Eugen Duhring (1833-1921) And The Freedom Of Teaching And Research 9781845446727, 9780861767403

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Journal of Economic Studies

ISSN 0144-3585 Volume 29 Number 4/5 2002

Eugen Du¨hring (1833-1921) and the freedom of teaching and research Guest Editor Ju¨rgen Backhaus Paper format Journal of Economic Studies includes six issues in traditional paper format. The contents of this issue are detailed below.

Internet Online Publishing with Archive, Reference Linking, Emerald WIRE, Key Reading, Institution-wide Licence and E-mail Alerting Service. Access via the Emerald Library: http://www.emerald-library.com See p. 255 for full details of subscriber entitlements.

Access to Journal of Economic Studies online ______ 255 Editorial advisory board ___________________________ 256 Abstracts and keywords ___________________________ 257 Frontispiece _______________________________________ 259 Introduction: academic freedom and the Du¨hring case Ju¨rgen Backhaus ________________________________________________

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Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion Wolfgang Drechsler______________________________________________

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Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ model of economic communes and its influence on the development of socialist thought and practice Alberto Chilosi__________________________________________________

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Do Du¨hring’s tribulations have any lessons for us today? Peter R. Senn __________________________________________________

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Freedom of speech in a constitutional political economy perspective Jean-Michel G. Josselin and Alain Marciano __________________________

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS continued

Reflections on the Du¨hring and Brand cases: political correctness and the current abandonment of academic autonomy to the culture of comfort John J. Furedy __________________________________________________

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Eugen Du¨hring in the perspective of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Gu¨nter Krause _________________________________________________

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Peter Drysdale Australian National University, Australia Darryl Holden Strathclyde University, UK Brian J. Loasby University of Stirling, UK

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James Love Strathclyde University, UK Peter McGregor Strathclyde University, UK David Pearce University College, London, UK

Yoko Sano Keio University, Japan S. Sarpkaya Canadian School of Management, Canada Max Steuer London School of Economics, UK Alan A. Tait International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, USA O.E. Williamson University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Yasukichi Yasuba Osaka Gakuin University, Japan

Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion Wolfgang Drechsler Keywords Economic theory, History, Universities, Academic staff, Germany The essay narrates and analyzes Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion, i.e. the taking away of his status as Privatdozent, and thereby of his right to teach at a university, by the Prussian Minister of Culture in 1877. After sketching out the background of the University of Berlin, the institution of Privatdozent, and Du¨hring himself, first, Du¨hring’s 1875 clash with Adolph Wagner is described, which put him on ‘‘probation’’. Then, the 1877 scandal is looked at in detail, and the accusations against Du¨hring by the Faculty of Philosophy – mainly libel and insult – checked against the facts. It is argued that, while there might have been a point in Du¨hring’s charge of plagiarism against the physicist Helmholtz regarding the first law of thermodynamics, Du¨hring was generally guilty as charged, and that his remotion was certainly legal. As far as the legitimacy of this harsh measure is concerned, the case is less clear, but in the end, it is claimed that the remotion was legitimate as well.

Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ model of economic communes and its influence on the development of socialist thought and practice Alberto Chilosi Keywords Economic theory, Socialism, Co-operatives This paper considers the influence of Eugen Du¨hring’s 1876 model of economic communes on the development of a peculiar non-Marxian stream of market socialist models, characterized by the fact that the self-managed production units are open. In the 1934 Breit and Lange model of market socialism, the organization of the economy is thought to be in the form of large selfmanagement trusts, whose market power is limited by openness. Very similar features can also be found in Franz Oppenheimer’s previous model of industrial cooperatives. Herztka’s Freeland model of settlement

cooperatives represents another development of Du¨ hring’s original blueprint. Through Oppenheimer, Du¨hring’s ideas paradoxically exerted an intellectual influence on the initial institutional form of Jewish settlements in Palestine. Otherwise Du¨ hring’s model of economic communes shows remarkable similitude with Mao’s organization of the Chinese economy, pointing to a possible influence through the extensive quotes in Engels’ AntiDu¨hring.

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Do Du¨hring’s tribulations have any lessons for us today? Peter R. Senn Keywords Economic theory, History, Censorship, Universities, Individual behaviour This is an article about the possible lessons for academic freedom that Du¨ hring’s expulsion from the University of Berlin might have for us today. It begins with a brief discussion of his strange fate in the English language literature in contrast with his high position in the history of economic thought. It is no surprise that questions of the denial of academic freedom have long been discussed. The remainder of the article is devoted to a discussion of academic freedom since his time and the possible lessons these developments might have for us today. The most important of these is the ancient truism – academic freedom is always under attack from many sides and must be vigorously defended.

Freedom of speech in a constitutional political economy perspective Jean-Michel G. Josselin and Alain Marciano Keywords Property rights, Common law, Economics, Individual behaviour The article examines the issue of free speech in a law and economics perspective. The property rights approach is contrasted with the common law and constitutional standpoints. Consequentialist and market efficiency may not provide adequate criteria for judging limitations to freedom of speech.

Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 29 No. 4/5, 2002, Abstracts and keywords. # MCB UP Limited, 0144-3585

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Constitutional instruments may then be required. Reflections on the Du¨hring and Brand cases: political correctness and the current abandonment of academic autonomy to the culture of comfort John J. Furedy Keywords Employment, Terms and conditions, Job descriptions, Academic staff, Dismissal The concept of ‘‘political correctness’’ (PC) does not have a clear and simple definition on which there is even a majority, let alone universal, consensus. Nevertheless, during the last decade, and especially in North America, a series of events and positions have emerged to which the term PC is at least partially applicable. I shall begin by alluding to North American PC in institutions of higher education and in scientific organizations, which I have discussed elsewhere in more detail. I suggest that North American PC has crossed the Atlantic and elaborate upon this suggestion by discussing the recent dismissal of a tenured member of the teaching staff by Edinburgh University, and relating this case to the Du¨hring dismissal.

Eugen Du¨hring in the perspective of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Gu¨nter Krause Keywords Economic theory, Marxian economics Describes how the work of Eugen Du¨hring was regarded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is underlined that the preoccupation of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring was accorded central importance in the history of Marxism. Shows the two phases of serious mutual attention between the protagonists of this relationship. The first phase dated from the year 1867/1868 when Du¨hring reviewed the first volume of Marx’ Capital. It is outlined that this phase has been comparatively little examined in dogmahistorical research up to now. Focuses on the second and most intensive phase of the engagement of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring covering the period from the middle of the 1870s to the start of the 1880s. Examines the climax represented by the Engels’ polemic Herrn Eugen Du¨hring‘s Revolution in Science and standing in the history of Marxism as the programmatic characteristic of the relationship of Marx and Engels to Du¨hring. Highlights the political-ideological premises determining the Du¨hring debate.

Frontispiece

Frontispiece

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Eugen Du¨hring, 1833-1921

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Introduction: academic freedom and the Du¨hring case

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About the Guest Editor Professor Ju¨rgen Backhaus holds the Krupp Chair in Public Finance and Fiscal Sociology at Erfurt University, Germany. Prior to that, he was chair in Public Economics of Maastricht University. He has published 34 books and monographs, 126 articles in refereed journals and book chapters, 28 scholarly notes and 45 reviews. His research interests span economics, but also neighbouring disciplines such as law, fiscal sociology and environmental sciences.

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When the institution of state universities is taken for granted, and elected policy makers try to make points by university politics, sometimes heralded as university reform, it is sensible to look at some turning points that defined the identity of universities vis-a`-vis the state. One of these interesting turning points is the remission of Privatdozent Dr Eugen Du¨hring in the most liberal of German universities at the time, the University of Berlin. Du¨hring, an unbelievably productive scholar, had to be barred from university teaching, as Wolfgang Drechsler explains, for reasons that would still prevail today at German state universities. These reasons would also still prevail at state universities in any country that we know, and the point of this very careful discussion of the case of his remission is also the question of whether it would not make sense to allow for more leeway and funding universities with broader privileges or else allowing state universities to be more left-alone by their sponsor, i.e. by the state. In addition to this introduction, six articles have been collected for this issue of the Journal of Economic Studies. Wolfgang Drechsler gives a very concise assessment of the case, based on all the available historical sources. The case is important not only as such, but in particular with respect to the preservation of academic freedom in the European Union, as that academic freedom tends to be more and more curtailed by harmonisation attempts, many of which have good intentions but awkward consequences. Alberto Chilosi looks at what Du¨hring actually had to offer, the third way between socialism and the so-perceived Manchester capitalism, which led to the Israeli kibbuzim. It is amazing that Du¨hring’s efforts, which have led to quite a few tangible successes, have not been discussed with more tribute in this conflict-afflicted country. All the other contributions to the volume refer to the issue of free speech. Peter Senn looks at Eugen Du¨hring’s ‘‘tribulations’’ from an American point of view. Alain Marciano and Jean-Michel Josselin take a constitutional public choice approach to the issue, refreshingly, and John Furedy, from the point of view of an organised university professor, speaks on the Eugen Du¨hring issue from an American point of view, as it presents itself today in north-American university politics.

The really stunning part we left to the end. Gu¨nter Krause explains how Marx and then Engels saw the Du¨hring issue from the point of view of their politics. As he sees it, Du¨hring sat squarely in the centre of a political spectrum that on the one hand Marx and Engels wanted to capture (both not university lecturers) and on the other hand Adolf Wagner and the other socialists of the chair closely held. By cutting out Du¨hring these avant-la-lettre public choice theorists thought they could squarely attack Wagner. History did certainly not disprove this theory, but it is important to note the spirit that guided the writings of Marx and Engels, as Gu¨nter Krause has reconstructed it. The frontispiece is courtesy of the Reinert collection. Ju¨rgen Backhaus

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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-3585.htm

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Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion Wolfgang Drechsler Chair of Public Administration, University of Tartu, Estonia Keywords Economic theory, History, Universities, Academic staff, Germany Abstract The essay narrates and analyzes Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion, i.e. the taking away of his status as Privatdozent, and thereby of his right to teach at a university, by the Prussian Minister of Culture in 1877. After sketching out the background of the University of Berlin, the institution of Privatdozent, and Du¨hring himself, first, Du¨hring’s 1875 clash with Adolph Wagner is described, which put him on ‘‘probation’’. Then, the 1877 scandal is looked at in detail, and the accusations against Du¨hring by the Faculty of Philosophy – mainly libel and insult – checked against the facts. It is argued that, while there might have been a point in Du¨hring’s charge of plagiarism against the physicist Helmholtz regarding the first law of thermodynamics, Du¨hring was generally guilty as charged, and that his remotion was certainly legal. As far as the legitimacy of this harsh measure is concerned, the case is less clear, but in the end, it is claimed that the remotion was legitimate as well. Ich bin verfolgt. Muß ich drum auch gleich edel sein? [1].

In 1877, the Prussian Minister of Culture, on application of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Berlin, removed Dr Eugen Du¨hring’s venia legendi, the permission to teach, and the related status of Privatdozent. This rather unique act at one of the world’s preeminent universities, which involved still-today famous figures, and which attracted widespread attention, will be studied as a case in this essay. The attempt is to see, to the extent that this is possible, what really happened – for which some contextual explanation is necessary – and whether, by the standards of 1877, the remotion was both legal and legitimate. Using a simple version of the latter dichotomy (see Creifelds, 1996, ‘‘Legalita¨t’’, p. 770), I mean by legal, in accordance with the existing laws, both ‘‘in letter and spirit’’, and by legitimate, in accordance with an ethical-normative standard, preferably that of the protagonists.

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Slim as this essay is, it necessitates – and gives the pleasure of – the expression of manifold indebtedness: first, to Professor Dr Ju¨rgen G. Backhaus (Maastricht) for conceiving and convening the Maastricht conference on Du¨hring in September 1997, without which I would have never dealt with this case. Second, to Dr Erik S. Reinert (Oslo), in whose collection the library of the Vienna Du¨hring Society is, to Professor Dr Peter R. Senn (Evanston, IL), and also to Studienrat i.H. Dr Joachim A. Groth (Bochum) and to my Fulbright advisee Todd A. Gooch MA (Marburg), for supplying me with much-needed material. Third, but certainly not least, to my Dean, Academician Professor Dr Ju¨ri Allik, to my graduate assistant, Rainer Kattel (both Tartu), to Professor Senn, and to Hochschulassistent Dr Hans-Peter Folz (Augsburg), as well as to the participants of the Maastricht conference, for their critical and very helpful comments. Some financial support came from the 1997 University of Tartu Faculty of Social Sciences ‘‘State Sciences and Politics’’ research area. Meanwhile, an only very slightly different version of this essay has already appeared in Paradiama: Essays in Honor of Otto Kaiser on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday, Trames, Vol. 3 (53/48) No. 3 (Fall, 1999), pp. 99-130, edited by myself. The manuscript for the current version was completed in April 1999.

The sources for such an investigation of the Du¨hring case are very good, because all relevant files are contained in a booklet published by the faculty (Aktenstu¨cke, 1877), obviously in order to justify itself[2]. Du¨hring himself later complained about the selectivity of the brochure, as it did not contain much material about a related previous case, and he thus called the ‘‘collection of so-called files . . . a party pamphlet of the judge in his own cause’’ (1882, p. 194). But he did not claim that the files presented were themselves inaccurate, and his autobiography, significantly titled Cause, Life and Enemies (1882), written just four years later (p. iv), is a good counterweight to present his own perspective. It is is used here accordingly, together with his other relevant writings and some tertiary accounts. However, this investigation is only meant as a preliminary sketch, staying close to the case and its files as such; in order to do the subject full justice, a monograph would be required. The background The University of Berlin In the 1870s, the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin was not only the preeminent academic institution in Prussia, but also in the newly-founded German Empire, and certainly one of the best, if not the best, in the world. More, as the late Thomas Nipperdey has argued: The Prussian university has been one of the few world-historical achievements of Prussia whose rank is unchallenged until this day. Since the founding of the Berlin University in 1819, it had become the prototype of the modern university, from Baltimore to Tokyo to Jerusalem (1986, p. 140; see p. 155).

The university was headed by a rector and a university council; the supervising governmental institution, which had ultimate control, was the Prussian Ministry of Culture. Much of the power, however, lay in the hands of the faculties. A faculty in Germany is an administrative unit on the level between the university itself and the institutes or chairs; in the nineteenth century, there were no departments[3]. The faculties were headed by a dean, elected every other semester by and from among the professors holding chairs. The Faculty of Philosophy was one of the four classical ones and generally included, in the 1870s, both what we would now call the ‘‘hard’’ sciences (excepting medicine) and the humanities (including what are now the social sciences). In Berlin, from the beginning, the Faculty of Philosophy had been the core of the university. This was an intentional move against the older (theology-based or narrowly judicial in focus) institutions as well as against the Napoleonic concept of the polytechnic (Nipperdey, 1986, p. 141). This is not the only difference between the German and other university systems. In the former, associate and assistant professors did and do not exist, nor does an equivalent. There were and generally are what I just called (full) professors with a chair (the latter also being a structural unit), the so-called Ordinarien or ordentliche Professoren. There were a few Extraordinarien or außerordentliche Professoren, full professors without a chair and also without much administrative or academic influence.

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At a given university, there were a specific number of chairs with specific descriptions of fields. One could not be promoted, say, from Extraordinarius to Ordinarius because of some additional publications, as would be possible in the USA. Rather, one would have to be called – applications were impossible – to a vacant chair by the university. It was good tradition never to call people to chairs who were already employed by, or recent graduates of, the university in question in order to combat nepotism (the so-called Hausberufungsverbot). Since the late 1840s, in the case of a vacancy, the faculty, i.e. its council, consisting of the Ordinarien, would rank the possible candidates and submit a list (later usually of three) to the Ministry of Culture (there were no non-state universities in Germany at that time), which would usually, but by no means always, select the top candidate (see Roellecke in Handbuch (Fla¨mig et al., 1996, p. 28)). Sometimes, it would even appoint someone whom the local faculty did not want at all (cf. Helmholtz, 1877b, p. 207). The Prussian Ministry of Culture had a record of liberal reform and for filling chairs on the basis of quality alone, in a ‘‘benevolent-authoritarian’’ way (Lenz, 1918, pp. 384-5; Nipperdey, 1986, pp. 151, 147, 152-3), even integrating and protecting members of the opposition (pp. 152-4). The active role of the ministry would increase from the early 1880s under the guidance of the new head of the University Division, Friedrich Althoff. The Privatdozent However, in order to be eligible at all for a call, from about the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was not sufficient to hold a doctorate. Rather, there was – and usually still is in most fields, but probably not much longer – another qualification required which had a dual nature: it was in one sense a degree, and in another, a permission (cf. Schmeiser, 1994, p. 37, esp. n. 14). This qualification is called the Habilitation (cf. generally Maurer in Handbuch (Fla¨mig et al., 1996, pp. 779-94)). The University of Berlin had, incidentally, pioneered its institutionalization (Schmeiser, 1994, p. 30; Busch, 1959, pp. 1, 21-3). It consisted of the submission of a habilitation thesis, either cumulative (i.e. consisting of previously published material) or a long monograph, and the acceptance of this by the faculty, and then, technically as an added act, a probationary lecture and the subsequent bestowal of the venia legendi (literally, ‘‘permission to read’’) for a field and usually also for specific sub-fields. The status one would then obtain was that of Privatdozent (see Schmeiser, 1994, pp. 30-1; generally Busch, 1959; cf. Ko¨stlin, 1987, p. 124). With these came the right, usually also a minimum duty, to read, i.e. lecture, in the university granting them (cf. Ko¨stlin, 1987, pp. 123-4; Scheven in Handbuch (Fla¨mig et al., 1996, p. 368)). Privatdozenten were completely nonsalaried, although in 1875 a fund for some very limited stipends was created in Prussia (see Busch, 1959, pp. 113-14). They did receive lecture-fees from the students, which were a substantial part of the income of the chairs also, but as the Privatdozenten did not have the right to examine, most students would mainly attend the lectures of the Ordinarien[4]. As Du¨hring put it later,

practically ‘‘a Privatodocent is generally a zero’’ (1904, p. 109). The status of Privatdozent was (and is) a very frustrating one, because – although today they are somewhat salaried – theirs is an unstable existence always close to bankruptcy, especially if one had not inherited or married some wealth, and with an uncertain future. Georg Simmel called it rightly a ‘‘purgatory’’[5]. Some of the Privatdozenten received a call right after the Habilitation, some after a more or less long waiting period – some, never. As Max Weber pointed out, to choose the scholarly career was (and is) to some extent a gamble (see Schmeiser, 1994, pp. 17, 64-5). Especially those who were scholarly, personally, or politically controversial, odd, or otherwise disadvantaged, and of course also the worst ones academically, simply did not receive a call. They could then spend their entire lives as Privatdozent. They were generally looked down upon by students and professors alike, and they often built up a strong hatred against those more successful. There is almost a stereotype of the embittered eternal Privatdozent in German academic folklore. Comparable to a doctorate, the somewhat degree-like Privatdozenten-status (as well as the venia) did not expire and could generally not be revoked; it only ended with a call or not at all (see Schmeiser, 1994, p. 36). For extreme cases, the statutes stipulated a possibility to do so, the Remotion (the opposite of Promotion, cf. Scheven in Handbuch (Fla¨mig et al., 1996, p. 368)), but this instrument was hardly used at all until the time of the Nazis. Eugen Du¨hring Except among specialists in the history of his fields, Eugen Du¨hring (1833-1921) is, if at all, still known today for the same reason as the erstwhile Hamburg head pastor Johann Melchior Goeze: one much more famous than he not only wrote a book against him, but that book became very important, and more importantly, he was named in the title[6]. Friedrich Engels’ (1820-1895) Anti-Du¨hring of 1878 is, after all, a very significant work, not because of the topical and time-bound polemic against Du¨hring as which it was written, but because here Engels, in cooperation with Marx, for the first time develops ‘‘scientific socialism’’ as a doctrine. It is indeed ‘‘perhaps the most comprehensive and systematic statement of their ideology ever issued by the collaborators’’[7]. Marxism-Leninism being one of the key two or three ideologies of the current century – when Du¨hring died, the Anti-Du¨hring was part of the basis of the ideology in the largest country in Europe – this is still a significant datum[8]. One should also not forget that between 1870-1875, Du¨hring’s following among the German radical left, especially Social Democrats and particularly in Berlin, was strong indeed[9]. For many scholars, however, Du¨hring was and is interesting not only, or even not mainly, because of Engels’ book. His work in philosophy, economics, social thought, and the history of science, especially of physics, is not without some importance (about economics, see Senn, 1997, pp. 3-7), although decidedly iconoclastic and, to a large extent, outright odd[10]. In fact, Du¨hring was so ‘‘uncompromisingly independent’’ that it does command some respect for many

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(Albrecht, 1927, p. 20). As with much iconoclasm, his earlier writings are to some extent an entertaining read[11], even a history of mechanics, so that one could say that ‘‘I don’t agree . . . but that doesn’t alter the fact that it was enormous fun’’ (Crispin, 1980, p. 193) – at least up to a certain point, to which we will get below. As a philosopher, Du¨hring was a positivist extremist[12], but this is a philosophy that, in spite of its being now discredited, had its formal rights during Du¨hring’s time, and still can find protagonists today, especially in its folk version (see also Lessing, 1922, p. 21). In social theory and economics, Adamiak has pointed out that ‘‘Du¨hring’s insistence on decentralization contrasted sharply with the centralization advocated both by Marx and by the Katheder Socialists’’ (1974, p. 103). This may for some be as timely today as his affinities to and defense of List and Carey (see Albrecht, 1 et passim). Altogether, however, only his most religious followers would argue that, e.g. his first book on natural dialectics is ‘‘more than just on the level of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason’’ (Do¨ll, 1893, p. 1), and that his ‘‘life and work will doubtless still after 100 years engage the outstanding Germans’’ (Lessing, 1922, p. 42) seems highly unlikely indeed. The truly believing Du¨hringians would even argue a decade after his death that he was ‘‘the greatest of all historical human beings’’ (Der Ruck, 1933, headline; 1934, headline)[13]. Du¨hring also holds a place in the history of women’s liberation, especially with his famous treatise on higher education for women (1885). Written during a time when in Prussia they could not attend the university, not even the Gymnasien, it was one of the publications which would lead to his remotion. It is clearly one of the most sophisticated and profound treatments of its kind (see esp. pp. 1-11). Du¨hring is suggesting to move strategically, but he believes in the full, unlimited equality of women that should, eventually, be realized (pp. 2-3; but see Lessing, 1922, p. 39). His story of great but suppressed women scientists, and its explanation (Du¨hring, 1885, pp. 8-9), as well as the problem of women in typical women’s occupations (pp. 10-11) could have been written 100 years later with hardly a word added or taken away. Du¨hring admittedly argues for women educating women, using reasons that feminists apply to justify women’s colleges in the USA today (pp. 23-6, 34). But in the second edition at least, even this essay is marred by anti-semitism (see, e.g. 1885, pp. 7, 41, 72, 77-8, 81), which makes Du¨hring’s writings today more unpalpable than anything else. In fact, what jumps into one’s eyes today when reading Du¨hring’s entire oeuvre is the ‘‘foaming fool’’ as Friedrich Nietzsche caricaturized him in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Albrecht, 1927, p. 10; Lessing, 1922, p. 25). We witness a person who is so ridiculously and insanely vile against everything and everybody that Du¨hring certainly, and without hyperbole, qualifies as a medical case[14]. Du¨hring hated, despised, and disparaged Bismarck, Buddha, Dante, Einstein, Heine, Ipsen, Jesus Christ, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Owen, Plato, Saint Simon, Schiller, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Strindberg, Tolstoy, Richard Wagner, and most of all G.E. Lessing and Goethe, to name but a few (see Lessing, 1922, pp. 14-16). His anti-semitism

is only one part of it (see Cobet, 1973, p. 18), but in light of German history by far the most disgusting and unpardonable one. Thus, one would be pre-disposed to accept his remotion as justified, not even knowing the case. However, apart from his anti-semitism, his evil and vitriolic rantings are much more subdued and almost conventional in his publications before 1875. This would be understandable if we follow Du¨hring’s best biographer Gerhard Albrecht, who in a sympathetic yet critical book (1927)[15] suggests dividing Du¨hring’s life into three periods, viz. until 1867, 1867-1875, and from 1875, the latter being a ‘‘period of ruin’’ (pp. 17-18). And yet, Du¨hring’s anti-semitism is already previously obvious and intense, if more moderate in tone, such as in his Course of Philosophy of 1875, culminating in his 1881 The Jewish Question as Race, Moral, and Cultural Question (1881a; 6th ed. 1930). Already the Course, with its insistence on racial, rather than religious, anti-semitism[16], and certainly the later works, remind one less of the Sto¨cker movement than of the time 65 years later[17]. But the road to these, at least in retrospect, is not so difficult to ascertain. ‘‘Entjudung is the task’’, states Du¨hring in 1881 (p. 119), after having pointed out how bad and inappropriate tolerance towards the Jews really is (pp. 96-108, 117). Although he puts forth certain policy recommendations, such as establishing special laws and regulations with the aim of ‘‘the diminishing of the jewry in population number and wealth, as generally in the participation in state and society’’ (pp. 117-18), these are only meant as temporary measures against a complex, basic phenomenon (pp. 157-8). According to Du¨hring, the Jews can not be ‘‘changed’’ or ‘‘improved’’ (pp. 111-12), and as neither deportation nor ghettoization are practical, because they would form a mere shift of the problem, and the Jews would come out on top again anyway (pp. 109-11), one wonders how the task of ‘‘Entjudung’’ could possibly be met[18]. Still, Du¨hring’s anti-semitism was never as much as alluded to during the remotion procedure, although the Course, for instance, had apparently been out for some months (see Du¨hring, 1875, p. iv). The time of his remotion forming the first peak of racial and political anti-semitism, especially prominent in Berlin (see Ru¨rup, 1985, pp. 94-5; Jochmann, 1985, p. 116; Mogge, 1977, p. 13), Du¨hring’s statements in this area would hardly have made him an outsider by themselves. More importantly, Theodor Lessing (1872-1933), one of the most eminent theorists of Jewish self-hatred (cf. Volkov, 1986, pp. 10-11), himself later removed from the university and eventually murdered by the Nazis[19], wrote the most outstanding literary work concerning Du¨hring, Du¨hring’s Hatred (1922), in which he hauntingly and powerfully explains the psychological causes for the tragedy of Du¨hring’s life and madness to such an extent that one is tempted to reconsider any quick, harsh judgment (see esp. pp. 12-14). After all, Lessing says, he was ‘‘the last of the time and level of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Germany’s most dogged will and sharpest head’’ (p. 11). And he, too, emphasizes how the older Du¨hring ruined, with his hating additions, the brilliance of the younger one’s books (p. 28).

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Thus, while one would actually not be inclined to be fair (the poor man’s word for just, as George Stigler said), perhaps one has to be for this investigation. In order to judge the events of 1875 and 1877, it would be better to only look at Du¨hring’s writings before 1875 – at least until the question of legitimacy arises. This is a highly problematic matter indeed, and Du¨hring would very rightly be fired today from any Privatdozentur would he state today what he said after and even before 1875. Nonetheless, as the motto of this essay implies, Du¨hring’s remotion might have been illegal or illegitimate, or both, in spite of him not being an attractive character at all in our eyes. And only such an approach can keep us from confusing cause and effect. After all, the horrid impact which complete blindness, coming at age 28, must have had on Du¨hring is easily imagined (Albrecht, 1927, pp. 5-6; Lessing, 1922, pp. 21, 40). That this might have been the psychological basis of his mistrust (p. 10), which was increased, first, by a report he had written on the order of Bismarck having been published under another name, in spite of him winning the respective court case (pp. 14, 15-16), and then to clinical conditions especially during the years after his remotion (p. 10), is hardly an absurd theory. It seems arguable that – his anti-semitism for a moment apart – all one sees before 1875 is a highly controversial, occasionally odd and overly sharp, original scholar whose unorthodox evaluations attract both students and book-buyers (pp. 14-15; see Cobet, 1973, pp. 21-2) as much as they anger his colleagues; in sum, kind of a blind feminist Schopenhauer. The cases 1875 According to Albrecht, Du¨hring had habilitated – both in state sciences and in philosophy – mainly in order to become more reputable as a writer, which was to be his real goal (1927, p. 11). He was quite successful as a writer and as a lecturer, being able to live on the combined income of both activities (pp. 14-15). By that time, he had almost become an ‘‘eternal’’ Privatdozent, being seven years older than the average called one[20]. He had never been able to obtain a call due to, it is probably fair to say, his crankiness and his odd views, in spite of even Bismarck having pushed for him at one time (Albrecht, 1927, p. 16; cf. Du¨hring, 1877b, p. 16). However, he was a very attractive and popular figure with the students and the general public (cf. Lessing, 1922, pp. 19-20). Thus, it appeared predictable that Du¨hring would remain a publishing Privatdozent for the rest of his life, which as it turned out was in fact not even half over yet. In 1875, however, the faculty applied for Du¨hring’s remotion, accusing him of intolerable attacks on his own colleagues and his own university. The altercations had begun when Du¨hring had written very negatively about Socialism of the Chair (Kathedersozialismus) in his Critical History of Economics and Socialism (1871)[21]. Later, Du¨hring would even call it ‘‘basically only an insurance firm for mutual PR and university promotion . . . a combination of Pietists’ economics with old reactionary police-statehood . . . the Tartu¨fferie of the so-called Socialism of the Chair’’ (Du¨hring, 1882, p. 158).

It is important to notice in this context that around this time, this school was regarded as an opposition movement against the prevailing official socio-economic ideology; only later would this change. Du¨hring’s account included some very critical remarks about Adolph Wagner (1835-1917). Wagner, who since 1870 held one of the state sciences chairs at Berlin, was one of the leaders of state socialism (Staatssozialismus), a form of Socialism of the Chair (see Drechsler, 1995a, 1997)[22]. Wagner was a very dynamic, indeed belligerent character who did not take insults lightly and who never phrased things diplomatically (see Bahr, 1894, pp. 71-3). Twenty years later, Wagner would so enrage an industrial-conservative member of the Reichstag, likewise with a defense of the socialists of the chair’s influence within the university, that that deputy challenged him to a duel. (Wagner did not categorically refuse, but it was never fought. See Frevert, 1991, pp. 235-6, 330, n. 12.) Ever since coming to Berlin, he had not appreciated Du¨hring (see Wagner’s letter to his brother Hermann, 16 October 1870, in 1978, pp. 84-5, 85). Wagner would remain one of Du¨hring’s most disliked figures (Lessing, 1922, 29)[23]. As Albrecht remarks, Du¨hring had in fact insulted Wagner personally, and the latter’s reaction was therefore predictable (1927, p. 17). Emphasizing the insult rather than any scholarly disagreement, Wagner answered Du¨hring both in his lectures – of which he notified Du¨hring in a letter as well (Wagner to Du¨hring, 2 December 1874, in Wagner, 1978, p. 130) – and in the Berliner Bo¨rsenzeitung of 8 December 1874. In its most severe passages, he refers to Du¨hring’s ‘‘self-over-estimation and embitteredness, increased to insanity’’, calls Du¨hring’s claim that he owed his career to being the son of a professor ‘‘a impudent coarse lie’’, and ends by declaring ‘‘all those insinuations publicly here as well, as in my lecture, for factually untrue, for brazen and spiteful suspicions and libeling; in other words, for a despicable infamy’’ (Wagner, 1874). Du¨hring replied in the same paper one week later (1874; see 1882, pp. 162-3), and even more harshly, although he stated later that he did not mention the dispute in his lectures (see pp. 158-9). He starts by saying that Wagner ‘‘once again gave in to his characteristic itch to produce himself at any price in a scandalous way and with his well-known ineptitude’’, a sentence typical for the tone of the entire reply. Saying that Wagner’s letter was ‘‘answering a call of nature’’ and insulting Wagner’s dead father as a bad scholar and Wagner himself as a ‘‘Professorenso¨hnchen’’, he concludes: ‘‘but from the infamy which has poured out of Mr Wagner this time, and from all his other dirtiness and consequences of his vomiting, I remain at a distance in order not to soil myself’’ (Du¨hring, 1874). The Statutes of the university, § 52, explicitly state that ‘‘a Privatdozent may receive a warning or a reprimand (Verweis) in the case of slighter offenses (Ansto¨ssigkeiten) by the faculty, and in case of repeated or graver offenses, that it can apply for remotion at the ministry’’ (quoted in Falk, 1877b, p. 30). Du¨hring was to call this a superannuated law of 1838 (Du¨hring, 1882, p. 160) and

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claimed that the ministry was not a genuine second level, because it judged on the basis of a faculty report (pp. 172, 194). However, the bestowal of the Privatdozentur was by that time (again) entirely a university matter to begin with; it was only announced, rather than submitted for approval, to the ministry (Roellecke and Maurer in Handbuch (Fla¨mig et al., 1996, pp. 28 resp. 781); but see Busch, 1959, pp. 114-15). What is noteworthy, therefore, is the comparatively complex procedure leading to the remotion, obviously a check against impulsive or personal decisions by the faculty. In any case, the Faculty of Philosophy in this case did judge Du¨hring’s behavior, especially the newspaper reply, as a grave offense and accordingly applied for his remotion. The Minister of Culture at that time was Adalbert Falk (1827-1900), in office 1872-1879, who is mainly known for his role in the Kulturkampf, Bismarck’s fight against the Catholic church in Germany[24]. (The Ministry of Culture had responsibility for all matters concerning religion as well.) In this battle, Falk was more extreme than Bismarck, such as regarded civil marriage, and he acted very independently from the Chancellor (Bismarck, 1921, pp. 152, 164; Jacta, 1972, p. 222). After the reconciliation between Bismarck and the new pope in 1879, and, as Bismarck claimed, intrigues at Court against him, especially by the pro-catholic Empress, he would resign (see pp. 153-4), becoming first a member of the diet and then a high judge (see Foerster, 1927; Skalweit, 1961; also Ho¨rtz, 1994, p. 39). Falk was a very active man, and there can be no doubt that in such a high-visibility case he would have decided by himself. On the other hand, he would have also been very unlikely to yield to any outside pressure in a matter such as this. But in the spring of 1875, the Kulturkampf criminal laws against those clergy who had not obeyed the previous ones were being passed, and they had been written by Falk (Franz-Willing, 1981, pp. 1435, 1436-7; Jacta, 1972, p. 222). This was the most important and controversial domestic policy matter during the early years of the empire, and it may be no over-speculation to say that Falk did not want to open another front with the Du¨hring case. It may be added that Wagner suspected the Minister of not being friendly to Socialism of the Chair generally or to himself specifically[25]. In fact, Falk saw the blame on both sides, and Wagner was asked to defend himself in writing (Falk, 1875, p. 8; see Wagner to his brother, 29 January 1875, in Wagner, 1978, p. 131). On this basis, the Minister determined that, while Du¨hring was guilty of a grave offense, Wagner was not free of blame either, and the latter received a disciplinary warning on the basis of the Law Concerning the Official Misconduct of Non-Judiciary Civil Servants, a fairly serious admonishment (see 17 March 1875, pp. 133-4, 133). In a letter to his brother, Wagner conceded that everyone shared the former’s opinion that, while he was right in contents, he had attacked Du¨hring in an inappropriate form (22 February 1875, p. 133). Du¨hring later stated that the faculty failed here with its choice of person if it wanted to get rid of him (1904, p. 111; 1882, pp. 158-9), although he also admitted that these were stronger points than there would be in 1877 (p. 178). Wagner felt, to the contrary, that he had not been

supported enough by his colleagues (letter to his brother, 9 May 1877, in 1978, p. 146). He was so upset by the warning that he even considered quitting and leaving Berlin for Austria (17 March 1875, pp. 133-4), but in the end he remained in Berlin. Du¨hring was not remoted, but rather, the Minister left it ‘‘to the faculty to issue to him through the dean a grave reprimand, under penalty of unrelenting remotion in case of repetition, because of the coarse violation which he has been guilty of through the spiteful and insulting character of his polemic against Wagner’’ (Falk, 1875, p. 8). Du¨hring would later claim that the result had been a compromise, reached through an intermediary, yet in which he was not dealt with fairly, as the agreement had been that both he and Wagner should have received the same kind of reprimand (1882, pp. 160-2). But even Albrecht calls the Minister’s decision fair (1927, p. 17). From today’s perspective, it appears that this was indeed so: Du¨hring’s note is the much harsher one, and he is factually in the wrong as well, but Wagner’s is very severe also, and it was he who had started the affair. The dean of the faculty was at this time the classicist Eduard Zeller (1814-1908), one of the most eminent scholars of his time and one of the greatest historians of Greek philosophy (see Zeller, 1919-1923), whom Du¨hring later called ‘‘a professor of philosophy named Zeller’’ (1882, p. 160). His call to Berlin had been a major feat and a personal project and accomplishment of the Minister of Culture (Lenz, 1918, pp. 355-6). On 23 March, Zeller ordered Du¨hring to appear in the presence of a ministry official[26] and issued to him the grave reprimand (Zeller et al., 1875). The language is harsh, although not out of line if compared to the wording by the Minister. Du¨hring is blamed for an unprovoked attack against Wagner and the German universities as a whole, contrary to the truth, in his book; the newspaper article is called a ‘‘coarse indecency which reveals the complete forgetting of that which any educated person, but especially a representative of scholarship and a teacher of the academic youth, owes to himself and to his position’’ (p. 9). Zeller points out that such behavior would have justified immediate remotion; it would be sheer clemency on part of the ministry if for now Du¨hring was allowed to stay with the university. This decision was based on the expectation, Zeller said, that Du¨hring would henceforth exclusively concentrate on research and teaching (pp. 9-10). He declared to Du¨hring ‘‘that any further occurrence of similar offenses will have your unrelenting remotion as a consequence’’ (p. 10). Du¨hring answered that he regarded this reprimand in form and content as objectionable and that he reserved the right to further protests, which – according to a note in the Aktenstu¨cke – did not occur (p. 10). Later he stated that he had immediately claimed that there had been factual lies in the reprimand, but that Zeller had refused to write this claim (1882, p. 163). Du¨hring undoubtedly, however, confirmed by signature that these things had been read to him (Zeller et al., 1875, p. 10).

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1877 Two years later, in 1877, the faculty decided that with two new publications, Du¨hring had committed precisely the same kind of offenses again; the incriminating books were the second edition of his award-winning Critical History of the General Principles of Mechanics (1877a) and the alreadydiscussed small pamphlet on The Way to Women’s Higher Professional Education and the Way of Teaching at the Universities (1877b). We know from a letter by Adolph Wagner that it was Eduard Zeller who had officially brought the matter up and had the faculty council decide on it (Wagner, letter to his brother, 9 May 1877, in 1978, p. 146). The current dean, the Swiss-born Adolf Tobler (1814-1908), who since 1867 held the newly-created Chair of Romance Philology, was an eminent scholar, a founding father of the positive, historic-evolutionary direction of his field (Lommatzsch, 1965, pp. 4-5, 7-9). Working for half a century on his Altfranzo¨sisches Wo¨rterbuch (Tobler and Lommatzsch, 1955-1998), Tobler never finished it because, as has been argued by one of his successors, he was overly self-critical and perfectionist in his work (Lommatzsch, 1965, pp. 10-11). But this immense enterprise, now under its fourth generation of editors, is still in the making and scheduled for completion only next year. Even apart from this magnum opus, with more than other 600 items to his name, Tobler was a very successful author (pp. 4-6), and he is depicted as ‘‘a strong and upright personality’’ (p. 6). Tobler asked Du¨hring to justify himself as regarded four concrete passages, in line with the old reprimand: a passage in the latter book that would insult the German professoriate as a whole, and in the former, which Du¨hring had listed as the textbook for a gratis lecture-class that semester, three passages that implicitly or explicitly insulted members of his own faculty (Tobler, 1877a; Du¨hring later claimed that concrete accusations were entirely missing; 1882, p. 172). These four passages are, in the Aktenstu¨cke, given as footnotes 1-4 on pp. 11-12 (the passage on the German university was cited in full later in the remotion itself by the Minister (Falk, 1877b, pp. 31-6)). A comparison with the originals shows that the quotes are accurate[27]; nor are they ‘‘pulled out of context’’. The following segments turned out to be of special interest: 1. The mental corruption which is expanding in the darkness of unfree authority administration is much more intensive than the material one. The degrading of the sciences to a mere tool of guildish food- and provision-interests is, after all, something else. . . Thus, since the 12th century, the universities . . . more and more fell into ruin and significantly hindered the progress of science . . . (p. 11, n. 1). 2. Completely funny was that the mere participation in suchlike vague discussions, which in addition was not even particularly original but trivial and flawed, could be confused with the finding of a thought and with the discovery itself . . . Such a participation basically was Mr Helmholtz’ treatise, On the Conservation of Power (1847), in which . . . in spite of the dealing with several works of little significance, R. Mayer was not mentioned (p. 12, n. 2). [This refers to the Heilbronn doctor and lay physicist Robert Mayer who had discovered the first law of thermodynamics but who had received little credit (more about this below).]

3. It is not surprising that the vaguely a bit philosopherizing physiological phyiscsprofessor (der unklar ein wenig philosophelnde, physiologische Physikprofessor) Mr Helmholtz neither in this case let the opportunity pass to participate in the discussion and to comment applaudingly to the piquant nonsense . . . (p. 12, n. 3) [This refers to a discussion about geometry.] 4. . . . the University of Berlin . . . never had amongst its full professors [of mathematics] . . . any name whose sound had been more than a mere echo of the professorship and of its influence on job placement and similar patronage (p. 12, n. 4; repeated in Du¨hring, 1904, p. 110; 1882, pp. 180-1).

On 27 May, Du¨hring answered the faculty, and not politely either. He points out, first at all, that he does not remember the reprimand of 1875 very well – if at all, then only because of its offensive language – and that there had also been some rebuke of his opponent (1877b, p. 13; he elaborated on this charge in 1882, p. 162; see pp. 162-3). He then proceeds to emphasize the plagiarism case against Helmholtz, i.e. against the latter’s claim for a ‘‘parallel discovery’’ of the ‘‘conservation of energy’’ (p. 14), saying that Helmholtz wants to silence him – also with the help of Mrs Helmholtz – because he had pointed it out (p. 14). Du¨hring complains about the ‘‘completely normless situation’’ of the remotion procedure (pp. 15-16; see 1882, p. 160). Under the circumstances, Du¨hring claims that there is no academic freedom for Privatdozenten at all. He also says that if he had wanted to be really personal, this would have looked different from ‘‘those few lines about Mr Helmholtz’’ (1877b, p. 16). The negative phrases against the university were tamer than called for by the situation, too (pp. 17-18; see 1882, p. 167). Upon receipt of this letter, the faculty, in a letter of 8 June signed by Dean Tobler and the historian Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch, turned to the Minister, now firmly applying for Du¨hring’s remotion because of the seriousness and repetition of the offenses which he had been explicitly warned not to commit (Tobler and Nitzsch, 1877)[28]. The defense is said not to supply any valid excuses or explanations (p. 23). They sum up: there is the insult against German universities and their professors in the booklet on women’s education, in which Du¨hring disparages the community to which he belongs (pp. 20-1). Then, there is the insult or libel against members of his own faculty, particularly serious because they occur in a book that is used as a textbook (pp. 21-2). First, this concerns the mathematics professorship (pp. 22-3, 24)[29]. Equally bad are the attacks against Helmholtz, both insulting and libelous (p. 23). Du¨hring’s claim that he had not received the 1875 reprimand is refuted by saying that he had never asked for it (pp. 23-4) and that in any case, it would be hardly imaginable that he would not remember the gist of such a very serious admonition (p. 24). Regarding the critique of Helmholtz, the faculty points out that the defense makes Du¨hring’s case even worse because he admits that it was not a scholarly matter of dispute at all but rather meant as a revenge for an allegedly suffered injury, Du¨hring’s removal from teaching classes in the women’s lyceum[30].

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The application for the remotion is emphasized again in the strongest terms (pp. 25-6). A letter and additional statement by Helmholtz were enclosed (Helmholtz, 1877a), in which the latter stated that he had given full credit to Mayer since 1854, 20 years before Du¨hring ever did (p. 27); several passages from public lectures since the 1850s, contained in a 1871 publication, are cited in which he gives Mayer full credit (pp. 27-8; see 1871). The declaration added that neither Helmholtz or his wife had ever tried to have Du¨hring dismissed from the lyceum (1877a, pp. 28-9), a statement Du¨hring later called ‘‘cheap, indeed funny’’ (1882, p. 198). Falk had had it with Du¨hring, and in mid-1877, the Kulturkampf was not in a particularly hot phase anymore, either. The Minister, ‘‘a strong and pronounced personality’’ (Franz-Willing, 1981, p. 1444; see Lenz, 1918, p. 354) and – according to Bismarck – a very gifted, capable and brave man (1921, p. 153), ‘‘felt himself to be the servant of the idea of the law, which he saw embodied in the authority of the state’’ (Skalweit, 1961, p. 6). To a Hegelian Rechtsstaat thinker like him, expediency or politics – this was Bismarck’s problem already – were of little concern (see Bismarck, 1921, p. 155), and Du¨hring’s actions must have been disgusting to him[31]. On 7 July, he agreed to the remotion (Falk, 1877a, b). Falk’s reasoning was indeed an endorsement of the faculty view that in 1875, Du¨hring had not been remoted just out of clemency. He had been put on probation, and he had failed to meet the conditions (Falk, 1877b, pp. 30-1). The Minister agrees with all four points the faculty listed: attacks against the mathematics professors, against Helmholtz, charge of plagiarism against Helmholtz, and attacks against the German universities (p. 31). It is not insignificant that Falk emphasizes the latter (p. 31) and not, as Du¨hring claimed later, the charges against Helmholtz (Du¨hring, 1882, p. 173), because for Falk, institutional insults – especially against an institution he to some extent identified with – would have been even worse than personal ones. Falk cites the incriminated passage at full length (pp. 32-6) and notes very disapprovingly Du¨hring’s claim to have been ‘‘still moderate’’ (p. 31). The Minister comes to the result: The academic freedom, which you claim by right for Privatdocenten, too, and which I would not be inclined to curtail, has nothing to do with statements like these. Going beyond anything appropriate, they betray in their form, not an earnest desire to promote the uplift of university life through the uncovering of allegedly existing defects, but rather the intention to make the universities, as the seats of corruption and depravity, the victim of general contempt. The trust which is required from an employed professor as well as from the permission granted to a Privatdocent to teach at the university can no longer be given to a man who publicly makes such statements about the totality of those with whom he would have to cooperate (p. 36).

The remotion was issued in the strongest of ways; Du¨hring was not even permitted one more lecture, nor to say farewell to his students (Falk, 1877a; see Du¨hring, 1904, p. 131; Albrecht, 1927, p. 18).

The facts Before we discuss whether the remotion was legal and legitimate, we first look at the facts, i.e. not whether Du¨hring said what was said he said (he did), but whether his statements were true. This might sound like a strange approach today (‘‘truth . . . what could that be?’’ ‘‘is it not a question of episteme?’’). But if we deal with the Du¨hring case at all, we must take its protagonists seriously, and this means that we are dealing with a group of people who, radically different as they were from each other, were united by one view: there is a truth, and I can know it. (Actually, all of them also believed themselves to be factually right.) Things are in a way, and we can find out, at least ultimately, what and how they are. All of them – Du¨hring, Falk, Helmholtz, Tobler, Wagner, Zeller (he perhaps the least), and also Engels – would have been greatly surprised to hear people talk about epistemes and relative truth. All of them (perhaps again except for Zeller) believed in science and (its) progress. Of the four passages in question, three are stated to constitute a form of insult, of disparaging one’s colleagues in one’s own faculty, as well as the university, especially in Germany, as such. Insult is not necessarily a matter of fact; depending on the circumstances, one can legally be insulting by stating a fact, even if one does so in non-offensive language. The fourth passage is different, as here Du¨hring is not charged with insult but with libel, which refers to something that can, at least potentially, be proven. This is also the most complex and for the history of science most interesting case, and it was this charge that most caught the public attention and that was frequently seen as the main reason for Du¨hring’s dismissal. Libel In this passge, Du¨hring accuses his senior colleague, the professor of physics Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894; since 1883 v. Helmholtz), of stealing the priority, i.e. the discovery, of the first law of thermodynamics from Robert Mayer. This was a more than serious charge and hardly a ‘‘finely ironic touching’’, as he later claimed (1882, p. 173). In his ‘‘defense’’, Du¨hring had also emphasized that charge, rather than taken it back (1877b, p. 14). Helmholtz was one of the most eminent German scientists of his time; he was called ‘‘the Imperial Chancellor of Physics’’ (Ho¨rz, 1994, pp. 41, 91). He had joined the faculty in 1871, turning down a very lucrative call to Cambridge, as a star already, and with strongest Royal intervention (Lenz, 1918, p. 355; Ostwald, 1919, p. 284; Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 82). Helmholtz was not only a theoretician; in 1850, he had invented the ophthalmoscope, which is still in use today as the main primary diagnostic instrument in any eye doctor’s office (see Helmholtz, 1891, pp. 12-13; Ostwald, 1919, pp. 278-9; Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 76). And by 1877 already, he had received honors Du¨hring could only dream of, including – before joining the faculty – Berlin’s Dr.phil.h.c., several academy memberships, and various orders and decorations, including in 1873 the Ordre pour le me´rite (pp. 83, 87, 91) Six years later, he would be knighted. As Adolf v. Harnack remarked in 1899, ‘‘since Newton, nobody has penetrated the innermost of

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nature as much as Helmholtz’’ (quoted in Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 9). His reputation has not declined to this day[32]. This means that Du¨hring had attacked an icon of German science and society, or, to take Du¨hring’s perspective, that a formidable figure was built up against him – a man with many friends, much power, and excellent connections. Insulting such a man clearly must have looked bad in the eyes of the ministry (Du¨hring, 1904, p. 115), and plagiarism is perhaps the worst crime to be accused of in the realm of scholarship. There had been the usual set of such strange accusations at Helmholtz already, as all great scientists attract them. Indeed, Helmholtz had been accused of plagiarizing Schopenhauer (see Ho¨rz and Wollgast, 1971, pp. xxiv-vi), even by Schopenhauer himself – in personal correspondence, not in public, although later it was published – but entirely without foundation[33]. But Du¨hring’s charge of plagiarism in this very case was not as absurd as Schopenhauer’s. The matter here is nothing minor. It is the priority of discovering, very simply speaking, that that heat and power are interchangeable, one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century (Koenigsberger, 1902, pp. 84-5, 88). Whether this is a genuine ‘‘law’’ rather than a heuristic device is another matter. This priority undoubtedly belongs to Robert Mayer, who formulated it already in 1842 in an essay in a major journal (Liebig’s Annalen) and in 1845 in a book (Ostwald, 1919, pp. 71-2; cf. Ho¨rz, 1994, pp. 75, 94; Du¨hring, 1882, p. 175). The full development appeared in another book published in 1851 (Ostwald, 1919, p. 79). However, the conservation of energy was also discovered, or perhaps better formulated, around the same time if a bit later and from different perspectives and differently phrased, by J.P. Joule in Britain, published in 1843 (p. 78), and by Helmholtz himself, published in 1847 (1847; see Ostwald, 1919, pp. 268-9; 272 for all; Koenigsberger, 1902, pp. 85-8; Boring, 1957, p. 229; also Boo´r, 1968, col. 159). Robert Mayer had one of the worst fates of great scientists, not only not receiving any credit for his discovery and being disparaged as an outsider by the scientific community, but being for a while locked away in a lunatic asylum and treated most horribly, because everyone in his native Heilbronn, including his family, viewed him as an insane idiot with a megalomaniac illusion of being a great inventor (Ostwald, 1919, p. 80). This would elicit strong sympathy on the part of Du¨hring, illustrating the latter’s views of university vs. true science and forming a parallel to his own case (p. 84). In addition, fate had it that the director of the asylum in which Mayer was mistreated happened to be the son of Eduard Zeller (Lessing, 1922, p. 33; cf. Ostwald, 1919, p. 80). How does the matter stand? Helmholtz’ 1847 treatise, one of the key reasons for his fame (Ho¨rz, 1994, pp. 76-7), next to being based on a discovery in its own right, is applying the law to the entire area of physics, something that Mayer could and did not do (Koenigsberger, 1902, pp. 86-7; Ostwald, 1919, pp. 270-1). It was at first not well received, and it is interesting to note that in those days Helmholtz, just like Mayer, was an academic ousider and a physician, not a

physicist, but later it was seen as the true starting point of the theory, and as far as the genuine impact is concerned, this is certainly true (Koenigsberger, 1902, pp. 88-9). Indeed, in Helmholtz’ 1847 booklet Mayer is not mentioned, but it is highly credible that Helmholtz did then not know Mayer’s previous works (Helmholtz, 1891, p. 11; 1883, pp. 402, 406). In postscript to a later essay, published in 1883, Helmholtz explains the matter: he claims that Mayer’s publications had appeared in odd places, strangely phrased, and that one could simply not read everything, especially arcane publications that did not appear to contain anything of substance (1883, pp. 407-9; see 1877b, pp. 29-30). It is true as well that Helmholtz had praised Mayer much before Du¨hring, and much before anyone else as well (Helmholtz, 1883, p. 402; Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 95). In the 1854 Ko¨nigsberg lecture ‘‘on the interaction of the natural powers and the most recent investigations of physics concerned with them’’ (in 1871, pp. 99-136), Mayer receives full credit for the priority (pp. 112, 113). And the first large-scale acknowledgment of Mayer’s discovery, Tyndall’s in England in 1862, who was attacked by friends of Joule for this (Ostwald, 1919, pp. 81-2), was translated into German by Helmholtz’ wife and edited by Helmholtz (and a colleague), and it includes as the (last) appendix, i.e. in a very prominent place, a lengthy excerpt from Mayer (Tyndall, 1867, pp. 642-50). And ever since 1854, Helmholtz credited Mayer, although not very emphatically (Helmholtz, 1883, p. 407; Koenigsberger, 1902, p. 86; Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 94; Ostwald, 1919, p. 275). Du¨hring called Helmholtz’ post-1854 statements ‘‘some decades-late cornermentions of Robert Mayer, forced by sheer necessity and even misleading’’ (1882, p. 198). The main charge one could bring against Helmholtz in this matter is, however, not the non-mentioning in the 1847 book, nor the unexcited mentions after 1854, about which more soon. As the Dorpat-educated chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932), nobel prize winner of 1909, who in his Great Men (1919) discusses both Heinrich v. Helmholtz and Robert Mayer and comes, in this question, out on the side of the latter (on Ostwald and his project see Schmeiser, 1994, p. 330), emphasizes, during the ‘‘critical years’’ for Mayer, Helmholtz had not defended him at all, although he must have known better. Most importantly, in a key survey report for the Physical Society for 1847, published in 1850, Helmholtz had listed Mayer’s 1845 book but claimed that it did not bring anything new, contrary to his own work (Ostwald, 1919, pp. 272-3). Ostwald calls this statement, ‘‘directly misleading’’ and an ethical lapse, if the only one in Helmholtz’ career (pp. 273, 274-5; see Du¨hring, 1904, pp. 104-5, 109, 124; 1882, pp. 173, 175). Helmholtz’ own claim that Mayer’s loss was not so great, as being unrecognized for just nine years after his first full publication was not so bad under the circumstances (1883, p. 413), rings very strange in this context. But there is another side to this story as well. The reason for Helmholtz’ later lack of enthusiasm for Mayer’s discovery, and perhaps also for his early neglect, was, it seems, not envy but rather Helmholtz’ genuine conviction that Mayer’s discovery had been speculative and to some extent accidental,

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which was not how ‘‘proper’’ science could function. That it was later used as an example by those who argued, contrary to Helmholtz, in favor of ‘‘pure thinking’’ made matters even worse (Helmholtz, 1883, pp. 401-3; 1877b, pp. 28-9; Koenigsberger, 1902, p. 87; but see Ostwald, 1919, p. 87). And it has even been argued, by Edwin Boring, that ‘‘nobody ever ‘discovered’ the law of the conservation of energy. The idea had been developing since Newton . . . Helmholtz brought together much of the previous work and gave the theory mathematical formulation’’ (1954, p. 229). It appears that it was this formulation, the generality, and the kinematic ideas behind the concept that would turn out to be so important for the development of physics. Mayer’s discovery, in Helmholtz’ opinion, was in that sense parallel to another case which is neglected until today, and of which Helmholtz did not know. During the same years, a man who is now thought of as one of the greatest American writers and poets but hardly as a scientist, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), had made the same discovery, even including the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), if purely theoretically and speculatively and not backed up by any sort of experiment, and had published the results in 1848. This had no consequences of any sort (Poe, 1997; see 1966, pp. 1152-5, 1160-1). In a speech given right after the Du¨hring case was over, on ‘‘thinking in medicine’’, Helmholtz made the point about priorities particularly sharply (1877b). He states that priority should not be given to the person who first publishes a discovery, because if one would publish all kinds of speculative stuff, some correct items would have to be by accident among them (pp. 28-9). In addition, just because of time constraints, serious scholars could not read all kinds of speculative essays just on the mere off-chance of finding some kernel of truth (pp. 29-30). In 1883, Helmholtz added that Mayer had been ‘‘a most independent and sharp head’’, but that ‘‘not such a one who had achieved things which others could not have also accomplished and in fact did accomplish without his help’’ (p. 413; see also Koenigsberger, 1902, p. 90). Helmholtz’ biographer Leo Koenigsberger would add that Mayer did not know enough sophisticated mathematics to genuinely prove his thesis and was guilty of other faults as well (1902, pp. 87, 88-9). But while Helmholtz’ general thesis is very likely quite sensible, can it be applied to Mayer? Ostwald called Helmholtz’ 1877 speech in this respect ‘‘unfair’’ (1919, p. 86); Mayer himself pointed out in a review of that speech that he indeed had justified and proven his discovery, or establishment, sufficiently, and that anyway, there was hardly another practical way to determine priority except by the date of the first publication (quoted in Ostwald, 1919, pp. 86-7)[34]. This is a matter of debate; Helmholtz’ arguments are quite valid, and Ostwald might be wrong. Still, it would at least be arguable to fault Helmholtz for once in his career, because he had read Mayer’s investigations by 1847 but had perhaps not mentioned them adequately. If so, then indeed his behavior had a disastrous impact, as it contributed to Mayer being seen as insignificant, and eventually to his extreme suffering (1919, pp. 273-5).

Even Ostwald calls Du¨hring’s attacks thus probably quite rightly ‘‘subjectively completely honest,’’ ‘‘factually not without foundation,’’ but ‘‘in the form and extent which he gave to them, shot far beyond the goal’’ (p. 292). Indeed, to call Helmholtz’ own work of 1847 a ‘‘mere participation in suchlike vague discussions’’ and ‘‘not even particularly original but trivial and flawed’’ was plain wrong and certainly insulting. And the theoretical defense for Helmholtz is quite strong. Ostwald concludes, ‘‘it is an extremely ponderable matter that this weak point in which Helmholtz in his younger years let himself go once had to have such long and profound consequences’’ (1919, p. 293)[35]. Whether he in fact did ‘‘let himself go’’ is a matter of one’s viewpoint on discoveries and inventions, but Du¨hring is apparently in this case more guilty of insult than of libel, because the issue is at least a debatable one.

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Insult About the insults, comparatively little can be said concerning the facts. Although this is a later statement, Du¨hring’s remark that Helmholtz never was a physicist at all, let alone a ‘‘discovering’’ one (Du¨hring, 1904, pp. 104, 110; 1882, p. 175) is simply absurd; the opposite would be about true. In geometry, the focus of the insult and actually Helmholtz’ first love (Helmholtz, 1891, p. 7), Helmholtz is eminent to this day (Kahn, 1967, pp. 469, 470; see Koenigsberger, 1896, pp. 7-10). And in philosophy, granted, Helmholtz was a positivist (Kahn, 1967, pp. 469-71), but so was Du¨hring (Albrecht, 1927, p. 34), if of a different brand. And if Helmholtz is accused of being an intellectual lightweight and a babbler, if we compare the entries for Du¨hring and Helmholtz in the standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy, we find that Du¨hring has slightly more than three, Helmholtz slightly more than four columns (Zweig, 1967; Kahn, 1967). To address the general charge, in 1877, Du¨hring’s attacks on the university in Germany and especially Berlin likewise bordered on the ludicrous, for example his later statement that professors like Virchow, DuBois-Reymond, Mommsen, and Helmholtz were scholarly zeros (1885, p. 81). And if we look at today’s German publication record of the people involved (in Germany, books rather than articles matter), Table I[36] shows that Du¨hring’s senior colleagues were no fakes. Indeed, this faculty encompassed some of the great minds of its time and of western scholarship, whose work, even in areas that do change

Du¨hring Engels Helmholtz Mayer Tobler Wagner Zeller

Books

Reprints

Letters

About

– 74 2 1 3 1 1

5 2 5 2 1 2 4 (9 vols)

– 19 3 1 1 1 1

4 50 13 1 1 2 –

Table I. German publication record

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significantly, has stood up well indeed. Even Albrecht admits that Du¨hring’s attacks against his colleagues around 1870 were not without guilt (1927, p. 15). But about the university as such, many of his charges, in spite of being ‘‘sour grapes’’, had a kernel of truth in them (pp. 16-17). Du¨hring was right, certainly, that scholarly merits are not the only, and generally perhaps not the main, cause for promotion or for receiving a professorship – soft knowledge is more important than hard knowledge, although there are exceptions. Even Helmholtz, who originally was an outsider, had occasionally commented on the cliquishness of the professoriate (see Ostwald, 1919, p. 280). But here, too, it is the form that matters. Even if we say that Du¨hring’s descriptions contained elements of truth, they formed, as Albecht says, the ‘‘grandest generalizations and completely limitless attacks’’ (18; see Cobet, 1973, p. 15). They were doubtless phrased in such a way as to insult, and so they did. To call a senior colleague a ‘‘vaguely a bit philosopherizing physiological physics-professor’’ (Aktenstu¨cke, 1877, p. 12, n. 3) is today, as it was then, a plain insult. The legality Accordance with the law Was Falk’s 1877 decision legal? Let us repeat the facts. § 52 of the university Statutes states explicitly that the faculty may issue a Privatdozent with a warning or a reprimand in the case of slighter offenses, and in case of repeated or graver ones, to apply for remotion at the ministry. In 1874, Du¨hring commits what in 1875 is judged to be a grave offense by faculty and ministry – a judgment that is not inappropriate if one looks at the 1874 article – but because of his opponent’s behavior, and in spite of the faculty’s application, Du¨hring only receives a grave reprimand through the dean. This reprimand, as the Minister’s letter to the dean, contains the explicit warning that in case of repetition, he will be remoted without fail. It is even specified that Du¨hring must concentrate on scholarship and teaching and not malign either his colleagues or his university in the future. Du¨hring signs. Two years later, Du¨hring publishes two books in which four segments are to be found which, in the opinion of the faculty, and quite objectively as well, constitute such a repetition, as they exactly address the two areas that were forbidden to Du¨hring. The passages cited really do say what faculty and ministry claim they say. They are personal invectives against senior faculty of his own department (never mind the possible partial truth value of one of them), and the university is maligned. Thus, as even Albrecht concedes, this is a ‘‘repetition case’’ (1927, pp. 17-18). Du¨hring is asked to defend himself, but in his defense he only emphasizes his claims (cf. Mogge, 1977, p. 33). Thus, the faculty again applies for his remotion, based on both the gravity and the repetition of the offenses. This time the Minister agrees and issues it. Du¨hring is remoted in full accordance with the existing law. Chicanery The only reason why even this might not have been legal could be if it were a case of chicanery (the question of adequacy, which would immediately present

itself at this point today, is dealt with below in the section on legitimacy). This basic legal principle states, in the words of § 226 BGB (the German civil code introduced in 1900), that ‘‘it is not permitted to exercise a right if it can only have the purpose to harm someone else’’. But § 226 BGB is hardly ever applied in German courts because of the ‘‘only’’: one has to prove that only the harm is the purpose of the action in question and nothing else, because otherwise any exercise of one’s right would be illegal if one were not entirely disinterested. This is also true of the general principle. We do not know what the genuine motives of the faculty were (cf. Mogge, 1977, p. 33). Du¨hring himself later said that ‘‘scholars’ envy first of all is the true cause for my removal’’ (1882, p. 199; similarly Lessing, 1922, p. 21). Partially, he said, that this envy arose because his classes were much fuller than those of the others (Du¨hring, 1904, p. 109; cf. Do¨ll, 1893, pp. 3-8; but see Wagner to his brother, 29 January 1875, in Wagner, 1978, p. 131). But as a cause for remotion, this is hardly credible, especially as teaching success was not very important for one’s status at the University of Berlin[37]. Du¨hring later constructed a ‘‘Jewish-social democrat-professorial plot’’ that was at the base of his remotion (1904, pp. 116-19; 1882, pp. 170, 358-60), but we need not even consider this. One certainly does get the impression that Du¨hring’s mentioned offenses were not the cause but just the occasion to dismiss Du¨hring (see Albrecht, 1927, p. 18). It must have been a daily horror to have him around, and the faculty members might have easily gone a long way to get rid of him. However, the cited insults were so grave and personal as to indubitably form an immediate reason for the remotion (see Mogge, 1977, p. 33). That these were seriously offensive, and that Du¨hring seemed prepared to go on with them, becomes obvious in the files, and § 52 allows the remotion of exactly such people. It would be incorrect, thus, to speak of chicanery here. In sum, Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion must be pronounced legal. The legitimacy If we look at the legitimacy, however, the criteria shift. Then, the question is whether the Berlin professors and the ministry should, by their own standards of academic freedom which they realized as necessary for a well-functioning university, and which they impressively demonstrated in the later but comparable Leo Arons case[38], have tolerated Du¨hring’s accusations – in the sense that he might have been penalized in other ways than dismissing him and taking his most important academic credentials, and to some extent his livelihood, away. The ‘‘standards of the community’’, if by the latter we mean the Berlin, Prussian, or German public opinion interested in these matters at that time, clearly point that way. On the one hand, there does not appear to be one publication of that time in which Du¨hring’s diatribes against his colleagues and the university were not seen as far out of line. On the other hand, there is no doubt about the general outrage against his remotion either, even among his enemies such as Engels (Engels, 1885 in 1948, p. 7: ‘‘shameful injustice’’; see also

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Do¨ll 1893, pp. 7-8). Even Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy endorsed the initiative against the remotion, if not its pairing with effusive praise for Du¨hring (‘‘Vorbemerkung’’, 1948, p. xix; Adamiak, 1974, p. 108; Du¨hring, of course, saw this as a ‘‘Jewish conspiracy’’; 1904, pp. 118-19; 1882, pp. 188-93). This was also the later view; the Du¨hring case was often seen as a defeat for the university as it should be (Albrecht, 1927, p. 23). As Ostwald said in 1919, it ‘‘indubitably stands in contradiction to the freedom of science claimed for the universities’’ (p. 84) One could easily argue that Du¨hring, when talking about any recent developments in science and scholarship, had to talk about his colleagues, because his faculty was so eminent that some of its members would be involved by default. This was a particular problem because Du¨hring’s books were comprehensive surveys of large areas of learning, rather than specialized studies in which one could have avoided one’s colleagues’ topics more easily. It is no less true for being a cliche´ that the university lives through tolerance, i.e. the toleration, rather than endorsement, of a view that stands in contrast to the one oneself is convinced to be true. Why this is so is a matter of much debate; as Ju¨rgen Backhaus has pointed out, we simply do not know how a university works and produces what it is supposed to produce, whatever that may be, although we know that it (generally) does (1996, esp. p. 13). The university (rather than a polytechnic or some such institution), in an almost platonic way, only can serve the state by staying away from it. Du¨hring himself, predictably enough, was a champion of academic freedom only for a select group, arguing just four years after his remotion that Jews should principally not be allowed to teach at German universities (1881a, pp. 140-2; see also Jochmann, 1985, p. 113). But these were his standards, and while this statement should quickly obliterate all personal sympathy one might still have with him in the remotion case, they do not directly change the criteria for whether the latter was legitimate or not. For these, it is important to ask what was the view of academic freedom of the senior members of the faculty. In October 1877, after Du¨hring’s remotion, Helmholtz was elected rector of the university, probably also as an endorsement of his colleagues after what – in his perspective – he had been through (Helmholtz, 1877b, p. 193; Koenigsberger, 1903, p. 237). He gave his inaugural address ‘‘on the academic freedom of the German universities’’ (1877b). In its course, he claimed that right then, at German universities the most extremist scientific views could be taught. However: . . .just like on the stage of European parliaments, suspicions about motives and disparagement of personal characteristics of one’s opponent – both means which obviously have nothing to do with the decision about scientific claims – remain forbidden; just like instigation to the exercise of illegal acts. But there is no obstacle for discussion of any scholarly question in a scholarly way (p. 201).

If Helmholtz, by saying this, implied that Du¨hring had gone beyond the scientific discourse (Ostwald, 1919, pp. 292-3), then in a very moderate way, but the point is: did Du¨hring indeed go beyond this? I would say it is clear that

he did, and he could have phrased his points differently, and with no less effect. Objectively, more respect and common courtesy towards one’s senior colleagues on Du¨hring’s part would have hardly qualified as a form of undue servility. And yet, if we put the definition of legitimacy higher still, we can say that in this case it hinges on a related question: not only whether Du¨hring overstepped the necessary borders of good conduct within his community to such an extent that the community’s wellbeing really was endangered, but also whether the faculty’s and ministry’s action was an appropriate, i.e. adequate, response. As regards the well-functioning of the university, regarding the plagiarism charge, Du¨hring makes his strongest point when he says that discussions about priority are a legitimate part of the scientific discourse (and indeed, intersubjective verification is the basis of science at all), and that it does not bear interference by the ‘‘teaching police’’ (1882, pp. 175-6). As the discussion above has tried to show, Du¨hring’s charge was perhaps unfounded, but it was and is one that can be argued. As regards the question of appropriateness, a blind man is deprived of his livelihood, and in a way that would not make it easy to find similar employment elsewhere. It is true that Du¨hring later claimed that he subsequently received calls to minor universities (also part of the ‘‘plot’’, he thought; 1882, pp. 187; 201-2), and that, as August Bebel wrote in his memoirs, his conflict with state and university, and especially the remotion, ‘‘only increased his reputation in the eyes of his followers’’ (quoted in ‘‘Vorbemerkung’’, 1948, p. v). Du¨hring’s audience very soon declined, mainly due to his increasing oddity. However, as will be recalled, this very increase can perhaps at least in part be attributed to the remotion to begin with. If one looks at it this way, the action of the faculty remains understandable, but its legitimacy becomes doubtful. The professors did probably not have to foresee the outcome, but if Du¨hring’s fate indeed was the consequence of the remotion, then we have almost arrived at pronouncing the latter as both unnecessary and inappropriate. Could the lectures and writings of a Privatdozent like Du¨hring really have harmed these masters of the mind? Theodor Lessing, himself for 14 years Privatdozent and then just Extraordinarius, states that university and ministry were at fault in not providing adequate support for, but rather alienating, someone who in the end was ‘‘the strongest independent thinker of the current epoch’’ (1922, pp. 41-2, 43, 46). However, concerning appropriateness, the faculty would have had little other recourse. In the 1870s, there were hardly any criminal laws governing these matters, because in the social sphere to which the professoriate belonged, they were at least theoretically not dealt with in the courts, but rather on the dueling floor (see Frevert, 1991, passim). This, of course, was not only genuinely superannuated, in spite of the above-mentioned almostduel Adolph Wagner fought (or better, did not fight), but it was of course

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impossible to challenge a blind man. Du¨ hring did not receive any salary, as he lived from lecture fees and royalties, so neither could he be controlled via money matters or funding cuts, either. His position permitted him to teach whatever he wanted, so it was also not possible to limit his lectures to specific areas. Concerning the danger Du¨ hring posed to the faculty, it is very difficult to argue that a community at a given point in time does not have the right to constitute itself according to rules that seem to be necessary in order for the community to survive. To use the Straussian model, a philosopher is necessarily at odds with the community he lives in; yet, he needs this community to survive at all and to be able to philosophize to begin with. He therefore needs to, at least outwardly, respect his community’s rules and standards (cf. Strauss, 1973, 1988). That Du¨hring violated those norms is clear from the reactions of his colleagues. And already his 1874 reply to Wagner, such as the coarse insults of the latter’s dead father, goes well beyond anything acceptable from an after all junior colleague, then as well as now. The legality question enters into the matter of legitimacy here as well: one cannot avoid the feeling that Du¨hring ‘‘had it coming’’. His remotion was not an arbitrary decision; it had been specified to Du¨hring precisely what he should not do anymore, but he did it anyway. Finally, there are the questions of whether Du¨hring’s colleagues in the faculty were by 1875 already able to discern which road he would take, and whether his third period was a logical consequence of his entire life, rather than of the remotion. And thus, in spite especially of Theodor Lessing’s understanding account, Du¨hring’s anti-semitism enters once again. To see anti-semitism as indicative of general deficiencies of character and personality is not only the perspective of a later century (cf. also Mogge, 1977, pp. 15-16). Even around the time of his remotion, Du¨hring embodied the very peak of German anti-semitic extremism (Pulzer, 1966, p. 52). And as Friedrich Nietzsche said in the very year of Du¨hring’s argument against Jews as university teachers: At the risk of giving the messrs. anti-semites a ‘‘well-measured’’ kick, I confess that the art to lie, the ‘‘unconscious’’ stretching out of long, all-too-long fingers, the swallowing of other people’s property, appeared to me so far much more pronounced with any anti-semite than with any Jew. An anti-semite always steals, always lies – he cannot other . . . (quoted in Kaiser, 1994, p. 281).

It might not be unscholarly, therefore, to conclude with the statement that especially in the case the Faculty of Philosophy based its actions, not only on being merely annoyed by Du¨hring’s personal invectives, teaching successes, and challenges of their work, but mainly on the recognition of a clearly destructive, threatening and downright evil central streak in his work and also his personality, such as was apparent especially through his rabid antisemitism, Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s remotion was not only legal, but then it was legitimate as well.

Notes 1. ‘‘I am persecuted. Must I therefore be noble as well?’’, Mardochai in Peter Hacks’ version of Goethe’s Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern (II.ii; Hacks, 1982, p. 38). 2. These files were usually confidential. The Minister, in spite of doubts, allowed it to be published because of the general interest in this case (Falk, 1877c, p. 4). The faculty had applied for this permission one day before (Tobler, 1877b). 3. In most German states, the faculties were dissolved, together with chair-tied institutes, during the 1968/1972 university reforms in favor of departments, which were (mistakenly, as it turned out) taken to be more efficient and more democratic. 4. See Schmeiser (1994, pp. 35, 40-1), Du¨hring (1882, p. 153), Do¨ll (1893, p. 3). However, Helmholtz (1877b, p. 206), ascribes this habit to ‘‘the weaker natures among the students’’ only. 5. Quoted in Roß (1996). On the productive aspects, see Nipperdey (1986, p. 147), Schmeiser (1994, pp. 37-8), Helmholtz (1877b, pp. 206-7), and generally Busch (1959, pp. 41-2). 6. The reference is to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Anti-Goeze of 1778, ‘‘the only continuously impactful polemic of German literature’’ (Hildebrandt, 1980, p. 112). Ironically, Lessing, the author of Nathan the Wise, the most eminent German play promoting religious tolerance, was perhaps the one German writer Du¨hring hated most (see Du¨hring, 1881b). 7. See Adamiak (1974, p. 109), Kirchhoff (1978, pp. 1409-10), Engels (1885 in 1948, p. 7), and McInnes (1968, p. 518). 8. I doubt, however, that the book is or even was ‘‘a work readily familiar to most students of modern political thought’’ (Adamiak, 1974, p. 98). What is too rarely realized is that this still-being-known of Engels’ book also hangs on the brilliance of both titles: Anti-Du¨hring is good; Du¨hring’s name is so much linked with it that one would almost wish the existence of an anecdote in which someone would have greeted ‘‘the blind philosopher’’ in the street one day by saying, ‘‘Guten Morgen, Herr AntiDu¨hring! ’’. But better still is the original title, which is not possible to bring out in English: Herrn Eugen Du¨hrings Umwa¨lzung der Wissenschaft is a wonderfully polemical phrase; ‘‘Herr Eugen Du¨hring’s revolution in science’’ (quoted in McInnes, 1967, p. 518) really doesn’t cut it at all. And while the title is a parody of a serious work by Du¨hring (on Carey; see Adamiak, 1974, p. 98, n. 1), it shows very cleverly how minor Du¨hring was in Engels’ opinion. The English text is now available on the Web (Engels, 1997); the title there is just AntiDu¨hring, which has the advantage of requiring no translation. 9. See ‘‘Vorbemerkung’’ (1948, v), Adamiak (1974, pp. 104, 106), Albrecht (1927, pp. 26-7). It was because of this and his harsh critique of Marx that Engels’ reply was thought to be necessary (‘‘Vorbemerkung’’, 1948, pp. vii, ix); actually, he wrote the Anti-Du¨hring very reluctantly and as a matter of duty only (Engels, 1878 in 1948, p. 2; Adamiak, 1974, p. 107). 10. See, however, Peter R. Senn’s contribution to this issue, in which he details the respect Du¨hring commanded and commands among several distinguished historians of economic thought. 11. Just as an untranslatable example: Die ‘‘schamlose Art . . . , in welcher mich Herr Marx durch die Larve seines Hausfriedrich, na¨mlich eines ehemals arbeiteranherrschenden Fabricanten Names Friedrich Engels, verleumderisch und beschimpfend, so verlogen als mo¨glich, anhegeln und anflegeln liess’’ (Du¨hring, 1882, p. 190). 12. A small and handy sketch, unfortunately not always accurate, of Du¨hring’s philosophy is in Zweig (1968, p. 426; see also Kruse, 1959, p. 157). 13. ‘‘Eugen Du¨hring? The greatest of all historical human beings. Why? Because he cleared the past, mastered the presence, and made way for the coming millenia’’ (Der Ruck, 1934).

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14. See Kruse (1959, p. 158), Cobet (1973, p. 21), ‘‘Vorbemerkung’’ (1948, p. xx), Adamiak (1974, pp. 108, 111-12), Mogge (1977, pp. 9, 15-16), Zweig (1967, pp. 426-7), but also Du¨hring (1904, pp. 120-1, 122-3). 15. As a biography must be; see Drechsler (1995b, p. 219). Only Albrecht’s excuses, if very moderate, of Du¨hring’s anti-semitism seriously mar the book (see 1927, pp. 24, 32). Do¨ll’s book (1893) is too enamored with Du¨hring to be of much use. 16. Du¨rhing (1875, pp. 390-4; see 1881a, pp. 1-4, 116-17); after all, Du¨hring did not think much higher of the New than of the Old Testament. See also Cobet (1973, p. 19). 17. This comparison is by no means intended to make Adolf Sto¨cker’s ‘‘christian-social’’ form of anti-semitism sound harmless; the opposite is the case. Rather, it is meant to underline the extremity of Du¨hring’s views. For the views of Sto¨cker around 1880 on the subjects Du¨hring addresses, see Sto¨cker (1890, pp. 361-82, 419-26, 485-94). 18. On Du¨hring and Nazism, see briefly Cobet (1973, pp. 20-1). 19. After a failed attempt at the Habilitation in Dresden, Lessing succeeded – on recommendation of Husserl – to become Privatdozent of Philosophy at the Technical University of Hanover in 1908. In 1922, he received an Extraordinariat, but in 1925, as a social democrat, pacifist, cultural critic, and leading theoretician of Jewish identity, and after publishing an essay i.a. critical of Hindenburg, an anti-semitic, right-wing student mob agitated, and the rector applied for a disciplinary investigation, against him. In 1926, Lessing gave up the fight for his rights but was able to convert his teaching position into a paid research assignment. Only in 1933 did he think it safer to emigrate to Bohemia, where a few months later he was murdered by local Nazis (Lacina, 1985; Volkov, 1986, p. 11; generally Wollenberg, 1997). 20. In 1875, Du¨hring was 42 years old, and between 1870 and 1879, the average age of called German professors in the humanities was 34.9 years (Schmeiser, 1994, p. 380; see also Du¨hring, 1882, p. 153). 21. While this is in all likelihood my own fault, I have not been able to find this passage in Du¨hring (1871). On the usually given p. 552, there are only unfriendly remarks about Ferdinand Lassalle. 22. I do not agree with Albrecht (1927, p. 17) that the Socialists of the Chair’s ‘‘compromising’’ attitude must have automatically offended Du¨hring, because the Socialism of the Chair, especially the state socialist variant, is not a compromise at all, yet a genuine third way. However, I realize that this my view, especially today, is quite odd also. 23. ‘‘Most of all he hated the three Wagners: Hermann Wagner . . . , Adolph Wagner . . . , and Richard Wagner . . . Not without reason, he wrote, had Goethe called the miseducated, dry hypocrite [in Faust] exactly by the name of Wagner’’ (Lessing, 1922, p. 29). 24. A surprisingly good popular description of the Kulturkampf, if biased against Falk and Bismarck, is in Jacta (1972, pp. 215-48). Somewhat ironically for the present context, the very first incident of the Kulturkampf had been a conflict about academic freedom, namely the right of old Catholics to continue teaching at the University of Bonn’s Catholic Faculty of Divinity (p. 218). 25. Wagner’s letters to his brother of 17 March 1875 (in 1978, pp. 133-4, 133); of 4 February 1877 (p. 143), of 22 June 1877 (pp. 146-7, 146), and of 17 March 1878 (pp. 165-7, 166). 26. The ministry official, a Kanzleirat Laury, I was not able to trace; he is not in Lu¨dicke (1919). 27. According to Tobler (1877a, p. 11) and Actenstu¨cke (1877, pp. 11-12), the indicted passages are as follows: no. 1 (quoted only in short, with a reference to the full citation by the Minister) = pp. 37-9 in the 1st ed. of Du¨hring, 1885 (there the full segment, much sharpened, is pp. 34-53); no. 2 = pp. 444-5 in Du¨hring (1877a) (actually, in n. 1); no. 3 = p. 460 (also actually n. 1); no. 4 = p. 529 (actually, pp. 529-30).

28. Wagner, incidentally, had not participated in the faculty meetings concerning the second remotion (Tobler and Nitzsch, 1877, p. 26; Wagner, letter to his brother, 9 May 1877, in 1978, p. 146). 29. As this point turned out to be almost neglected in the subsequent proceedings, I have not dealt with it in detail either. 30. Tobler and Nitzsch (1877, p. 25); see Du¨hring (1882, pp. 165-7), and in full (1885, pp. 64-81), for his side of that story; also Wagner, letter to his brother, 17 December 1876 (in 1978, pp. 142-3, 142). 31. It is interesting that Du¨hring is even later not too negative on Falk, even after that latter’s resignation. He credits Falk only with the ‘‘formal final decision’’ (Du¨hring, 1882, p. 172; 1904, p. 122) and somehow also puts him into the ‘‘Jewish plot’’ (p. 122; 1882, pp. 161, 178; 1881a, p. 142), but reserves the blame entirely for the professoriate. Du¨hring was not a very state-focused thinker at all, so Prussian patriotism or respect for statesmen can hardly be the reason for this. 32. Institutionally the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft (HGF) combines 16 centers of both fundamental and applied research; this year, it has 23,000 employees and an annual budget of 3.6 billion DM (HGF). 33. Ho¨rz and Wollgast (1971, p. xxv) (see Ho¨rz, 1994, p. 78; Du¨hring, 1882, p. 179; Helmholtz, 1877b, p. 27) quotes the latter but does not state that he himself is the subject of Schopenhauer’s remark. 34. Koenigsberger claims that Mayer and Helmholtz got along fine personally, especially as Mayer did not claim priority towards Helmholtz (1902, pp. 90-92), but this sounds somewhat unlikely. 35. We do not know to what extent Helmholtz himself pushed for Du¨hring’s remotion. Friedrich Engels thought he did; as he wrote in a letter of 25 June 1877: What a disgustingly petty man this Helmholtz must be, that he even is as much as annoyed by the remarks of a Du¨hring, and even to such an extent that he puts the Berlin Faculty before the alternative: either Du¨hring is made to leave, or I leave! As if the all the writings by Du¨hring, with all its furious envy, would even have the weight of a fart! But certainly, Helmholtz is a very excellent experimentor, but as a thinker he is not superior to D[u¨hring] at all (letter to Bracke, quoted in ‘‘Vorbemerkung’’, 1948, pp. xix-xx). Ho¨rz, on the other hand, reports that Helmholtz ‘‘did not get involved’’ in the remotion (1994, p. 94), and Ostwald says that he ‘‘let his friends do what they did,’’ personally neither instigating nor preventing these measures (1919, p. 292). 36. This table is based on the Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bu¨cher (‘‘index of suppliable books’’, VLB), the main German online index for book-shops listing all books currently available for purchase in Germany, which includes some books in English ( as of September 1997). The respective persons are searched for and then adjusted against mistakes, double-entries, etc. The first category refers to new editions authored, the second to reprints, the third to letters, diaries, etc., and the fourth to books about the men in question. All include books referenced to them but also dealing with other people. Three of the four hits for books about Du¨hring are editions of AntiDu¨hring; one of the two books about Wager (see Drechsler, 1997 in the bibliography) was by mistake of the press not yet listed in the VLB. Not included is the reprint of Aktenstu¨cke 1877, which appeared after the search date and which was prompted by the Maastricht conference on Du¨hring to begin with. It could additionally be listed under the ‘‘about’’ category for all of the above-mentioned men except Engels. 37. Helmholtz himself, although brilliant in public speeches and addresses, was a bad university lecturer as far as dramatics were concerned – probably much worse than Du¨hring – and did not enjoy teaching. In the end, he moved the emphasis of his activities

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to a newly-founded research institute (Gerlach, 1969, p. 499; Ho¨rz, 1994, pp. 87, 97-8; Ostwald, 1919, pp. 291-2 – Ostwald had taken classes from Helmholtz – ; Du¨hring, 1904, pp. 115, 109; 1882, p. 154; but also Boring, 1957, p. 301). 38. In 1899, the Jewish Social Democrat Leo Arons, Privatdozent of Physics at Berlin and within the same faculty, was remoted. However, the one and only reason given for his remotion was his politics (Arons, 1900, p. 7). This was by direct Imperial command (see the Kaiser’s cable of 8 October 1897, in Mattenklott, 1984, pp. 154-5); yet the faculty stood up for its member, and so did the ministry. It took a special law, passed in 1898, to dismiss him, the so-called Lex Arons. Incidentally, this law was – as it violated the principle of nulla poena sine lege – generally felt to be illegitimate, but it did clear the disciplinary legal situation of the Privatdozenten (see Busch, 1959, pp. 114-15). Even then, the faculty court as first instance found Arons, who always admitted to being a Social Democrat, not guilty (Arons, 1900, pp. 13-18). That commission still included several people involved in the Du¨hring case, such as Wagner and Tobler (pp. 13-14). The Ministry of State Affairs as second instance overturned this judgment, arguing that the presence or absence of agitation was not the point. Rather, being a Social Democrat, even though the party was legal, was enough to disqualify for teaching at a Prussian university (pp. 36-8). References Adamiak, R. (1974), ‘‘Marx, Engels, and Du¨hring’’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 35 ( January-March), pp. 98-112. Aktenstu¨cke in der Angelegenheit des Privatdocenten Dr Du¨hring (1877), Vero¨ffentlicht durch die Philosophische Fakulta¨t der Ko¨nigl. Universita¨t zu Berlin. G. Reimer, Berlin. Repr. (1997), Antiquariat Wilhelm Hohmann, Stuttgart. Albrecht, G. (1927), Eugen Du¨hring. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sozialwissenschaften, Fischer, Jena. Arons, L. (Ed.) (1900), Die Actenstu¨cke des Disciplinarverfahrens gegen den Privatdocenten Dr Arons, Reimer, Berlin. Backhaus, J.G. (1996), ‘‘The impact of European policies towards science and technology on the European research landscape’’, Working paper 96-005, Universiteit Maastricht, Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen, METEOR. Bahr, H. (1894), Der Antisemitismus. Ein internationales Interview, S. Fischer, Berlin. Bismarck, O.F. v. (1921), Gedanken und Erinnerungen, Vol. 2, new ed., Cotta, Stuttgart, Berlin. Boo´r, J. (1968), ‘‘Entropie’’, Sowjetsytem und Demokratische Gesellschaft. Eine vergleichende Enzyklopa¨die, Vol. 2, Herder, Freiburg etc., cols. 159-66. Boring, E.G. (1957), A History of Experimental Psychology, Appleton – Century – Crofts, New York, NY. Busch, A. (1959), Die Geschichte des Privatdozenten. Eine soziologische Studie zur großbetrieblichen Entwicklung der deutschen Universita¨ten, Enke, Stuttgart. Cobet, C. (1973), Der Wortschatz des Antisemitismus in der Bismarckzeit, Fink, Mu¨nchen. Creifelds, C. (Ed.) (1996), Rechtswo¨rterbuch, 13th ed., Beck, Mu¨nchen. Crispin, E. (1980), Buried for Pleasure, Harper & Row, New York, NY. Do¨ll, E. (1893), Eugen Du¨hring. Etwas von dessen Charakter, Leistungen und reformatorischem Beruf. Eine popula¨re Gedenkschrift aus eigenen Wahrnehmungen, mu¨ndlichem und brieflichem Verkehr, Naumann, Leipzig. Drechsler, W. (1995a), ‘‘Staatssozialismus’’, in Drechsler/Hilligen/Neumann (Eds), Gesellschaft und Staat. Lexikon der Politik, 9th ed., Vahlen, Mu¨nchen. Drechsler, W. (1995b), ‘‘Benjamin Disraeli’s Social Toryism: Sanitas Sanitatum, Omnia Sanitas reconsidered’’, International Review of Comparative Public Policy, Vol. 6, pp. 217-43.

Drechsler, W. (1997), ‘‘State socialism and political philosophy’’, in Backhaus, J.G. (Ed.), Essays on Social Security and Taxation. Gustav von Schmoller and Adolph Wagner Reconsidered, Metropolis, Marburg, pp. 319-39. Du¨hring, E. (1871), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, Grieben, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1874), ‘‘Erwiderung’’, Berliner Bo¨rsenzeitung, No. 583, morning ed., 15 December. Du¨hring, E. (1875), Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung, Koschny/Heimann, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1877a), Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik, 2nd ed., Fues/ Reisland, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1877b), ‘‘Vertheidigungsschrift’’, 25 May, in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 13-20. Du¨hring, E. (1881a), Die Judenfrage als Racen-, Sitten- und Culturfrage. Mit einer weltgeschichtlichen Antwort, Reuter, Karlsruhe, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1881b), Die Ueberscha¨tzung Lessing’s und dessen Anwaltschaft fu¨r die Juden, Reuther, Karlsruhe, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1882), Sache, Leben und Feinde. Als Hauptwerk und Schlu¨ssel zu seinen sa¨mtlichen Schriften, Reuther, Karlsruhe, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1885), Der Weg zur ho¨hern Berufsbildung der Frauen und die Lehrweise der Universita¨ten, 2nd ed., Fues/Reisland, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1904), Robert Mayer, der Galilei des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, und die Gelehrtenunthaten gegen bahnbrechende Wissenschaftsgro¨ssen, 1st pt, 2nd ed., Naumann, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1930), Die Judenfrage als Frage des Rassencharakters und seiner Scha¨dlichkeiten fu¨r Existenz und Kultur der Vo¨lker, 6th ed. [of Du¨hring, 1881a], Reisland, Leipzig. (The) Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967), Paul Edwards, ed. repr. 1972, Macmillan, Collier Macmillan, New York, NY and London. Engels, F. (1948), Herrn Eugen Du¨hrings Umwa¨lzung der Wissenschaft. [‘‘Anti-Du¨hring’’], Dietz, Berlin. Engels, F. (1997), , the full text of the Anti-Du¨hring in English translation (as of September 1997). Falk, A. (1875), ‘‘Erlaß’’, 15 March; No. J. Nr. 1058, U.I., in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 7-8. Falk, A. (1877a), Letter to the faculty, 7 July, in Aktenstu¨cke, p. 29. Falk, A. (1877b), ‘‘Erlaß’’, 7 July; No. J. No. 2202 B, in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 30-6. Falk, A. (1877c), ‘‘Verfu¨gung’’, 11 July, in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 3-4. Fla¨mig, C. et al. (Eds) (1996), Handbuch des Wissenschaftsrechts, Vol. 1, 2nd rev. ed., Springer, Berlin. Foerster, E. (1927), Adalbert Falk. Sein Leben und Wirken als preußischer Kultusminister, Klotz, Gotha. Franz-Willing, G. (1981), ‘‘Der große Konflikt: Kulturkampf in Preußen’’, in Bu¨sch, O. and Neugebauer, W. (Eds), Moderne Preußische Geschichte, 1648-1947. Eine Anthologie, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, NY, Vol. 3, pp. 1395-457. Frevert, U. (1991), Ehrenma¨nner. Das Duell in der bu¨rgerlichen Gesellschaft, Beck, Mu¨nchen. Gerlach, W. (1969), ‘‘Hermann v. Helmholtz’’, Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 8, Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, pp. 498-501. Hacks, P., according to Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe (1982), Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern, in: Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern / Rosi tra¨umt, 2nd edn, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin.

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Lu¨dicke, R. (1919), Die Preußischen Kultusminister und ihre Beamten im ersten Jahrhundert des Ministeriums, 1817-1917, Cotta, Stuttgart, Berlin. McInnes, N. (1967), ‘‘Friedrich Engels’’, The Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 518-19. Mattenklott, G. (1984), ‘‘Universita¨t und gelehrtes Leben’’, Berlin um 1900, Gesine Asmus, red. Nicolai, Berlin, pp. 151-3(-170). Mogge, B. (1977), Rhetorik des Hasses. Eugen Du¨hring und die Genese seines antisemitischen Wortschatzes, Gesellschaft fu¨r Buchdruckerei, Neuss. Nipperdey, T. (1986), ‘‘Preußen und die Universita¨t’’, Nachdenken u¨ber die deutsche Geschichte, Beck, Mu¨nchen, pp. 140-55. Ostwald, W. (1919), Grosse Ma¨nner, 5th edn, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig. Poe, E.A. (1966), Heureka. Werke, Vol. 2, Repr. 1980 (Vol. 5), Pawlak, Herrsching, pp. 896-1060. Poe, E.A. (1997), Eureka. A Prose Poem, Prometheus, Amherst, New York, NY. Pulzer, P.G.J. (1966), Die Entstehung des politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland und ¨ sterreich 1867 bis 1914, Mohn, Gu¨tersloh. O Roß, R.S. (1996), ‘‘‘Chemie und Mikroskop am Krankenbette.’ Mark Aurel Hoefle (1818-1855) und die fru¨he Entwicklung der Klinischen Chemie in Heidelberg’’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, Vol. 31 No. 1-2, pp. 121-46. Ru¨rup, R. (1985), ‘‘Emanzipation und Antisemitismus: Historische Verbindungslinien’’, Strauss and Kampe, pp. 88-98. (Der) Ruck. Wissenschaftliches Blatt fu¨r Volk und Vo¨lker, ‘‘Blatt der Eugen Du¨hringGemeinschaft S.E.D. e.V.’’, Berlin, No. 12/1933 (26 September) and 1/1934 (12 January), in the collection of E.S. Reinert, Oslo. Schmeiser, M. (1994), Akademischer Hasard. Das Berufsschicksal des Professors und das Schicksal der deutschen Universita¨t 1870-1920. Eine verstehend soziologische Untersuchung, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart. Senn, P.R. (1997), ‘‘Do Du¨hring’s tribulations have any lessons for us today?’’, paper presented to this conference. Skalweit, S. (1961), ‘‘Adalbert Falk’’, Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 5, Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, pp. 6-7. Sto¨cker, A. (1890), Christlich-Sozial. Reden und Aufsa¨tze, 2nd edn, Verlag der Buchhandlung der Berliner Stadtmission, Berlin. Strauss, H.A. and Kampe, N. (Eds) (1985), Antisemitismus. Von der Judenfeindschaft zum Holocaust, Bundeszentrale fu¨r politische Bildung, Bonn. Strauss, L. (1973), Persecution and the Art of Writing, Greenwood, Westport, CT. Strauss, L. (1988), ‘‘On a forgotten kind of writing’’, What is Political Philosophy?, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL and London, pp. 221-32. Thieme, H. (1967), ‘‘Die geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen fu¨r Artikel 5,3 des Grundgesetzes der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’’, in Thieme, H. and Wehrhahn, H. (Eds), Die Freiheit der Ku¨nste und Wissenschaften, Niedersa¨chsische Landeszentrale fu¨r Politische Bildung, Hannover, pp. 5-23. Tobler, A. (1877a), Letter to Du¨hring, 12 May, in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 10-11. Tobler, A. (1877b), Letter to the Minister of Culture, 10 July, in Aktenstu¨cke, pp. 4-6. Tobler, A. and Lommatzsch, E. (1955[1915]-1998), Altfranzo¨sisches Wo¨rterbuch, ‘‘Adolf Toblers nachgelassene Materialien bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Erhard Lommatzsch, weitergefu¨hrt von Hans Helmut Christmann, vollendet von Richard Baum und Willi Hirdt.’’ 11 vols in 92 installments [of which the final No. 92 and the source-book are scheduled to appear in 1998], Steiner, Wiesbaden.

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Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ model of economic communes and its influence on the development of socialist thought and practice

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Alberto Chilosi Facolta’ di Scienze Politiche, Pisa, Italy Keywords Economic theory, Socialism, Co-operatives Abstract This paper considers the influence of Eugen Du¨hring’s 1876 model of economic communes on the development of a peculiar non-Marxian stream of market socialist models, characterized by the fact that the self-managed production units are open. In the 1934 Breit and Lange model of market socialism, the organization of the economy is thought to be in the form of large self-management trusts, whose market power is limited by openness. Very similar features can also be found in Franz Oppenheimer’s previous model of industrial cooperatives. Herztka’s Freeland model of settlement cooperatives represents another development of Du¨hring’s original blueprint. Through Oppenheimer, Du¨hring’s ideas paradoxically exerted an intellectual influence on the initial institutional form of Jewish settlements in Palestine. Otherwise Du¨hring’s model of economic communes shows remarkable similitude with Mao’s organization of the Chinese economy, pointing to a possible influence through the extensive quotes in Engels’ AntiDu¨hring.

Introduction Du¨hring’s model of socialism based on self-managed communes is mostly known through the scathing criticism of Engels’ AntiDu¨hring. The latter, notwithstanding its polemical connotations, has been a powerful vehicle through which Du¨hring’s name and model of socialism have been consigned to history, also by virtue of the extensive reproduction of its most relevant passages. In this way Du¨hring may have influenced in some unacknowledged ways the organizational variants of ‘‘real socialism’’, in particular if one considers the well known paucity of official Marxist teaching as to how the socialist society had to be organized. Marx, in one passage of Capital, hinting at the future economy, refers to ‘‘an association of free men, who work together with common production means and consciously expend their many individual labour forces as a social labour force’’[1], but never, as is well known, to ‘‘associations’’ or ‘‘communes’’[2]. On the other hand, some analogy with Du¨hring’s communes could indeed be found in the Soviet kolkhozian organization of agriculture, as based in principle on territorial cooperatives, # Economic Analysis. Originally published in Economic Analysis, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1999. The present article partly draws on a previous working paper (Chilosi, 1986a), available on request from the author, where further historical information on related arguments can be found. Financial support by the Italian MURST and CNR is gratefully acknowledged. I must thank John King and Ettore Cinnella for useful suggestions.

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and in some aspects of Yugoslav self-management, but especially in the organization of Maoist China, based on territorial communes, tied by a system of managed trade, precisely the basic organizational principles of Du¨hring’s socialism. Like Du¨hring’s communes, Chinese communes were comprehensive territorial organizations with administrative capacities and a ‘‘publicistic’’ profile, as they constituted an organ of local government[3]. If the possibility of an influence of Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ model on Marxist socialism is a matter of speculation, there is a stream of non-Marxian socialism which was more clearly influenced by Du¨hring and where his influence is explicitly acknowledged[4]. The main purpose of this note is to trace this little known, but important, lineage in the history of socialist thought. Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ model of economic communes The organization of Du¨hring’s ‘‘socialitarian’’ economy is based on a system of economic communes, defined as ‘‘a community of people who through public entitlement to dispose of a district of land and soil and of a group of production establishments are bound together to common activity and equal sharing of income’’[5]. We see here three important characteristics: (1) The communes have a territorial basis. (2) On that territory they are a comprehensive system of economic organization, in the sense that the residents in the territory of the communes ‘‘are bound together to common activity’’. (3) The entitlement to dispose of land is public, not dependent on a private act of acquisition, nor on ownership, not even public ownership, which continues to have the exploitative characteristics of violence-based ownership (‘‘Gewalteigentum’’) so long as it continues to be based on excludability[6]. According to Du¨hring, ‘‘one may thus regard the relationship to the natural and cultural auxiliary sources of production and existence, which are to be made common, as similar to present day membership of a political entity and to participation in the communal economic infrastructures’’[7]. Apparently therefore the use of ‘‘the natural and cultural auxiliary sources of production and existence’’ (including land) is considered to be regulated, taking advantage of a modern concept, analogously to the use of semi-public goods belonging to the state or to a public organization, or the access to communal lands before the enclosures (Du¨hring refers also to the access to public roads). But in Du¨hring’s case the free access to semi-public goods is granted through the freedom of membership in the commune. It is this peculiar institution that in Du¨hring’s view qualifies the specific nature of the property rights in the productive assets available to the commune: ‘‘the right to land and soil and to economic infrastructure, as well as obviously that to dwelling-houses, no longer has the character of the old exclusive property, suited to the comprehensive

exploitation of the labour force. It is replaced by a form of availability under public law, which outwardly also does not have the power to behave exclusively, insofar as between the different communes there is freedom to move and settle anywhere and an obligation to accept new members according to given legal norms and administrative regulations’’[8]. In other terms, individuals will have freedom to change communes, in the same way as one may change the local administration to which one belongs as a consequence of one’s voluntary choice of residence; but, for Du¨hring, ‘‘the socialitarian economic communes will now have to practice the principle of free individual mobility to an incomparably greater extent’’[9]. In more recent times a concept of availability of capital goods to production establishments which does not amount to ownership, and is supposed not to constitute state ownership either, is the Yugoslav concept of social ownership, another rather hazy property right concept in a self-management framework. But while Yugoslav self-managed enterprises were closed entities, the same does not apply to Du¨hring’s communes, which are a kind of territorial self-managed[10] production cooperative, embodying however the open character which is common in consumer cooperatives (but exceptional in the case of producer cooperatives (see Heflebower, 1980, p. 15))[11]. This institution allows a tendency to equality between per capita incomes in the different communes, but presents obvious incentive problems (for instance, activities aiming at higher productivity and capital accumulation bring no lasting results for those who undertake them, since any improvement would be offset by compensating membership movements)[12]. As noted by Engels (1878, ch. III), this ‘‘levelling out takes place through the population crowding into the rich communes and leaving the poor ones.’’ However, the freedom of movement between the different communes is qualified by the fact that it was conceived in the framework of a homogeneous ethnic (and racial) community. This fact is supposed to eliminate the possible contradictions arising from population mobility[13]. The nature of the communes’ activities depends on the historical development of the activities in their territory and on existing political organization. In the traditionally agricultural localities the communes will be concerned with large-scale cultivation of the soil. In urban and industrial areas they will include people tied to local production establishments and those suitable to become members of the commune ‘‘according, first of all, to political subdivision considerations . . . and should be founded on the basis of the right, according to public law, to all sorts of means of production, dwellings and their furniture’’[14]. While the territorial aspects of the pursuit of agriculture make the practical implementation of the agricultural commune relatively plausible, the realization of urban and industrial communes seems more problematic. And this has been in fact the case in China, where in 1959 the project of subdividing city territory into urban and industrial communes had to be given up[15]. Even if the economy is supposed to be a monetary one, based on voluntary exchange[16], the economic relationships between the different communes take place through a specially dedicated organization for the comprehensive central

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management of trade (p. 325). The transport system is organized as a public service like the post[17]. Inside the communes ‘‘retail trade will be replaced by completely planned sales’’[18]. Du¨hring also advocates the ‘‘principle that the unfavourable consequences of individual competition be counteracted by associating . . . All corporative connections between those who would otherwise compete with each other eliminate their reciprocal pressure and replace fragmentation with a unitary solidaristic behaviour’’[19]. Thus, even if with Du¨hring’s system we have to deal with a kind of market socialism, his attitude to the market is rather ambivalent. In particular he does not see any virtue in competition, which he considers wasteful, to which he prefers a system of agreements between what we could define as the bilateral monopolies of organized interests[20]. As such Du¨hring’s ideas appear to be a probable source of guild and functional socialist conceptions[21]. His contention that ‘‘the consequences of the Manchester doctrine of economic freedom and overall equality of competition can be found fulfilled for the first time in the socialitarian economic doctrine, and the latter can be seen as the Manchester theory drawn to its final consequences’’[22] can therefore be seen as overstated. This does not apply to Theodor Herztka’s transformation of Du¨hring’s original scheme, for which Du¨hring’s self-evaluation is certainly more appropriate. The reason for Du¨hring’s self-proclaimed adherence to the ‘‘Manchester doctrine’’ may also be seen to lie, according to Friedlaender, in his belief in a possible fundamental harmony of legitimate interests, which Du¨hring takes from Carey (cf. Friedlaender, 1901, pp. 29-30), and which justifies leaving distributional outcomes to the agreements between associations. In Du¨hring this supposed fundamental harmony is obviously not implemented through the atomistic forces of competition, as in the ‘‘invisible hand’’ paradigm. (Because of the above self-attribution, in Chilosi (1992) I included Du¨hring in the ‘‘Manchesterian’’ tradition of market socialism. Upon reflection, this inclusion does not seem to be really warranted.) Probably Du¨hring’s consideration of the evils of unrestricted competition is simply based on an error of composition. However, one may find some rationale for his and similar positions in the possibility that, in a world where the conditions leading to efficiency of competition are not fulfilled, the bargaining of organized interests may lead to better outcomes than atomistic competition, bringing about Pareto improving agreements which are blocked otherwise. (One may simply consider issues such as the management of externalities and coordination failures)[23]. From Du¨hring’s socialitarian economy to Theodor Herztka’s Freeland model Du¨hring’s construction is rather sketchy. It is not clear, in particular, how the different communes are managed internally. As to the establishment of the socialitarian system, the latter is seen not as a product of a revolution, but rather of an evolution over time, based on the growth of workers’ associations, and on their role in changing the nature of distribution and the balance of power in society[24].

Du¨hring’s basic idea of a socialist system, decentralized into territorial selfmanaged units with freedom of access, was taken over later on by Theodor Herztka, and transformed into a comprehensive system of open cooperatives, or, in Herztka’s words, associations[25]. Freedom of movement between the different associations is accompanied by freedom of entry, in the conventional sense of freedom to establish new enterprises (cooperatives in our case). As a consequence, ‘‘The price of all the products of work, determined through competition, regulates in a quite automatic fashion the in- and outflow of labour, always according to the measure of need for the products of the different branches of work’’[26]. Thus the system is seen to have automatic self-regulating properties, through atomistic market competition, that appear to be extraneous to Du¨hring’s critical attitude towards ‘‘the unfavourable consequences of individual competition’’[27]. Eugen Du¨hring’s system of ‘‘economic communes’’ is pointed to as the source of Herztka’s Freeland model by Friedlaender (1901, pp. 35-7) and Albrecht (1927, pp. 245-7). They accuse Herztka of plagiarism, not having acknowledged his source. On the other hand, Herztka’s proposal is more complex and articulated than Du¨hring’s, and, as we have seen, differs in philosophy from the latter. According to Friedlaender, Du¨hring’s ideas were often taken over without acknowledgement by socialist writers (first of all Bernstein, 1899), who wanted to elaborate alternative viewpoints to orthodox Marxism, but who could not quote their source without being disqualified, owing to Du¨hring’s disrepute because of his crazy antisemitism and (in Marxist quarters) of Engels’ hefty criticism[28]. We can also note that Herztka’s utopia was centred on settlement cooperatives, being influenced by the heyday of colonialism at the turn of the century. This aspect, which is extraneous to Du¨hring’s socialitarian economy, is of particular historical relevance for the further development of the model by Franz Oppenheimer and the influence of the latter on the organization of Jewish settlements in Palestine. From Du¨hring to Lange through Franz Oppenheimer’s ‘‘liberaler sozialismus’’ Franz Oppenheimer, who also had a model of settlement cooperatives (see Oppenheimer, 1896), mentions his ‘‘liberal socialism’’[29] (by which we may understand the pursuit of socialist aims through the working of the market) as ‘‘having been developed by elaborating the theories of Du¨hring and Herztka’’ (Oppenheimer, 1928, p. 306). It may be added that Oppenheimer was a teacher of Ludwig Erhard (when the latter was a student at the university of Frankfurt in the years 1923-1925), and has been considered by some as an inspirer, (or a ‘‘prophet’’ (see Preiser, 1964, p. 21)) of the West German ‘‘social market economy’’[30]. A model of market socialism based on open, self-managed socialist enterprises is outlined by Marek Breit and Oscar Lange in 1934. In this model there are a number of features that point to Du¨hring’s and possibly Herztka’s

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influence, most probably through the work of Franz Oppenheimer, whose model of open producer cooperatives that are ‘‘open as a consumer union’’ and have ‘‘the monopoly of a market with sufficient purchasing power’’[31] they closely resemble[32]. It can also be related to functional socialism and to Heiman’s ‘‘Marktsozialismus’’, rather than to the agrarian socialist aspects of the conceptions of Du¨hring, and Hertzka (see below). At any rate it is closer to the limited competitive features of the former than to the free market atomistic competitive conceptions of the latter. In Breit and Lange’s proposal, workers’ right to free entry into large, self-managed trusts, organizing whole branches of production, into which the economy is supposed to be subdivided, constitutes merely the method through which the market power of the trusts can be broken and Heimann’s precept that ‘‘collective organizations . . . renounce all monopoly gain’’ be implemented[33]. In Oppenheimer’s original version of the model the countervailing power of a consumer association including the whole population is also mentioned[34]. Underconsumption and agrarian socialism in Du¨hring and Herztka Both Du¨hring and Herztka (together with Franz Oppenheimer) belong to the agrarian socialist tradition according to which a basic source of social evils lies in the private appropriation of land and the payment of rent. According to their views private ownership of a non-reproducible resource such as land is a sort of monopoly and no consideration is given to rent as a scarcity price[35]. Another common feature of Du¨hring and Herztka is underconsumptionism. Du¨hring (1876, pp. 227-30) explains the crises in terms of underconsumption. Herztka was more outspoken, dedicating a whole chapter of his 1886 book to the issue of ‘‘overproduction’’. See also, e.g. the following excerpts from Freeland’s preface: ‘‘the industrial activity of the present day is a ceaseless confused struggle with the various symptoms of the dreadful evil known as ‘overproduction’’’ (p. vii). ‘‘We do not produce that wealth which our present capacity makes it possible for us to produce, but only so much as we have use for; and this use depends, not upon our capacity to produce, but upon our capacity to consume’’ (p. xviii). Some of Herztka’s pages are closely reminiscent of Keynes’ rather extravagant passages, where Keynes reinterprets according to his underconsumptionist vision the economic history of mankind (the Egyptian pyramids included; see Herztka (1891 trans. of (1890), pp. 358-9)). Obviously both Herztka and Du¨hring were part of that underconsumptionist heretical undercurrent of the history of economic thought to which Keynes refers in chapter 23 of The General Theory. From Du¨hring to the kibbutz As mentioned earlier, in Du¨hring’s case the free mobility of labour between the different communes was conceived in the framework of a homogeneous ethnic community (Du¨hring, 1876, p. 323). This sense of ethnic community was to play an important role later on in the foundation of Israel’s cooperative settlements. As we have seen, the conceptions of Du¨hring and Herztka were the source of

Franz Oppenheimer’s idea of the settlement cooperative. The latter had a major impact on the beginning of the Jewish cooperative settlements in Palestine, first through his 1901 and 1902 articles on Die Welt, proposing the creation of a system of settlement farm cooperatives in Palestine[36], then through his elaboration, on Herzl’s request, ‘‘of the economic and agricultural parts of the Zionist program’’ at the sixth Zionist Congress in Basle[37]. At the ninth Zionist Congress, in 1911 [1909 secondo Barkai, p. 21VER], the decision was taken to start establishing settlements in Palestine according to his cooperative model[38]. The above constitutes a beautiful case of List der Vernunft, owing to Du¨hring’s extreme antisemitism! Herztka’s work was also known to Herzl, who quotes it, at the beginning of his Judenstaat, in order to ‘‘point out the difference between [his] construction and Freeland’s utopia’’, ‘‘a very complicated mechanism . . . of which there is no proof that it can be put into motion’’ (Herzl, 1896, p. 4). In Herzl’s later political novel, Old New Land, Herztka’s Freeland is defined as ‘‘a utopian romance’’, ‘‘a brilliant bit of magic, which may well be compared with the juggler’s inexhaustible hat’’[39]. Nevertheless, even in Old New Land the economy on which the future Jewish state is based is a system of workers’ cooperatives[40] which adopts, as in Herztka’s Freeland, the resources of the most modern technology[41]. Historical sources of Du¨hring’s socialitarian model The principle of freedom of access to the different communes or socialist cooperatives can be traced back to the practice of the socialist movement and even earlier. In the past, according to Engla¨nder (1864, vol. III, p. 89), who refers to French workers’ associations of the first half of the nineteenth century, ‘‘all workers’ associations continued to admit as a member of the association every worker presenting himself.’’ According to Otto von Gierke, even in medieval guilds, long before the birth of the socialist movement, there was a tendency to include all craftsmen of a given craft, admitting all those fulfilling the professional requirements for admission[42]. In Owen’s New Harmony, according to Tugan-Baranowski (1921, p. 13), ‘‘all the candidates were accepted without selection in the community.’’ This, in his view, is enough to account for the ‘‘sad end of that social experiment.’’ In the Orbstone community, founded by Comb (a follower of Owen) ‘‘one of the fundamental rules of the community was the entirely free acceptance of new members’’ (Tugan-Baranowski, 1921, p. 17). Going back in history, this kind of availability of land under public law may remind us in some ways of the structure of property rights in the open field village. It is from the recollection of the real or supposed institutions of the open field villages that Du¨hring may have derived some inspiration for his model. The open field village may indeed be described in many respects as ‘‘a community of people who, through public entitlement to dispose of a district of land and soil . . . are bound together to common activity.’’ The ‘‘sharing of income’’ was also fundamentally equal, insofar as open field agriculture ‘‘was a system primarily intended for the purpose of equalizing shares.’’

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(P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, p. 297; quoted in Cohen and Weitzman, 1975, p. 297). Even if it can hardly be said that the ‘‘guiding principle’’ of ‘‘the general freedom of access’’ applied to the open field village, still there was a certain peasant mobility between villages ‘‘according to given norms and regulations,’’ the result of which was, according to Cohen and Weitzman (1975, p. 298) that ‘‘‘the communal principle with its equalizing tendency’ must have operated to an extent between villages as well as within a village.’’ One must in particular refer to the assumed institutions of the old self-managed German village communities, which were extensively expounded at the time in Gierke’s Genossenschaftsrecht (1868). According to Gierke (who draws, among others, from Tacitus’ De Germania), old German village communities were characterized by communal management of cultivation (Feldgenossenschaft) and, even when the communal ownership and management of cultivated land had come to an end, by undivided ownership and management of uncultivated land (Markgenossenschaft)[43]. In fact Oppenheimer (1896, reprint (1922)) explicitly refers to the institutions of the ancient German rural community and of the contemporary Russian mir. For Oppenheimer his settlement cooperative is ‘‘the resuscitation of the old community of the march [Markgenossenschaft] with all its advantages and none of its disadvantages’’[44], it ‘‘gives back to humanity, the pleasant, productive life, free from ‘Auri sacra fames’, of the middle ages, while maintaining the magnificent unchaining of all the productive forces of the modern age’’ (pp. 558-9). Du¨hring’s repudiation of his socialitarian model Even if Du¨hring’s socialitarian communes model has been influential, as we have seen, on the development of both the theory and (presumably) the practice of socialism, it does present obvious flaws and is clearly unsuitable to the organization of production in a post-agricultural society (as shown by the immediate failure of the urban Maoist communes). It is quite understandable, therefore, that later in life Du¨hring himself repudiated his previous construction. The model of Wirtschaftscommunen was indeed dropped completely from the third edition of Du¨hring’s Cursus (1892), as the author ‘‘on the basis of mounting self criticism had long since given it up as an essentially logically unsound scheme’’[45]. Nevertheless the historical importance of Du¨hring’s contribution remains. Notes 1. ‘‘Stellen wir uns endlich, zur Abwechslung, einen Verein freier Menschen vor, die mit gemeinschaftlichen Produktionsmitteln arbeiten und ihre vielen individuellen Arbeitskra¨fte selbstbewußt als eine gesellschaftliche Arbeitskraft verausgaben’’ (Marx, 1968 (1867), p. 92). 2. His late revaluation of the institutions of the Russian rural communities, as a foundation from which to start a communist revolution in Russia, remained largely unknown (cf. Cinnella, 1985). In his letter to Vera Zazulic, dated 8 March 1881 Marx, answering a precise query, expresses the persuasion that ‘‘la commune rurale . . . est le point d’appui de

3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

la re´ge´ne´ration sociale en Russie’’ (quoted in Cinnella, 1985, p. 717). However, this by no means implies the view that the new system should be based on territorial self-governing communities, as was the case with Du¨hring. As to his attitude to the cooperative organization of production as such, one may refer to Marx (1875), where he critically mentions ‘‘the foundation of co-operative societies with state aid’’ with which ‘‘co-operative production on a social scale’’ ‘‘has nothing in common.’’ Namely, the new society would develop on the basis of cooperative organization of production, but certainly not on the basis of cooperatives, territorial or otherwise. On Mao’s communes see for instance Wiles (1977, especially pp. 256-7 and 129). The ‘‘publicistic’’ aspect of Du¨hring’s communes is considered below. By Franz Oppenheimer at least (see below). Du¨hring, 1876, p. 322: ‘‘. . . eine Gemeinschat von Personen, die durch ihr o¨ffentliches Recht der Verfu¨gung u¨ber einen Bezirk von Grund und Boden und u¨ber eine Gruppe von Productionsetablissements zu gemeinsamer Tha¨tigkeit und gleicher Theilnahme am Ertrage verbunden sind.’’ Cf. Du¨hring (1876, pp. 299-300). As Engels notices, however, ‘‘the publicistic right of an economic commune in its means of labour is an exclusive right of property at least as against every other economic commune and also against society and the state’’ (Engels, 1878, ch. III). Du¨hring (1876, p. 323): ‘‘Man kann sich hienach das Verha¨ltniss zu den gemeinsam zu machenden Natur- und Culturhu¨lfsquellen der Production und Existenz a¨nlich denken, wie heute die Angeho¨rigkeit zu einem politischen Gebilde und wie die Theilnahme an den wirtschaftlichen Gemeindezusta¨ndigkeiten.’’ Du¨hring, 1876, pp. 322-3: ‘‘Das Recht am Grund und Boden und an den Wirschaftseinrichtungen sowie auch sebstversta¨ndlich an den Wohngeba¨uden hat durchaus nicht mehr den Character des alten ausschliessenden und zur Abwirtschaftung der Arbeitskraft befa¨higenden Eigenthums. Es ist durch eine publicistische Verfu¨gungsform ersetzt, die auch nach Aussen nicht die Macht hat, abschliessend zu verfahren; denn zwischen den verschiedenen Wirtschaftscommunen besteht Freizu¨gigkeit und Notwendigkeit der Aufnahme neuer Mitglieder nach bestimmten Gesetzen und Verwaltungsnormen.’’ Du¨hring, 1876, p. 323: ‘‘Die socialita¨ren Wirtschaftscommunen werden nun den Grundsatz der individuell freien Beweglichkeit in unvergleichlich gro¨sserem umfang zu betha¨tigen haben.’’ On the self-managed nature of Du¨hring’s communes, resulting from ‘‘the transformation of the dependent worker into an economic actor, who participates in his economic capacity as a citizen in the management of production and disposes of the full proceeds of his labour’’ (‘‘die Verwandlung des abha¨ngingen Arbeiters in einen Selbstwirthschafter, der an der Productionsleitung seinen wirtschaftsbu¨rgerlichen Antheil hat und u¨ber den vollen Ertrag seiner Arbeit verfu¨gt’’), see Du¨hring (1876, p. 324). According to Oppenheimer (1896, reprint (1922), p. 110), ‘‘the law on cooperatives requires, in Germany at least, that all cooperatives must be open, accepting everybody fulfilling given conditions.’’ It is no wonder that, as Oppenheimer laments, the law was not respected in the case of producer cooperatives! For the design of an incentive compatible solution to this issue, based on differential income shares in relation to seniority and length of stay, see Chilosi (1986b). Cf. Du¨hring (1876, p. 323): ‘‘Da sie [die socialita¨ren Wirstchatscommunen] nur Glieder eines politischen Ganzen, namlich der zuna¨chst nach Abstammungs- und Sprachgemeinschaft organisirten freien Gesellschaft sein ko¨nnen, so haben Gesammtgesetze und Gesammtenscheidungen zur Regelung von Zuzug und Wegzug keine Schwierigkeit.’’ For the racial aspect, see below, same page, and beginning of page 324.

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14. Cf. p. 322: ‘‘Im Gebiet der eigentlichen Industrie . . . wird sie die in den Productivetablissements verbundenen und nach politischen Eintheilungsru¨cksichten zuna¨chst zu verbindenden personen umfassen und auf dem publicistischen Recht and den Productionsmitteln aller Art sowie an den Wohnpla¨tzen und wohnlichen Einrichtungen beruhen.’’ 15. See Wiles (1977, p. 129). The basic reason is that ‘‘in town residence fluctuates too much, and is seldom near one’s workplace . . . why should one factory’s employees all live in the same street . . . What happens when someone changes his job?’’ (Wiles, 1977, p. 129). 16. See on p. 324, where Du¨hring refers to the ‘‘natural law character and inevitability of the principle of exchange, to be implemented through a metallic money basis’’ (‘‘Naturgesetzlichkeit und Unumga¨nglichkeit des Austauschprinzips und seiner Verwirklichung durch eine Metallgeldbasis’’.) 17. p. 325. 18. p. 326: ‘‘Namentlich werden die einzelnen Wirtschaftscommunen innerhalb ihres eignen Rahmens den Kleinhaldel durch vo¨llig planma¨ssigen Vertrieb ersetzen.’’ 19. p. 155: ‘‘. . . das Princip, dass die ungu¨nstigen Wirkungen der individuellen Concurrenz durch die Vereinigung aufgewogen und hiemit die aus der sonstigen Lage erwachsenden Scha¨den wenigstens abgeschwa¨cht werden . . . Alle freien ko¨rperschaftlichen Verbindungen zwischen den sonst sich einzeln Concurrenzmachenden merzen den gegenseitigen Druck aus und setzen an die Stelle der Zersplitterung ein einheitlich solidaristisches Auftreten.’’ For a possible antecedent of the centerplace that associations have in Du¨hring, one may refer to Otto von Gierke’s vision of the role of associations (or fellowships: ‘‘Genossenschaften’’) in German history (cf. Black, 1990). 20. See also his advocacy of average cost pricing in the socialitarian economy (p. 279). 21. For these see Landauer (1959 reprinted (1976), p. 1641). 22. p. 514: ‘‘. . . so kann man bezu¨glich des rein Theoretischen getrost sagen, dass sich die Consequenzen der Manchesterlehre von der wirschaftlichen Freiheit und allseitigen Gleichheit der Concurrenz erst voll und ganz in der socialita¨ren Wirtschaftslehre vorfinden, so dass die letztere als die zu Ende gedachte Manchestertheorie angesehen werden kann.’’ 23. Of relevance is here also the efficient-contracts model of union-employer bargaining on wage and employment conditions (see Ehrenberg and Smith, 1997, pp. 482-6). 24. See in particular pp. 356-60. According to Du¨hring, in present day society collective agreements between workers’ and entrepreneurial associations eliminate ‘‘fragmentation and individual arbitrariness’’ (‘‘Zersplitterung und Einzelwillku¨rr’’), enabling ‘‘the construction of a proper legal setting for production’’ (‘‘eine eigentliche Gesetzgebung fu¨r die Production’’) (p. 358) and allowing the individual worker to participate ‘‘in the right to codetermination of production and factory rules’’ (‘‘Recht zur Mitbestimmung der Productions- und Fabrikordnungen’’) (p. 357). It is all too easy to refer in this respect to the post-war socio-economic set-up of western German co-determination and to contemporary labour relations based on collective agreements. 25. Herztka’s political novel Freeland, where he details his blueprint for market socialism, was an enormous success, being reissued in countless editions and translated into various languages. For a while Freeland associations purporting to put the scheme into practice arose in a number of countries, as well as an International Freeland Society. There was even an aborted attempt at a Freeland settlement in Kenya; William Lane’s unsuccessful Australian settlement in Paraguay was also inspired by Herztka. For more information on Herztka, Herztka’s scheme, and the attempts to put it into practice, see in particular Cole (1956, appendix to ch. XII).

26. ‘‘. . . der durch die Konkurrenz bestimmte Preis aller Arbeitserzeugnisse den Zu- und Abfluss von Arbeitskraften jeweilig nach Massgabe des bedarfs an den Produkten jeglichen Arbeitszweiges ganz automatisch regelt’’ (Herztka, 1886, pp. 174-5). 27. For an analytical consideration of the working of Herztka’s system, see Chilosi (1986b). 28. Friedlaender (1901, pp. 7 f). One can notice that Du¨hring himself did not make specific quotations in his Cursus; apparently the scientific habits of the last century were different from those of our times. 29. The term is not Oppenheimer’s invention: Herztka himself names his economic doctrine as ‘‘Socialliberalismus’’ which amounts to the same (cf. Friedlaender, 1901, p. 30). 30. On the relationship between Oppenheimer and Erhard see Wu¨nsche (1996), who however has a rather reductive view of the social element in Erhard’s ‘‘social market economy.’’ Erhard himself held rather strong views on his intellectual indebtedness toward Erhard: ‘‘On the 100th anniversary of Oppenheimer’s birth Ludwig Erhard, chancellor of the German Federal Republic and Oppenheimer’s former student, eulogized him, stressing the adoption of his teacher’s ideas in his own concept of ‘social liberalism’’’ (Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 12, 1971, p. 1427). On this event see also the discussion by Wu¨nsche (1996, pp. 141 f). 31. Oppenheimer (1922, pp. 163-4). 32. See the model of urban cooperatives discussed in the first part (‘‘Die sta¨dtischen Genossenschaften’’) of his Siedlungsgenossenschaft. 33. Eduard Heiman, Mehrwert und Gemeinwitschaft, Berlin (1922, p. 185; quoted in Landauer, 1959 (reprint (1976)), Vol. 2, pp. 1643-4). 34. Oppenheimer (1896, reprint (1922), p. 164). 35. For this notion see Du¨hring (1876, p. 155): ‘‘Der Hauptgrund des monopolistischen Elements is die Unmo¨glichkeit, den Boden von einer bestimmten Lage zu vermehren’’ (Du¨hring, 1876, p. 155). For a historical sketch of the idea of monopoly of land, which can be traced back to Adam Smith at least (cf. Smith, 1970 (1776), p. 249), see Schumpeter (1954, pp. 264, 854). For the notion of land monopoly in Oppenheimer (Bodensperre) see Barkai (1996, p. 18), but in particular the extensive discussion by Kurz (1996). 36. See Kornberg (1997, pp. vii-viii). 37. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Vol. 12, 1971, pp. 1426-7). See also Barkai (1996, p. 20), where Oppenheimer’s ideas concerning the Zionist resettlement of Palestine are amply and critically discussed. 38. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Vol. 16, 1971, p. 1170). Oppenheimer’s project was implemented in 1911 in the settlement Merchavia, which however floundered during the war, owing to the difficulties of the latter (Barkai, 1996, pp. 22-3). The further Zionist cooperative settlements of Palestina followed, however, mainly the different, more egalitarian and communist model of the kibbutz (ibidem), even if the other cooperative, non-communist, form of cooperative settlement, the Moshav, was closer to Oppenheimer’s ideas (see Barkai, 1996, p. 43). 39. Herzl (1997 (1902), p. 146). 40. See in particular Herzl (1997 (1902), pp. 85 f). 41. Of special contemporary interest is the vision of radio communications through universal city cablage (see Herzl, 1997 (1902), pp. 93-4). 42. Cf. Gierke, O. von, (1868, pp. 362 and 366-7; quoted in Oppenheimer (1896, reprint (1922)), pp. 527-8): ‘‘Nicht Ausschliessung anderer von Nutzen des Handwerks, sondern Unterwerfung des gesamten Handwerks unter die Zunft war somit das Ziel dieses Strebens nach Ausschliesslichkeit des Zunftgewerbes . . . Erfu¨llte jemand alle Erfordernisse . . . so wurde ihm die Aufnahme nicht verweigert . . . Der hohe Gemeinsinn des mittelalterlichen Handwerkers sah in der hohen Genossenzahl, in welcher der spa¨tere

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Zunftgeist allein die Minderung des Genossenanteils erblickte.’’ (Oppenheimer’s quote presents minor, non-essential changes from the original.) It is obvious however that the restrictive aspects of limiting access to the craft should have been based in practice not on the number of trained craftsmen admitted to the guild, but on limitations concerning the number of apprentices to be trained in the craft. 43. See Gierke, 1868, in particular pp. 60 f. 44. Oppenheimer (1896, reprint (1922)), p. 482. 45. ‘‘. . .auf Grund gesteigerter eigner Kritik wesentlich als ein sachlogisch unzula¨ssiges Schema aufgegeben hatte.’’ (Du¨hring, Eugen, Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, 4th ed. Leipzig: Neumann, 1900, p. 639; quoted in Friedlaender, 1901, p. 86.) References and further reading Albrecht, G. (1927), Eugen Du¨hring – Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sozialwissenschaften. Fischer, Jena. Barkai, H. (1996), ‘‘Oppenheimer and the Zionist resettlement of Palestine: the Genossenschaft versus the collective settlement’’, in Caspari, V. and Schefold, B. (Eds), Franz Oppenheimer und Adolph Lowe: Zwei Wirtschaftswissenschaftler der Frankfurter Universitet, MetropolisVerlag, Marburg, pp. 17-63. Bernstein, E. (1899), Die Voraussetzungen des Socialismus, Dietz, Stuttgart. Black, A. (Ed.) (1990), Community in Historical Perspective: A Translation of Selections from Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht (The German Law of Fellowship) by Otto von Gierke, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Breit, M. and Lange, O. (1934), ‘‘Jak bedzie funkcionowala ekonomia socjalisyczna?’’, GospodarkaPolityka-Taktyka-Organizacja Socjalizmu, Wydawnictwo ‘‘Plomieni’’, Warsaw, pp. 170-4. Caspari, V. and Schefold, B. (Eds) (1996), Franz Oppenheimer und Adolph Lowe: Zwei Wirtschaftswissenschaftler der Frankfurter Universitet, Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg. Chilosi, A. (1986a), The Right to Employment Principle and Self-managed Market Socialism: A Historical Account and an Analytical Appraisal of Some Old Ideas, European University Institute Working Paper, Florence, March, pp. 1-62. Chilosi, A. (1986b), ‘‘Self-managed market socialism with ‘free mobility of labor’’’, Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 10, pp. 237-54. Chilosi, A. (1992), ‘‘Market socialism: a historical view and a retrospective assessment’’, Economic Systems, Vol. 16 No. 1, April, pp. 171-85. Cinnella, E. (1985), ‘‘Marx e le prospettive della rivoluzione russa’’, Rivista storica italiana, Vol. XCVII No. 2, pp. 653-734. Cohen, J. and Weitzman, M.L. (1975), ‘‘A Marxian model of enclosures’’, Jour. Dev. Ec., Vol. 1 No. 4, February, pp. 287-336. Cole, G.D.H. (1956), Socialist Thought: The Second International (1889-1914), Part II, Macmillan, London. Daniel, A. (1976), Labor Enterprises in Israel – Vol. I: The Cooperative Economy, Jerusalem Academic Press, Jerusalem. Du¨hring, E. (1876), Cursus der National- und Socialo¨konomie, 2nd ed. Reisland, Leipzig, Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1971. Du¨hring, E. (1900), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, 4th ed., Leipzig, Neumann, p. 639. Ehrenberg, R.G. and Smith, R.S. (1997), Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, 6th ed., Addison & Wesley, New York, NY.

Englaender, S. (1864), Geschichte der franzosischen Arbeiter-Associationen, Hoffman und Campe, Hamburg. Engels, F. (1878), Anti-Du¨hring: Herr Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science, originally published in Leipzig; Internet edition, 1996, translated by Emile Burns from the 1894 Stuttgart 3rd ed., available at: www.marx.org/Archive/1877-AD/ Friedlaender, B. (1901), Die vier Hauptrichtungen der Modernen Socialen Bewegung, Vol. 2. Calvary, Berlin. Gierke, O. von (1868), Das Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, Vol. I, pp. 362, 366-7. Gierke, O. von (1954), Das Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, Vol. 1, Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt (phot. repr. of the original edition of 1868). Heflebower, R.B. (1980), Cooperatives and Mutuals in the Market System, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. Herzl, T. (1896), Der Judenstaat, Breitenstein Verlag, Wien. Herzl, T. (1997), Old New Land, Markus Wiener, Princeton, NJ (1902). Herztka, T. (1886), Die Gesetze der socialen Entwickelung, Ducker and Humblot, Leipzig. Herztka, T. (1890), Freeland – A Social Anticipation, Chatto and Windus, London, 1891, trans. of: Freiland. Ein sociales Zukunftsbild, Pierson, Dresden. Keynes, J.M. (1973), The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Macmillan, London (1936). Kornberg, J. (1997), ‘‘Preface’’, in Herzl, T. (Ed.), Old New Land, Markus Wiener, Princeton, NJ, pp. v-xxxi. Kurz, H.D. (1996), ‘‘Franz Oppenheimer und das Problem der ‘Bodensperrung’’’, in Caspari, V. and Schefold, B. (Eds), Franz Oppenheimer und Adolph Lowe: Zwei Wirtschaftswissenschaftler der Frankfurter Universitet, Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg, pp. 65-120. Landauer, C. (1976), European Socialism, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, reprint of the edition originally published by University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1959. Marx, K. (1875), Marginal Notes to the Program of the German Workers’ Party (Critique of the Gotha Program), available at: www.marx.org/Archive/1875-Gotha/ Marx, K. (1968), Das Kapital, Vol. I, Dietz, Berlin (1867). Oppenheimer, F. (1922), Die Siedlungsgenossenschaft, third unchanged edition. Fischer, Jena (first ed.: 1896). Oppenheimer, F. (1928), ‘‘Der heutige Stand der Theorie des Sozialismus in Deutschland’’, in Mayer, H. (Ed.), Die Wirschaftstheorie der Gengenwart, Springer, Wien, pp. 305-22. Preiser, E. (1964), ‘‘Franz Oppenheimer’’, Franz Oppenheimer zur Gedachtnis. Klostermann, Frankfurt, pp. 11-25. Schumpeter, J.A. (1954), History of Economic Analysis, Allen & Unwin, London. Smith, A. (1970), The Wealth of Nations, Penguin, Harmondsworth (1776). Tugan-Baranowsky, M. (1921), Die kommunistischen Gemeinwesen der Neuzeit, Perthes, Gotha. Wiles, P. (1977), Economic Institutions Compared, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Wu¨nsche, H.F. (1996), ‘‘Der Einfluss Oppenheimers auf Erhard und dessen Konzeption von der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft’’, in Caspari, V. and Schefold, B. (Eds), Franz Oppenheimer und Adolph Lowe: Zwei Wirtschaftswissenschaftler der Frankfurter Universitet, MetropolisVerlag, Marburg, pp. 141-61.

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Do Du¨hring’s tribulations have any lessons for us today? Peter R. Senn City College of Chicago, Evanston, Illinois, USA Keywords Economic theory, History, Censorship, Universities, Individual behaviour Abstract This is an article about the possible lessons for academic freedom that Du¨hring’s expulsion from the University of Berlin might have for us today. It begins with a brief discussion of his strange fate in the English language literature in contrast with his high position in the history of economic thought. It is no surprise that questions of the denial of academic freedom have long been discussed. The remainder of the article is devoted to a discussion of academic freedom since his time and the possible lessons these developments might have for us today. The most important of these is the ancient truism – academic freedom is always under attack from many sides and must be vigorously defended.

Introduction His writings in the fields of philosophy, literature, mathematics, ethnology, and the natural and social sciences are among the important intellectual achievements of the nineteenth century. (Gerhard Albrecht, 1934, p. 272) Besides, I must observe the rules of decency in literary warfare all the more strictly in his regard, because of the despicable injustice that has since been done to him by the University of Berlin. It is true that the university has not gone unpunished. A university which so abases itself as to deprive Herr Du¨hring, in circumstances which are well known, of his academic freedom must not be surprised to find Herr Schweninger forced on it in circumstances which are equally well known. (Frederick Engels[1])

What are we to make of the academic ruin of a blind man who was acknowledged to be one of the most original minds of his time and yet was banished from the University of Berlin in 1877[2]? Are there any lessons to be learned from the developments since then? Background Eugen Karl Du¨hring (1833-1921) has suffered a strange fate. Highly influential in Germany and the USA – even a rival of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) – he became a victim of a polemic by Frederick Engels (sometimes Friedrich, 1820-1895).

Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 29 No. 4/5, 2002, pp. 306-323. # MCB UP Limited, 0144-3585 DOI 10.1108/01443580210442769

This is a revised version of a paper prepared for the conference ‘‘Eugen Du¨hring and the freedom of teaching and research’’, October 16, 1997 at Maastricht University. The author gratefully acknowledges the help of Wolfgang Drechsler, who provided detailed, useful critiques, and Ju¨rgen Backhaus, who suggested the topic and gave the author much worthwhile advice. Both saved the author from mistakes and their help improve the paper. The author is particularly obligated to Mary Stone Senn who, in addition to making many specialized computer searches, was helpful in countless other ways. Anita Lauterstein handled the production and printing. Any remaining errors are the author’s own.

For the person who reads only English, Du¨hring’s worst enemy was surely Engels. His book, Anti-Du¨hring: Herr Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science, was translated into English – although the works by Du¨hring that it attacked were not. Anti-Du¨hring quickly became, and remains, a staple of Marxist literature. Copies are to be found in every major library while books by Du¨hring are relatively rare. Yet even Engels felt that Du¨hring was done an injustice by the university. It is paradoxical that Engels’ diatribe is perhaps the main vehicle that has kept Du¨hring’s name alive – but as a person suffering from mental incompetence due to megalomania (original italics) (p. 447). In a certain sense, Du¨hring was his own worst enemy. It was not that he lacked enemies. The withdrawal of his teaching license by the Prussian Ministry of Culture upon the application of the University of Berlin is but one bit of evidence. Many references in the English language mention that he was not kind, even to his friends. As Ludwig H. Mai put it, ‘‘Harsh in his criticism of those he opposed, he was also aggressive against those who came to his assistance, and made many enemies’’ (p. 73). As if this were not enough, his anti-Semitism became ever more strident after his expulsion from Prussian academic life. This had more than one consequence. For example, the German evolutionary Marxist and Social Democrat, Edward Bernstein (1850-1932) was ‘‘initially impressed by Du¨hring’s Cursus of 1875, though soon repelled by his anti-Semitism’’ (Bottomore, 1987, p. 935)[3]. Begun in 1880, Du¨hring’s most important writing on the Jews was Die Judenfrage als Frage des Rassencharakters und seiner Scha¨dlichkeiten fu¨r Existenz und Kultur der Vo¨lker (The Jewish Question as a Problem of Racial Characteristics and their Harmful Consequences for the Existence and Culture of the Peoples). It went through six ever-changing editions, the last in 1930[4]. It includes a bibliography of his articles on the subject from 1900 to 1919 (pp. 150-1). In the light of what happened to the Jews under Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), it is not hard to understand why later scholars might assume that Du¨hring’s antiSemitism contaminated all of his works. Not all of his work is tainted[5]. Most historians of economic thought paid little attention to it, emphasizing his more positive contributions. It is significant that anti-Semitism played no role in his expulsion from the Prussian university scene. Another reason for the contemporary neglect of Du¨hring’s contributions about important problems, like those of protectionism, is that the grounds for debate about them have shifted from his emphasis on social and moral concerns to the rigorous analytical techniques based on deduction and mathematics of modern economics. Most importantly, because he was not translated, his work soon became inaccessible to nearly all economists. In all the sciences, the passage of time brings with it a steady increase in knowledge. Old luminaries must make room for new stars. The relative importance of every contributor decreases as the number of them increases. In

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Du¨hring’s case, his personality and Engels probably speeded up this inevitable process. Du¨hring’s place in the history of economic thought Eugen K. Du¨hring (1833-1921) had to abandon a lawyer’s career owing to failure of eyesight quickly followed by complete blindness, and thereupon embarked, on the one hand, upon an academic career and, on the other hand, upon an intellectual effort that resulted in the conquest of a vast domain extending from mathematics, mechanics, and theoretical physics in general, to ethnology, economics and philosophy. The truly admirable – in fact almost unbelievable – feat was, however that in several stretches of that vast domain he attained the mastery requisite for original achievement (Schumpeter, 1954, p. 509)

As the quotations from Gerhard Albrecht and Joseph Alois Schumpeter (18831950) demonstrate, Du¨hring has an important place in many other fields than just the history of economic thought. This section is limited to an account of how some of the most important historians of economic thought appraised his work while he was still alive, with the addition of the classic works by Schumpeter and Karl Pribram (1877-1973). The histories are those of Luigi Cossa (1831-1896), Charles Gide (1847-1932) and Charles Rist (1874-1955), Louis Henry Haney (1882-1969), John Kells Ingram (1823-1907) and Othmar Spann (1878-1950)[6]. It is obvious from their statements that these historians knew Du¨hring’s work well. Their discussions of some issues illustrate this. The histories of economic thought are selective according to the interests of their authors. All rated his work highly, although acknowledgements of his contributions vary greatly. All but Gide and Rist and Ingram comment on his Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus (Critical History of Economics and Socialism). Schumpeter mentions that another scholar ‘‘dates the beginning of a ‘scientific’ epoch of doctrinal historiography’’ from it (p. 381). Pribram says, ‘‘Du¨hring’s Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Sozialismus was distinguished from all previous surveys of economic thought by its analytical and critical approach to the history of economic doctrines’’ (p. 240). Haney (1949, p. 972) and Spann (1930, p. 301) both list it in their references to works on the history of economic thought. Cossa discusses it in several places. He calls it ‘‘valuable’’ (p. 3) with ‘‘the merits of good arrangement and sobriety of treatment’’ (p. 119). It gave ‘‘due prominence to the most important writers’’ (p. 119). It was, however, ‘‘quite insufficient’’ in its bibliography, ‘‘paying scant attention either to those works which, though of a second rank, have a relative importance, or to monographs in general’’ (p. 119). Both Schumpeter (1954, pp. 441 and note, 509) and Spann (1930) discuss his critique of Marxism in generally positive terms. Spann thanks him ‘‘for certain important services. He was the first to appreciate List duly, and also first in the field as a critic of Marxism. He had considerable originality, displayed keen insight, and was a man of pure and incorruptible aspirations who had to suffer

much injustice at the hands of academic critics. Nevertheless, we cannot accept him as his own valuation as a pioneer’’ (p. 208). Spann goes on to mention his ‘‘embittered railing,’’ his many-sided but inharmonious talent and fatal infection ‘‘by the positivism of his day’’ (note, p. 208). Du¨hring was involved in many famous controversies. One was over the issue of whether Claude Fre´de´ric Bastiat (1801-1850) had plagiarized material from Henry Charles Carey (1793-1879). Du¨hring was on Carey’s side. For details see the discussions in Schumpeter (1954, p. 500), Haney (1949, p. 337) and Spann (1930, p. 209). Schumpeter calls Du¨hring Carey’s ‘‘German admirer’’ (1954, p. 516), Haney calls him ‘‘a follower of Henry Carey; for he accepted Carey’s peculiar rent ideas, and made the American’s cost-of-reproduction idea of value the center of his own scheme of distribution’’ (1949, p. 833). Pribram (1983) writes, ‘‘It may be mentioned in passing that Du¨hring displayed the greatest admiration for Henry Charles Carey’s teachings, and hailed them as revolutionary discoveries in the field of economics’’ (p. 240). Ingram (1967) calls him ‘‘the ablest of the few followers of Carey’’ (p. 209). Cossa (1983) thinks that ‘‘Du¨hring has excelled himself in the sophistries by which he contrived to make Carey absolutely triumphant’’ (p. 468). Another related controversy of Du¨hring’s time, fought out both in politics and economic theory, was over the issue of protecting a nations’s trade. Haney (1949) mentions Du¨hring as an advocate of protectionism (p. 819). Friedrich List (1798-1846) was a friend of both Matthew Carey (1760-1839), and his son Henry. List was a strong advocate of protectionism. Gide and Rist (1948) claim that Du¨hring was ‘‘List’s greatest admirer’’ and ‘‘the only real successor of List and Carey.’’ They also comment on Du¨hring’s more sophisticated understanding of protectionism and call him a ‘‘really scientific thinker’’ (note 1, p. 297). Spann (1930) credits Du¨hring with being a notable exception among economists in recognizing List’s merits (p. 189). Gide and Rist (1948) state that what Du¨hring ‘‘chiefly admires’’ about List and Carey ‘‘is not their protection, but their effort to lay hold of the material and moral forces which lie below the mere fact of exchange, and upon which a nation’s prosperity really depends. His Kursus der National- und Socialoekonomie (Berlin, 1873) is very interesting reading’’ (note 1, p. 297). Many of the histories of economic thought mention Du¨hring’s views on economic theory. Writing about the liberal socialists, Pribram (1983) says: Common to the theorems of all these authors was the thesis of the Ricardian Socialists that any income not earned by labor was gained at the expense of workers’ rightful earnings. That thesis played a prominent role in the teachings of the German Karl Eugen Du¨hring (18331921), whose contributions to the exact sciences were generally recognized as remarkable achievements. In his approach to social problems he rejected the materialistic interpretation of history and emphasized the influence of intellectual and political movements on economic developments. Du¨hring ascribed the origin of the distributive process to the operation of forces of political compulsion; hence, he denied the existence of general laws of distribution. In his ‘‘societary’’ system of social reform, he charged the state with the task of securing for the workers an appropriate share in the results of technological improvements (section on ‘‘Versions of the organismic approach, organismic rconomics’’, pp. 239-40)

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Gide and Rist (1948) briefly mention Du¨hring’s views on productivity (note 2, p. 422). Ingram (1967) shows his familiarity when he mentions that Du¨hring pointed out that the ancient economic speculations were regarded ‘‘rather from their political than their properly economic side’’ (p. 21). Cossa (1983) mentions that Du¨hring held that David Hume (1711-1776) was Adam Smith’s (1723-1790) equal (p. 255). Spann (1930) touches on many of Du¨hring’s theoretical economic positions. Du¨hring was an adversary of the teachings of Thomas Robert Malthus (17661834) (p. 121). Spann (1930) reports Du¨hring’s view ‘‘that the law of diminishing returns is sound as far as it goes, but that without fail the inadequacies of agricultural production are more than made good (‘overcompensated’) by technical improvements in industry and agriculture’’ (p. 129). He describes Du¨hring’s contributions to Johann Heinrich von Thu¨nen’s (1783-1850) theory of localization (p. 179). He classifies him on the side of the metallists in monetary theory (p. 288). Although he devotes more than a page to him, Schumpeter (1954) thinks that, as an economist, Du¨hring was a bad technician (note, p. 509). But of his place in history he writes: In the history of the anti-metaphysical and positivist currents of thought, moreover, he cannot fail to retain a prominent place. In another sphere of thought – that philosophy of life which corresponds to the earliest meaning of the term philosophy – he developed an attitude or system which we may like or not, but which is both interesting and original (he called it ‘‘personalism’’). And there is his social philosophy – or system of social reform – that is entitled to the same comment (he called it ‘‘societary’’; it has some affinity with that of Rodbertus) (p. 509).

The evidence from this brief survey of his place in the history of economic thought shows his work was held in high esteem. The same is true of his contributions in other fields. Du¨hring was fired because of his insulting behavior toward his colleagues, not for what he taught or on account of his scientific views[8]. Did he suffer injustice as so many have claimed? Was there a gross violation of academic freedom[9]? Some distinctions important for understanding academic freedom Academic freedom in the sense of allowing the individual professor to do anything he liked or act however he wished never existed in the university world. Indeed, if defined in this way, the term becomes vacuous, a simple label for any kind of behavior. Writing of the medieval universities, Charles Homer Haskins (1870-1937) states: Whether the individual professor was freer under such a system is another question, for the corporation of masters was apt to exercise a pretty close control over action if not over opinion, and the tyranny of colleagues is a form of that ‘‘tyranny of one’s next-door neighbor’’ from which the world seems unable to escape. There remains the question of the professor’s intellectual liberty, the right to teach truth as he sees it, which we have come to call academic freedom. It is plain that much depends here, as with Pilate, on our conception of truth. If it is something to be discovered by search, the search must be free and untrammelled. If, however, truth is something which has already

been revealed to us by authority, then it has only to be expounded, and the expositor must be faithful to the authoritative doctrine. Needless to say, the latter was the mediaeval conception of truth and its teaching (Haskins, 1957, pp. 50-1).

All simple statements about academic freedom are necessarily suspect[10]. Failure to make distinctions is an important reason behind controversies and misunderstandings about academic freedom. Complex relationships exist between the stakeholders in the university and the nature of the university as an institution. Both the stakeholders and the nature of the university change over time and are part of the society in which they exist. These stakeholders are many. The most important of them are the professors, the students, the university administration and those who financially support the university. The order of importance varies according to time, place and circumstance. All of the stakeholders live within an iron cage, to borrow an expression from Max Weber, which is the socially accepted understanding of the university as an institution. At once the complexities become apparent. The reason that modern societies support the institution is that the institution is supposed to benefit the society[11]. Because the university is a social institution it is bound to the society that allows and supports it with all the constraints that are implied by this bond. The definition and consequences of the bounds of academic freedom therefore depend upon a multitude of factors. The country and the time go far to define the issues. For example, in the USA there have been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of cases in which professors were denied or expelled from positions in one university but found employment in others. The number and diversity of universities in the USA made the consequences of denial of academic freedom much lighter than under the Prussian system[12]. In Du¨hring’s time, the main stakeholders in the university system were the state, acting through the Prussian Ministry of Culture, the professorate, the students and the businesses with which the research activities of the German universities were connected. Of these, only the professorate at the University of Berlin and the Prussian Ministry of Culture were critically involved in Du¨hring’s dismissal. Both the absolute and relative importance of the stakeholders change over time. In Germany, the role of the Prussian Ministry of Culture has been supplanted by a very different set of state institutions that run the universities. The overwhelming dominance of state, as opposed to private, universities remains in Germany. The professorate, with its own distinctive set of interests, has changed in some ways, and not in others. Appointments, salary, tenure, access to departmental funds, working conditions, and personal power were and remain important. Little changed also are significant differences and constant tensions about two of the three of a university’s most important roles.

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There are, broadly speaking, three visions of about what the aims of a university ought to be. One emphasizes research, seeking to describe and understand in the hope of informing a future purpose. Knowledge is the aim and, with luck, perhaps some middle level generalizations. Another vision stresses a role that is more activist. Here the emphasis is on results that will apply directly to policy, often with the aim of some kind of social reconstruction. There has been a noticeable change in the third major role of the university which emphasizes the teaching and transmission of knowledge. In one great early tradition, the teaching and transmission of knowledge emphasized the apprehension of the old truths. By the late 1800s, when the German universities were the best in the world, this had already changed in the face of the idea that students should be free to learn wherever they wanted and, mostly, at their own pace. Then a substantial part of the professor’s pay often came from the students. This put the role of universities in the teaching and transmission of knowledge on a very different footing from that of today. Today, although most of the professorate gives lip service to a larger social function of universities in the teaching and transmission of knowledge, significant institutional rewards for this service are still rare. Coupled with a huge expansion of the number of universities, professors and students, this has meant a decline in the relative importance of research and a greater emphasis on simply meeting the pressures of budgets and growth. Perhaps the most significant change in the interests and power of stakeholders has been that of the role of the students. In the 1960s, in every major country, some few university students created a great turmoil. Violating every academic convention for the resolution of disputes, they resorted to violence, occupation of university buildings, demonstrations, disruption of classes, destruction of university property, and, at least in one American case, murder[13]. In many countries the scale of disruption was unprecedented. This led to the most bizarre changes of the role and function of the university in modern history. As Sidney Hook (b. 1902) put it, the university system was ‘‘transformed, both in its curriculum and organization, not to further the genuine educational growth of students, but primarily to meet the challenge and threats of student unrest and disruption’’ (Hook, 1970, p. ix) Civil disobedience violates the rule that abuses in a democracy must be remedied by legal means. In the university setting, this means that it should only be employed on behalf of a great and noble cause when no other remedies are available. The role of the professors in sympathy with this violence demonstrates that not all professors accept the constraints that must come with a civilized approach to university problems. One consequence of the civil disobedience was a severe challenge to the old ideas of justice in university life. As David Fellman (1968) concludes in his article on academic freedom, ‘‘That proper procedure is an indispensable element of justice in the life of the state is a commonplace observation. Proper .

procedure is equally essential if academic freedom is to remain a viable concept’’[14] (p. 16). Modern opponents of academic freedom It is clear that opponents of academic freedom come in different sizes and shapes from both within and outside the university. Their motives range from ideological through political to simple self-interest. For example, a radical political approach to social issues is always more attractive to many people interested in social change that the slower and more difficult path of reform. It is sometimes held that those who financially support the universities oppose academic freedom when they do not provide all the funds requested by the universities. This argument comes close to being unreasonable. It is universally accepted that those who pay for a service have the right to control what they get for their money. The taxpayers who support university systems have the power. The modern university must pay attention to the demands of those who pay for it[15]. It is also sometimes maintained that individuals and businesses which voluntarily provide funds to the university can be threats to academic freedom. The threat occurs when the funds are given with strings attached, i.e. the funds are to be used for specific purposes. In the great majority of cases, voluntary financial support of the university is gladly accepted. Complaints come when part of the university community feel that the funds will be used for improper purposes. This kind of threat must be evaluated on a case by case basis. No modern country is threatening to close down its university system. The internal procedures of the university for accepting funds voluntarily provided by individuals and businesses have worked relatively well. Threats to academic freedom from the most important stakeholders in the university, the financial supporters, are minor. This may be accounted for by the universal acceptance of the value of the university. Some threats to academic freedom are based on ideological grounds. When they do not have political power, ideological attacks usually pose but minor problems. Some of them even perform the function of bringing important issues to the front. Examples are the books by William Frank Buckley, Jr (b. 1925), Benjamin Hart and that edited by John Trumpbour. Buckley attacked the bias in teaching at Yale as collectivist and agnostic. Hart indites Dartmouth’s curricular bias and the way the administration and faculty try to force their views on the students. The essays Trumpbour has assembled attack Harvard, accusing it of being right-wing, sexist, and racist among other things. When they have political power, ideological critics can, temporarily, curtail academic freedom. American examples are provided by the McCarthy episode and incidents during the Cold War. In both cases, attacks of several kinds were made on Communist or suspected Communist professors[16]. When they are not major stakeholders, critics outside the university pose a relatively minor set of long run threats to academic freedom.

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There are many other outside threats to academic freedom of which the recent assault on tenure is but one. Current American pressures for the removal of tenure are based not so much on ideological grounds as a search for economic efficiency. Robert Maynard Hutchins (1936) has also pointed to another kind of economic threat, ‘‘Every group in the community that is well enough organized to have an audible voice wants the university to spare it the necessity of training its own recruits’’ (p. 36). These groups, under some circumstances, could require the university to use so many resources for their purposes that the other missions of the university might, in the worst case, be extinguished. Some of the most serious threats to academic freedom have always come from within the university. On the one side is the administration. When it decides to push an issue, the freedoms of the professors are hard to defend. An example is the homosexual movement on many campuses. Homosexuals have long been represented among the professorate. What is different is that what once was private has now, in the words of Jerry Z. Muller (1993) ‘‘become the stuff of public identity and ideology’’[17] (p. 17). This has meant changes in academic practices, among which are new courses, student associations, funded chairs, and most importantly for academic freedom, the necessity for the professorate to fit into the new scene or be subject to isolation, ridicule or even dismissal. Little or no tolerance is shown for those who profess the orthodox views of Christianity, e.g. Catholicism, members of the various Baptist churches, or Judaism. Muller fears that the inability to transmit the ‘‘normative understandings of sexuality’’ of heterosexual marriage that is ‘‘grounded upon vital understandings of the bases of trans-generational common life’’ has already been lost in many universities and will have ‘‘profound costs.’’ He thinks that ‘‘most of those in the academy are cowed rather than converted’’ and calls for ‘‘civil courage among academics’’ (p. 24). The role of the professorate in limiting academic freedom has many sides, some of them paradoxical. Acceptance of restraints known to be wrong is often justified, usually by the argument that acceptance permits more important work to continue. Societies and universities have always delimited a range where the pursuit of knowledge is forbidden. A case in point concerns cloning human beings. One result of recent policy decisions in the USA is not to provide federal funding for it[18]. Not all of academia supports this policy. Richard C. Lewontin discusses many of the confusions in the official report. Another assault on academic freedom from within the university comes from those who advocate and practice ‘‘political correctness.’’ Less an ideology than a series of fads, the pressures it imposes on faculty stem, as the name states, from politics. Like all political policies, they are changing and, often, irrational. Because of their changing nature, the challenges posed to academic freedom are mainly transitory. Debate about the policies often wastes much time. Sometimes the policies cause serious problems for those who oppose them.

Political pressures on faculty are nothing new. What is different about political correctness is that the pressures do not come from politicians who have any kind of electoral mandate. They come from self-appointed mandarins within the university community. In recent years, politically correct expedients such as ‘‘preferential policies’’ have resulted in controversy and a lowering of academic standards[19]. The perennial challenge of the boundaries that morality imposes on the search for truth have never been resolved. These boundaries sometimes limit academic freedom and sometimes result in license and depravity. An interesting exploration of some of the issues is to be found in the book by Roger Shattuck and the review of his book by Andrew Delbanco. Shattuck examines the recent rehabilitation of the Marquis Donatien Alphonse Franc¸ois de Sade (1740-1814) which depict the utmost depravity as somehow valuable. A new development The worldwide vast expansion of universities since Du¨hring’s time has diminished the requirement that academic freedom be a characteristic of all universities. Both the number of universities and the different constraints they put on freedom are the reasons for this. A central argument for the support of academic freedom and free universities is that they are the chief organized agency for the advancement of science and the development of new ideas. Never mind that in dozens of fields over many centuries and in many counties major scientific advances were made outside the universities, e.g. Benjamin Franklin’s electrical discoveries. This is still the main argument given to justify the economic paradox that those who buy a service should not be able to control the nature of the service. Consider the following. If there were only three universities, all of which were totally unfree, in the sense that the professorates had to follow one strictly defined dogma, one could not expect much in the way of the advancement of science and the development of new ideas with an important possible exception. If one of the constraints on freedom in one of the universities was that the professorate only practiced science (assuming any definition of science that is not significantly different from current understandings), then there would not be any need for academic freedom for scientists. The fact the other two universities were not free could only mean, at the worst, a waste of resources. But even this waste would have to be qualified by judgements about the values of the unfree universities. Presumably the supporters of the unfree non-science universities would have a very different value system. Today there are thousands of universities in hundreds of countries. No matter what constraints are placed on academic freedom in some, even in most, universities, the varieties of the constraints can not possibly be the same. Add to this the fact that some universities in the world will have less constraints on them than others, and it is hard to see that local limitations on academic

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freedom can be a serious long run threat to either the advancement of science or development of new ideas. It would be misleading to conclude from the above that the scale of the modern university world is now such that the older arguments for academic freedom carry much less weight than they once did. At the least, to slacken vigilance would result in oppression, injustice to many individuals, much waste and the loss of many valuable contributions. At the worst, it would result in the destruction of the university as an institution[20]. Summary and conclusions Academic freedom may not be appreciated by teachers; it may not even be properly used; it may sometimes be abused in order to teach objectionable things or not to teach true and useful things. Nonetheless, it does not affect the validity of the ideals of academic freedom. Just as the best remedy for the abuse of a democracy is a better democracy, so the best remedy for the weaknesses of academic freedom is the strengthening of its safeguards (Hook, 1969, p. 229).

The answer is ‘‘yes’’ to the question in the title, ‘‘Do Du¨hring’s tribulations have any lessons for us today?’’. The central lesson is that academic freedom must forever be defended against attacks on many fronts. There are other lessons to be learned from the developments since his time. There are reasons for the contentious nature of issue about academic freedom. Among the most important of these are: . People define academic freedom differently. This is obvious from the fact that the most ardent defenders do not agree on what it is in many details. . The interests of the individual professor do not always correspond in every respect with those of the university. They often have personal interests not entirely compatible with such ideals as a dispassionate search for the truth. . There are people both within and outside the university whose motives are not consistent with academic freedom[21]. . The interests of those who provide the financial support of the university are not necessarily the same as those who work in it. . The university, as a social institution, has its own distinct and special interests and value orientations. These are focused upon important social concerns and are accompanied by distinctive modes of social interaction. . Academic freedom is not the highest value for many people. Glory, honor, power, nationalism, and ideological commitments are among the many values some people treasure more. The reasons above point to another lesson about academic freedom. It is and must always be debatable[22]. How this debate is conducted is crucial to the

continuance of the broad and humane goals that the great universities have set for themselves. Academic freedom requires the acceptance of heavy responsibilities from those who benefit from the rights that come with it. Above all, it requires mutuality of respect. Without this, it is indistinguishable from academic anarchy. Another lesson is that all statements about academic freedom must be evaluated in the context of time and place. Never in the history of universities has there been any situation in which the professors were totally free of fairly stringent controls of one kind or another. The issues depend on definitions of both the role of the university and of professorial freedom. These definitions are socially determined. None of the qualifications required to understand academic freedom diminishes in the least the need for constant vigilance and sturdy defense of the idea. The real questions today are whether the content, direction and speed of the changes in the university are sound. People of goodwill can and will differ about the answers. How the differences are resolved is decisive. There should never be resort to threats and violence in a university setting dedicated to reason. Without procedural safeguards neither the university as an institution nor the professor can long be free to pursue the highest goals of the university. What are these higher goals? They have been described in many ways. Long ago Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), following others, pointed out that there are cheaper and better ways both for conveying knowledge to students and for pursuing research for the faculty. For him, ‘‘The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the old and the young in the imaginative consideration of learning. The university imparts information but it imparts it imaginatively. At least this is the function which it should perform for society’’ (p. 3). For Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) the essence of a university was as ‘‘a place of teaching universal knowledge’’ [original italics]. For him its object was ‘‘intellectual, not moral’’ and the ‘‘diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement’’ (p. xxxii). Despite his emphasis on one of the goals of a university he insisted that, in the cultivation of the sciences, ‘‘the investigator should be free, independent, unshackled in his movements’’ (p. 251). The point is that all the goals of a university require academic freedom. John Ulric Nef (b. 1899) drew our attention to another, often neglected set of considerations. For him, ‘‘the object of every proposal for improvement should be judged by the contribution it would make to truth, virtue and beauty’’ (p. 267). For the university to claim a place as a worthwhile humane institution it must not neglect ‘‘the values of tenderness, of kindliness, of human intimacy and love’’ (quoting Bronowski, p. 271). The real issues revolve about questions of what ought to be done, and how. The principles of academic freedom were built at great cost to many individuals. Simply stated, they are that scholarship and learning must be

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protected from improper interference. It rests on the premise that truth, virtue and beauty can only come from the free expression of ideas. Whenever in place, the result through the ages has benefited mankind. The university, as the primary institutional vehicle for the development and continuation of civilization, must always be its safe harbor. It is far too late to remedy any injustice that might have been done to Du¨hring. One of his most lasting legacies has been the attention university people must pay to understanding the issues that brought about his downfall. Notes 1. From the ‘‘Preface to the second German edition’’, Engels (1885, p. 15). I worked from the edition cited in the references. This is a translation of the third German edition: Herrn Eugen Du¨hrings Umwa¨lzung der Wissenschaft. 3. durch gesehene und verm. Aufl. Stuttgart: J. H. W. Dietz (1894). The work first appeared as a series of articles in the Leipzig newspaper Vorwa¨rts, then in book form published in Leipzig by the GenossenschaftsBuchdruckerei, 1877-1878. There are many other translations, for example: Engels, Friedrich, ca. (1930). Herr Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science (Anti-Du¨hring), translated by Emile Burns, edited by C.P. Dutt, London: M. Lawrence. An American edition of this work was published in 1939 and 1966 in New York by International Publishers. For Marxists, the importance of this work stemmed from the fact that it was the first extensive treatment of ‘‘scientific socialism’’ and socialist science. It is indicative of Du¨hring’s intellectual importance that Marx and Engels chose his work as a foil. 2. For details, see Drechsler’s paper on Du¨hring’s exclusion from the Prussian academic world. It is by far the best account in English. 3. Thomas Burton Bottomore (b. 1920), a Marxist oriented English scholar, wrote the entry on Du¨hring in the New Palgrave. It is not fully satisfactory. 4. There is a substantial literature about this subject. One of the most interesting contributions is an attempt to understand it by the German philosopher Theodor Lessing (1872-1933), Du¨hrings Hass [Du¨hring’s Hatred]. Many other German professors of the time were anti-Semitic although none so fanatical. See my discussion of Adolph Wagner (1835-1917) (81ff). 5. As Drechsler and others have pointed out, several of his early works contain anti-Semitic sections. The virulence of his anti-Semitism seemed to increase as he grew older. His hatred of the Jews, as Engels put it, was ‘‘exaggerated to the verge of absurdity’’ (p. 128). 6. Many other histories of economic thought have interesting comments about Du¨hring. Among these are the popular textbooks by Eric Roll, Lord Roll of Ipsden (b. 1907) and the more scholarly work by Eduard Heinmann, just to mention two. It would be misleading not to mention that he is occasionally missing in some more recent histories of economic thought and doctrine, for example the usually reliable Henry William Spiegel (b. 1911). Even a short survey of the literature about Du¨hring shows he has no reasonably complete and unbiased treatment in the English language literature. 7. See, for examples, such standard references to him as those in Jean Romeuf’s Dictionnaire Des Sciences E´conomiques, the Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in vier Banden, the eleventh edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information (Thorne, 1962) and Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary (Sturt, 1911). All describe him first as a philosopher. 8. The fact those he insulted took his views seriously is still more evidence of his prestige. 9. There is a large literature on academic freedom, a subset of the vast literature on freedom. For a general introduction to the subject, see the great work by Mortimer Jerome Adler

(b. 1902) on the idea of freedom. Good introductions to the literature on academic freedom are to be found in the article by Arthur O. Lovejoy in The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (Seligman, 1935, henceforth ESS) and the article by Glen R. Morrrow in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Sills, 1968, henceforth IESS). A dated but useful bibliography is that by David R. Burch. The classic work by Friedrich Paulsen is an excellent source for understanding the situation in Germany in Du¨hring’s time. It is still valuable for its account of the development of academic freedom. 10. There are many dimensions to academic freedom. What happened to Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1783-1852), the founder of kindergartens, is one example. Because the Prussian Minister of Culture (Karl Otto von Raumer, 1805-1859) mixed Froebel up with his nephew Karl, Raumer issued an edict forbidding the establishment of schools according to Friedrich and Karl Froebel’s principles in Prussia. It took ten years (1851-1862) before the mistake was remedied. See the sketch by Robert Herbert Quick. This essay is limited to comments about the university, institutions which have professional schools and offer the PhD, although much also applies to colleges. 11. Drechsler has made the interesting point that one reason for academic freedom is that societies recognize that what they might decide for themselves, especially on the spur of the moment, is, in the long run, not good for them. Representative democracy is, in that sense, like academic freedom: self-limitation out of recognition that this is better for oneself in the end (personal correspondence). 12. See the classic history of academic freedom in the United States by Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) and Walter P. Metzger and also the sound history of American higher education by Frederick Rudolph. 13. Student demonstrations are as old as the university itself. The main differences in the 1960s were the scale and the inability of politicians and university administrations to successfully cope with them. It is not uncommon for some students to try to suppress free speech in many other ways. For one report on how campus radicals acted at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, see the article by Ed Carson. 14. His bibliography contains the standard references to the literature on the history of academic freedom in the United States. The collection of essays edited by Craig Kaplan and Ellen Schrecker contains many different perspectives on academic freedom in the 1980s. 15. See the 1989 Congressional Hearings (US Congress, 1989). 16. See, for examples about the Cold War, Don S. Kirschner, Lionel Stanley Lewis and Jane Sanders (b. 1940). For a sample of material on McCarthyism, see Charles Howard McCormick (b. 1932). 17. His article has many references to the literature on the subject. An example of the new view of sexual behavior is that of the Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Jane Gallop (b. 1952). In her book, she describes her seduction of her professors and students, which she says she has now stopped. 18. See the report of the US National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1997) and the 1997 hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources (US Senate, 1997). No scientist has yet claimed that his or her academic freedom has been infringed upon by the ban on funding, even in states where efforts to clone humans are specifically outlawed. At the time of this writing (early 1998) yet another federal government commission is considering the matter. Even private sector initiatives prompt Presidential comments against it. It is unlikely that any government can stop the efforts of scientists to learn more about the process.

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19. There is a large, scattered literature on political correctness. Three influential books on the subject are those by Arthur Meier Schlesinger (b. 1917), Dinesh D’Souza (b. 1961) and Thomas Sowell (b 1930). 20. It does not even matter that most universities today have no ideologies, only mostly problems and deficits. The continuation of the institution is what matters. 21. There are many examples of this in every major country. In the United States, Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), a distinguished astronomer, mathematician and economist spent much time and effort to make sure that the philosopher and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) did not get grants and university appointments. See Joseph Brent’s biography. A recent case is that of Hans Schneider (b. 1909), a Waffen SS officer in Hitler’s army. He changed his identity after World War II to become Professor Hans Schwerte at Aachen. For one account see the article by Arthur Allen. 22. Changes in the definition of academic freedom are inevitable. Change can come about for many different reasons and be implemented in different ways. It is a complicating factor that different approaches to change are not always consistent one with another. The complexity of specific issues in academic freedom and its consequences for fairness and efficiency cannot be overestimated. Practically every element of academic freedom is now the subject of a mountain of literature that is not well integrated. On almost every subject one can find contrasting and often opposite views. What is critical is devotion to some ideal of the goals of the university, all of which require academic freedom. Literature Adler, M.J. (1958-1961), The Idea of Freedom, written for the Institute for Philosophical Research, Doubleday, Garden City, NY. Albrecht, G. (1934), ‘‘Du¨hring, Eugen Karl’’, in Seligman, E.R.A. (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 5, Macmillan, New York, NY, p. 272. Allen, A. (1996), ‘‘Open secret: a German academic hides his past-in plain sight’’, Lingua Franca: The Review of Academic Life, Vol. 6 No. 3, March/April, p. 28-41. Backhaus, J.G. (Ed.) (1997), Essays on Social Security and Taxation: Gustav von Schmoller and Adolph Wagner Reconsidered, Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg. Bottomore, T. (1987), ‘‘Du¨hring, Eugen Karl (1833-1921)’’, in Eatwell, J., Milgate, M. and Newman, P. (Eds), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 1, The Stockton Press, New York, NY, pp. 934-5. Brockhaus, F.A. (1928), ‘‘Du¨hring, Eugen’’, Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in vier Banden, Sechte ga¨nzlich umgearbeitete und wesentlich vermehrte Auflage von Brockhaus’ Kleinem Konversatioms-Lexikon, Vol. 1, Brockhaus, Leipzig, p. 608. Brent, J. (1993), Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN. Buckley, W.F. (1977), God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘‘Academic Freedom’’, with an introduction by John Chamberlain, and with a new introduction by the author, Gateway Editions, South Bend, IN. Burch, D.R. (1987), Academic Freedom: A Selected Bibliography, Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin School of Law, Austin, TX. Carson, E. (1996), ‘‘Martyr me, please’’, Reason, Vol. 28 No. 4, August/September, pp. 50-1. Cossa, L. (1893), An Introduction to the Study of Political Economy, revised ed., translated from the Italian by M.A. Louis Dyer, Macmillan, London and New York, NY. Publication details for the original Italian version are not provided. Delbanco, A. (1997), ‘‘The risk of freedom’’, The New York Review of Books, vol. XLIV No. 14, 25 September, pp. 4-7. Du¨hring, E.K. (1871), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, T. Grieben, Berlin.

Du¨hring, E.K. (1876), Cursus der National- und Socialo¨konomie einschliesslich der Hauptpunkte der Finanzpolitik, 2., theilweise umgearb. Aufl. R. Reisland, Leipzig. The first edition was in 1873. There were later editions. Du¨hring, E.K. (1930), Die Judenfrage als Frage des Rassencharakters und seiner Scha¨dlichkeiten fu¨r Existenz und Kultur der Vo¨lker. Mit einer gemeinversta¨ndlichen und denkerisch freiheitlichen Antwort von Dr. Eugen Du¨hring, Sechste vermehrte Auflage, in Frau Be[r]ta Du¨hrings Auftrage herausgegeben von H. Reinhardt, O.R. Reisland, Leipzig. D’Souza, D. (1992), Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, Free Press, New York, NY. Eatwell, J., Milgate, M. and Newman, P. (Eds) (1987), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, The Stockton Press, New York, NY. Engels, F. (1959), Anti-Du¨hring: Herr Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science, 2nd ed., Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow. Fellman, D. (1968), ‘‘Academic freedom’’, in Wiener, P.P. (Ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Vol. 1, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY, pp. 9-17. Gallop, J. (1997), Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, Duke University Press, Durham, NC. See also the review by Janet Malcolm. Gide, C. and Rist, C. (1948), A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day, authorized translation by R. Richards, 2nd English ed., with additional matter from the latest French editions translated by Ernest F. Row, George G. Harrap & Company Ltd, London. The first French edition was published in 1909. The first English edition, which was a translation of the second French edition, was published in June of 1915. The 1948 edition was a translation of the seventh French edition. The copy I worked from said it was completely reset in the second English edition of 1948 which was a translation of the seventh French edition of 1947. Haney, L.H. (1949), History of Economic Thought: A Critical Account of the Origin and Development of the Economic Theories of the Leading Thinkers in the Leading Nations, 4th ed., The Macmillan Company, New York, NY. Hart, B. (1987), Poisoned Ivy, with a Foreword by William Frank Buckley, Jr, Stein and Day Publishers, New York, NY. Haskins, C.H. (1957), The Rise of Universities, with an introduction by Theodor Mommsen. Great Seal Books, a Division of Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. Originally given as the Colver Lectures in 1923 in Brown University, Providence, RI. Heimann, E. (1945), History of Economic Doctrines: An Introduction to Economic Theory, Oxford University Press, New York, NY. Hofstadter, R. and Metzger, W.P. (1955), The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States, Columbia University Press, New York, NY. Hook, S. (1970), Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy, Cowles Book Company, New York, NY. Hook, S. (1971), In Defense of Academic Freedom, Pegasus, New York, NY. Hutchins, R.M. (1936), The Higher Learning in America, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. Ingram, J.K. (1967), A History of Political Economy, new and enlarged edition with a supplementary chapter by William A. Scott, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy, University of Wisconsin and an introduction by Richard T. Ely, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy, University of Wisconsin, Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, New York, NY. The original edition was dated 1888. The edition from which the reprint was made was first published in 1915. Kaplan, C. and Schrecker, E. (Eds) (1983), Regulating the Intellectuals: Perspectives on Academic Freedom in the 1980s, Praeger Publishers, New York, NY.

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Kirschner, D.S. (1995), Cold War Exile: The Unclosed Case of Maurice Halperin, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO. Lessing, T. (1922), Du¨hrings Hass, Wolf Albrecht Adam, Hannover Lewis, L.S. (1993), The Cold War and Academic Governance: The Lattimore Case at Johns Hopkins, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. Lewontin, R.C. (1997), ‘‘The confusion over cloning’’, The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLIV No. 16, 23 October, pp. 18-23. Lovejoy, A.O. (1930), ‘‘Academic freedom’’, in Seligman, E.R.A. (Ed.) 1930-1935, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 384-8. McCormick, C.H. (1989), This Nest of Vipers: McCarthyism and Higher Education in the Mundel Affair, 1951-52, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL. Mai, L.H. (1975), Men and Ideas in Economics: A Dictionary of World Economists Past and Present, Littlefield, Adams & Co., Totowa, NJ. Malcolm, J. (1997), ‘‘It happened in Milwaukee’’, The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLIV No. 16, 23 October, pp. 8-9 (a review of Jane Gallop’s book (1997) cited above). Morrow, G.R. (1968), ‘‘Academic freedom’’, in Sills, D.L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Macmillan Company & The Free Press, New York, NY, pp. 4-10. Muller, J.Z. (1993), ‘‘Coming out ahead: the homosexual moment in the academy’’, First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, No. 35, August/September, pp. 17-24. Nef, J.U. (1967), The United States and Civilization, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Newman, J.H. (1928), On the Scope and Nature of University Education, with an Introduction by Wilfrid Ward, E.P. Dutton and Co., New York, NY. This is a reprint of the 1915 edition, J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, London and Toronto. The ‘‘Advertisement’’ (p. xxx) dated 1859 states that it is a revised edition of his 1852 lectures as Rector of the new Irish Catholic University. Paulsen, F. (1906), The German Universities and University Study, authorized translation by Frank Thilly and William W. Elwang, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY. Pribram, K. (1983), A History of Economic Reasoning, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Quick, R.H. (1911), ‘‘Froebel’’, in Chisholm, H. (Ed.), The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, 11th ed., Vol. 11, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, New York, NY, pp. 238-40. Roll, E. (1942), A History of Economic Thought, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., Prentice-Hall, New York, NY. The first edition appeared in 1937. The fourth revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1973. There may be even later editions. I worked from the fifth printing of the revised and enlarged edition of 1949. Romeuf, J. (Ed.) (1958), ‘‘Du¨hring (Euge´ne)’’, Dictionnaire Des Sciences E´conomiques, Vol. 1, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, p. 424. Rudolph, F. (1990), The American College and University: A History, reprint with an introductory essay and supplementary bibliography by John R. Thelin, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA. The original edition was published in 1962, Knopf, New York, NY. Sanders, J. (1979), Cold War on the Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of Washington: 1946-64, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA. Schlesinger, A.M. (1992), The Disuniting of America, Norton, New York. Originally published, 1991, Whittle Direct Books, Knoxville, TN.

Schumpeter, J.A. (1954), History of Economic Analysis, edited from manuscript by Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter, Oxford University Press, New York, NY. Seligman, E.R.A. (Ed.) (1930-1935), Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan, New York, NY. (I worked from the November 1937 reprint which combined volumes of the original edition. The copyright of the original edition was 1930 but all the volumes were not published until 1935.) Shattuck, R. (1996), Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY. Sills, D.L. (Ed.) (1968), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan and The Free Press, New York, NY. Sowell, T. (1990), Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, W. Morrow, New York, NY. Spann, O. (1930), Types of Economic Theory, translated by Eden and Cedar Paul from the 19th German ed., George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London. The 1st ed. of the German original, Die Haupttheorien der Volkswirtschaftslehre, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig, was published in 1912, the 19th rev. German ed. was published in 1929. Spiegel, H.W. (1983), The Growth of Economic Thought, 2nd ed., Duke University Press, Durham, NC. The 1st ed. was published in 1971. I worked from the second revised and expanded edition published in 1983. Sturt, H. (1911), ‘‘Du¨hring, Eugen Karl’’, in Chisholm, H. (Ed.), The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, 11th ed., Vol. 8, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, New York, NY, p. 649. The year of his death is incorrectly given as 1901. Thorne, J.O. (Ed.) (1962), ‘‘Du¨hring, Eugen Karl’’, Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary, edited and with a preface by J.O. Thorne. St Martin’s Press, New York, NY, p. 406. Originally published in 1897, there are several editions later than the one cited. Trumpbour, J. (Ed.) (1989), How Harvard Rules: Reason in the Service of Empire, South End Press, Boston, MA. US Congress Committee on Education and Labor. Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education (1989), Hearing on the Rights of Artists and Scholars to Freedom of Expression and the Rights of Taxpayers to Determine the Use of Public Funds: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, first session, hearing held in Washington, DC, 15 November, 1989, US GPO, Washington. For sale by the Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office, US GPO, 1990. US National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1997), Cloning Human Beings: Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, The Commission, Rockville, MD. US Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety (1997), Scientific Discoveries in Cloning: Challenges for Public Policy: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, US Senate, 105th Congress, first session, 12 March, US GPO, Washington, DC. For sale by the US GPO, Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office. Whitehead, A.N. (1967), The Aims of Education and Other Essays, The Free Press, New York, NY. There have been many reprints. The work was originally copyrighted in 1929. Wiener, P.P. (Ed.) Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY. I worked from the 1973 paperback reprint.

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Freedom of speech in a constitutional political economy perspective Jean-Michel G. Josselin Universite´ de Rennes I, France and CREREG, CNRS, and

Alain Marciano Universite´ de Corse-Pascal Paoli, France and GREQAM, CNRS Keywords Property rights, Common law, Economics, Individual behaviour Abstract The article examines the issue of free speech in a law and economics perspective. The property rights approach is contrasted with the common law and constitutional standpoints. Consequentialist and market efficiency may not provide adequate criteria for judging limitations to freedom of speech. Constitutional instruments may then be required.

Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 29 No. 4/5, 2002, pp. 324-331. # MCB UP Limited, 0144-3585 DOI 10.1108/01443580210442787

Introduction: the political economy of deontology and consequentialism In 1877 Berlin University revoked Du¨hring’s license to teach. Was such a sanction justified? On what grounds? What is at stake here is academic freedom or, more broadly, freedom of expression. We shall try to show that the law and economics perspective provides original insights into a usually passionate debate. The aim is to put forward general and non-contingent principles that would delineate limits to freedom of expression. Our argumentation rests on the definition of a ‘‘screening device’’ for limitation of free speech. Repression of information[1] is of course a matter of constitutional political economy, as is evidenced by the many related questions that must be addressed: are there circumstances in which words must be prohibited while authorized in others? On what basis can free speech be limited? What or who builds the screening device? Do we have the right to say anything we want? Rights and freedom can be linked in two opposed ways: on the one hand, a right-based or deontological approach considers that rights must be defined regardless of their consequences; on the other hand, consequentialism argues that consequences matter and that no right should be granted without having ex ante examination of the possible results. Typically, libertarian writers adopt a deontological position. They consider individual freedom as a fundamental value. Rights are a constituent element of the personal sphere and they must be defined independently of others’ rights as well as of their own consequences (see Gaertner et al., 1993; Sugden, 1985). Then, the general principle on which free speech should be granted is a property right since ‘‘[t]he traditional theory holds again that rights of private property, far from being anthetical to a free Paper prepared for the Du¨hring conference, Maastricht University, October 16, 1997.

society, are at its very core; they both enable us to be free and define our freedom and hence the free society itself’’ (Pilon, 1988, p. 156). Thus, ‘‘no rights of any kind can be derived without property rights’’ (Rand, 1967, p. 259). Obviously, no property rights on words should be granted. Rather, property rights concern individuals themselves: ‘‘property rights are rules that determine access to and use of resources, including one’s own mind and body’’ (Anderson and Hill, 1988, p. 208, emphasis added). No specific right to free expression is required. Thus, Rothbard claims that there is no such right as ‘‘freedom of expression’’ (Rothbard, 1977, p. 238-9, 1991, p. 149) since a man has a right to say anything he wants to express, as long as he is in a place he owns. Furthermore, a man has a right to free speech as far as he is free himself. For instance, Block argues that consent as an act of speech ‘‘implies self-ownership’’ (1996, p. 279, emphasis in original). And he adds: I am now the legitimate slave of the rich man. Does the concept of my consent make any sense? [. . .] I have given up my self-ownership rights; consent, therefore, cannot apply to me. How about the case where I never had ownership over myself. Can I consent to anything then? No. Consent, by its very nature, implies ownership over oneself (1996, p. 279).

A right-based deontological approach drives out free speech as a right, replacing it by (self-)ownership. At the opposite, a general principle for defining free speech is given by the consequentialist position. It seems to be more satisfactory for two reasons. First, it deals with free speech as such, which is not the case with a purely deontological perspective. Second, as Sen (1994, p. 16) points out, some rightsbased approaches, as that of Nozick (1974, 1989), tend to evolve towards consequentialism. Moreover, the public choice literature contains a consequentialist dimension: quoting Buchanan, Sen (1994, p. 19) remarks that ‘‘consequential analysis is central to this class of arguments’’[2]. In this paper, we adopt a consequentialist approach in the sense given by Sen to what he terms Buchanan’s public choice, which in fact is constitutional political economy. We contrast two ways of evaluating the consequences of free speech. The first is the common law solution, which tends to consider a positivist evaluation of the consequences of free speech based on efficiency: rights-based considerations are totally replaced by technically evaluated consequences (second section). The second one is the constitutional solution, which refers to a consensual definition of what has to be authorized or prohibited (third section). Efficiency as equilibrium and free speech: the common law standpoint As far as freedom of speech is concerned, consequentialism seems to be a standard reference for common lawyers. Raz (1986, p. 179) notes: ‘‘some people, and this seems to be the general view of the English common law, regard the interests on which a right as fundamental as freedom of speech is based as instrumentally valuable’’. Scanlon (1979) distinguishes between three kinds of interest on which the right of free speech is based:

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(1) speaker’s interest; (2) audience interest; and (3) third party interest. In the common law, freedom of expression is regularly defended, where it is defended, on grounds of the public interests’’ – which clearly refers to the consequences of free expression. Raz then quotes two typical English cases (A.-G. v. Jonathan Cape Ltd [1976] Q.B. 752 and Home Office v. Harman [1982] I All E.R. 532). Two dimensions of the public interest or ‘‘third party interest’’ are involved: organisational (social order matters) efficiency; and economic (truth matters) efficiency. We shall review them successively. The common law is usually viewed as efficient because it leads to social order. It means that free speech has to be limited when it generates social disorder. That particularly refers to locutionary speech acts. Indeed, locution concerns ‘‘what is expressed in an utterance; locutionary acts are individuated by the content of what is said’’ ( Jacobson, 1995, p. 71). A classic illustration of locutionary free speech is given by the possibility to yell ‘‘fire’’ in a crowded theatre and defined as follows: ‘‘any opinion, however repugnant, may permissibly be expressed though not in any possible context’’ ( Jacobson, 1995, p. 71). Obviously, social order or public order (as Judge Holmes argued) considerations are at stake. In this respect, a quotation by Mill is frequently used which defines the limits of free expression: ‘‘no one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act’’ (Mill, 1991, p. 72). Consequentialism, at least indirect consequentialism ( Jacobson, 1995), means that free speech is not valued for its own sake but rather in reference to the disorder a language act can supposedly create. This provides a basis for limitation of free speech. Are such limits sufficient? The article by Jacobson is particularly insightful in that it refers to the ‘‘archdefenders’’ of freedom of speech and thus shows what the position of civil libertarians on freedom of speech is. He quotes Mill as ‘‘one of the best exemplars of extreme civil libertarianism, one noted for his uncompromising defense of freedom of thought and expression’’ ( Jacobson, 1995, p. 67). No doubt that Mill’s ideas express a form of liberalism. Nevertheless, to argue that libertarians (even the civil ones) are prone to accept a limitation of expression is much more questionable. A libertarian such as Rothbard (and one can probably also considers Rothbard as ‘‘one of the best exemplars of extreme civil libertarianism’’) suggests that to yell fire in a crowded theatre has no more perverse consequences whether it is true or not. In both case, it results in panic. What is important in Rothbard’s argumentation is the determinist link: to cry creates panic. That line of reasoning implies that the meaning of words or information is universally known. However, an induction problem is likely to

emerge. Therefore, a screening device based on that principle may be able to grasp only a small number of situations. A second consequentialist criterion which can be used to limit speech consists of replacing ethics with economics, intrinsic value of rights with their consequences. Let us quote Breton and Wintrobe (1992, p. 218): ‘‘if, under freedom of speech, truth always triumphs over falsehood, one would have a powerful justification for its enactment. One would not have to assume that it is desirable for its own sake: it would be desirable on efficiency grounds because it would sort out good from bad ideas’’. As Posner repeatedly argues, common law is efficient since it allows us to maximise social wealth (cf. e.g. Posner, 1986, p. 60). A screening device is then elaborated on an efficiency criterion or on a market-based perspective of free speech. Since free speech refers to repression of information, regulation is concerned. Now, the standard approach of information deals with a market for ideas on which information as commodities are exchanged. While the standard approach refers to the demand-side of the market (Stigler, 1961), free speech is concerned with the supply side. There could be a Say’s law of words or information supply. Then simple deregulation seemingly lies at the root of an efficient market for ideas. And deregulation means free speech. The founding fathers set America on the path toward a competitive market for ideas. The US constitution embedded that faith in its first amendment[3]. Besides, the way in which the US supreme court has interpreted this amendment – an ‘‘expansive reading’’ as Aranson puts it (Aranson, 1989-1990, p. 36) – ‘‘strongly suggests that the court implicitly understands the importance of information for democratic choice’’ (Aranson, 1989-1990, p. 37). Posner (1986, 2000) then considers of great interest ‘‘this solicitude for the press’’ for he considers that competition is the only way to screen out good (political as well as scientific) ideas. However, when deregulation takes place, its effects are striking. Indeed, what the market-based analysis of free expression fails to take into account is the decrease in the quality of available information. Just as in the case of law or money, the marginal cost of producing information tends to zero. A competitive market for ideas may lead to an infinite replication of information already given. Their value, being related to the services provided, tends to decrease. The point is therefore that an increase in the quantity of information reduces quality and thereby creates negative externalities. To put it differently, too much freedom of speech threatens freedom as well as free expression. As Mc Kinnon (1987, p. 156) notes, ‘‘the free speech of men silences the free speech of women’’. It particularly concerns illocutionary acts: ‘‘illocution refers to the action performed with an utterance, for instance assertion, warning or promising’’ ( Jacobson, 1995, p. 71). Some American feminists have recently defended the concept of ‘‘illocutionary disablement’’ (McKinnon, 1987; Langton, 1993), refering for instance to pornography which ‘‘renders women incapable of performing certain acts by speaking’’ ( Jacobson, 1995, p. 72). Now, illocutionary disablement is a negative externality provoked by free speech. That can provide a basis for regulation. Coase (1974, pp. 384-5)

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points out how paradoxical the claim is for freedom of speech as a basic right, on a market that concerns a public good such as information. Consistency should lead economists to plea for regulation as is the case for other public goods or externalities. Breton and Wintrobe propose to clarify the paradox by pointing out the presence of adverse selection on the market for information. Let us recall that Stigler (1961) compared the market for ideas with the market for cars. Both markets are then characterized by the following two conditions: (1) buyers cannot distinguish ‘‘good’’ products from ‘‘bad’’ ones; and (2) information is distributed asymmetrically. These are, as Leland (1979) puts it, two necessary conditions for adverse selection. And therefore, bad information may drive out the good one just as for lemons (Akerlof, 1970). Thus, it comes out that ‘‘efficient regulation – restrictions on freedom of speech – can improve the working of the market for ideas’’ (Breton and Wintrobe, 1992, p. 219). However, is regulation a really efficient means to promote free expression? For example, to forbid and punish blackmail provides incentives for individuals to spread false information (Block, 1972, 1976). That creates a reduction in the quality of information. An ‘‘illocutionary disablement’’ appears thereby. Further, state intervention usually induces individuals to waste resources in the competition for rents. Then, regulation not only opens the door for rent-seeking but also increases the price of information. Individuals are less prone to buy information, scarcity is increased, informational asymmetries are strengthened: regulation may reduce individuals’ freedom of speech. An efficiency-based approach to free speech is therefore not entirely convincing: not only are, ‘‘ideas market [. . .] not perfectly self-regulating’’ (Breton and Wintrobe, 1992, p. 221) but regulation also creates more free speech limitations, beyond what was originally aimed at. Efficiency as consensus and free speech: the constitutional standpoint The previous sections have exemplified that if no expression can be absolutely free, no standard criterion is really satisficing either. Efficiency is too consequentialist a criterion, solving some illocutionary disablements but probably creating others. A property right approach would suppress the problem rather than solve it. This section advocates a constitutional and consensual way of elaborating a screening device. The consequentialist and efficiency-based position leads to an equilibrium perspective on free speech. Therefore, an optimal level of free speech should exist, given by equilibrium ‘‘price’’ and ‘‘quantity’’ of information. That would define some kind of ‘‘truth’’. Apart from the problem of defining the corresponding price and quantity, what does efficiency mean? Probably nothing, since it would drive us to interpret the optimal truth as a point beyond which truth is too expensive to acquire. Furthermore, to refer to a market for information and consequently to an equilibrium conveys the idea of preexisting

truth. Buchanan and Vanberg (1994, p. 317) emphasize the limits of the neoclassical market perspective in the following words: ‘‘[t]he equilibrium concept is associated with a world view that treats the future as implied in the present. In principle, future states could be predicted based on sufficient knowledge of the present; that is if it were not for de facto limits on our knowledge of an immensely complex reality’’. As a consequence, the future would always be knowable and predictable. Then the question is ‘‘what remains of freedom of expression?’’ since to ‘‘confer upon men freedom to choose, yet to be able to predict what they will choose’’ (Shackle, 1972, p. 239) seems to be a restrictive definition of freedom. Therefore, following Buchanan and Vanberg (1994), freedom of speech should not be a matter of information but should turn into a problem of ignorance. When ignorance matters, the neo-classical view of the market as an equilibrium must be replaced with the market as a process. The latter can be interpreted in two ways. The first one is Austrian: in the terms of Schelling (1960), ignorance is ‘‘genuine’’. The second one refers to a rationalist definition of ignorance. Both acceptations of the market as a process can provide a constitutional standpoint on free speech. The Austrian vision of ignorance is sensualist. The underlying theory of human nature is that of Hume (1992) and Smith (1832). The Hayekian as well as the Kirznerian perspectives on knowledge and ignorance stem from it. Therefore, each individual perception of the world is a subjective and separate vision. That clearly implies dispersion of knowledge and information. A first consequence is that social efficiency is no longer the rule in the matter of free expression. As Kirzner (1988, p. 81) puts it, ‘‘for once it is recognized that the relevant information is inevitably and definitely dispersed among many minds, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the notion of social efficiency is correspondingly devoid of meaning’’. Freedom of speech should rather be evaluated from the perspective of social order. Genuine ignorance is overcome by interactions between individuals. Then, as a second consequence, what has to be authorized or prohibited is not a priori defined but emerges as a consensus among people. In a very Hayekian way, it amounts to a ‘‘constitution of liberty’’ of speech. In sharp contrast with that view[4], rationalist ignorance is overcome by communication. The problem is not that of dispersed knowledge but rather that of non-existent knowledge. Buchanan gives this view about Wiseman’s contribution: ‘‘for the first time, [he] demonstrated that the problem was not one of dispersed knowledge that did indeed exist. The problem was the wholly different one imposed by the necessity that all the choices be made in time, and, hence under conditions of necessary uncertainty’’ (Buchanan, 1991, p. 4). Obviously, ‘‘future is implied in the present’’, but ‘‘the future is not simply ‘unknown’, but is ‘nonexistent’ or ‘indeterminate’ at the point of decision’’ (Wiseman, 1989, p. 230). Then, truth is not discovered as it is in the Hayekian perspective, but it has to be created. Communication is the sole way to build information, knowledge of truth. Consensus on free speech is explicitely created through public discourse and deliberation. That kind of consensus rests on a

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rational view of human nature: it amounts to a constitutional contract for freedom of speech. Notes 1. Which is as Breton and Wintrobe (1992, p. 220) put it: ‘‘the extent to which any, including bad or false information, is screened out’’. 2. ‘‘Even though the public choice perspective eschews the procedure of using a social welfare function (when formulated in the way an individual utility function is), as an approach it does not fall in the category of consequence-independent advocacy of rules and regulations’’ (Sen, 1994, p. 21). Thus, ‘‘can the support for the ‘public choice perspective’ of the ‘economics-as-exchange paradigm’, with its Wicksellian origin, be really independent of the predicted consequences of such exchange, and the value that is attached to the importance of these achievements? The fact that Buchanan is critical of a class of consequence-based evaluations in the simple form of maximizing a transcendental ‘social good’ does not settle the issue’’ (Sen, 1994, p. 17-18). 3. The first amendment (1791) establishes that ‘‘Congress shall make no law [. . .] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’’. 4. For a more general perspective on that contrast see for instance Josselin and Marciano (1995, 1997). References Akerlof, G. (1970), ‘‘The market for lemons: quality uncertainty and the market mechanism’’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 84, pp. 488-500. Anderson, T.L. and Hill, P.J. (1988), ‘‘Constitutional constraints, entrepreneurship and the evolution of property rights’’, in Gwartney, J.D. and Wagner, R.E. (Eds), Public Choice and Constitutional Economics, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 207-27. Aranson, P.H. (1989-90), ‘‘Rational ignorance’’, Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, Vol. 1, pp. 25-42. Block, W. (1972), ‘‘The blackmailer as hero’’, The Libertarian Forum, December. Block, W. (1976), Defending the Undefendable, Fleet Press, New York, NY. Block, W. (1996), ‘‘O.J.’s defense: a reduction ad absurdum of the economics of Coase and Posner’’, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 3, pp. 265-86. Breton, A. and Wintrobe, R. (1992), ‘‘Freedom of speech vs. efficient regulation in market for ideas’’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 17, pp. 217-39. Buchanan, J.M. (1991), ‘‘Jack Wiseman: a personal appreciation’’, Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 2. Buchanan, J.M. and Vanberg, V. (1994), ‘‘The market as a creative process’’, in Hausman, D.M. (Ed.), The Philosophy of Economics. An Anthology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Coase, R. (1974), ‘‘The market for goods and the market for ideas’’, American Economic Review, Vol. 64, pp. 384-91. Gaertner, W., Pattanaik, P. and Suzumura, K. (1993), ‘‘Individual rights revisited’’, Economica, Vol. 59, pp. 161-78. Hume, D. (1992), Treatise of Human Nature, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY. Jacobson, D. (1995), ‘‘Freedom of speech acts. A response to Langton’’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 24, pp. 64-75. Josselin, J.-M. and Marciano, A. (1995), ‘‘Constitutionalism and common knowledge: assessement and application to the future European State’’, Public Choice, Vol. 85, pp. 173-88.

Josselin, J.-M. and Marciano, A. (1997), ‘‘The paradox of Leviathan: how to develop and contain the future European State?’’, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 4, pp. 5-21. Kirzner, I.M. (1988), ‘‘Welfare economics: a modern Austrian perspective’’, in Block, W. and Rockwell, L.H. (Eds), Man, Economy and Liberty: Essays in Honour of Murray Rothbard, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, New York, NY. Langton, R. (1993), ‘‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 22, pp. 292-330. Leland, H.E. (1979), ‘‘Qacks, lemons and licensing: a theory of minimum quality standards’’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 87, pp. 1328-46. McKinnon, C. (1987), ‘‘Not a moral issue’’, Feminism Unmodified, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Mill, J.S. (1991), ‘‘On liberty’’, reprint in J. Gray and G.W. Smith, J.S. Mill: On Liberty in Focus, Routledge, London. Nozick, R. (1974), Anarchy, State and Utopia, Basic Books, Oxford. Nozick, R. (1989), The Examined Life, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. Pilon, R. (1988), ‘‘Property rights, takings, and a free society’’, in Gwartney, J.D. and Wagner, R.E. (Eds), Public Choice and Constitutional Economics, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 151-79. Posner, R.A. (1986), ‘‘Free speech in an economic perspective’’, Suffolk University Law Review, Vol. 20, pp. 1-54. Posner, R.A. (2000), ‘‘The speech market’’, in Frontiers of Legal Theory, Ch. 3, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 62-94. Rand, A. (1967), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Signet, New York, NY. Raz, J. (1986), The Morality of Freedom, Clarendon, Oxford. Rothbard, M.N. (1977), Power and Market: Government and the Economy, Sheed Andrews and McKeel, Kansas City, KS. Rothbard, M.N. (1991), L’e´thique de la Liberte´, Les Belles Lettres, Paris. Scanlon, T.M. (1979), ‘‘Freedom of expression and categories of freedom’’, University of Pittsburgh Law Review. Schelling, T. (1960), The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Sen, A. (1994), ‘‘Welfare economics and two approaches to rights’’, mimeo, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Public Choice Society, Valencia. Shackle, G.L.S. (1972), Epistemics and Economics: A Critique of Economic Doctrines, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Smith, A. (1832), La The´orie des Sentiments Moraux, Barois l’aıˆne´, Paris. Stigler, G.J. (1961), ‘‘The economics of information’’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 69, pp. 212-25. Sugden, R. (1985), ‘‘Liberty, preference and choice’’, Economics and Philosohy, Vol. 1, pp. 213-19. Wiseman, J. (1989), Cost, Choice and Political Economy, Edward Elgar, Aldershot.

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Reflections on the Du¨hring and Brand cases Political correctness and the current abandonment of academic autonomy to the culture of comfort John J. Furedy University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Keywords Employment, Terms and conditions, Job descriptions, Academic staff, Dismissal Abstract The concept of ‘‘political correctness’’ (PC) does not have a clear and simple definition on which there is even a majority, let alone universal, consensus. Nevertheless, during the last decade, and especially in North America, a series of events and positions have emerged to which the term PC is at least partially applicable. I shall begin by alluding to North American PC in institutions of higher education and in scientific organizations, which I have discussed elsewhere in more detail. I suggest that North American PC has crossed the Atlantic and elaborate upon this suggestion by discussing the recent dismissal of a tenured member of the teaching staff by Edinburgh University, and relating this case to the Du¨hring dismissal.

Introduction As with most politically-loaded expressions, the concept of ‘‘political correctness’’ (PC) does not have a clear and simple definition on which there is even majority, let alone universal, consensus. Nevertheless, during the last decade, and especially in North America, a series of events and positions have emerged to which the term PC is at least partially applicable. I shall begin by alluding to North American PC in institutions of higher education and in scientific organizations, which I have discussed elsewhere in more detail. In the third section of this chapter I suggest that North American PC has crossed the Atlantic. This suggestion will be elaborated by discussing the recent dismissal of a tenured member of the teaching staff by Edinburgh University, and relating this case to the Du¨hring dismissal. North American PC in institutions of higher education and scientific organizations One of these PC manifestations has become influential in institutions of higher education: I have labelled this the ‘‘culture of comfort’’ (Furedy, 1997a). The

Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 29 No. 4/5, 2002, pp. 332-344. # MCB UP Limited, 0144-3585 DOI 10.1108/01443580210442778

This is a draft of a chapter in Backhause, J. (Ed), Eugen Du¨hring (1833-1921) and the Freedom of Teaching and Research, based on a conference held at the University of Maastricht, NL, October, 1997. Both the author’s attendance at the conference, and the writing of this chapter were supported by a grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation to support research on Canadian academic issues, a field that is considerably different from his academic speciality, experimental psychophysiology. As is the case with most of the author’s papers on higher education, the conceptual and editorial help of Christine Furedy has been significant. The author is also indebted to comments made on earlier drafts of this chapter by Sakire Pogun, J. Philippe Rushton, and Bradford Wilson.

central assumption (not always made explicit) in this position is that the Reflections on propriety of the epistemological activities (i.e. for the acquisition of knowledge) the Du ¨ hring and of the academic community (faculty and students) is determined not by Brand cases considerations of disciplinary relevance, but by whether those activities offend (or are uncomfortable for) the sensibilities of others. The PC influence is often extra-academic in the sense that it is external to the central, epistemological function of higher education. Even if the Equity 333 Office (or its American equivalent, the Equal Opportunity Office) is located on campus, it is extra-academic because its primary function is not epistemological (the advancement of knowledge through teaching and research) but political (i.e. the improvement of society). To the extent that such extra-academic influences predominate, there is a loss of academic autonomy that is more fundamental than the loss incurred when, as has happened lately in the UK, the government, through its financial powers, exerts its external influence on institutions of higher education. So, in the Brand case (which I discuss in more detail below), the political desire to protect society from the evils of paedophilia was the predominating extra-academic influence that led the vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University to summarily dismiss a tenured member of his teaching staff for the expression of ‘‘disgraceful’’ opinions. Another ominous aspect of PC is that it appears to have produced a marked lowering of self-respect or epistemological confidence among working academics. The North American faculty member, in particular, used to be the main authority in matters pertaining to disciplinary issues in the classroom. There was not even the constraint of external examiners who, in the UK system, regularly check whether marking standards in each department are adequate. In the 1990s, in contrast, instructors seem to have accepted, with little protest, that persons who are not only unqualified in the relevant discipline, but who often lack the qualifications of any higher degree, are competent to direct faculty on curricular matters. These advisers are the commissar-like ‘‘equity’’ or ‘‘equal-opportunity’’ officers who have come to play an increasing role in the epistemological, scholarly enterprise of higher education, in the interests of promoting ‘‘diversity’’ (of people viewed as members of different sexual and racial groups, rather than of opinions) and comfort. PC in North America has recently become manifest in a second context: scientific professional organizations whose members are biological and physical scientists. It has been obvious for some time that PC influences are considerable in the humanities and social sciences, but I have documented four recent incidents that indicate that the physical and biological scientists are not immune to these extra-academic, non-disciplinary pressures (Furedy, 1997b,c). The stories indicate how scientific organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society for Neuroscience, and the Behavior Genetics Association have handled controversial and (and to some people) uncomfortable issues related to group race and sex differences. For example, the AAAS accepted a poster for presentation at its annual 1996 meeting, for which the abstract referred to the relation between intelligence an

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brain size, but did not indicate that the poster would also refer to the relation between intelligence and race. In his later public apology for accepting this poster, the program chair promised that in the future the AAAS would ‘‘more carefully edit’’ poster abstracts, because the organization did not wish ‘‘too overt’’ controversies to be discussed at its meetings. Had the abstract mentioned race, he said, that would have ‘‘raised a red flag’’, and the program committee might well have not allowed the poster to be presented. I have characterized these assertions as ‘‘astounding public policy statements for any modern scientific organization to make’’ (Furedy, 1997b, p. 59), mainly because the race/intelligence issue, though obviously very controversial and uncomfortable, is of scientific (i.e. epistemological or disciplinary) interest. This story, like the other three stories, indicates the strength of extra-academic influences having to do with comfort, when these influences conflict with disciplinary, epistemological considerations. It is also important to note that the AAAS actions were organizational rather than individual choices. It is one thing for individual scientists to choose not to enter into controversial areas like the relations between race and intelligence: to do so can carry serious risks both to one’s scientific reputation and ability to obtain governmental funding for one’s research. It is quite another thing for an organization to have this policy of avoiding ‘‘too overt’’ controversies. When scientific organizations have this sort of policy, they indicate that their scholarly self-esteem is so low that it is the degree of offensiveness or discomfort that determines their actions, rather than the disciplinary relevance of the controversy. And in starting down this path of accommodating extradisciplinary concerns of comfort, the scientific organization in question begins to transform itself into a religious or political pressure group. PC crosses the Atlantic: the dismissal of Chris Brand The Brand case up to January 1998 On 8 August, 1997, the principal of Edinburgh University, professor sir Stewart Sutherland, issued a press release announcing the immediate dismissal of a long-tenured member of the university’s teaching staff. Mr Chris Brand had held his tenured position in the department of psychology for 26 years. His dismissal followed the completion of a report by a specially constituted threeperson disciplinary tribunal, which met in secret and which failed to issue a public report of its findings[1]. In its private report to the university’s principal, as stated in his 8 August press release, the tribunal asserted that Mr Brand was ‘‘guilty of gross misconduct’’, and that aspects of his conduct ‘‘have been of a disgraceful nature, incompatible with the duties of [his] office or employment’’. Furthermore, according to the press release, the tribunal, in a majority view, recommended that the principal ‘‘consider dismissal’’. The principal not only ‘‘considered’’ dismissal (which itself was only recommended by two of the three members of the tribunal), but acted immediately following his own considerations.

What were the grounds for the principal’s immediate application of the most Reflections on severe penalty that is available to an academic administrator, an action that the Du ¨ hring and went beyond even the tribunal’s already quite severe recommendation? Brand cases The principal’s press release quotes from the (secret) tribunal report that Mr Brand’s ‘‘remarks were clearly chosen to inflame an already difficult situation, through a series of deliberate actions’’. Given that the principal (whose 335 academic speciality is theology) did not describe the nature of the situation, nor identify the actions that the tribunal had in mind (during its in camera meetings), this hardly constitute strong grounds for his action. The principal referred to ‘‘Mr Brand’s public comments on paedophilia’’, as ‘‘particularly’’ constituting ‘‘conduct’’ that justified Mr Brand’s dismissal. The comments to which the principal presumably[2] referred were made by Brand in his Internet newsletter in an article that was critical of the indictment and trial in the USA of a Nobel Laureate for alleged paedophiliac activities. In bolstering his critique of the indictment, Brand asserted that ‘‘Academic studies and my own experience [as a choir boy] suggest that non-violent paedophilia with a consenting partner over age 12 does no harm so long as the paedophiles and their partners are of above-average IQ and educational level’’. It must be noted that it was the media that publicized Mr Brand’s remarks. Brand stressed later that he was referring to psychological harm (an issue which was within his disciplinary expertise as a lecturer in psychology), and not to questions of morality or jurisprudence. He also indicated that he did not condone paedophiliac behavior, nor wish to see any changes in the law concerning such behavior. Accordingly, as the acting president and executive director of the American National Association of Scholars (NAS), Bradford Wilson, put it in a comment posted on NAS’s Web site, ‘‘It is difficult not to conclude that the Principal’s dismissal of Mr Brand is an abandonment of the defence of Mr Brand’s freedom of opinion’’, and that ‘‘Mr Brand’s comments on psychological harm are also within his field of academic competence . . . [so that he has the right] to be free from administrative punishment for the utterance in question’’[3]. Superficial similarities between the Brand and Du¨hring cases In his 50s, Brand, like Du¨hring, held a relatively low rank on the academic totem pole. A lecturer with 26 years of experience, he had little prospect of promotion to the rank of professor, and still less hope of (nor, probably, any aspiration to) any high-level academic-administrative position. Another feature shared by both is their iconoclastic, undiplomatic characterization of their academic superiors. In Du¨hring’s case, his charge that Helmholtz was not a serious scientist is one that was totally inappropriate even when he made it, and seems even more ridiculous in terms of Helmholtz’s present scientific reputation. During the year leading up to his dismissal (when he was the target of ‘‘anti-racist’’ groups who despised his view on group racial differences in intelligence, as well as an emphasis on the genetic basis of IQ), Brand made a number of undiplomatic statements in his e-mailed newsletter.

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One practice (which he later dropped) was to call the principal of his university Dame Stewart rather than Sir Stewart[4]. Again, characterizing radical feminists as ‘‘feminazis’’ was less than diplomatic. Finally, characterizing himself as a ‘‘scientific racist’’ during a TV interview designed to promote his book on intelligence that had just been published raised a storm of reaction. It may have been logically defensible (Brand meant to connote someone who studies group race differences scientifically in humans, just like within-species differences are studied scientifically in animals), but it was rhetorically inadvisable during an interview with the media. The publisher ( John Wiley & Sons) improperly withdrew the book from sale following this. The final similarity is the nature of the academic penalty imposed. In both cases the dismissal was only from a specific university, but in practical terms it really meant expulsion from the academic community. When Bertrand Russell was dismissed by the City University of New York for moral turpitude, his academic eminence was easily sufficient to ensure that this did not mean expulsion from the academic community, and he could easily take up a position in some other university. No such practical option was available to either Du¨hring or Brand. It is in this sense that the penalty incurred by both can be considered to be the academic analogue of capital punishment. Some fundamental dissimilarities between the Brand and Du¨hring cases The first important dissimilarity is that the university administration in the Brand case had a broad range of academic penalties available. Mr Brand was a paid employee of the university, with various privileges that go along with a tenured teaching position. At the lowest end of the punishment scale might have been an official letter of reprimand, but the university could also have chosen more severe options that included financial penalties or the withdrawal of some privileges. Instead, the university, or rather the principal, chose the ultimate academic penalty (dismissal), which, moreover, took effect immediately. In contrast, Du¨hring was not a paid employee of his university, his only association with it being the right to teach students at the university. This meant that the university, or rather the faculty of philosophy[5], had only a two-point punishment scale available to it. And, having employed the reprimand option following an earlier transgression by Du¨hring (who failed to respond appropriately to this formally-issued, and quite specific reprimand; in contrast, Brand received no such formal warning prior to his ultimate dismissal), the university was then faced with only two choices: no further punishment (which implied implicit acceptance of Du¨hring’s conduct) or dismissal. The second difference relates to the degree to which the punished behavior can be considered to be academically inappropriate conduct (act) rather than the expression of an opinion. In Du¨hring’s case, his opinion was expressed in a personal tone. Moreover, he was addressing himself to an audience of

journalists and other non-academics who would not be able to evaluate the Reflections on validity of such claims as whether Helmholtz was really a scientific dunce. the Du¨hring and Accordingly, although Du¨hring’s behavior was certainly not criminal, it can Brand cases be validly considered to be academically improper, which appears to be exactly the terms in which he was formally warned by the university prior to his actual dismissal. 337 Brand, in contrast, made assertions about paedophilia that were impersonal in tone, in the sense that they cast no aspersions on individuals. Moreover the content of Brand’s assertions was intelligible to, and could be evaluated by, the lay public. So in Brand’s case, no clear academic impropriety in conduct was established, especially as the exact statement that supposedly constituted his allegedly ‘‘disgraceful conduct’’ was never specified. The third way in which the two cases appear to be markedly different is that there was a greater degree of academic control in the decision to ‘‘remit’’ Du¨hring (for my interpretation of Du¨hring’s remission I rely on Prof. Drechsler’s detailed account of the Du¨hring remission in this issue). Superficially, the two cases do not seem to differ. In both cases, an academic committee met to consider the issues, and a high-level academic administrator announced the penalty to be imposed. However, the predominant influences operating in Du¨hring’s case appear to be academic. Following a specific warning which indicated the way in which he should conduct himself in the future, Du¨hring was essentially ‘‘remitted’’ for conduct unbecoming an academic, rather than on the content of his opinions as evaluated by society at large. In contrast, although Brand’s dismissal announcement came from an academic, I suggest that even a cursory reading of the 8 August, 1997 press release indicates that the criteria employed for the dismissal decision were nonor even anti-academic. The criteria appeared to involve concepts like offensiveness (to society) and comfort. These concepts are touted by pressure groups that label themselves as ‘‘anti-racist’’ but that, in fact, have interests that are contrary to the epistemic, scholarly interest that should be predominant in any academic institution. The release also contains the conceptually primitive notion that one can be in favor of academic ‘‘freedom’’ but not ‘‘licence’’. The label is primitive, because licence, in the end, is determined by how offensive a statement is, and this concept has no place in an institution of higher education. In brief, Du¨hring exercised a lack of control over his conduct when he personalized his disputes with senior academics, and took the dispute to the court of public opinion, a court that was not qualified to judge issues like whether Helmholtz was a competent scientist. Brand, at worst, offended the sensibilities of certain interest groups in society by asserting uncomfortable opinions concerning whether paedophilia of all varieties inevitably resulted in psychological harm, and it appears that it was pressure from these interest groups, rather than the academic facts of the case, that led the principal both to decide to immediately dismiss Brand and to issue a press release that justified the dismissal on non-academic (or even anti-academic) grounds.

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The fourth and perhaps most important difference between the two cases is in the reactions of the academic community. In Du¨hring’s case, there was a lot of protest in the academic and intellectual community, even though whether the University of Berlin acted improperly was not at all clear (Drechsler, in this issue, argues that Du¨hring’s demotion by his department of philosophy was not only ‘‘legal’’, but also academically ‘‘legitimate’’), and the only possible punishment, if found guilty, was dismissal. In Brand’s case, the propriety of the charge was academically doubtful, and, even if Brand was guilty, there was a whole range of punishments that were less extreme than immediate dismissal, that were available to the principal. Accordingly, Brand’s dismissal was, as the joint SAFS/NAS press release (see Appendix 2) indicates, very chilling for all academics who are considering expressing an opinion which may be uncomfortable for some group of people. Yet, at least at the time of the writing of this paper, there has been silence on the part of the British and European academic community and organizations[6]. Indeed, soon after the press release, the Scottish branch of the Association of University teachers averred that those with ‘‘unpopular opinions’’ have to be careful of ‘‘crossing the line into conduct of a disgraceful nature’’ (Holden, 1997, p. 1045). In my experience, British academics have been rather complacent about the problems of PC, considering that such excesses are specific to North American institutions of higher education. What the Brand case suggests, however, is that PC is present across the Atlantic in a virulent form. That, at any rate, was the impression given by the science reporter Constance Holden’s report that came out two weeks after the principal’s 8 August press release (Holden, 1997). She quotes a Northwestern University psychologist Michael Bailey, saying that ‘‘I can’t imagine a US university acting as Edinburgh did’’. Professor Bailey appears to be right as regards the USA – there have been one or two outrageous cases in colleges in the USA, but nothing like this at an eminent university. Even Canadian university administrators have only suspended rather than dismissed academics for what are clearly statements of opinion rather than unacademic acts. So, for example, when in 1993 mathematics professor Matin Yaqzan at the University of New Brunswick wrote an opinion piece on date rape in a student paper in which he expressed a conservative Muslim position, the university’s president and the vice-president academic (sic) decided to act immediately, even though the opinion was stated outside the classroom, and turned out to be not out of line with Canada’s already quite stringent ‘‘hate’’ (speech) laws, but even with the university’s own more restrictive speech code. Still, President Robin Armstrong and VicePresident Tom Traves did not go as far as firing this long-tenured member of their teaching staff, they only suspended him in the middle of a teaching term. This was certainly an unwarranted abuse of the academic freedom not only of professor Yaqzan, but of the students in his classes. Nevertheless, the punishment was not as severe as that visited upon Brand by his university’s principal[7].

The fifth and rather ironic difference between the two cases, I suggest, is Reflections on that despite the fact that the current western world is more democratic and free the Du ¨ hring and than the world of the German Kaiser and his Iron Chancellor, the social Brand cases pressures against the academic’s freedom to state opinions are actually greater now, on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with the weakening of the concepts of academic freedom and autonomy, there has been a severe deterioration in the 339 academy’s epistemological, scholarly self-esteem, in the value that it places on the importance of defending the right and responsibility of all its members to state controversial, uncomfortable opinions. Conclusions Although all controversial cases like that of Christopher Brand are susceptible to different interpretations, I suggest that the facts of that case constitute a dramatic illustration of the force that PC exerts on the contemporary academy. The culture-of-comfort criterion rather than disciplinary relevance or academic propriety seems to have been the sole consideration that governed Principal Sutherland’s decision to immediately apply the ultimate academic sanction. This penalty was applied because Mr Brand was said to have stated an opinion (unspecified) which was ‘‘offensive’’ to some people. The fact that Principal Sutherland would actually characterize an opinion as ‘‘disgraceful conduct’’ in his university’s only public statement on the matter is a testament to how conceptually weak his understanding of the concept of academic freedom is. That weakness, moreover, appears to have been the result the pressures exerted by the ‘‘anti racist’’ groups that had demanded Brand’s dismissal because they objected to his views not only with regard to paedophilia but also in connection with group race differences in intelligence. The principal’s abuse of academic freedom in his press release also constitutes, as my title suggests, a significant undermining of academic autonomy in the epistemic, scholarly sense. Organizations like the British Council for Academic Freedom have recently spoken out in favor of financial autonomy for institutions of higher education, which has been eroded by governmental moves to micromanage universities by using financial pressures to ensure that university work becomes more ‘‘relevant’’ and ‘‘cost effective’’. The defence of this sort of financial academic autonomy against governmental interference is important for higher education. How much more important, however, is the defence of epistemic academic autonomy, according to which the issues to be discussed and how they should be discussed are determined by the academic community. Controversial issues in that discussion should be resolved in terms of the relevant disciplinary expertise of the participating discussants. And in that discussion, the feelings (no matter how strong) of ‘‘anti-racist’’ and other anti-academic, political pressure groups should play no role, let alone any determinative roles as apparently occurred in Principal Sutherland’s infamous and conceptually primitive press release.

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Nor should it be thought that because an actual dismissal is a rare event, those with an interest in the viability of genuine institutions of higher education can afford to be complacent. As I have indicated elsewhere (Furedy, 1997a), every time an academic self-censors himself (e.g. does not raise an issue for fear of offending someone) a concession has been made to PC and the culture of comfort. Even if an issue is raised, if the way in which it is discussed is influenced by fear of offense rather than solely by the logical requirements of the discipline, the PC influence has been manifest. It is this sort of ‘‘freezing fear’’ which appears present in the hearts of most academics (including tenured ones, for in most cases the punishment is not loss of job but rather loss of reputation), and explains why most are unwilling to publically discuss, let alone defend, academic freedom. It also makes apt the ironic remark that, in liberal democracies, campuses have become ‘‘islands of repression in a sea of freedom’’, so that faculty are more ‘‘comfortable’’ discussing controversial topics like group race and sex differences in intelligence on the golf course off campus than in the classroom. Finally, however, returning to the spectacular Brand case, the most striking aspect to me is the almost universal silence of the academic community when the academic freedom of one of their number is abused in this conceptually crude way. Where has the sense of self-respect gone in a profession that, on the face of it, is defined by its epistemological mission: the right and responsibility to search for truth? Notes 1. By an enquiry to the principal’s office in August, 1997, I confirmed that, according to the Communication office, the ‘‘Tribunal report is not to be published’’ and ‘‘the statement dated 8 August is the substantive document from the University’’. 2. Presumably, because the principal never specified exactly which of Brand’s comments constituted the ‘‘disgraceful conduct’’ that justified dismissal. 3. The account of some of the facts of the Brand case given in the preceding few paragraphs relies heavily on Bradford Wilson’s Internet posting (http://www.nas.org/comments/ freedom/brand.htm). Appendices 1 and 2 contain, respectively, an early (17 September, 1997) reaction from the board of directors of the Canadian Society for Academic Freedom (SAFS) to the principal’s 8 August press release reporting the dismissal of Mr Brand, and a joint SAFS-NAS press release (26 January, 1998) that closely preceded an appeal hearing set for 10-11 February, 1998. 4. In the German university structure of the time, each faculty of the university made such dismissal decisions, and reported not to the university in question but to the Minister of Culture. There are obviously many other structural and administrative differences when one makes comparisons across nations and times, but roughly speaking one can consider Edinburgh University’s principal (and his administration) and the University of Berlin’s faculty of philosophy as being directly responsible, respectively, for the decision to dismiss Brand and Du¨hring. As those dismissal decisions can be deemed to be made on behalf of the academic community or university, it is in this sense that the dismissals constitute academic decisions made by two institutions of higher education, which have in common considerable eminence, but differ widely in time, place, and administrative structure. 5. Being not completely au fait with Scottish christian names, for several months I had the impression that the university’s principal was a woman.

6. Particularly noteworthy has been the silence of the British Council on Academic Autonomy, whose president, Earl Conrad Russell has written clearly and forcefully on academic freedom in a book (Russell, 1993) where he indicates that part of the motivation for writing it was the dismissal of his father for ‘‘offensive’’ opinions, first by Cambridge and then by the City University of New York. 7. Another interesting comparison across time and place is with the Orr case in the 1950s in Australia. Professor Orr held the chair of philosophy at the University Tasmania, and was fired by that university for sleeping with an undergraduate student. Despite the fact that this behavior involved conduct rather than opinion, a very prominent professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney, John Anderson (a graduate of the University of Glasgow, who would not, it is safe to say, have approved either of Edinburgh University’s dismissal action, or of the implicit support for this action provided by the Scottish branch of the Association of University teachers), was able to mobilize academics to the cause of Orr’s academic freedom to such an extent that the Tasmanian department was blacklisted for over a decade: no philosopher applied for any position there during this period. The contrast between the reactions of academics to the Brand and Orr cases is quite stark, and suggests a considerable difference in epistemic self-respect for the profession. References Furedy, J.J. (1997a), ‘‘Academic freedom versus the velvet totalitarian culture of comfort on current Canadian campuses: some fundamental terms and distinctions’’, Interchange, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 331-50. Furedy, J.J. (1997b), ‘‘The decline of the Eppur si muove spirit in North American science: professional organizations and PC pressures’’, Mankind Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 55-66. Furedy, J.J. (1997c), ‘‘Political correctness and the culture of comfort. An impediment to observation, objectivity, and the conflict of ideas’’, Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, October-December, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 299-304. Holden, C. (1997), ‘‘Controversial academic gets the axe’’, Science, Vol. 27, 22 August, p. 1045. Russell, C. (Ed.) (1993), Academic Freedom, Routledge, London and New York, NY. Appendix 1. file: brandboard September 17, 1997 PRESS RELEASE Statement from the Board of Directors of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) regarding the press release of Edinburgh University Principal Sir Stewart Sutherland announcing and attempting to justify his decision to dismiss a member of his university’s teaching staff It is the considered view of SAFS Board of Directors that the press release of August 8, 1997, issued by the Principal of Edinburgh University and entitled CHRIS BRAND DISMISSED FOLLOWING DISCIPLINARY TRIBUNAL, represents an assault of international significance on academic freedom. This is particularly regrettable in view of the fact that it comes from a fine university. There are at least three serious problem areas in the Principal’s press release as follows: 1. Conceptual The Principal’s concept of academic freedom is far more restricted than that which is acceptable in a free society, let alone an internationally respected institution of higher education. The press release asserts that Edinburgh university protects academic freedom, but not ‘‘licence’’, and that ‘‘due care to the sensitivity of the issue’’ as well as ‘‘acute awareness of the manner in which material is expressed’’ must be taken by the academic in exercising his

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academic freedom. Further requirements given for the exercise of academic freedom include the condition that opinions espoused by members of the academic community ‘‘should be set in a suitable framework with due care to the sensitivity of the issue’’ (our emphases), and the condition that those opinions should not be ‘‘disgraceful’’. These assertions place so many restrictions upon the usual exercise of academic freedom as to render it meaningless at Edinburgh university. 2. Procedural Even if one accepted the severely limited concept of academic freedom proposed in the Principal’s press release, there were serious procedural flaws in the manner in which the Principal’s decision to dismiss Mr Brand was reached. Not only was the Tribunal conducted in secrecy which may have been justifiable in the context, but the actual Tribunal report will not be released. According to the University’s Communications Office, the ‘‘Tribunal Report is not to be published’’ and ‘‘the statement dated 8 August is the substantive document from the University. Yet the press release does not give a single direct quotation from Mr Brand’s writings to support the charge that his opinions are ‘‘disgraceful’’, or that they were expressed without adequate ‘‘sensitivity’’. 3. Substantive Even if the evidence for Mr Brand’s guilt were strong and clearly laid out, the imposition of the ultimate penalty (dismissal) is, given the nature of the charges, unjust. Dismissal in the present circumstances with the Tribunal having been conducted in secrecy and the University refusing to release even the Tribunals’ report, coupled with the press release’s failure to provide even one example of Mr Brand’s purportedly improper conduct, indicates a flagrant abuse of power on the part of the University’s administration. ————————————————————— Until the Principal’s August 8 press release, the Board of SAFS had not commented on the dispute between Edinburgh University and Mr Brand. It was the Board’s hope that the Tribunal’s procedures and the University’s actions would be based on a fair and expert evaluation of Mr Brand’s academic conduct in teaching, research, and administration rather than feelings about the degree to which his opinions have been offensive within and outside the university community. The Board had some confidence in this hope because, in previous actions with regard to Mr Brand, Edinburgh University showed considerably more respect for the principles of academic freedom than that shown recently by several North American universities. However, the Principal’s August 8 press release clearly indicates that his policy (and hence that of his University) is to follow the ‘‘culture-of-comfort’’ path in focusing on feelings about opinions, rather than on academic conduct. Moreover, the Principal’s evaluation of Mr Brand’s opinions (an evaluation that represents the University’s only public document) appears to have been totally subjective and completely unscholarly. Finally, the Board of SAFS emphasises that it is in no way supporting or opposing the validity of Mr Brand’s views, or his manner of expressing them. It does assert, however, that the Principal’s action in applying the ultimate academic sanction on the basis of subjective evidence, inadequately documented, is reprehensible. Appendix 2. Note to SAFS email members and joint SAFS-NAS press release Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:15:39 -0500 From: Society for Academic Freedom Dear SAFS email member, I attach a press release in which SAFS, joined by NAS, condemns Edinburgh University for its abuse of academic freedom, and urges its administration to correct its ill-founded administrative error. Please note that the release in no way supports Brand’s opinions, nor even his mode of expressing these opinions. Nevertheless, the university’s action in administering the ultimate

academic penalty in such a case requires condemnation even when the case has occurred on the other side of the Atlantic, and especially because, so far, European academic organizations have remained silent. All the best, John

Reflections on the Du¨hring and Brand cases

John J. Furedy, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto and President, SAFS SOCIETY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND SCHOLARSHIP Board of Advisors Board of Directors Steve Balch, U.S.A. John Furedy, Ph.D., President Gordon Chong, Canada Doreen Kimura, PhD., F.R.S.C., Past President Alan D. Gold, Canada Ruth Gruhn, Ph.D. J.L. Granatstein, Canada Paul Marantz, Ph.D. John Meisel, Canada Murray Miles, Dr. Phil. Eva Ryten, U.K. Harvey Shulman, M.A. Peter Suedfeld, Ph.D.,F.R.S.C. Philip Sullivan, Ph.D. PRESS RELEASE January 26, 1998 SAFS, JOINED BY NAS, CONDEMNS VIOLATION OF SCHOLAR’S FREEDOM In Scotland, on 10 and 11 February 1998, a Queen’s Counsel will hear for Edinburgh University (E.U.) an Appeal against that body’s peremptory dismissal of psychology lecturer (tenured) Chris Brand. The Society for Academic Freedom in Canada and the National Association of Scholars in the United States are organizations that defend academic freedom and standards of scholarship among all members (faculty as well as students) of the academic community. It is our considered opinion that the conduct of Edinburgh University’s senior administration transgresses the fundamental principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech which govern institutions of higher learning in the civilized world. We urge the Queen’s Counsel to reverse Brand’s dismissal and thereby vindicate the freedom that is the source of the university’s ability to transmit and advance knowledge useful to individuals and their societies. By the secret process of an internal E.U. Tribunal lasting three days, Mr Brand, tenured for 26 years, was found to have behaved ‘‘disgracefully.’’ In his e-mailed newsletter of 16 October 1996, concerning US Nobel Prize winner Carleton Gajdusek, Brand had expressed his doubts as to the invariable harmfulness of paedophilia to adolescents of above-average intelligence and education; and, when firing Brand on 8 August 1997 for this ‘‘gross misconduct,’’ Sir Stewart Sutherland, the E.U. Principal, particularly criticised Brand for ‘‘courting publicity’’. (The offending message is now posted on the internet at http://www.crispian.demon.co.uk>.) Among the disturbing features of E.U.’s action are the following: (1) to fire a professor without warning for offering an evaluation of how evidence stands on a controversial topic must seriously inhibit academic discussion; (2) to censure Brand with the ultimate academic penalty for ‘‘courting publicity’’ is extraordinary. It was not Brand who had brought his e-mail to the attention of Scottish tabloid journalists. Such punitive reaction must put many academics in fear of arbitrary dismissal once targeted by a tabloid; (3) that Principal Sutherland had in April 1996 publicly condemned Brand’s alleged views on IQ and race as ‘‘false and personally obnoxious’’ creates an appearance of an E.U. official passing final sentence on Brand without the necessary detachment and objectivity required for fair judgment.

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It bears emphasis that our condemnation of E.U.’s conduct constitutes neither support for Brand’s opinions nor approval of the manner in which he has chosen to express them. Nonetheless, it is particularly salient that E.U. has never publicly specified a single passage of Brand’s writing which they condemn; nor does E.U. say what it thinks wrong or disgraceful in Brand’s statement about paedophilia. We trust that, even without being ordered by the appropriate appellate authority, the University of Edinburgh, mindful of its reputation as a distinguished academic institution, will act immediately to correct its ill-founded administrative error, and reinstate Brand forthwith.=20 Dismissal of a tenured member of an academic staff merely for stating his opinion as a psychologist is an act unworthy of Edinburgh or of any British university. For further information, contact: Professor John J. Furedy, Ph.D., President Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship Phone: (416) 978-3020 Fax: (416) 978-4811 Email: [email protected] Bradford Wilson, Acting President and Executive Director, National Association of Scholars Phone: (609) 683-7878 Fax: (609) 683-0316 Email: [email protected]

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Eugen Du¨hring in the perspective of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Gu¨nter Krause

Du¨hring in the perspective of Marx and Engels 345

Florapromenade 29, 13187 Berlin Keywords Economic theory, Marxian economics Abstract Describes how the work of Eugen Du¨hring was regarded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is underlined that the preoccupation of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring was accorded central importance in the history of Marxism. Shows the two phases of serious mutual attention between the protagonists of this relationship. The first phase dated from the year 1867/1868 when Du¨hring reviewed the first volume of Marx’s Capital. It is outlined that this phase has been comparatively little examined in dogma-historical research up to now. Focuses on the second and most intensive phase of the engagement of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring covering the period from the middle of the 1870s to the start of the 1880s. Examines the climax represented by the Engels’ polemic Herrn Eugen Du¨hring‘s Revolution in Science and standing in the history of Marxism as the programmatic characteristic of the relationship of Marx and Engels to Du¨hring. Highlights the political-ideological premises determining the Du¨hring debate.

Foreword In 1867, the small town of Hildburghausen became the setting for the start of a scientific and political controversy – the controversy between Eugen Du¨hring on the one side and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the other. It took in equally questions of philosophy, economics, history and also ideas and concepts of socialism. The preoccupation of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring was accorded central importance in the history of Marxism, especially official Marxism of a state socialist character. Particular attention was to be paid to the 1876/1878 polemic written by Engels – with the collaboration of Marx – Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science (cf. 1990). Thus, W. I. Lenin was already calling the AntiDu¨hring one of the ‘‘manuals of every class-conscious worker’’[1] (1977, p. 4), seeing it as ‘‘an astonishingly rich and instructive book’’, in which ‘‘the most profound problems of philosophy, science and sociology [are] examined’’[2] (1978, p. 11). The Anti-Du¨hring was attested to be ‘‘one of the most significant theoretical documents of Marxism-Leninism’’[3] (Fiedler et al., 1977, p. 1701) and to have ‘‘withstood all the tests of history’’ and further to possess ‘‘great relevance’’[4] (Bauermann and Jahn, 1977, p. 590). In short: Engels’ work normatively shaped official Marxist thinking as regarded Eugen Du¨hring, the way in which his work and works were approached. The starting point The first phase of serious mutual attention between the protagonists of this relationship dates from the years 1867/1868. In the little town mentioned above,

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the series of publications Erga¨nzungsbla¨tter zur Kenntniss der Gegenwart appeared. In No. 3 of the third volume, a review was publicised in which Du¨hring discussed the first volume of the 1867 edited Capital of Marx (cf. 1867a, 182 ff.), whereby the economist and philosopher, who had been working at the University of Berlin as an outside lecturer since 1863, sparked off a debate with the two theoreticians of socialism which was to span decades. In the late autumn of 1867, the doctor Ludwig Kugelmann, an active member of the International Working Men’s Association and a friend of Marx and Engels, had sent a review of Capital written by Engels to well-known economists. In disseminating the first volume, Kugelmann intended to move renowned academics to respond publicly. This was a way of bringing Marx’s work into the discourse, as the institutionalised economy and the German press had initially reacted with a ‘‘policy of suppression’’[5] (Engels, 1965, p. 563). Marx had himself indicated that the entire Kapital project depended ‘‘on the success’’ of the first volume, which was for the time being a matter of achieving publicity with friend and foe ‘‘to put it bluntly, by making a noise, by beating on the drum’’[6] (Marx, 1954a, p. 151). The principle was: ‘‘it does not matter to begin with what is said, but that it is said’’[7] (Marx, 1954a, p. 151). Kugelmann was to achieve complete success in the case of Du¨hring. This thinker, who avoided no polemic with academics of his period, reacted promptly. By January 1868, Marx was in possession of the Du¨hring review of Capital. Du¨hring and his review received considerable attention in the months which followed in the correspondence between Marx and Engels and between Marx, Kugelmann and Sigfrid Meyer, a German member of the International Working Men’s Association living in New York and co-founder of the General German Workers’ Association there. This period of mutual acknowledgement between Du¨hring and Marx and Engels has been comparatively little examined in dogma-historical research up to now. But it is of the utmost instructiveness. The historical doctrine of philosophy and economics under central and East European state socialism in particular largely omitted it, insisting rather in its reception of Du¨hring on the interpretation of the work and person of Du¨hring delivered by Engels in his Anti-Du¨hring. What makes this first attention paid to Du¨hring by Marx and Engels so interesting? Three aspects deserve principal attention: first it contains a comparatively multi-layered contemplation of Du¨hring the economist. Marx and Engels still have – despite the well-known strength of language – a pretty relaxed scientific view of Du¨hring. Later this would be eclipsed by political ambitions and ideological aspects. It is worth noting to begin with that Marx finds Du¨hring to be, in the context of his Kapital critique, ‘‘a bumptious, cheeky boy’’[8] (1974c, p. 538). This rather general remark corresponds conspicuously with Adolph Wagner’s comment about the ‘‘scribbling philosophical outside lecturer’’[9] (Rubner, 1978, p. 85). But this is naturally in no way a scientific appreciation. Much more informative therefore is Marx’s remark that Du¨hring ‘‘sets up as a revolutionary in political economy’’, in order to continue: ‘‘He has

done two things. He has published, first [proceeding from Carey] a Critical Du¨hring in the Foundation of Political Economy (about 500 pages) and, second, a new Natural perspective of Dialectic [against the Hegelian]’’ (1974c, p. 538)[10]. Marx and Engels In such critically derisive style did Marx accompany Du¨hring’s attempts fundamentally to remodel economics. At the same time, perfectly accurate reference is made to one of the significant forerunners of Du¨hring in the history 347 of ideas – the American economist Henry Carey – whom Marx elsewhere also called ‘‘his master’’[11] (1974a, p. 9). The Capital review of Du¨hring was also assessed in an unequivocally positive fashion by Marx. Thus he writes to Engels in this regard in January 1868: Du¨hring’s article . . . is very decent, all the more so, in that I have been so hard on his ‘master’ Carey’’[12] (Marx, 1974a, p. 9). In another letter to Engels from the same month he remarks: ‘‘It is a great deal from this man he almost positively receives the section on primitive accumulation. He is young . . . added to this he is a university lecturer and therefore not grieved that Professor Roscher, who blocks the way for all of them, should get some kicks[13] (Marx, 1974b, p. 11).

Marx observed to Kugelmann in March 1868: ‘‘I must be grateful to the man, because he is the first expert to have said anything at all’’[14] (1974c, p. 539). And in a letter to Meyer dated 4 July 1868 he says about the reception of his work in the German press: ‘‘From the ranks of the official economists, to date only in the Hildburghausen Erga¨nzungsbla¨ttern at the beginning of this year the review by Dr. Du¨hring (outside lecturer at the University of Berlin, supporter of Carey) (this review was timid but, on the whole, appreciative . . .’’[15] (Marx, 1974d, p. 550). Of course there were also critical reflections on Du¨hring from Marx and Engels in this connection. But these belong to the handed-down standard of scientific discourse and to this extent embody academic normality. Marx, for example notes that Du¨hring’s review of Capital does not clearly deal with his three fundamental novel findings on the economy of capitalism: Curiously, the fellow has not detected the three fundamentally new elements of the book: 1. that in contrast to all previous political economy, which from the outset treated the particular fragments of surplus value with their fixed forms of rent, profit and interest as already given, I begin by dealing with the general form of surplus value, in which all these elements are still undifferentiated, in solution as it were; 2. that the economists, without exception, have missed the simple fact that, if the commodity has the double character of use value and exchange value, then the labour represented in the commodity must also have a double character; thus the bare analysis of labour sans phrase as in Smith, Ricardo, etc., is bound to come up against the inexplicable everywhere. This is, in fact, the whole secret of the critical conception; 3. that for the first time wages are shown as the irrational outward form of a hidden relationship, and this is demonstrated exactly in both forms of wages: time wages and piece wages (It was a help to me that similar formulae are often found in higher mathematics.)[16] (Marx, 1974b, p. 11).

Now it is debatable whether Marx’s theoretical explanatory approach, here becoming apparent, really enables an analysis adequate to the problem. It

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should not, however, be in dispute that his thoughts about Du¨hring here are at the level of academic communication. Marx further took issue with Du¨hring on his position on Hegel’s dialectic, polemicised with him in regard to the accusation that his Capital was based on Hegelian logic and his dialectic unscientific, unreliable and dishonest. Such a view represented a scientific provocation for Marx, which he at the same time seized as a challenge. He thus sought to answer it by making his method more precise in comparison with that of Hegel. He writes in relation to Du¨hring’s position in March 1868: For the rest, half intentionally, and half from lack of insight, he commits deceptions. He knows very well that my method of development is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist and Hegel an idealist. Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after it has been stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method[17] (Marx, 1974c, p. 538).

Finally, Marx and Engels looked critically at the style of Du¨hring’s Kapital review. Thus Engels commented in a letter to Marx of 7 January 1868: The whole article embarrassment and funk. One sees that the good vulgar economist is frappe au vif and does not know what to say, except that one can first pass judgement on the first volume when the 3rd has appeared, that value determination by working time is not indisputable and that there are people who harbour their modest aims in the value determination of labour by its production costs . . . Meanwhile fear in every line of exposing himself to treatment a` la Roscher[18] (Engels, 1974, p. 8).

(The last remark refers to Marx’s criticism of Wilhelm Roscher in Capital.) Marx notices the ‘‘curiously embarrassed tone of Herrn Du¨hring’s criticism’’[19] (Marx, 1974c, p. 538) and observes: ‘‘I think that Du¨hring reviewed the book out of malice against Roscher. His fear of having the same done to him in his turn is very clear’’[20] (Marx, 1974b, p. 11). And after Marx had read Du¨hring’s paper The Belittlers of Carey and the Crisis in National Economy (1867b), he expressed to Engels the conviction: ‘‘I was right that he was only talking about me to annoy the others. What is very striking is the rude tone of this affected Berlin fellow against Mill, Roscher etc., whereas he handles me with fearful caution!’’[21] (Marx, 1974e, p. 30) Reading Du¨hring’s review of Capital (cf. Marx/ Du¨hring, 1867a, 182 ff.), the truth of this indeed leaps to the eye. One can go along with Marx’s comment to this extent. It reflects quite realistically a contradiction in Du¨hring and his eagerness – later explainable by his peculiar academic biography (cf. Drechsler 1997), almost acquiring pathological features – to march valiantly into battle against institutionalised academic science in particular. Second, I believe this initial attention paid by Marx and Engels to Du¨hring to be interesting because a scientific controversy is being conducted which is largely free of political instrumentalisation or ideological condemnation. Marx and Engels on the one hand and Du¨hring on the other dispute over Georg Wilhelm Hegel, Henry Carey and Friedrich List, over the theoretical concepts and their significance of Lorenz v. Stein, David Ricardo and Wilhelm Roscher. It deals with the precise definition of the value of labour, the crux of scientific

dialectic, and with the question of whether mankind goes over in agriculture Du¨hring in the from worse to ever better soils. In short: this is a theoretical argument between perspective of Marx and Engels and Du¨hring based on conflicting approaches. The Marx and Engels descriptions fasten mainly on economic points of view, the controversies are determined by ‘‘normal’’ theoretical problems. The discourse is primarily established at the academic level, is directed towards norms within the science. 349 But this state of affairs was not to last. Above all from the middle 1870s, the style in which Marx and Engels engaged with Du¨hring and his work changed. Third, Du¨hring’s review of Capital caused Marx to start to attend more thoroughly to the former’s writings. Thus he came across philosophical and economic papers by Du¨hring in the catalogues and stock of the British Museum library in London. For example he referred explicitly to Natural Dialectic. New Logical Foundations of Science and Philosophy (cf. Du¨hring, 1865a), in which Du¨hring subjected the thought and theory system of Hegel to a critical analysis (cf. Marx, 1974f, p. 18). Marx further discovered in London Du¨hring’s work, published in Berlin, Capital and Labour. New Answers to old Questions (1865b). He selected it as well as Du¨hring’s Critical Foundation of Political Economy (1866), also published in Berlin, (cf. Vollgraf, 1985, p. 235). And Kugelmann was requested to send him the above-mentioned book, The Belittlers of Carey and the Crisis in National Economy (cf. Marx, 1974g, p. 533). In connection with Marx’s selections from Du¨hring’s writings, Carl-Erich Vollgraf incidentally draws attention to the fact that they ‘‘are not a reflection of contrary positions, for instance in the perception of values, but were made by him with a view to the future, contain problems, that have to do with the second and third volumes of ‘Capital’’’[22] (Vollgra, 1985, p. 236), whereby Marx showed particular interest in Du¨hring’s comments on the rent theory of Carey. Marx delivers a kind of re´sume´ of the first phase of his engagement with Du¨hring in March 1868. In the letter to Kugelmann already quoted (cf. Marx, 1974c, 538 ff.) he remarks critically that Du¨hring would set up so to speak ‘‘as a revolutionary in political economy’’[23] (Marx, 1974c, p. 538). But intrinsically he had only distinguished himself with a paper, based on Carey, on political economy and a treatise on dialectic directed principally against Hegel. Referring to his Capital, Marx judges: ‘‘My book has buried him from both sides’’[24] (Marx, 1974c, p. 538). Du¨hring is therefore at pains to reduce his review of Capital as regards dialectic and value theory to Hegel and Ricardo. Marx does not fail to comment on Du¨hring’s attempt to deny him theoretical independence and originality. He explicitly emphasises the difference of his method of development from that of Hegel (cf. Marx, 1974c). And as for Ricardo, ‘‘it really hurt Herrn Du¨hring that in my treatment of Ricardo the weak points in him, which Carey and 100 others before him pointed out against R(icardo), do not exist. Consequently he attempts, in mauvaise foi, to burden me with all Ricardo’s limitations’’[25] (Marx, 1974c, p. 539).

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The climax The second and without doubt most intensive phase of the engagement of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring covers the period from the middle of the 1870s to the start of the 1880s. The polemic Herrn Eugen Du¨hring’s Revolution in Science (cf. 1990), most of which was written by Engels, represents the climax. In this long form, the title has obvious associations with Du¨hring’s early work Carey’s Revolution in Political Economy and Social Sciences. Twelve Letters (cf. 1865c). The short version – Anti-Du¨hring – stands in the history of Marxism as the programmatic characteristic of the relationship of Marx and Engels to Du¨hring. The point of view on Du¨hring of following generations of Marxist inspired theoreticians was thus set. Engels’ work was written between September 1876 and June 1878. First published as a series of articles in Vorwa¨rts, the central organ of German social democracy, the Anti-Du¨hring came out in book form in Leipzig in 1878. According to Marx’s words, it had ‘‘great success among the German socialists’’[26] (1982, p. 185). Among the wider public Engels was generally regarded as the author of the Anti-Du¨hring. Much less well known is Marx’s share in the genesis and writing of this work. He was, however, substantially involved in the process of its structuring and formulation. He also made an appearance as author – chapter X is by Marx (from ‘‘Critical History’’) of the second section, which is dedicated to questions of political economy (cf. Engels, 1990, 136 ff.). He wrote this chapter in 1877 in the form of his Marginal Notes on Du¨hring’s ‘‘Critical History of Economics and Socialism’’. The prehistory and the immediate historical conditions of the genesis of the Anti-Du¨hring are worthy of note. To begin with, Eugen Du¨hring had resumed and intensified his critique of Capital at the start of the 1880s. As it were as an overture to the realisation of his ambition to offer a revolution in economics and as a study for his Course on National and Social Economics Including the Main Points of the Politics of Finance (cf. Du¨hring, 1873), he made a sharp attack on Marx’s work. Du¨hring’s book, Critical History of Economics and Socialism (cf. 1871), came to play a key role in this. His polemic on Marx’s theory occurs almost exclusively in this work. In the first edition of the Critical History he accuses him of a value determination through the work – and what is more in two versions, both of which lack persuasiveness and quality. The dialectic on offer contains not a grain of theoretical innovation. In his economic thinking, Marx has basically stuck at the recognition level of Ricardo (cf. Du¨hring, 1871, p. 528). This accusation was to be renewed in the second edition (cf. Du¨hring, 1875a, p. 574). Essentially irrelevant scientifically Marx, in a history of currents of thought, should be cited merely as a symptom of ‘‘the effects of a branch of the new sect scholasticism’’[27] (Du¨hring, 1871, pp. 524-5). That Du¨hring obviously understood Marx with Capital as a rival theory project is shown not only by his disrespectful comments in this regard, which clearly had the function of dissuading potentially interested persons from

consuming this set of theories and give them a taste for his own product. This Du¨hring in the is further indicated by the fact that Du¨hring accurately indicated every perspective of modification in the second edition of Capital (1872). Thus he referred in the new, Marx and Engels partly reworked edition of his Critical History to the following: The theory of value is the touchstone of the worth of economic systems. It is however precisely here that Herr Marx, in the first edition . . . managed to get into such a tangle that he had to retreat in the second and make some tacit concessions to better . . . critical economics. Even the quaint usage, whereby the combination and opposition of utility value and exchange value played a major role, only merited from him, so far as haste permitted, a few chapters of partial reworkings . . . If one eliminates the dialectical jungle that even Herr Marx himself has tried to thin out a little in the 2nd edition, completely, nothing more is revealed than the usual theory, principally following the Ricardo method, that labour is the cause of all values and working hours the measure thereof[28] (Du¨hring, 1875, p. 499).

The few friendly comments from Du¨hring on Marx’s political activities also deserve a mention (cf. Du¨hring, 1875, 572 ff.). In combination with his remark that ‘‘connections with the workers’ movement’’ and ‘‘temporal proximity’’[29] were the absolute cause of his engagement with Marx, they cast light on a certain state of competition in which he saw himself academically and politically in relation to Marx and other representatives of the theory and practice of the socialist movement. This fierce critique of Du¨hring naturally remained no more concealed from Marx and Engels than an increased resonance of his thinking within the German workers’ movement and among influential representatives of social democracy, who had just united, in May 1875, in Gotha. In the middle seventies, for instance, Eduard Bernstein, Johann Most and August Bebel and, temporarily, Wilhelm Liebknecht as well, had declared themselves followers of Du¨hring. There thus appeared two articles by Bebel under the title A New ‘‘Communist’’ (cf. Bebel, 1874a, b), in which Du¨hring’s work Course on National and Social Economics Including the Main Points of the Politics of Finance (cf. 1873) was feˆted in particular and put on almost the same level as Capital (1874b). The categories and thoughts developed by Du¨hring ‘‘fully cover the terms understood in scientific communism’’[30] (Bebel, 1874b). In view of these constellations, Marx and Engels were bound to see in Du¨hring a serious rival, on the point of gaining lasting influence on the ideology and political writing of the German workers’ movement and social democracy with his philosophy and economics, with his social blueprints. They thus saw Du¨hring equally as a rival in the theoretical and practical struggle to make their marks. Starting from their approach over the ‘‘revolutionary power’’ of the working class, their ‘‘historical mission’’, Marx and Engels were required to accompany Du¨hring’s works critically. This was in particular a matter of following if and how their anti-capitalist emancipation project could be brought into discredit and danger through his ideas on society and socialism. Engels clearly outlined the intention of the critique of Du¨hring: About 1875, Dr. E. Du¨hring, outside lecturer at Berlin University, suddenly and rather clamorously announced his conversion to Socialism, and presented the German public not

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only with an elaborate Socialist doctrine, but also with a complete practical plan for the reorganisation of society. As a matter of course, he fell foul of his predecessors; above all, he honoured Marx by pouring out upon him the full vials of his wrath. This took place about the same time when the two sections of the Socialist party in Germany – Eisenachers and Lasalleans – had just effected their fusion . . . The Socialist party in Germany was fast becoming a power. But, to make it a power, the first condition was that the newly-won unity should not be imperilled. And Dr. Du¨hring openly proceeded to form around himself a sect, the nucleus of a future separate party[31] (1982a, p. 524).

As Du¨hring had presented his novel ideas about nature and society extensively in the numerous ‘‘courses’’, ultimately in a new philosophical system, the ‘‘philosophy of reality’’, a comprehensively drawn up critique was also necessary. Engels sought to deliver this with his Anti-Du¨hring: Nothing less than a complete ‘‘System of Philosophy’’, mental, moral, natural, and historical; a complete ‘‘System of Political Economy and Socialism’’; and, finally, a ‘‘Critical History of Political Economy’’ – three big volumes in octavo, heavy extrinsically and intrinsically, three army corps of arguments mobilised against all previous philosophers and economists in general, and against Marx in particular . . . these were what I should have to tackle . . . Anyhow, the systematic comprehensiveness of my opponent gave me the opportunity of developing, in opposition to him, and in a more connected form than had previously been done, the views held by Marx and myself on this great variety of subjects[32] (Engels, 1990, p. 525).

From the perspective of the theoretical history of Marxism, this means that Engels was not just producing his major work, but rather presenting the essential features of the Marxist trinity, in the form of its philosophical, economic and socio-political theories (cf. 1990, p. 8). For this reason in particular, the Anti-Du¨hring was to acquire or be accorded a key position within Marxism-Leninism. Thus Bauermann and Jahn emphasised that in this work for the first time ‘‘the three elements of Marxism were presented in a unified and self-contained form’’[33] (1977, p. 592). Engels had demonstrated ‘‘in a masterly way the application of the unity of Marxism to the analysis of social processes’’ and simultaneously made ‘‘remarkable contributions to the individual elements of Marxism, be it to philosophy, political economics or scientific communism’’[34] (Fiedler et al., 1977, p. 1697). Semjonow remarked that the Anti-Du¨hring contained ‘‘a complete description of the fundamental principles of historical materialism and scientific communism’’[35] (1977, p. 177). And according to Kopf, the work initiated ‘‘a new period in the history of the effects of Marxism’’[36] (1977, p. 814). What consequences arose from the history of the genesis of Engels’ main work for how Du¨hring was to be treated in the future? Two aspects deserve particular attention. First: although the debate over Du¨hring fastened on academic problems of the natural sciences, philosophy, economics and social theory, it was primarily conducted under political-ideological premises. The central concern here was decisively to restrict the influence of a rival of Marx and Engels in questions of the intellectual orientation of the German workers’ movement and social democracy. From the perspective of the two founders of Marxism Du¨hring

personified obvious ideological ‘‘danger ahead’’. Their concept of revolution, Du¨hring in the society and politics, committed to the mobilisation and emancipation of the perspective of working class left little room for rival starting points for political and social Marx and Engels revolution. Or, in other words: a plurality in the image of the workers’ movement as regarded content was for Marx and Engels de facto out of the question. 353 Second: a discourse with Du¨hring oriented chiefly towards inner-scientific norms no longer seemed opportune to Marx and Engels. The form of their engagement and discussion with Du¨hring was dominated rather by calculations of power politics. In concrete terms: as the ideological, political and organisational union just reached of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany, i.e. the union of Eisenachers and Lassalleans reached in Gotha, was regarded as an essential condition for its rise to power, Du¨hring and his ideas had to be taken rigorously into their sights and discredited. It is consequently in no way surprising that the whole style of the Anti-Du¨hring is pervaded with the spirit of ‘‘exposure’’. The very description of Du¨hring as ‘‘one of the most characteristic types’’ of ‘‘cheeky sham-science’’[37] (Engels, 1990, p. 6), as a producer of ‘‘superior rubbish’’[38] (Engels, 1990, p. 7), as ‘‘the newest adept and regenerator of socialism’’[39] (Engels, 1982b, p. 45) marks categorical disassociation. It scarcely permits the thought that scientific communication on relevant problem positions, tracking down common standpoints or the sounding of intersections of divergent theories are in the foreground of a discourse with a rival. In this controversy with Du¨hring, thoroughly legitimate question formulations in philosophy and economics, novel forms of thought and explanation, the real substance of critical reflections on theories and states and the range of alternative or complementary ideas were not sought after. In these circumstances structured on power politics, the perspective of Engels and Marx regarding Du¨hring was bound to lead to distortions, bias and superficialities. As source material for the Anti-Du¨hring, Engels and Marx principally used Du¨hring’s writings Critical History of Economics and Socialism (1871, 1875a), Course on Economics and Socialism (1873) and Course on Philosophy as a Strictly Scientific Weltanschauung and Way of Life (1875b). They further brought into play his Natural Dialectic. New Logical Foundation of Science (1865a), Critical Foundation of Political Economy Theory (1866), The Fate of my Social Memorandum for the Prussian State Ministry (1868) and the review of Capital (1867a). Engels grouped his Du¨hring critique around the three great blocks of philosophy, political economy and the theory of socialism. In the field of philosophy the discussion fastened principally on fundamentally divergently answered questions of natural philosophy, of morality and law and of dialectics. Precisely Du¨hring’s concept of the ‘‘philosophy of reality’’ and his highly critical evaluation of the theories of such former philosophers as Leibniz, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel was problematised by Engels. His harsh judgement was ultimately to be:

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He cannot produce his philosophy of reality without dragging in his repugnance to tobacco, cats and Jews as a general law valid for all the rest of humanity, including the Jews. His ‘‘really critical standpoint’’ in relation to other people shows itself by his insistently imputing to them things which they never said and which are of Herrn Du¨hring’s very own fabrication. His verbose lucubrations on themes worthy of philistines, such as the value of life and the best way to enjoy life, are themselves so steeped in philistinism that they explain his anger at Goethe’s Faust[40] (Engels, 1990, p. 134).

Regarding political economy Engel’s polemic targeted Du¨hring’s definition of the subject of this science, his understanding of the relationship of production and distribution, his theory of force, on the theory of value and the interpretation of capital and surplus value. Engels challenged in particular Du¨hring’s thesis that force should be seen as the actual cause of economic processes and phenomena and that the conflicts of contemporary economics could be avoided if one agreed to justice as the principle of order instead of force (cf. Engels, 1990, 147 ff.). In this context, he energetically opposed Du¨hring’s multi-facetted concept of value. This comprised for example that the value of a commodity was basically formed of two components, on the one hand from the labour involved, the ‘‘production value’’, and on the other from the tax surcharge imposed ‘‘sword in hand’’[41], i.e. with force, the ‘‘distribution value’’ (cf. Engels, 1990, 171 ff.). In the face of the different, partly Carey and Pierre Proudhon inspired value theory formulations of Du¨hring, Engels remarked ironically: And now let the reader select for himself, from the five sorts of value served up to us by Herrn Du¨hring, the one that he likes best: the production value, which comes from nature; or the distribution value, which man’s wickedness has created and which is distinguished by the fact that it is measured by the expenditure of energy, which is not contained in it; or thirdly, the value which is measured by labour-time; or fourthly, the value which is measured by the costs of reproduction; or lastly, the value which is measured by wages. The selection is wide, the confusion complete, and the only thing left for us to do is to exclaim with Herrn Du¨hring: ‘‘The theory of value is the touchstone of the worth of economic systems’’[42] (Engels, 1990, p. 182).

It should be emphasised that this clash with Du¨hring offered Engels the opportunity to state more precisely and to consolidate Marx’s research programme in important questions of philosophy, of political economy and of the conception of history. In this respect, the Anti-Du¨hring was henceforth to play an important role in the tradition of Marxist doctrine. The special case What was the starting position of the special case here to be considered? In the context of the economic debate with Du¨hring, Engels and Marx came to the opinion that it was imperative also to comment on his claim to the first scientific representation and critique of the history of political economy. This claim, and the massive assaults on Marx’s economic theory, particularly the criticism of his theories of value, surplus value, capital and property, so also the polemic on economists, philosophers and social theoreticians such as Ricardo, Hegel, Owen, Saint-Simon and Fourier, i.e. with thinkers who Marx himself saw as important sources of his research

programme, was chiefly to be found in the Critical History of Economics and Du¨hring in the Socialism (cf. Du¨hring, 1871, 1875a). Thus, for example, in the second edition: perspective of ‘‘The deeper description of the history of the whole field, indeed the Marx and Engels representation of the novel parts of the same still needed to be written and a large gap in the science and literature to be filled in with the present enterprise’’[43] (Du¨hring, 1875a, III). Incidentally, Du¨hring left no doubt of the 355 fact that his outline of the history of theory was merely a further persuasive argument for the revolution in economic theory to be performed by him, as the ‘‘presentation of a history of thought, in which the successful and unsuccessful are denoted and differentiated, does not merely serve to elucidate the most highly developed contemporary system, but also delivers a more thorough proof of the justification of such a fundamental reconstruction’’[44] (Du¨hring, pp. 1-2; italics – G.K.). In the course of their political and scientific co-production, Marx and Engels came to the agreement that Marx should see to the Critical History. His profound knowledge of the history of the dogma of economics was an ideal prerequisite. In March 1877, he sent Engels the first and larger part of his manuscript, Marginal Notes on Du¨hring’s ‘‘Critical History of Economics’’. A few months later, in August of the same year, the second part followed. This was dedicated in particular to French physiocracy and F. Quesnay’s economic tableau. The essential elements of Marx’s Marginal Notes were then to be published, under the title From the ‘‘Critical History’’, as chapter X of the second section of the Anti-Du¨hring (cf. Engels, 1990, 210 ff.). Engels expressly thanked Marx for the groundwork ‘‘so much for ‘critical history’’’, to remark further: ‘‘That is more than I need to completely kill off the fellow in this field’’[45] (Engels, 1983, p. 37). The history of their writing reveals that Marx preceded the Marginal Notes with two larger manuscripts: first a two-part draft of the notes themselves and second working material with important statements from earlier economic thinkers and remarks from Quesnay and Nicolas Baudeau on the economic tableau (cf. Vollgraf, 1985, p. 234). This fact shows that Marx conducted the debate with Du¨hring in the field of dogma history with the utmost seriousness. This is also indicated by the fact that he specifically looked through his analyses up to that time of the history of economic theory, thereby processing certain aspects of the supplements to the economics manuscript of 1861-1863 and reading up a number of texts in the library of the British Museum. The Marginal Notes show that Marx presented his examination of the Critical History principally with ‘‘a few deterrent examples’’ of Du¨hring’s ‘‘universal breadth of . . . historical survey’’ (Engels, 1990, p. 238). Here he focused on four problem areas in particular. First is the question of the treatment of the time of and reasons for the origin of economic science, the depiction of the establishing and formation of political economy. Marx here criticised precisely Du¨hring’s view that economic theory was an ‘‘enormously modern phenomenon’’, fundamentally ‘‘absolutely without precedent’’[47]. He countered this with his position from Capital and A Contribution to the Critique

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of Political Economy, that political economy as a science had developed and become independent specifically with the manufacture period of capital. He thereby in particular took into account Petty and Boisguillebert as personal caesurae and starting points. Du¨hring’s view that ‘‘higher economics begins only with the wretched abortions brought into existence by bourgeois science after the close of its classical period’’[48] (Engels, 1990, p. 213) is here objected to critically. Second, Marx applies himself to questions of value and money theory (on surplus value and the various reflections about its forms he here makes no comment). He refers especially to the labour-value and money-theory work of Petty, Law and North. His criticism here is directed at Du¨hring’s low estimation of them. Third for discussion was the historical classification of a few economists – Petty, Locke, North and Hume. Whereas Du¨hring, for example, remarked of Petty that the latter possessed ‘‘a fair measure of superficiality in his way of thinking’’, that in him there was to be detected ‘‘no sense of the intrinsic and nicer distinctions between concepts’’[49], Marx accorded him great respect. Referring to Petty’s thoughts on value and utility value, his labour-value theoretical determination of goods and money value, he characterised him as the ‘‘founder of modern political economy’’ and energetically opposed ‘‘the inconspicuous role in the history of economics assigned to him by Herrn Du¨hring’’[50] (Engels, 1990, pp. 216-19). The fact that Du¨hring had made Hume the actual starting point of political economy was to stimulate Marx to further studies of Hume and of the relationship of Hume to Jacob Vanderlint (cf. Engels, 1990, 221 ff.). With particular reference to Hume’s money theory, his honouring of the mercantile businessman as the engine of production, Marx came to the judgement that this Scottish scholar ‘‘in spite of the letters-patent issued to him by Herrn Du¨hring, is nevertheless quite a respectable figure also in the field of political economy, but in this field he is anything but an original investigator, and even less an epoch-making one’’[51] (Engels, 1990, p. 225). Fourth, his evaluation of the French physiocracy and the Tableau of Quesnay attracted particular attention. Du¨hring may have characterised the physiocrats as ‘‘agents of a purely theoretical speculation’’, reproached them with ‘‘arbitrary construction’’ and accused them of ‘‘gloomy uncertainty’’[52] (1875a, pp. 97-8) and seen in the Tableau ‘‘nothing but confused and arbitrary conceptions, ascending to mysticism’’[53], but Marx’s verdict was quite different. He not only clearly showed that Du¨hring had hardly seriously penetrated the reproduction model developed by Quesnay (Engels, 1990, 227 ff.). He also established that the Tableau, ‘‘this both simple and, for its time, brilliant depiction of the annual process of reproduction’’[54] (Engels, 1990, p. 236), already shows the generally typical logic and basic structure of capital production quite clearly. The form of approach of Marx towards Du¨hring revealed by the Marginal Notes verifies the fact that no systematic treatment of the history of theory was here intended. Marx considered it sufficient to set out his controversy with

Du¨hring in the history of ideas by means of examples. In addition, in view of Du¨hring in the his efforts to complete his own outline of the history of theory, the Theories of perspective of Surplus Value, the design was clearly not started by throwing all his scientific Marx and Engels weight into an argument with Du¨hring. Vollgraf rightly remarks: ‘‘Marx was in the position of not wishing decisively to anticipate his history of theory, but still having to muster sufficient arguments for a sound critique of Du¨hring’s 357 depiction of history’’[55] (1985, p. 247). This is equally attested to by Marx himself expressing, in a letter to Engels, that he did not yet wish, in categorising the physiocrats in the history of the science, to ‘‘train all (his) guns on the man’’. ‘‘Once more in plain words, should my point of view be taken up by bunglers and got wrong, before I have a chance to present it’’[56] (1954b, p. 232). Final remarks The eighties and nineties formed as it were the third and final phase of the engagement of Marx and Engels with Du¨hring. This was characterised by only occasional, isolated references to Du¨hring’s work and thought. There was to be no further systematic and substantial involvement with him on the part of Marx and Engels, and no correction of the perspective chosen in relation to Du¨hring is to be noted. Nor did this seem generally on offer from his further development. In the context of the second edition of the Anti-Du¨hring, edited in 1885, Engels wrote: ‘‘The object that it [the paper – G.K.] criticises, is today as good as forgotten’’[57] (1990, p. 8). And with reference to Du¨hring’s efforts to meet Engels’ objections in the third edition of his Critical History (cf. 1879), the latter wrote: ‘‘What Herr Du¨hring has written about my attack, I have not read and will not do so without special cause; I have finished with him theoretically’’[58] (Engels, 1990, p. 9). And with a view to the humiliation meted out to Du¨hring in Berlin by the teaching ban, he added: ‘‘I must by the way uphold the formal rules of literary engagement with him all the more in that the Berlin University has since then done him a shameful injustice’’[59] (Engels, 1990, p. 9). Marx had first referred in May 1880 in his Foreword to the French Edition of Engels’ work, The Evolution of Socialism from Utopia to Science (cf. 1982a, 182 ff.), to his political and journalistic works and thereby drawn attention to the series of articles dedicated to Du¨hring in Vorwa¨rts (Engels, 1982, p. 185). In the time to follow there are only comments from Engels. Thus he wrote in September 1882 to Bernstein that in a planned polemic on Ferdinand Lassalle he did not wish to expose himself ‘‘for a second time’’ to the ‘‘trouble I had with ‘Du¨hring’, when Most protested against it’’[60] (1979, p. 360). Here he was referring to events at the General Socialist Congress in Gotha (May 1877), where an attempt was made to carry a motion initiated by Johann Most which would have prohibited the further publication of Engels’ critique of Du¨hring in Vorwa¨rts. In January 1889, Engels expressed his wrath over the practice to be found in German universities of imposing teaching ban on awkward thinkers, thereby also referring specifically to Du¨hring (cf. 1978, p. 133). In October 1890,

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Engels dealt in an article with views of the social democratic journalist Paul Ernst, expressed on the theme ‘‘dangers of Marxism’’ (cf. 1982c, 80 ff.) With reference to Ernst’s contribution, he came to the conclusion that he ‘‘does not hesitate to appropriate the eccentric assertion of the metaphysicist Du¨hring, as if the story were quite automatic with Marx . . . a man capable of lumping together the distortion of Marxist theory by an opponent like Du¨hring with the theory itself, someone else can help him – I give it up’’[61] (Engels, 1982, p. 83). Engels spoke of Du¨hring for the last time in 1892. In the introduction to the English Edition of his brochure The Evolution of Socialism from Utopia to Science – it contains three chapters of the Anti-Du¨hring – Engels outlined especially for foreign readers the historical circumstances which had induced him and Marx to ‘‘take up the gauntlet thrown down to us [by Du¨hring] and to fight out the struggle’’[62] (1982a, p. 524). In this article it was made clear – as expounded – that the content and conception of the controversy with Du¨hring was largely determined by the political interests of the workers’ movement which was uniting and forming up in the German lands: there had been obtained ‘‘not only an immense increase in strength, but, what was more, the faculty of employing the whole of this strength against the common enemy’’[63], the bourgeoisie (1982a, p. 524). In these circumstances it was inevitable that Du¨hring, with his philosophy and economic ideas, his proposals for a new social project, his critique of Marx and his own political activities, should appear a danger and a rival – and thus be attacked. It was not a search for possible common ground or points of contact which was here to the fore, but a categorical disassociation and the achievement of definitional and interpretational sovereignty. Engels’ remarks – translated into German in June 1892 and published under the separate title On Historical Materialism (cf. 1892-1893) – did not merely cast further light on the background to their polemic on Du¨hring from the perspective of the founders of Marxism. They simultaneously rounded off a two-and-a-half-decade special chapter in the history of German ideas of the nineteenth century. Notes 1. ‘‘Handbu¨cher jedes klassenbewussten Arbeiters’’. 2. ‘‘ein erstaunlich inhaltsreiches und lehrreiches Buch [, in dem ] die tiefsten Probleme der Philosophie, der Natur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften untersucht [werden] ’’. 3. ‘‘eines der bedeutendsten theoretischen Dokumente des Marxismus-Leninismus’’. 4. ‘‘alle Pru¨fungen der Geschichte bestanden . . . grosse Aktualita¨t’’. 5. ‘‘Politik des Totschweigens’’. 6. ‘‘von dem Erfolg [des ersten Bandes abha¨nge] . . . um es platt herauszusagen, durch La¨rmschlagen, durch Ru¨hren der Trommel’’. 7. ‘‘Es ist zuna¨chst nicht so wichtig, was gesagt wird, als dass gesagt wird’’. 8. ‘‘ein sehr vorlauter, schnoddriger Knabe’’. 9. ‘‘krakehligen philosophischen Privatdozenten’’.

¨ konomie aufwirft . . . Er hatte zweierlei getan. 10. ‘‘als Revolutiona¨r in der politischen O Erstens (von Carey ausgehend) eine ‘Kritische Grundlegung der Nationalo¨konomie’ (500 Seiten) und eine neue ‘Natu¨rliche Dialektik’ (gegen die Hegelsche) vero¨ffentlicht’’. 11. ‘‘seinen Meister’’. 12. ‘‘Die Sache von Du¨hring . . . ist sehr ansta¨ndig, so mehr, als ich seinen Meister ‘Carey’ so hart angelassen habe’’. 13. ‘‘Es ist viel von dem Mann, dass er den Abschnitt u¨ber die ‘Urspru¨ngliche Akkumulation’ fast positiv akzeptiert. Er ist noch jung . . . Ausserdem Privatdozent, also nicht unglu¨cklich daru¨ber, dass Professor Roscher, der ihnen allen den Weg versperrt, Fusstritte erha¨lt’’. 14. ‘‘Ich muss dem Mann dankbar sein, da er der erste Fachmann ist, der u¨berhaupt gesprochen hat’’. 15. ‘‘Von offiziell o¨konomischer Seite bis jetzt nur in Hildburghauser ‘Erga¨nzungsbla¨ttern’ anfangs dieses Jahres Referat von Dr. Du¨hring (Privatdozent an der Universita¨t zu Berlin, Anha¨nger Careys) (dies Referat scheu gehalten, im ganzen anerkennend) . . .’’. 16. ‘‘Sonderbar ist’s, dass der Kerl die drei grundneuen Elemente des Buchs nicht herausfu¨hlt, ¨ konomie, die von vornherein die besondren 1. dass im Gegensatz zu aller fru¨heren O Fragmente des Mehrwerts mit ihren fixen Formen von Rente, Profit, Zins als gegeben gehandelt, von mir zuna¨chst die allgemeine Form des Mehrwerts, worin all das noch ungeschieden, sozusagen in Lo¨sung befindet, behandelt wird; ¨ konomen ohne Ausnahme das Einfache entging, dass, wenn die Ware das 2. dass den O Doppelte von Gebrauchswert und Tauschwert, auch die in der Ware dargestellte Arbeit Doppelcharakter besitzen muss, wa¨hrend die blosse Analyse auf Arbeit sans phrase wie bei Smith und Ricardo etc. u¨berall auf Unerkla¨rliches stossen muss. Es ist in der Tat das ganze Geheimnis kritischer Auffassung; dass zum erstenmal der Arbeitslohn als irrationale Erscheinungsform eines dahinter versteckten Verha¨ltnisses dargestellt und dies genau an den beiden Formen des Arbeitslohns: Zeitlohn und Stu¨cklohn dargestellt wird’’. ¨ brigens begeht er halb aus Absicht, halb aus Mangel an Einsicht Betru¨gereien. Er weiss 17. ‘‘U sehr wohl, dass meine Entwicklungsmethode nicht die Hegelsche ist, da ich Materialist, Hegel Idealist. Hegels Dialektik ist die Grundform aller Dialektik, aber nur nach Abstreifung ihrer mystischen Form, und dies gerade unterscheidet meine Methode’’. 18. ‘‘Der ganze Artikel Verlegenheit und funk. Man sieht, der brave Vulga¨ro¨konom ist frappe au vif und weiss nichts zu sagen, als dass man u¨ber den ersten Band erst urteilen ko¨nne, wenn der 3te erschienen, dass die Wertbestimmung durch Arbeitszeit nicht unbestritten sei und dass es Leute gebe, die an der Wertbestimmung der Arbeit durch deren Produktionskosten ihre bescheidnen Ziele hegen . . . Dabei die Angst in jeder Zeile, sich einer Behandlung a la Roscher auszusetzen’’. 19. ‘‘sonderbar verlegene Ton des Herrn Du¨hring in seiner Kritik’’. 20. ‘‘Ich glaube, dass Du¨hring mit aus Malice gegen Roscher das Buch u¨berhaupt besprochen hat. Seine Angst, auch verroschert zu werden, ist allerdings sehr riechbar’’. 21. ‘‘Ich hatte recht, dass er mich nur angezeigt hat, um die anderen zu a¨rgern. Was sehr auffallend, ist der saugrobe Ton dieses berlinerisch Gespreizten gegen Mill, Roscher etc., wa¨hrend er mich doch mit a¨ngstlicher Vorsicht behandelt!’’. 22. ‘‘kein Spiegelbild kontra¨rer Positionen, etwa in der Wertauffassung, sind, sondern von ihm mit dem Blick nach vorn gemacht wurden, Probleme enthalten, die mit dem zweiten und dritten Band des ‘Kapitals‘ zusammenha¨ngen’’. ¨ konomie’’. 23. ‘‘als Revolutiona¨r in der politischen O 24. ‘‘Mein Buch hat ihn nach beiden Seiten beerdigt’’.

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25. ‘‘den Herrn Du¨hring grade gekra¨nkt, dass bei meiner Darstellung die schwachen Punkte, die Carey und 100 andere vor ihm gegen R(icardo) geltend machen, nicht existieren. Er sucht mir daher mauvaise foi die Ricardoschen Borniertheiten aufzubu¨rden’’. 26. ‘‘bei den deutschen Sozialisten grossen Erfolg’’. 27. ‘‘Einwirkungen eines Zweiges der neuen Sectenscholastik anzufu¨hren’’. 28. ‘‘Die Lehre vom Werth ist der Probirstein der Gediegenheit o¨konomischer Systeme. Grade aber in ihr ist es Herrn Marx begegnet, sich in der ersten Auflage . . . so zu verwickeln, dass er in der zweiten den Ru¨ckzug antreten und der bessern...kritischen Oekonomie einige stillschweigende Zugesta¨ndnisse machen musste. Sogar den altfra¨nkischen Sprachgebrauch, nach welchem die Paarung und Entgegensetzung von Gebrauchswerth und Tauschwerth eine Hauptrolle spielte, hat er, soweit es ihm die in der Eile mo¨glichen, nur einige Capitel betreffenden Umarbeitungen gestatteten zum, zum Theil abgelegt . . . Entfernt man das dialektische Gestru¨pp, welches Herr Marx in der 2. Auflage selbst schon ein wenig zu lichten versucht hat, vollsta¨ndig, so zeigt sich nichts weiter, als die gewo¨hnliche, vornehmlich in der Ricardoschen Art und Weise ausgefu¨hrte Lehre, dass die Arbeit Ursache aller Werthe und die Arbeitszeit das Mass derselben sei’’. 29. ‘‘Beziehung zu der Arbeiterbewegung . . . zeitliche Na¨he’’. 30. ‘‘die unter dem wissenschaftlichen Communismus verstandenen begriffe vollsta¨ndig decken’’. 31. ‘‘Um 1875 verku¨ndete Dr. E. Du¨hring, Privatdozent an der Berliner Universita¨t, plo¨tzlich und ziemlich gera¨uschvoll seine Bekehrung zum Sozialismus und bescherte dem deutschen Publikum nicht allein eine umsta¨ndliche sozialistische Theorie, sondern auch einen kompletten praktischen Plan zur Reorganisation der Gesellschaft. Es war eine Selbstversta¨ndlichkeit, dass er u¨ber seine Vorga¨nger herfiel; vor allem beehrte er Marx damit, dass er die volle Schale seines Grimms u¨ber ihn ausgoss. Dies geschah um die Zeit, als die beiden Sektionen der Sozialistischen Partei in Deutschland Eisenacher und Lassalleaner eben ihre Verschmelzung vollzogen hatten . . . Die Sozialistische Partei in Deutschland war im Begriff, rasch zu einer Macht zu werden. Sie aber zu einer Macht zu machen, dazu war die erste Bedingung, dass die neugewonnnene Einheit nicht gefa¨hrdet wurde. Dr. Du¨hring nun schickte sich offen an, um seine Person herum eine Sekte, den Kern einer ku¨nftigen separaten Partei zu bilden’’. 32. ‘‘Nicht weniger als ein komplettes ‘System der Philosophie’, der Geistes-, Moral-, Natur¨ konomie‘- drei dicke und Geschichtsphilosophie; ein komplettes ‘System der politischen O Oktavba¨nde, schwerfa¨llig von aussen und innen, drei Armeekorps von Argumenten, ins ¨ konomen im allgemeinen und Feld gefu¨hrt gegen alle vorhergehenden Philosophen und O gegen Marx im besondern . . . das war’s, was ich aufs Korn nehmen sollte . . . Immerhin gab mir die systematische Weitla¨ufigkeit meines Opponenten Gelegenheit, in Opposition zu ihm und in einer zusammenha¨ngenderen Form, als dies fru¨her geschehn war, die von Marx und mir vertretnen Ansichten u¨ber diese grosse Mannigfaltigkeit von Gegensta¨nden zu entwickeln’’. 33. ‘‘die drei Bestandteile des Marxismus in einer einheitlichen und in sich geschlossenen Form dargestellt wurden’’. 34. ‘‘hier meisterhaft die Anwendung der Einheit des Marxismus auf die Analyse der gesellschaftlichen Prozesse [demonstriert und leiste] bemerkenswerte Beitra¨ge zu den ¨ konomie einzelnen Bestandteilen des Marxismus, sei es zur Philosophie, zur politischen O oder zum wissenschaftlichen Kommunismus’’. 35. ‘‘eine vollsta¨ndige Darstellung der Grundlagen des historischen Materialismus und des wissenschaftlichen Kommunismus’’. 36. ‘‘eine neue Periode der Wirkungsgeschichte des Marxismus’’. 37. ‘‘einer der bezeichnendsten Typen [der] vorlauten Pseudowissenschaft’’.

38. ‘‘ho¨herm Blech’’. 39. ‘‘der neueste Adept und Regenerator des Sozialismus’’. 40. ‘‘Er kann die Wirklichkeitsphilosophie nicht fertigbringen, ohne seinen Widerwillen gegen Tabak, Katzen und Juden als allgemeingu¨ltiges Gesetz der ganzen u¨brigen Menschheit, die Juden eingeschlossen, aufzudra¨ngen. Sein ‘wirklich kritischer Standpunkt’ gegenu¨ber andern Leuten besteht darin, ihnen beharrlich Dinge unterzuschieben, die sie nie gesagt, und die Herrn Du¨hring eigenstes Fabrikat sind. Seine breiten Bettelsuppen u¨ber Spiessbu¨rgerthemata, wie der Wert des Lebens und die beste Art des Lebensgenusses, sind von einer Philisterhaftigkeit, die seinen Zorn gegen Goethes Faust erkla¨rlich macht’’. 41. ‘‘mit dem Degen in der Hand’’. 42. ‘‘Und nun mo¨ge der Leser sich von fu¨nf Sorten Wert, mit denen Herr Du¨hring uns aufwartet, selber diejenige aussuchen, die ihm am besten gefa¨llt: den Produktionswert, der von Natur kommt, oder den Verteilungswert, den die Schlechtigkeit der Menschen geschaffen hat und der sich dadurch auszeichnet, dass er nach dem Kraftaufwand gemessen wird, der nicht in ihm steckt; oder drittens den Wert, der durch Arbeitszeit gemessen wird, oder viertens den, der durch die Reproduktionskosten, oder endlich den, der durch den Arbeitslohn gemessen wird. Die Auswahl ist reichlich, die Konfusion vollkommen, und es bleibt uns nur noch u¨brig, mit Herrn Du¨hring auszurufen: ‘Die Lehre vom Wert ist der Probierstein der Gediegenheit o¨konomischer Systeme’’’. 43. ‘‘Die tiefere Geschichtsschreibung des ganzen Gebiets, ja u¨berhaupt die Darstellung der neuern Theile desselben war erst zu schaffen und eine grosse Lu¨cke in der Wissenschaft und Literatur durch die vorliegende Unternehmung auszufu¨llen’’. 44. ‘‘Vorfu¨hrung einer Gedankengeschichte, in welcher sich das Gelungene und Misslungene gekennzeichnet und unterschieden finden, dient nicht blos zur Erla¨uterung des gegenwa¨rtig am meisten entwickelten Systems, sondern liefert auch den eingehenderen Nachweis der Berechtigung eines solchen fundamentalen Neubaus’’. 45. ‘‘von wegen ‘kritischer Geschichte’ . . . Das ist mehr, als ich brauche, um den Kerl auf diesem Gebiete vollsta¨ndig abzumurksen’’. 46. ‘‘ein paar abschreckende(r) Beispiele’’ von Du¨hrings ‘‘universelle(r) Weite des geschichtlichen Umblicks’’. 47. ‘‘enorm moderne Wissenschaft . . . ganz ohne Vorga¨nger’’. ¨ konomie erst beginnt mit den kla¨glichen Aborten, welche die bu¨rgerliche 48. ‘‘die ho¨here O Wissenschaft nach Ablauf ihrer klassischen Periode zutage gefo¨rdert hat’’. 49. ‘‘ein ziemliches Maß leichtfertiger Denkungsart . . . Abwesenheit des Sinnes fu¨r die innern und feinern Unterscheidungen der Begriffe!’’. ¨ konomie . . . die unansehnliche Rolle, welche Herr 50. ‘‘Begru¨nder der modernen politischen O ¨ konomie spielen la¨ßt’’. Du¨hring ihn in der Geschichte der O 51. ‘‘trotz des ihm von Herrn Du¨hring ausgestellten Patents, auch im Gebiet der politischen ¨ konomie respektabel [bleibt], aber er ist hier nichts weniger als ein origineller Forscher O und noch viel minder epochemachend’’. 52. ‘‘Vertreter einer rein theoretischen Speculation . . . willku¨rliche Construction . . . tru¨ber Unklarheit’’. 53. ‘‘nur eine bis zum Mystizismus steigende Verworrenheit und Willku¨r’’. 54. ‘‘diese ebenso einfache wie fu¨r ihre Zeit geniale Darstellung des ja¨hrlichen Reproduktionsprozesses’’. 55. ‘‘Marx war so in der Situation, seiner Theoriegeschichte nicht entscheidend vorgreifen zu wollen, aber doch ausreichende Argumente fu¨r ein fundierte Kritik an Du¨hrings Geschichtsschreibung zusammentragen mu¨ssen’’.

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56. ‘‘Dies einmal in plain words said, mo¨chte mein Gesichtspunkt von Pfuschern aufgenommen und zugleich verballhornt werden, ehe ich ihn darzustellen Gelegenheit habe’’. 57. ‘‘Der Gegenstand, den sie kritisiert, ist heute schon so gut wie vergessen’’. 58. ‘‘Was aber Herr Du¨hring u¨ber meinen Angriff geschrieben hat, habe ich nicht gelesen und werde es nicht ohne besondre Veranlassung lesen; ich bin theoretisch mit ihm fertig’’. 59. ‘‘Im u¨brigen muß ich ihm gegenu¨ber die Anstandsregeln des literarischen Kampfes um so mehr aufrechterhalten, als ihm seitdem von der Berliner Universita¨t schma¨hliches Unrecht angetan worden ist’’. 60. ‘‘nicht zum zweitenmal [den] Unannehmlichkeiten [aussetzen wolle,]die mir beim ‘Du¨hring‘ passiert sind, als Most dagegen protestierte’’. 61. ‘‘ohne weiteres die verschrobene Behauptung des Metaphysikers Du¨hring . . . aneignet, als mache sich bei Marx die Geschichte ganz automatisch . . . Einem Mann, der die Verdrehung der Marxschen Theorie durch einen Gegner wie Du¨hring mit dieser Theorie selbst zusammenzuwerfen imstande ist, dem mo¨ge ein anderer helfen ich gebe es auf’’. 62. ‘‘hingeworfnen Fehdehandschuh aufzunehmen und den Strauß auszufechten’’. 63. ‘‘nicht nur einen immensen Kraftzuwachs, sondern, was mehr war, die Fa¨higkeit zum Einsatz dieser ganzen Kraft gegen den gemeinsamen Feind’’. References and further reading Bauermann, R. and Jahn, W. (1977), ‘‘Anti-Du¨hring’’ – Eine Enzyklopa¨die des Marxismus, Einheit, Vol. 5, pp. 590-8. Bebel, A. (1874a), Ein neuer ‘‘Communist’’, Der Volksstaat, 13 Ma¨rz. Bebel, A. (1874b), Ein neuer ‘‘Communist’’, Der Volksstaat, 20 Ma¨rz. Drechsler, W. (1997), ‘‘Herrn Eugen Du¨hrings Remotion. Eugen Du¨hring (1833-1921) and the freedom of teaching and research’’, Maastricht University, Maastricht, 16 October, pp. 1-34. Du¨hring, E. (1865a), Natu¨rliche Dialektik. Neue logische Grundlegung der Wissenschaft und Philosophie, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1865b), Capital und Arbeit. Neue Antworten auf alte Fragen, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1865c), Carey’s Umwa¨lzung der Volkswirthschaftslehre und Socialwissenschaft, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1866), Kritische Grundlegung der Volkswirthschafslehre, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1867a), ‘‘Marx, Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, 1. Band, Hamburg, 1867’’, Erga¨nzungsbla¨tter zur Kenntniß der Gegenwart, Bd. 3, Heft 3, pp. 182-6. Du¨hring, E. (1867b), Die Verkleinerer Carey‘s und die Krisis der Nationalo¨konomie. Sechszehn Briefe, Breslau. Du¨hring, E. (1868), Die Schicksale meiner socialen Denkschrift fu¨r das Preußische Staatsministerium, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1871), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, 1 Auflage, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1873), Cursus der National- und Socialo¨konomie einsnschliesslich der Hauptpunkte der Finanzpolitik, Leipzig. Du¨hring, E. (1875a), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, 2 Auflage, Berlin. Du¨hring, E. (1875b), Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung, Leipzig.

Du¨hring, E. (1879), Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie und des Socialismus, 3 Auflage, Berlin. ¨ ber historischen Materialismus’’, Neue Zeit, 11. Jg., Nr. 1 u. 2, 1. Bd. Engels, F. (1892-1893), ‘‘U Engels, F. (1965), Engels an Ludwig Kugelmann, 12 Oktober 1867, Marx, K., Engels, F. Werke (MEW), Bd. 31, Berlin. Engels, F. (1974), Engels an Marx, 7. Januar 1868, MEW Bd. 32, Berlin. Engels, F. (1978), Engels an Conrad Schmidt, 11. Januar 1889, MEW, Bd. 37, Berlin. Engels, F. (1979), Engels an Eduard Bernstein, 13 September 188, MEW, Bd. 35, Berlin. Engels, F. (1982a), ‘‘Einleitung zur englischen Ausgabe’’ (1892) Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft, MEW, Bd. 19, Berlin. Engels, F. (1982b), Preußischer Schnaps im deutschen Reichstag, MEW, Bd. 19, Berlin. Engels, F. (1982c), Antwort an Herrn Paul Ernst, MEW, Bd. 22, Berlin. Engels, F. (1983), Engels an Marx, 6. Ma¨rz 1877, MEW, Bd. 34, Berlin. Engels, F. (1990), Herrn Eugen Du¨hrings Umwa¨lzung der Wissenschaft (‘‘Anti-Du¨hring’’), MEW, Bd. 20, Berlin. Fiedler, G., Hoel, G. and Ko¨nig, R. (1977), ‘‘Der ‘Anti-Du¨hring’ von Friedrich Engels und die ¨ konomie des Sozialismus’’, Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Vol. 12, pp. 1697-707. Politische O Kopf, E. (1977), ‘‘Engels’ ‘Anti-Du¨hring’ und die bu¨rgerliche Marxismuskritik im 19 Jahrhundert’’, Deutsche Zeitschrift fu¨r Philosophie, Vol. 7, pp. 813-31. Lenin, W.I. (1977), Drei Quellen und drei Bestandteile des Marxismus, Lenin WI Werke (LW), Bd. 19, Berlin. Lenin, W.I. (1978), Friedrich Engels, LW, Bd. 2, Berlin. Marx, K. (1954a), Marx an Kugelmann, 11 Oktober 1867, Marx, K., Engels, F. Briefe u¨ber, ‘‘Das Kapital’’, Berlin. Marx, K. (1954b), Marx an Engels, 7 Ma¨rz 1877, Marx, K., Engels, F. Briefe u¨ber ‘‘Das Kapital’’ Berlin. Marx, K. (1974a), Marx an Engels, 8 Januar 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974b), Marx an Engels, 8 Januar 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974c), Marx an Ludwig Kugelmann, 6 Ma¨rz 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974d), Marx an Sigfrid Meyer, 4 Juli 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974e), Marx an Engels, 4 Februar 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974f), Marx an Engels, 11 Januar 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1974g), Marx an Ludwig Kugelmann, 11 Januar 1868, MEW, Bd. 32, Berlin. Marx, K. (1982), Vorbemerkung zur franzo¨sischen Ausgabe (1880) von Friedrich Engels’ ‘‘Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft’’, MEW, Bd. 19, Berlin. Rubner, H. (Hg) (1978), Adolph Wagner, Briefe – Dokumente – Augenzeugenberichte 1851-1917, Berlin. Semjonow, W.S. (1977), ‘‘Die philosophische Begru¨ndung des wissenschaftlichen Kommunismus in Engels’ Werk ‘Anti-Du¨hring’’’, Deutsche Zeitschrift fu¨r Philosophie, Vol. 5, pp. 599-605. Vollgraf, C.E. (1985), ‘‘Marx’s Randnoten zu Du¨hrings ‘Kritische Geschichte der Nationalo¨konomie’’’, Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 8, Berlin, pp. 233-75.

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