Gustav Gross: Review of Emilio Cossa’s Concetto e forme della impresa industriale (1888)

Gustav Gross’s brief scholarly review assesses Cossa’s account of the concept and forms of enterprise. Its judgment is favorable toward the exposition and historical scholarship but critical of the limited treatment of enterprise forms and their social significance.

Gross follows Cossa’s progression from the entrepreneur’s position, especially the question of risk, to a history of the concept of enterprise. He credits this historical survey with thorough knowledge of the relevant literature, particularly German scholarship. The review then identifies the organizing distinction in Cossa’s classification:

In Bezug auf die Formen der Unternehmung unterscheidet der Verf. private und öffentliche, von denen die ersteren wieder in individuale und collective zerfallen.

English translation: With respect to the forms of the enterprise, the author distinguishes private and public ones, of which the former in turn fall into individual and collective.

This division between public and private enterprise, with private enterprise subdivided into individual and collective forms, supplies a conceptual framework. Gross’s reservation concerns how little Cossa develops its implications:

Die Darstellung der einzelnen Formen und ihrer ökonomischen Berechtigung ist wohl etwas gar zu kurz gerathen und insbesondere vermissen wir hier eine Würdigung der socialen Bedeutung der einzelnen Unternehmungsformen.

English translation: The presentation of the individual forms and of their economic justification has indeed turned out far too brief, and in particular we miss here an appreciation of the social significance of the individual forms of enterprise.

The closing criticism establishes the review’s central evaluative distinction: classifying enterprise forms and explaining their economic justification should be accompanied by an assessment of their social significance. Gross does not elaborate that assessment himself; his contribution is to mark its absence as a substantive limitation of an otherwise well-written and informed short study.