The archive.

Can an economist’s idealism be dismissed in the name of facts whose full reality remains unknown? In this 1905 comparative review, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen turns his assessment of Achille Loria’s and Maffeo Pantaleoni’s essay collections into a pointed reflection on scholarly judgement. He acknowledges that Loria’s pursuit of social justice can outrun historical realism, yet questions whether appeals to facts are necessarily less circular than appeals to ideals. Pantaleoni offers a contrasting stance: logical precision coupled with scientific tolerance and a rejection of economic schools. Schullern values both without dissolving their differences. This brief review shows how disagreement with an economist’s premises can become a reason for sustained attention rather than dismissal.

How much theoretical precision should an accessible economics textbook sacrifice to clarity? Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s brief 1905 review of Camillo Supino’s Principi di Economia politica makes that tension concrete. He welcomes Supino’s willingness to draw across schools and national traditions while retaining a classical framework, but finds the treatment of value insufficiently deep and potentially troublesome in its terminology. Rather than press these objections, Schullern judges the book by its explanatory purpose, singling out its comparison of collectivism and individualism for praise. The review offers a compact instance of critical restraint: conceptual reservations remain explicit, yet accessibility and the author’s freedom to select among competing explanations carry the final judgement.

Abolishing feudalism need not abolish dependence: this is the tension Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen foregrounds in his short 1905 review of Filippo Lo Vetere’s Il movimento agricolo Siciliano. He welcomes Lo Vetere’s challenge to celebrated reforms, reporting that the removal of customary restraints helped consolidate large estates rather than relieve Sicilian agrarian distress. His sympathetic appraisal connects this criticism with a concrete alternative: agricultural self-help organized through the Consorzio agrario siciliano and local credit cooperatives. The review offers a compact view of Schullern’s receptiveness to an uncomfortable argument about reform, while showing why, for Lo Vetere, access to credit and cooperative organization mattered more to agricultural recovery than legal emancipation alone.

Italy’s agricultural difficulties appear here as a warning to its trading partners: successful reform could make the country a more formidable economic competitor. In this short 1905 review of Italo Giglioli’s Malessere agrario ed alimentare in Italia, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen commends the Italian agricultural expert’s report to readers following trade-treaty negotiations. He takes up Giglioli’s diagnosis of cultural backwardness in parts of the population, but stresses the possibility of extending northern Italy’s agricultural advances across the country. Rather than assessing the book’s detailed evidence, Schullern reveals what he finds politically consequential in it: the prospect that national self-criticism, natural resources and agricultural expertise might alter Italy’s economic relations with Austria-Hungary, Germany and France.

Averages can mislead as well as clarify: this practical danger gives a sharp focus to Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s brief 1907 review of Rodolfo Benini’s Principii di Statistica metodologica. Schullern warmly endorses the treatise, but his selected comments reveal the standards behind that judgement. He values its sober examination of errors in statistical inquiries, warns of the consequences of superficial handling of averages, and notes Benini’s predominantly mathematical approach to them. His attention to Italian mortgage statistics, singled out for Austrian specialists, connects methodological appraisal with a specific practical interest. The review offers a compact encounter with a reader of Benini who asks not merely how collective regularities are identified, but how statistical procedures can support—or compromise—sound judgement.

One half of a Tyrolean farm passed through sixteen owners between 1600 and 1738—a striking complication of the image of settled peasant property. In this 1907 article, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen explores the Verfachbücher, registers preserving legal documents, through the fortunes of a predominantly peasant lineage. Sales, remarriages, inheritances and long-lived debts reveal how holdings changed hands and wealth accumulated or dispersed. His distinctive concern is what such records permit historians to count—and what they do not. A sale price may conceal assumed debts; a child’s disappearance may indicate migration rather than death. The article offers both concrete evidence of rural mobility and a disciplined account of why family histories, however richly documented, cannot yet stand as population statistics.

Paying rent with a share of the harvest could mean precarious annual dependence—or inheritable rights in vines, trees, and improvements. Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen makes this disparity central to his report on Kolonat in Görz and Gradisca, Istria, Dalmatia, and Tirol, drawing on a ministry-commissioned journey in spring 1908. Rather than treating share-tenancy as a single institution, he examines how contracts distribute security, costs, and incentives to cultivate. Phylloxera could end agreements tied to the lifetime of vines; landlords’ claims to particular crops could obstruct diversification. His comparisons support locally differentiated reforms rather than uniform abolition. Interviews, contracts, and official responses allow readers to explore the concrete arrangements behind apparently identical tenancy labels—and why ownership alone need not settle questions of agricultural productivity.

Mathematics may clarify an economic law without providing a reliable method for discovering it: this distinction sharpens Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s 1909 review of Adolphe Landry’s Manuel d’économique. Welcoming the textbook’s breadth and combination of theory with factual material, Schullern nevertheless tests its definitions, methods, and social priorities. He values its attention to the gap between homo oeconomicus and people shaped by family commitments, imperfect foresight, and inconsistent attitudes toward risk. His reservations also reach beyond technique: he wants a firmer account of legislation’s responsibilities toward economic and social relations. This brief review offers a concrete encounter with his standards for economic education—conceptual precision and methodological openness, joined to concern for the purposes economic knowledge should serve.

Did nineteenth-century public finance create a new theory, or refine ideas already developed in the eighteenth? In this brief 1909 review, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen endorses Carlo Torlonia’s study of Forbonnais as evidence for continuity. His notice singles out taxation’s economic effects, public debt and the distribution of tax burdens as subjects of that earlier theoretical inquiry. Schullern’s praise also sets a revealing limit: he judges Torlonia’s treatment comprehensive insofar as Forbonnais’s doctrines still command contemporary interest. The review offers a concise example of a financial scholar assessing historical scholarship by both its care and the continuing relevance of its subject.

Restoring Adam Smith’s standing need not mean declaring his theory beyond criticism. In this brief 1909 review of Emilio Cossa’s study, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen welcomes the painstaking scholarship while resisting its unconditional defence of Smith’s theory of value. His reservation centres on a concrete distinction: the supposedly invariant labour required by a kind of commodity versus the labour actually embodied in an individual unit. The review offers a compact encounter with a sympathetic but discriminating reader of classical economics. Schullern’s closing plea is not for Smith’s infallibility, but for judging his arguments through careful reading rather than through doctrines associated with his successors.

Mercantilist habits of thought persist, Schullern observes, even among readers unwilling to judge mercantilism fairly. His brief review of Emilio Cossa’s study welcomes an explanation of precious-metal accumulation not as wealth hoarding for its own sake, but as a response to the monetary needs of expanding exchange. In Cossa’s account, policies later condemned by economists become intelligible within the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Schullern’s interest lies in this recovery of historical rationale, yet his approval stops short of accepting every defence: Cossa’s enthusiasm, he suggests, occasionally overshoots its mark. The review offers a compact instance of the distinction between explaining why an economic policy made sense in its circumstances and endorsing its claims without reservation.

A tax on rising urban land values may have a coherent fiscal rationale yet leave its social consequences unsettled. In this 1909 review of Fabrizio Natoli’s study, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen makes that distinction decisive: could the levy itself raise building-site prices and produce social harm? He credits Natoli’s systematic treatment but finds this question left unanswered. His reservations also concern taxable capacity: against Natoli’s general emphasis on wealth, Schullern argues that income ordinarily provides the relevant measure, while accepting a marginal-utility account of tax sacrifice. This brief review offers a precise encounter between fiscal reasoning and social-policy scrutiny, showing why a justification for collecting a tax does not by itself establish the desirability of its effects.