Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Emilio Cossa (1893)

This scholarly review examines Emilio Cossa’s I fenomeni della finanza pubblica e i loro rapporti con l’economia sociale (1892), commending its attempt to explain public finance through its relations with the wider economy. Schullern first establishes the conceptual stakes: the state satisfies collective needs that citizens also experience as individual needs. Its intervention benefits them when it lowers the sacrifice required, improves satisfaction, or makes otherwise unattainable provision possible. This reasoning connects taxation to the value of public services for their recipients:

Aus solchen Erwägungen ergibt sich, dass theoretisch betrachtet, die jedem einzelnen Bürger auferlegten Steuern der Bedeutung proportional sein sollten, die für ihn die Befriedigung der Collectivbedürfnisse, für welche die Steuern erhoben werden, hat.

English translation: From such considerations it follows that, regarded theoretically, the taxes imposed upon each individual citizen ought to be proportional to the significance which the satisfaction of the collective needs, for which the taxes are levied, has for him.

The qualification “theoretisch betrachtet” matters: this is a conceptual standard, not a demonstration that existing taxes meet it. Schullern makes the underlying analytical connection explicit:

Aus ähnlichen Erwägungen, die hier nicht ins Einzelne ausgeführt werden können, ergibt sich die Bedeutung des Wertproblems für das Steuerproblem und insbesondere der innige Zusammenhang zwischen der Privat- und der Staatswirtschaft.

English translation: From similar considerations, which cannot here be carried out in detail, there follows the significance of the problem of value for the problem of taxation, and in particular the intimate connection between the private economy and the state economy.

The review then reconstructs Cossa’s argument under two contrasting conditions: actual economic relations and perfectly free competition. Public administration belongs to the division of labour and must therefore obey the principle of economy; public income complements private income through the services it finances. Under complete competition, Cossa argues, economic rewards would correspond to the usefulness of individuals’ functions, while proportionately equal taxation would supply complementary benefits and tend toward equal relative sacrifice. These propositions make fiscal justice dependent on the organization of production and distribution, rather than on tax arrangements alone.

The decisive difficulty is that complete competition does not exist. Cossa traces overproduction and underproduction, mismatches between quantities and relative usefulness, and disturbances throughout the economy to its absence. Under these conditions, proportional taxation appears incompatible with full justice. Schullern briefly flags the associated discussion of shorter working hours as requiring closer consideration, referring readers to another work by Cossa rather than developing that issue here.

The concluding exposition locates reform in the relation between capital and labour. Because private economies depend on this relation and remain closely connected with public finance, restoring normal fiscal conditions requires changing the underlying terms of economic cooperation. Cossa’s proposed remedy culminates in perfectly free competition among all social classes.

Schullern’s judgment is appreciative but reserved. He presents selected central propositions, not an exhaustive account, and values the book as serious preliminary research toward a fuller treatment of the problem without endorsing every conclusion. The review’s significance lies in identifying the bridge between value theory and taxation while exposing how strongly Cossa’s account of fiscal justice depends on an ideal of competitive social cooperation.