WAGNER, ADOLF (1835- )

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 235 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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WAGNER, ADOLF (1835- ) , German economist, was born at Erlangen on the 25th of

March

1835. Educated at Gottingen and

Heidelberg

HEIDELBERG

, he was professor of political science at Dorpat and Freiburg, and after 187o at Berlin. A prolific writer on economic problems, he brought out in his study of the subject the close relation which necessarily exists between economics and jurisprudence. He ranks without doubt as one of the most eminent German economists and a distinguished leader of the historical school. His leanings towards Christian

socialism

SOCIALISM

made him one of those to whom the appellation of " Katheder-Socialisten " or " socialists of the (professional) chair " was applied, and he was one of the founders of the Verein fur Socialpolitik. In 1871 he undertook, in conjunction with Professor E. Nasse (1829-1890), a new edition of Rau's Lehrbuch der politischen Okonomie, and his own

special

SPECIAL

contributions, the Grundlegung and Finanzwissenschaft, afterwards published separately, are probably his most important works. He approaches economic studies from the point of view that the

doctrine

DOCTRINE

of the jus naturae, on which the physiocrats reared their economic structure, has lost its hold on belief, and that the old a priori and absolute conceptions of personal freedom and property have given way with it. He

lays

LAYS

down that the economic position of the individual, instead of depending merely on so-called natural rights or even on his natural

powers

POWERS, HIRAM (1805-1873)

, is conditioned by the contemporary juristic

system

SYSTEM

, which is itself an historical product. These conceptions, therefore, of freedom and property, half economic, half juristic, require a fresh examination. Wagner accordingly investigates, before anything else, the conditions of the economic life of the community, and in sub-ordination to this, determines the sphere of the economic freedom of the individual. Among his works are Beitrage zur Lehre von den Banken (1857),

System

SYSTEM

der deutschen Zettelbankgesetzgebung (18701873) and Agrar- and Industriestaat (1902).
His brother, HERMANN WAGNER (1840 ), a distinguished geographer, joined the Geographical Institute of Justus Perthes in 1868, and was editor of the statistical section of the Gothaer Almanack up to 1876. In 1872 he founded Die Bevolkerung der Erde, a

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

of area and population, and in 1880 he was appointed professor of geography at Gottingen. He was editor of the Geographisches Jahrbuch from 1880 to 1908. His publications include Lehrbuch der Geographie (7th ed., 1903) and Methodischer Schulatlas (12th ed., 1907).

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