Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Berthold Missiaen’s L’appauvrissement des masses (1912)

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s review offers an approving account of Missiaen’s examination of the impoverishment thesis. Germany supplies the book’s empirical setting because of its intensive industrial development, the influence of the theory there, and the abundance of economic evidence. Schullern presents the work as joining statistical inquiry to a Christian conception of social improvement: material prosperity matters, but cannot exhaust the meaning of human well-being.

The review follows Missiaen’s progression from Marxism and historical materialism through absolute and relative impoverishment to objective and subjective welfare. It reports his objection that materialist history generalizes contingent facts while denying intellectual life its proper sphere. Missiaen distinguishes Marx’s allegedly absolute impoverishment thesis from the relative interpretation associated with revisionists. Schullern praises both the breadth of evidence and the conscientiousness of its evaluation, then identifies the book’s governing principle:

Der Verfasser sieht die wahre soziale Aufgabe darin, hinzustreben nach der Hebung des Gesamtlebensniveaus aller, das heißt nach einer möglichsten Verbreitung möglichst großen nationalen Reichtums auf möglichst weite Kreise, ohne daß aber hierbei die höheren Elemente des Einzel- und des sozialen Lebens der Menschen beeinträchtigt werden würden.

English translation: The author sees the true social task in striving toward the raising of the overall level of life of all, that is, toward the widest possible diffusion of the greatest possible national wealth among the broadest possible circles, without, however, the higher elements of the individual and social life of men being thereby impaired.

For Schullern, this principle combines the widest possible distribution of wealth with protection of the higher dimensions of individual and social life. It also grounds Missiaen’s account of the Church’s mission: inequalities should be moderated through moral and religious activity as well as material assistance.

The book’s largest empirical section examines German national wealth and income, especially poorer households’ budgets. Schullern reports its conclusion that workers’ living conditions have improved: wages outpace food prices, consumption broadens, and cooperatives, savings institutions, and insurance strengthen economic security. Yet he carefully limits the claim. Missiaen seeks to answer the charge that capitalism necessarily impoverishes the population, without excusing its harmful effects or treating achieved progress as sufficient. The review’s significance lies in this conjunction of empirical optimism and continuing reform, rather than an unconditional endorsement of capitalism.

The closing section restores the ethical framework within which the economic evidence is to be understood:

Der letzte Abschnitt untersucht die Wohlständigkeit im subjektiven Sinne, bringt damit die höhere Seite des menschlichen Wesens in Beziehung zum wirtschaftlichen Fortschritte und würdigt dabei auch die ethische Seite des Gegenstandes auf Grundlage christlicher Welt anschauung.

English translation: The last section examines prosperity in the subjective sense, thereby bringing the higher side of human nature into relation with economic progress, and in doing so it also appraises the ethical side of the subject on the basis of the Christian world view.

Subjective welfare thus completes, rather than merely supplements, the assessment of material conditions. Schullern’s favorable judgment rests on the book’s capacity to connect economic improvement with a broader Christian social purpose; he recommends its study to opponents as well as supporters for the reflection it may provoke.