Reflections on the Past and Current State of the History of Economic Thought in Germany

Apart from the general history of economic thought—which is basically the same in every country, although modified by specific experiences and research interests—there are “national” histories of economic thought. National histories are concerned with the development of economic ideas in a particular nation as those ideas were affected by political history, the growth of institutions, and the general history of ideas. It is natural in the case of Germany to include Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland when discussing modern and early modern times, and the borders get less well defined if one goes further back to the Middle Ages. Language then is not a clear criterion either, since important early works were written not only in German, but also in Latin, French, and, relatively recently, English.

Cameralists already provided surveys of each other's writings in the eighteenth century. The first important German book on the history of economic thought was that by Julius Kautz ([1860] 1970). Theory, history, and the history of economic ideas were much more closely related during the era of the historical school in the nineteenth century than they are today. The advance of pure theory around the time of the first world war and the simultaneous emergence of a new historicism in Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Arthur Spiethoff (see Schefold 1994a) resulted in a separation of the history of economic thought as history of economic analysis (Schumpeter 1924) and history of economic ideas (Salin 1923; see also Morgenstern and Schams 1933). The historical school had disappeared completely by about 1960. According to the recollections of older colleagues, the history of economic thought was not in high esteem at that time, since it was no longer regarded as indispensable for providing the economist with a general orientation in his or her subject. On the other hand, it had not yet become a discipline for special research. Investigations by Jürgen Backhaus (1983, 1997) show, however, that the form, volume, and intensity of teaching in the history of economic thought did not change much throughout the entire second half of the twentieth century. The history of economic thought is being taught in most departments of economics, primarily by colleagues who are employed for teaching and research in some other, special field but who like the subject and provide an overview in a one-semester course of two hours per week. Of course, there have also been some more extensive courses, special seminars, special lectures, and so on.

Specialization within the history of economic thought increased around 1980, when the Dogmenhistorische Ausschuß of the Verein für Socialpolitik was founded. This is a commission for the history of economic thought within the German economic association. Access is granted only to specifically elected members of the association. There are annual meetings that last for two days, and a distinguishing feature is that the papers presented are not limited in length; they are circulated in advance, and each usually is discussed at the meeting for two hours. Revised versions are published in the annual journal of the Ausschuß, with sometimes extensive footnotes referring to the discussions.

Chairs exclusively dedicated to the history of economic thought are exceptional, and most colleagues in Germany doubt whether a full professionalization of this subject would really be to its advantage. Increased concentration on the history of economic thought, however, has created a need for new associations, with open access for all scholars interested in the field, especially the young ones, and for new journals. This need is being fulfilled mainly by international institutions.

Research and Teaching in the History of Economic Thought in Germany:
Some Special Aspects

I have already had the opportunity to describe the working of the Dogmenhistorische Ausschuß for this journal in 1994 (Schefold 1994b), and I wrote a sequel to this for...