The Practical Imagination: The German Sciences of State in the Nineteenth Century 0226482421, 9780226482422

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T H E P R A C T I C AI M L AGINATION

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T H E

P RAC T I c A L I MAGINAT I O N The German Sciences of State in the Nineteenth Century

D A V I DF. L I N D E N F E L D

T H E U N I V E R S I T YO

F

C H I C A G OP R E S S

Chicago and London

D A V I DF. L I N D E N F E LisDprofessor ofhistory at Louisiana State University and the author of The ‘TransformationofPositiuism:Alexius Meinong and European Thought, 1880-1920.

T H EU N I V E R S I TOYF C H I C A G O P R E S S ,C H I C A G O60637 T H EU N I V E R S I TOYF C H I C A G OP R E S S ,LTD., L O N D O N

0 1997 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1997

Printed in the United States of America 06 05 04 03 02 01 99 98 97 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0-226-48241-3 (cloth) ISBN: 0-22648242-1 (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lindenfeld, David E The practical imagination : the German sciences of state in the nineteenth century / David E Lindenfeld. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-48241-3 (alk. paper).-ISBN 0-226-48242-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social sciences-Germany-History19th century. 2. Public administration-Germany-History19th century. 3. Policy sciencesHistory- 19th century. 4. Germany-Intellectual life- 19th century. I. Title. H53.G4L56 1997 320.943-dc20 96-43699 CIP

@The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.

Contents

List of Tables and Figures vii Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: A Theoretical Framework 0N E

1

The Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Background: Classification 1 1

The Background of Cameralism 1 1; Camera1 Science Defined 14; Statistics and State Law 20; The Expansion of Cameralism after 1750 22; The Cameralist System and Natural History 28; Cameralism and the Sciences of State 33 TWO

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1 8 15: Assimilation 46 German Responses to the Revolution 46

Bildung and the Critique ofthe Mechanical Metaphor ofthe State 46; The Bureaucratic Counteroffensive in Bavaria and Prussia 51

The Assimilation of Kant and Smith 55; The Napoleonic Period 67; Shifts within the Field 74 Finance 74; The Science., Of3adeJ: Agriculture, Foresty, TechnoLou, and Commerce 76; Police Science 81; Statistics 84; Guman Theoretical Economics 85

THREE

The Sciences of State at Their Height, 1815-1 840: Deliberation 89

The “Entire Sciences of State” and Their Institutional Background 89 South Germany and Saxony 94; The Fragmentation ofthe Sciences of State in North Germany 101 The Shape of the Field 1 1 1 State Law and Politics 1 1 1; Cameralism 3ansformed: ContinuiQ and DiscontinuiB in Economics 11 8; Police Science 125; Finance and Monetary Poliy 130; Statistics 131; Cross-Fertilizations: Agriculture, Economics, and History 133

The Effectiveness of the Sciences of State in Economic and Social Policy 139

Y

Contents

A Period of Transition, 1840- 1866: Variation

F 0U R

142

The 1840s 143 Bureaucrag) and the Social Quastion 143; The Concern with Stages ofEronomic Groath 151

1848 and After: Institutions and Actors 157; Themes arid Variations 175 Organicism 176; So&& 180; Hi.vtorical Method I85

Applications 186 Economic TfieoT,Econornic Politics, and Finance 186; StatiJtics 193: Politics, Polizei, and State Inzm 197

FIVE

A Truncated Revival, 1866-1 890: Organized Research and Charisma 205

Unification, the Training of Administrators, and the Universities 208; The Leading Personalities: Schmoller, Brentano, and Wagner 2 17; 'I'he Verein fur Soziabolitik 223; The Economic Scimces of State 233 The Historical School 2 3 3 ; Statistic.\ 2 3 9 ; Wagner and Social Economy 243; 'Vlenger and the ilu.strian School 2 4 5 ; The Methodenstrrit 252 The Juristic Sciences of State: State Law and Administrative I a v 256;

Conclusion 260

The Wilhelminian Era, 1890- 1914: Specialization and Clarification 264

S 1X

The Kuthedersoziulirten and Public Opinion 265; Structural and Generational Changes in the Academic Environment 28 1; Specialization 286; Interdisciplinary Trends: Sociology, History, Anthropolocgy296; The Juristic Sciences of State 304; The Revival of Economic Theory after 1900 309; The Problematic Relation of Theory to Practice 3 15

Epilogue

323

Appendix: The Data from University Catalogues Abbreviations

335

Bibliography

337

Index

vi

371

33 1

Tables and Figures

TABLES

Table Table Table Table Table

German Book Market, Selected Categories The Cameral Academies Schlozer’s Science of Politics Lectures and Enrollments, 1820- 1840 Enrollments in Philosophy of Law, State Law, and Cameralism, University of Berlin, 18 19--1840 Table 6 Polizei~i.sserisc~ia~ and I.’olks~irtscha~.~oliti~ Table 7 Enrollments in Lectures in Politics under Dahlmann at Bonn, 1850--1865 Table 8 Articles in Zeitschrij?f u r diegesamte Staatsle~issenschaSten, 1844- 1864 Table 9 Appointments in the Social Sciences, 1 8 6 5 1890 Table 10 Schmoller’s Enrollments at Halle, 1865-72 Table 1 1 Lectures with Highest Enrollments in the Philosophical Facultx 1885- 19 10 Table 2 Enrollments in Economics Seminars, 1890-1 9 14 Table 3 Appointments in thr Social Sciences, 1885-1 9 14 Table 4 Lcctures in Sociology by Main Subject Area of Professor, 1885-1 9 14 Tablc 5 Systems of Economics: Philippovich and Clieber 1 2 3 4 5

24 35 44 91 105 127 172 140 214 218 270 282 283 297 314

FIGURES

Figure 1 Survey Lectures in Cameral and State Sciences, 1820- I 840 Figure 2 Lectures in German Positive State Law at Five-Year Intervals, 1820- 1865 Figure 3 Lectures in Politics, 1820--1865 Figure 4 General Lectures in Economics, 1820 1865 Figure 5 Lectures in Poliz&is.wnschaJi: 1820 1865 ~

93 114 115

118 126

vii

Tables and Figures

Figure 6 Lectures in German and European Statistics, 1820-1865 Figure 7 Lectures in Agriculture, Forestry, and Technology, 1820-1865 Figure 8 Enrollments and Survey Lectures, 1 840- 1865 Figure 9 Lectures in History of Economic Thought, 1840-1865 Figure 10 Lectures in VolkswirtJchajlspolitikand Polizeiwissenschajl, 1 840- 1890 Figure 1 1 Lectures in Social Policy, 1865-1890 Figure 12 Economics Drills, Recitations, and Seminars, 1820--1865 Figure 1 3 Specialization in Economic Policy, 1880- 19 10 Figure 14 Lectures in Social Policy and Insurance, 1885519 14 Figure 15 Lectures in Politics and General Theory of State, 1890-1 9 14

...

Vlll

133 134 143 162 200 207 216 288 288 307

Acknowledgments

W O R K has been long in preparation, and the debts incurred along the way have been many. Foremost among them are to my sources of funding. The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst provided two threemonth fellowships for study in the Federal Republic at the beginning and end of my research. The Intcrnational Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) supported a four-month stay in the former German Democratic Republic in 1984. The American Philosophical Society enabled me to travel to Vienna in the summer of 1987. Finally, a grant from the National Science Foundation’s program in the history and philosophy of science enabled me to make full use of a 1989 sabbatical. The librarians and archivists who have assisted me are too numerous to mcntion, but some stand out: Dr. Jurgen Zander at the SchleswigHolsteinische Landesbibliothek in Kiel and Dr. Volker Schafer at the Universitatsarchiv in Tubingen. The staff at the Universitatsbibliothek in Heidelberg kept up with my immoderate demands for dusty old university catalogues for two summers running, while that of the Louisiana State University interlibrary loan office performed similarly heroic feats. The staff at the Zentrales Staatsarchiv Merseburg were also exceptionally cooperative. Of the individuals who gave me encouragement and constructive criticism, I should mention Bernhard vom Brocke, Rudiger vom Bruch, Dirk Kasler, Anthony LaVopa, hl. Rainer Lepsius, Paul Paskoff, Fritz Ringer, the late Siegfried Richter, Wolfram Siemann, Peter Thal, and Keith Tribe. I am also grateful to Erk Volkmar Heyen and Hans Erich Bodeker for providing me the opportunities to present some preliminary findings at three colloquia at the Werner-Reimers-Stiftung in Bad Homburg. In the United States, the German Studies Association, the Southern Historical Association, the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, and the LSU History Department’s Works-in-Progress seminar afforded similar occasions for testing my ideas. In Baton Rouge, Rudolf Heberle and Franziska Tonnies Heberle shared their book collection, their personal reminiscences, and many hours of good fellowship. My colleagues Dena Goodman and John Henderson read portions of the manuscript- in Henderson’s case, most of it-acting as lenses

‘1’111s

ix

Acknowledgments

to focus on the forcst rather than the trees. Two undergraduate student

workers, Christopher Pope and Karen Holt, cheerfully helped with the more tedious tasks of data entry and compilation of tables. Finallx a special note of acknowledgment should go to someone I never met: the former president of’ Louisiana State University, James Monroe Smith. I am told that Smith, before going to prison for embezzlement and forgery in 1939, personally wrote a check for the purchase of the nineteenthcentury economist Richard T. Ely’s papers and book collection - a deed which made Louisiana State a preeminent site for writing a book on the German sciences of state. Baton Rouge, September I995 ~

x

Introduction: A Theoretical Framework

l’his book is a study of practical reasoning. It traces a discourse of thinking about politics, economy and society in Germany that came to be known as the sciences of state (stuatswissenschu~en).The tcrm implied not simply that the state was the objcct of this discourse, but also its subject: the sciences of state originated as a curriculum to train administrators in the skills and knowledge they would need to do theirjobs wcll. ‘l’he sort of practical reasoning described here is to be distinguished from two other approaches which modern Western societies have employed to guide action by the state. Thc first of these may be called the Machiavellian, which treatcd politics basically as an art based on intcrpersonal, intuitive knowledge. ‘lhe maxims of governing were learned by studying concrete cases of interactions and struggles among princes, or between princes and their subjects. T h e basic elements of such interactions were mostly personal virtues and vices: whether one exercised one’s power through fear or love, using generosity or cruelty honesty or duplicity and so forth. Although impersonal circumstances could not entirely be ignored, they lent themselves to anthropomorphizing, as in hlachiavelli’s depiction of fortunc as a woman. This art of governing was summed up in the term cleverness (krlugheit).Thus a German dictionary of 1732 gave one meaning of politics as “a particular cleverness, to contrive the advantages of a prince or a state, to scck [these] through hidden paths, and to attain them by all manner of means.”’ In contrast, the discourse to be treated here tended to view governing as more impersonal, an administration of a population which consisted of an ensemble of people and things.’ It was concerned with domestic affairs rather than with diplomacy or the military. Moreover, the maxims of administration could be systematized and made into a science, appropriate to an academic setting. Admittedly, the educational curricula for officials which included the sciences of state were rarely exclusively academic; they included an apprenticeship in the field. But insofar as book learning was also considered valid, the I .