著者

小林 純

出版者

経済学史学会

雑誌

経済学史研究 (ISSN:18803164)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.56, no.1, pp.21-47, 2014 (Released:2019-08-24)

---

Abstract: To understand the evolution of economics in German-speaking countries, we ought to start from the mid-nineteenth century. The historiography of German economics was strongly in-fluenced by the German Historical School (GHS). Knies (1852) wrote a short history of economics from the viewpoint of the historical method, which was becoming a mainstream methodology at the time. Controversy over the method, which began in 1883 between Menger and Schmoller, was described as “Methodenstreit.” Scheel (1882) wrote on the his-tory of economics in a famous handbook on the eve of this controversy, and his work can be considered as representing the heyday of GHS. Similar to Knies, Scheel also depicted the contours of economic theory developed in England. Max Weber edited a bulky handbook and asked Schumpeter to write an article on the history of economics in the handbook. Schum-peter (1914) there showed the logical status of GHS in the history of economics. Schumpeterʼs article thus deserves special attention from the modern viewpoint. This study makes use of his suggestion to clarify the characteristics of GHS by distinguishing be- tween the old, the new, and the newer schools. The old school insisted that the classical theo-ry never had universal validity. The new school continued in this direction, but with an em-phasis on the historical importance of legislative, judicial, and conventional institutions. The newer school used typology to describe history. Employing a model of the energetic man, Schumpeter presented his idea of the dynam-ics of history. Historical breakthroughs require the insertion of dynamic heterogeneous ele-ments into a static state. Historians provide the bridge to dynamics for the economic theory (statics). Schumpeter, at an early stage in his career as an economist, was the very founder of dynamics, and developed the idea of integrated social science, with which he could under-stand the meaning of the methodological criticism of GHS against universalistic theory in general and write a useful history of economics. With the aid of Schumpeterʼs idea, we redis-cover the potential intellectual and scientific fertility of the German Historical School. JEL classification numbers: A 12, B 15, N 13.