[Rezension zu] Heinrich Dietzel: Ueber das Verhältniss der Volkswirtschaftslehre zur Sozialwirtschaftslehre

Gustav Gross’s review of Heinrich Dietzel (1883)

Gross’s brief review of Dietzel’s Berlin doctoral dissertation moves from an account of its disciplinary proposal to a skeptical verdict. He identifies its central aim as defending orthodox, individualist economics against the modern historical-ethical direction:

Er will neben der heutigen Volkswirtschaftslehre der Sozialwirtschaftslehre einen Platz als selbständige Wissenschaft eingeräumt wissen.

English translation: He wishes to see a place as an independent science accorded to the theory of social economy (Sozialwirtschaftslehre) alongside present-day political economy.

The proposed autonomy of Sozialwirtschaftslehre rests on a particular abstraction:

Mit dem letzteren Ausdruck bezeichnet er jene Wissenschaft, welche unter Ausserachtlassung der Vereinigung der Einzelwirtschaften in Staaten auf den Prämissen des Individualismus und des Egoismus aufgebaut ist.

English translation: By the latter expression he designates that science which, leaving out of account the union of individual economies into states, is built upon the premises of individualism and of egoism.

Gross thus locates the conceptual division in whether economic inquiry brackets the organization of individual economies into states. He credits Dietzel with skill in assembling arguments for an abstract science claiming general validity, but doubts that the dissertation establishes either its position’s correctness or the need for a separate discipline. The review’s significance lies in this distinction between a capable defense of abstraction and a persuasive justification of disciplinary independence; it records that judgment without developing a detailed counterargument.