe und Präzision des Gedankenganges.
English translation: The presentation is thoroughly theoretical, of great logical acuity and precision in the course of thought.
The third study considers revenue from state assets and the legally defined domain from juridical, economic, and strictly fiscal perspectives, particularly the advisability of selling state property. Schullern offers no extended critique of these positions. His review functions as a selective recommendation: it maps the collection’s range while singling out the public-debt essay for wider attention, emphasizing its precise theoretical treatment of borrowing, intergenerational burdens, and the productivity of state expenditure.
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