Gustav Gross: Review of Henneberg’s Die drei staatswissenschaftlichen Systeme (1884)

Gross’s short review assesses Henneberg’s attempt to explain mercantilist, physiocratic, and Smithian principles and establish their continuing relevance to economic literature and policy. He welcomes the task but finds its execution undermined by inadequate scholarship:

Leider fehlt dem Verf. zur Erfüllung dieser gewiß dankenswerten Aufgabe das wichtigste Erfordernis, die gründliche Kenntnis der Litteratur.

English translation: Unfortunately the author lacks, for the fulfilment of this certainly meritorious task, the most important requisite: a thorough knowledge of the literature.

The review follows the book’s twofold undertaking: historical exposition, then contemporary application. Gross judges the first conventional rather than illuminating:

Infolgedessen beschränkt er sich darauf, die gebräuchliche Umschreibung und Kritik der Prinzipien der drei älteren Systeme wiederzugeben.

English translation: Consequently he confines himself to reproducing the customary description and criticism of the principles of the three older systems.

The contemporary discussion fares worse. Beyond remarks on the tobacco monopoly and tariff policy, Gross finds essentially an excerpt from Scheel’s history of political economy in Schönberg’s Handbuch. Henneberg’s reduction of Adolph Wagner’s contribution to his advocacy of banking freedom supplies the final evidence of limited engagement. Gross’s central distinction is between rehearsing inherited doctrines and demonstrating their present significance: the latter requires substantive command of modern economic literature, not merely familiar labels and isolated policy examples.