Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Camillo Supino’s Principi di Economia politica (1905)

Schullern’s brief review assesses Supino’s 1904 textbook as an accessible synthesis of theoretical political economy. He presents its ambition as both comprehensive and eclectic: Supino draws on scholarship without regard to school, political affiliation, or nationality, while retaining classical economics as his underlying framework. Practical questions enter only where they cannot be separated from theory. Schullern’s central judgment is that this program succeeds:

Ich glaube wohl sagen zu können, daß das Werk der ihm gestellten Aufgabe entspricht, und daß die Gefahr eines Mißerfolges, von der im Vorworte geredet wird, sich durchaus nicht verwirklichen wird.

English translation: I believe I may well say that the work answers to the task set for it, and that the danger of a failure, of which the preface speaks, will by no means be realized.

The review proceeds through the textbook’s structure. An introduction addresses the nature and methods of political economy; the first book, on economic organization, develops basic concepts in simple, clear terms. Here Schullern registers his chief reservation: value receives insufficient depth, and both its presentation and terminology could invite objections. Yet he declines to pursue these criticisms, explicitly allowing Supino discretion in selecting what he considers the best available explanations. The review thus measures the textbook primarily by its clarity and fitness for purpose, rather than by adherence to a particular theoretical position. Its strongest specific praise concerns the comparison of alternative organizing principles:

Sehr hübsch ist das Kapitel über die Prinzipien der ökonomischen Organisation, in welchem Kollektivismus und Individualismus umschrieben und einander gegenübergestellt sind.

English translation: Very fine is the chapter on the principles of economic organization, in which collectivism and individualism are delineated and set over against one another.

The second book treats exchange, money, credit, commerce, and transport, including commercial policy; the third examines distribution and forms of income. Schullern closes by endorsing the work’s clear treatment of essentials, while qualifying completeness by the limits of its chosen plan. Its value lies in making political economy intelligible and instructive to a readership beyond specialists. The review’s significance is this qualified endorsement of eclectic synthesis: conceptual reservations remain visible, but they do not outweigh the textbook’s explanatory and pedagogical merits.