2. Economics as an Academic Discipline

0:00CHAPTER II. ECONOMICS AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE Economic disciplines at Austrian universities developed from the eighteenth-century science of Cameralistics, which was intended to endow future civil servants with the necessary economic and administrative skills to manage the domains and the states of the authorities. The first Most relevant chair was instituted at the Theresianische Akademie in 1751, which at the time was an educational centre for young Viennese aristocrats. Later, the universities of Vienna and Prague followed suit. This development was driven mainly by Josef von Sonnenfels, 1732-1817, who in 1763 established Polizei und Kameralwissenschaften, Science of Regulation and Kameralistics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Vienna. In 1784 he relocated the chair to the Faculty of Law. From then on and until 1919, economics remained part of the law curriculum under a variety of labels.

1:13With his Grundsätze der Polizei, Handlungs- und Finanzwissenschaft, 1765, 1772, three volumes, Principles of Regulation, Administration and Public Finance, Sonnen first presented a textbook which was a mixture of well-meaning concern and confining paternalism typical of the enlightened Josephian authoritarian state, named after Emperor Joseph II, 1741-1790. Until the middle of the 19th century it served to educate prospective civil servants and was only replaced by Die Grundlehren der Volkswirtschaft, 1846, The Basic Rules of Economy, written by Josef von Kudler, 1786, 1853, one of von Sonnenfels's successes.

2:02Thus were Austrian students led until far into the 19th century into a way of thinking With Kudler's death, this traditional Austrian strain would soon be lost. What followed was an increasing orientation toward German and Prussian universities, where Cameralistic studies were assigned chiefly to the philosophy faculties. Only in Strasbourg, Würzburg and and Freiburg were integrated into the respective law faculties. Independent faculties of political science existed in Munich and Tübingen. In the middle of the 19th century, in a phase of identity-seeking reorientation, the term Kameralwissenschaft was replaced by a confusing multitude of denotations, for example Finanzwissenschaft, public finance, politische Ökonomie, political Social Economy, Nationale Ökonomie, National Economics, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Social Economics, or Staatswissenschaften, Political Sciences. For graduates, the terms Kameralist or Nationale Ökonom were preferred. The term Volkswirt, Social Economist, tended to be rejected because of its linguistic closeness to Bierwirt or Schenkwirt. Both terms Bierwirt and Schenkwirt can be translated as publican or innkeeper.

3:33With the role of the German economist changing rapidly in the face of a growing nation-state and the developing industrial society, the inadequacy of his customary two-year education soon became apparent. This had a detrimental effect on career prospects in civil service and began to unsettle all and all of its members. Concerns that educated lawyers might possibly replace camera lists were voiced. By contrast, these sorts of problems were unknown to economists in Austria. Their foundational studies in law ensured them of sufficient career opportunities. In fact, demand was increasing greatly on the part of the Austrian state administration. Der Verein für Sozialpolitik, founded with the substantial involvement by the German and economist Gustav Schmoller, 1838-1917, succeeded in calling a halt to this uncertainty.

4:32From the beginning, tangible corporate interests played a major role, and for a short while setting up the Society as an official trade association was considered. Most held the view that economics should be principally concerned with the possibilities of state and influence on economic processes. On the basis of such a program, members expected jobs, resources, reputation and influence. An understanding of economics as a science for analyzing and explaining the nature of the economy was neglected when compared to this view. With this self-assured reorientation, those who had recommended a combined legal and economic education in Germany gradually disappeared as well.

5:17The establishment of economics within varying faculties also resulted in typical Austrian and German graduates having remarkably different social profiles. Evidence shows that law students at the University of Vienna, who comprised about 40% of the Empire's total law students, originated largely from the middle and upper classes, high-level civil servants, officers, lawyers, factory owners, businessmen. The same can be said of law students as a whole in Germany. The faculty of philosophy, however, where German camera lists studied, recruited members predominantly from the lower class. Perhaps even more than social background, institutions and curricula determined a significantly different scholarly socialisation and a dissimilar intellectual character. In order to graduate as an economist in Austria, one had to complete a course in law, of which the history of law Law was a substantial part. While working on abstract law terms, terminology analyses and methods of interpretation and their practical applications, students were being coached above all in analytical thinking, linguistic precision and logic. The major subjects of jurisprudence were oriented toward hermeneutics. In contrast, Cameralistics at German universities

6:39was based on a predominantly descriptive empirical approach, evident from the encyclopedic breadth of the course alone. Areas of study ranged from farming, agriculture, mining, trade and industry to finance, political science and government accounting, and the programme was closely associated both institutionally and methodologically with the natural sciences. As far as their intellectual self-conception, career goals, career options, scientific When culture and methodological repertoire were concerned, economists trained in Austria and Germany basically came from two different worlds. Looking at university statistics, it is easy to understand German economists' fear of falling behind in their careers. The total number of students at the 20 German and Prussian in Universities had increased steeply from 13,247 from 1861 to 1862 to 24,207 from 1882 to 1883, including the newly founded University of Strasbourg. It is true that the Cameralists were only counted along with the Agriculturalists and Pharmacists for statistics purposes, but But even so, they totaled only 1,455 students in all, to which about 100 students of the Munich and Tübingen faculties of political science should be added.

8:07In any case, their proportion in the student body decreased from 10% in 1841 to less than 6% in 1881. Despite a general boom in education, the number of authors in the discipline of Cameralistics, and half of whom held professorships, remained unchanged at about 100 throughout the 19th century. In comparison, the total number of students at the seven German language universities of the Austrian monarchy – Vienna, Prague, Innsbruck, Lemberg, Krakow and Chernowicz – had increased from 6,034 from 1863 to 1864 to 13,069 from 1883 to 1884, even though Well the University of Krakow was polonised in 1870 and the University of Czernowitz had only been founded in 1875. The law faculties had 2,527 from 1863 to 1864 and 5,407 from 1883 to 1884 students respectively, thus constantly more than 40% of all students. In terms of Because of student numbers, the Faculty of Law in Vienna was the largest law teaching institution in the world. Because of growing student numbers, the larger law faculties were given a second chair of economics in the 1860s. The two Viennese professorships

9:32were deemed to be particularly lucrative, especially as tuition and exam fees flowed in plentifully. With a considerable 3,000 to 4,000 students attending, I had the most Attractive Outlook for My Accounts, recollected Albert Eberhard Friedrich Scheffler, 1831-1903, Carl Menger's predecessor. Nevertheless, some chairs remained vacant for years because of a great shortage of professors. Of the 71 professorships at all law faculties in the Austrian monarchy, only 50 were occupied in 1874. In Vienna alone, six of the 17 chairs were vacant. Because Austrian professors had to be qualified in law as well, the circle of possible candidates from Germany was limited from the start. Furthermore, many ideal candidates rejected the summons to Vienna because the faculty was considered to be too school-like, research was neglected, and the climate among the teaching staff was considered less than harmonious. The shortage of local junior lecturers was the result of the boom of the Gründerjahre, meaning the economic expansion in Austria and Germany in the second half of the 19th century.

10:46This boom absorbed a not insignificant number of the most talented young lawyers who received rewarding often illustrious positions as directors, secretaries and the like. Only a significant increase in public officials' salaries in the 1870s resulted in a greater influx of lawyers entering public service. When Carl Menger began his law studies in Vienna, Lorenz von Stein, 1815-1890 was teaching political economy. The second professorship was occupied by Leopold Hasner von Arta, 1818-1891, who after serving for only two years was promoted to Minister for Education and later to Prime Minister and did not return to the University. His successor, Albert E. F. Schäffler from of Württemberg, took over the office of Minister for Trade in 1871 and shortly thereafter went to Stuttgart. At about the same time, the Viennese publishing house Braumüller published a book by the up-to-that-time unknown 30-year-old Carl Menger. It was almost 300 pages long and Would Yet Make History, Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre, 1871, Principles of Economics.