Josef Schumpeter, “Literaturberichte” (1913) — Summary

Schumpeter’s “Literaturberichte” is not a single treatise but a sequence of compact reviews whose cumulative thesis is programmatic: economics must recover rigorous theory without losing contact with facts, institutions, and history. He judges each book by whether it advances real scientific problems rather than merely supplying ideology, scholastic method-talk, or descriptive material. The opening review of Lifschitz’s methodological work sets the tone. Schumpeter does not reject methodology, but he treats it as secondary to concrete inquiry:

Eher sind Erörterungen darüber ein Zeichen von Unfruchtbarkeit bezüglich konkreter Leistungen.

English translation: Discussions about it are rather a sign of barrenness with respect to concrete achievements.

This suspicion governs the whole report. Historical research is useful, and Schumpeter explicitly concedes that “jeder Historiker Theorie treiben muß”; yet facts alone are not enough unless they are analytically worked through. Conversely, theory must not become political justificatorys. His praise of Gide rests on “ruhige Objektivität,” clarity, and the ability to keep practical questions “in ihren Schranken.” His criticism of Ruhland, by contrast, attacks a moralized and uncritical social diagnosis in which “Kapital” becomes little more than greed.

The reviews move from textbooks and systems to value theory, money, interest, capital, applied political economy, and banking. Within this structure Schumpeter’s central conceptual moves become clear. First, he separates science from party allegiance. In reviewing Lifschitz’s critique of Böhm-Bawerk and the “Grenznutzler,” he rejects the claim that marginal utility theory is inherently capitalist. What matters is not ideological origin but explanatory power:

Jeden Theoretiker, der sich darüber freut, daß heute die Theorie als solche außerhalb jedes Parteiverbandes steht, muß diese Behauptung sehr unangenehm berühren.

English translation: Every theoretician who takes joy in the fact that today theory as such stands outside any party affiliation must find this assertion very unpleasant.

He reinforces this with a pragmatic criterion of scientific fertility:

An ihren Früchten muß man jede Theorie erkennen.

English translation: Every theory must be known by its fruits.

Second, Schumpeter narrows the psychological basis of marginal utility theory. It need not rest on a full causal psychology; it requires only a workable parallelism between valuations and economic actions. Thus social and historical formation of wants may be true, but it is not the central issue for abstract price theory. The theoretical object is the relation between given wants, choices, and market outcomes.

The review of Adolf Weber gives the most explicit statement of Schumpeter’s disciplinary position. He welcomes the German reaction against excessive practical politics and the historical school, but warns that declaring allegiance to theory is not itself theoretical work:

Es gilt Probleme zu lösen, nicht Methoden zu diskutieren.

English translation: The task is to solve problems, not to discuss methods.

His position is not anti-historical. It is a plea for balance and continuity:

Wo man neue Wege gehen kann, ohne die alten verfallen zu lassen, soll man es tun.

English translation: Where one can pursue new paths without letting the old ones fall into disrepair, one ought to do so.

The long discussions of Fisher and Davenport show Schumpeter engaging theory at its highest level. Fisher’s Rate of Interest is praised for connecting abstract reasoning with statistics and actuarial practice, making theory visible as a matter of lived economic reality:

Es ist ein besonderes Verdienst des Buches, daß es so geschrieben ist, daß auch der Laie und der nichttheoretische Nationalökonom sehen muß, daß es sich hier nicht um Spekulationen, sondern Fragen des Lebens von Fleisch und Blut handelt.

English translation: It is a particular merit of the book that it is written in such a way that even the layman and the non-theoretical economist must see that what is at issue here is not speculation, but questions of life in flesh and blood.

Yet Schumpeter doubts that “Time-Preference” alone solves the interest problem. Time matters, but the explanation of interest must lie not merely in temporal distance but in economic change, productivity, and the expanding stream of future goods:

Wüßten die Wirtschaftssubjekte nicht, daß der Strom des wirtschaftlichen Lebens breiter und reicher wird, je weiter er in seiner Bahn fortschreitet, und daß der Besitz gegenwärtiger Produktivgüter einen Anteil an seinem künftigen Wachstume sichern kann, sie würden die gegenwärtigen Güter nicht immer höher schätzen als künftige.

English translation: If economic agents did not know that the stream of economic life grows broader and richer the further it advances along its course, and that the possession of present productive goods can secure a share in its future growth, they would not always value present goods more highly than future ones.

Davenport receives perhaps the warmest theoretical appreciation. Schumpeter admires a book devoted to pure economic reasoning, free of methodological display and practical ornament:

Da gibt es keine Versuche von praktischen Anwendungen, keine Ausführungen über Methodenfragen, keine Philosophien, nur Arbeit an den grundlegenden Theoremen der reinen Ökonomie.

English translation: There are no attempts at practical applications, no disquisitions on questions of method, no philosophies—only work upon the fundamental theorems of pure economics.

He values Davenport’s attack on the traditional triad of production factors, his limits on marginal productivity theory, and especially his capital analysis around the “loan-fund” as “unspecialised purchasing power.” What Schumpeter prizes is not premature closure but disciplined recognition of difficulty.

The applied reviews make the same demand in another register. Schachner’s Australia book is valuable as information, but Schumpeter faults it for insufficient causal penetration and political partiality:

Daß er für die Größe der imperialistischen Bewegung z. B. so gar kein Verständnis hat und in ihr nichts anderes sieht als das Produkt einer in mehr als einer Hinsicht zweifelhaften Agitation, zeigt nicht von jenem Geiste, in dem der Forscher an historische Erscheinungen herantreten muß.

English translation: That he has no understanding whatever, for example, of the greatness of the imperialist movement and sees in it nothing but the product of an agitation dubious in more than one respect, shows nothing of that spirit in which the researcher must approach historical phenomena.

Conant’s banking history is praised because its facts are organized under trained scientific viewpoints. The file closes by shifting to financial-science literature under Paul Grünwald, reinforcing the broader bibliographical purpose.

The relevance of the report lies in its snapshot of economics at a moment of transition: marginalism, capital theory, money, interest, social policy, and historical economics are all being renegotiated. Schumpeter’s governing standard is already mature: economics should be theoretically exact, empirically responsible, and politically unenslaved.