Kerschagl’s article is a polemical reply to L. von Bortkiewicz’s criticism of Othmar Spann’s methodology and of Kerschagl’s Die Lehre vom Gelde in der Wirtschaft. Its central claim is that universalism and individualism distinguish ways of explaining economic phenomena, not simply a preference for society or the individual. The argument proceeds from a defense of Spann’s whole–part conception, through its application to the quantity theory of money, to a dispute over Kerschagl’s interpretation of Knapp.
Kerschagl first rejects the suggestion that Spann compromises universalism by treating community as the condition of individual spiritual development. For the universalist, the human being as a moral and social existence already presupposes a community: the whole makes the part conceptually possible. Appeals to individual development therefore do not contradict the priority of the whole. He then shifts from this philosophical claim to a methodological distinction. Economic objects need not themselves behave “universalistically”; it is the theorist’s manner of explaining them that receives this designation.
Spann nennt dies, wie auch Bortkiewicz erwähnt, die Auflösung von Gegebenheiten in ihre Bedingungen und deren Gegenseitigkeiten.
English translation: Spann calls this, as Bortkiewicz also mentions, the resolution of given data into their conditions and the reciprocal relations of these.
Universalist explanation dissolves apparently independent givens into their conditions and reciprocal relations. Kerschagl’s example is a liter of water whose economic significance changes with its owner or the quantity of other water available, although its physical constitution remains unchanged. This makes subjective utility theory exemplary of relational analysis. Conversely, he presents objective value theories, especially Marxism, as treating value as something incorporated in an object independently of its functional relations. His classification thus turns on explanatory structure rather than on the ostensibly individual or collective subject matter of a theory.
Nicht gleichgültig ist aber, ob ich es im Rahmen seiner funktionellen wirtschaftlichen Ganzheit oder organischen Zugehörigkeit betrachte oder nicht.
English translation: It is not, however, a matter of indifference whether I consider it within the framework of its functional economic totality or organic membership or not.
This criterion governs the defense of his monetary theory. Kerschagl denies that he calls quantity theory individualistic merely because it excludes the individual. A study may legitimately isolate a person, function, or aggregate as its subject; the decisive question is whether it preserves that subject’s connections with the economic whole. His objection is that quantity theory juxtaposes money quantity and money value without adequately explaining their mediation through income.
Sie betrachtet aber — wie schon früher erwähnt — nicht das Einkommensproblem als den notwendigen funktionellen Zusammenhang zwischen Geldmenge und Geldwert, und — hier liegt das von Bortkiewicz beanstandete „Eingeständnis“! — sie muß zu einer Zeit, wo die Wirtschaftstheorie nur absolute Erklärung eines objektiven Wertes kannte und eventuelle Unstimmigkeiten einfach in das Gebiet der „Ausnahmen“ verwies, die Haltlosigkeit einer absoluten Werttheorie zugeben.
English translation: It does not, however — as already mentioned earlier — regard the income problem as the necessary functional connection between the quantity of money and the value of money, and — here lies the "admission" objected to by Bortkiewicz! — at a time when economic theory knew only the absolute explanation of an objective value and simply relegated any inconsistencies to the domain of "exceptions," it must concede the untenability of an absolute theory of value.
The qualification matters: Kerschagl does not dismiss quantity theory outright. By recognizing the variability of monetary value, it advances beyond an absolute, objective conception of value toward functional explanation. Yet recognizing one relationship is insufficient if its necessary economic mediation remains unexplained. He charges Bortkiewicz with obscuring this distinction by quoting only parts of his argument.
The closing section moves from conceptual defense to textual accountability. Kerschagl accepts one correction: his book twice printed state-fixed purchasing power where it should have referred to state-founded payment power. He attributes this substantive terminological error to faulty proofreading.
Diese Schlamperei anläßlich der Behandlung der Korrektur gebe ich zu. Peccavi!
English translation: This slovenliness on the occasion of dealing with the correction I admit. Peccavi!
He nevertheless rejects the accusation that he transformed Knapp’s “amphitropic” position of persons into an invented “amphibolic” terminology. Knapp himself, he argues, uses the latter term for debt and claims, while Kerschagl’s book quotes the relevant distinctions directly. He further defends the centrality of persons’ payment positions and payments to and from the central authority to Knapp’s explanation of chartalist systems. The article ends by accusing Bortkiewicz of insufficient attention to both the reviewed book and its sources. Its lasting conceptual interest lies in the connection it draws between holistic methodology and monetary explanation: the adequacy of a theory depends not simply on identifying correlations, but on reconstructing the functional relations that make them intelligible.
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