CHAPTER 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.
With 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.
Thus 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.
With 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.
From 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.
The 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
was 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.
In 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
were 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.
This 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.