Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Cossa, Graziani, and Masè-Dari (1897)

Schullern’s German review assesses three Italian contributions to public finance: L. Cossa’s Scienza delle finanze, Augusto Graziani’s Istituzioni di scienza delle finanze, and E. Masè-Dari’s La imposta progressiva. Cossa receives a brief appreciation for bibliographic and pedagogical usefulness, while Graziani and Masè-Dari receive sustained attention as substantial contributions to fiscal scholarship. The review’s central concern is how theoretical propositions relate to historical circumstances, economic evidence, and practical institutions.

Schullern praises Graziani’s comprehensive treatise for its scholarship and organization. His principal methodological reservation concerns the subordinate place assigned to fiscal legislation in relation to theory. He marks this as a fundamental disagreement without allowing it to eclipse the book’s achievements:

Im grossen und ganzen haben wir dagegen nur etwas einzuwenden; doch das ist ein rein principielles Moment, über welches die Meinungen abweichen können.

English translation: On the whole we have only one thing to object against it; yet that is a purely fundamental point of principle, upon which opinions may differ.

The issue is not simply whether a theoretical treatise should contain more institutional description. Schullern argues that public finance depends especially upon sustained interaction between theoretical reasoning and observable facts:

Unseres Erachtens ist in keinem Zweige der politischen Oekonomie die ständige Aufrechterhaltung des Contactes zwischen den theoretischen Lehrsätzen und den Thatsachen so unentbehrlich, wie in der Finanzwissenschaft.

English translation: In our view, in no branch of political economy is the constant maintenance of contact between the theoretical propositions and the facts so indispensable as in the science of public finance.

This principle supplies the standard for his detailed criticisms. Graziani’s empirical practice partly meets that standard, even where his methodological position appears not to:

Die ziemlich reiche Ausstattung mit sorgfältig gesammeltem statistischem Materiale, für das wir dem Autor sehr dankbar sind, ist vollständig in unserem Sinne, aber, wie uns dünkt, in einigem Widerspruche mit seiner principiellen Stellung.

English translation: The fairly rich provision of carefully collected statistical material, for which we are very grateful to the author, is entirely after our own mind, but, as it appears to us, in some contradiction with his position of principle.

Schullern acknowledges that pursuing this disagreement would raise broader questions about the boundaries between political economy, administrative science, and administrative law. His account of Graziani’s organization nevertheless explains his high estimate of the work. Its eight books encompass collective needs and relative utility, financial organization, public expenditure, domains and other non-tax revenues, taxation, public debt, and autonomous finances. Emil Sax’s ideas recur as a theoretical foundation. Schullern particularly values the treatment of rising state expenditure and the expansion of public purposes under modern conceptions of government.

The most pointed substantive disagreement concerns land taxation. Against Graziani, Schullern maintains that an existing land tax can be capitalized into a property’s purchase price, benefiting the buyer at the previous owner’s expense. Even incomplete capitalization matters because the tax influences the maximum price a purchaser will offer. He suspects that Graziani confuses an ideal land tax with actual fiscal arrangements and neglects imperfect competition in the land market. The objection illustrates the danger of transferring abstract propositions directly to practical transactions. Schullern also rejects the exclusive scientific validity attributed to a parcel cadastre, preferring in principle assessment based on the net yield of an estate or operating unit. These criticisms qualify his favorable assessment rather than reverse it.

Masè-Dari’s study moves from a general system of public finance to progressive taxation. Schullern follows its treatment of historical applications, the history of doctrine, fiscal sociology, supporting arguments, technical forms, and economic effects. The governing conception makes fiscal institutions dependent upon society’s political and economic organization. They adapt to the needs and purposes recognized by the ruling class; progressive taxation therefore possesses a historical and relative justification, not an unconditional validity.

The practical significance of this approach emerges in the substantial appendix considering a general progressive income tax for Italy. Historical explanation becomes an investigation of economic conditions, revenue requirements, and taxpayers’ capacity. Schullern regards such evidence as indispensable before a consequential reform, while emphasizing that legislators must also allow for changing circumstances. He additionally draws attention to progressive land taxation.

The review combines appreciation of Italian fiscal scholarship with a consistent methodological demand: abstract theory must remain answerable to institutions and economic facts. Neither theoretical coherence nor historical justification alone settles a policy question; the effects of taxation must be examined through actual markets, administrative arrangements, and contemporary conditions.