The State

Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically

Franz Oppenheimer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351302623
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The State represents the epitome of Franz Oppenheimer's thinking. It integrates political and historical philosophy on the one hand, with economic philosophy on the other. Oppenheimer believed the future progress of nations would be in the direction of liberal socialism. He foresaw a society free from all monopolistic tendencies through unfettered competition.According to Oppenheimer, competition is restrained by a powerful class monopoly, created not through economic differentiation, but through political power. This class monopoly stands between the masses and the land. The laboring class is subject to the will of the upper classes because it does not control the means of production necessary to work in its own interest. Oppenheimer asserts that the right to hold more land than one can properly work through his own efforts and the efforts of his family cannot exist without political control, and is the single most important explanation for the formation of monopolies in human society. He proves his theory in an original analysis.Paul Gottfried writes in the new introduction that The State sums up and illustrates Oppenheimer's general theory of the origin, development, and expected transformation of the state, central political institution of the modern world. Much of Oppenheimer's work embodies the same independent spirit reflected in his way of life. The State provides a wealth of information for economists, political theorists, and sociologists. Franz Oppenheimer was professor of economics and sociology at the University of Frankfurt in Germany until he retired in 1929. In 1933 he was forced to flee the Nazi regime and eventually came to the United States, where he died in 1943. Paul Gottfried is professor of political science at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Search for Historical Meaning; Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory; Conservative Millenarians: The Romantic Experience in Bavaria; and After Liberalism (forthcoming from Princeton University Press). He is general editor of Religion and Public Life.

Notes

¹ “History is unable to demonstrate any one people, wherein the first traces of division of labor and of agriculture do not coincide with such agricultural exploitations, wherein the efforts of labor were not apportioned to one and the fruits of labor were not appropriated by some one else, wherein, in other words, the division of labor had not developed itself as the subjection of one set under the others.”—Robertus-Jagetzow, Illumination on the social question, second edition. Berlin, 1890, p. 124. (Cf. Immigration and Labor. The economic aspects of European Immigration to the United States, by Dr. Isaac A. Hourwich. Putnam’s, N. Y., 1912.— Translator.)

² Achelis, Die Ekstase in ihrer kulturellen Bedeutung, vol. 1 of Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1902.

³ Grosse, Formen der Familie. Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896, p. 39.

⁴ Ratzel, Völkerkunde. Second Edition. Leipzig and Wien, 1894-5, II, p. 372.

⁵ Die Soziale Verfassung des Inkareichs. Stuttgart, 1896, p. 51.

⁶ Siedlung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen, etc. Berlin, 1895, I, p. 273.

⁷ 1. c. I, p. 138.

⁸ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 702.

⁹ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 555.

¹⁰ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 555.

¹¹ Fop example with the Ovambo according to Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 214, who in part “seem to be found in slavelike status,” and according to Laveleye among the ancient Irish (Fuidhirs).

¹² Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 648.

¹³ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 99.

¹⁴ Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit. Stuttgart, 1886, II, p. 302.

¹⁵ Lippert, 1. c. II, p. 522.

¹⁶ Römische Geschichte. Sixth Edition. Berlin, 1874, I, p. 17.

¹⁷ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 518.

¹⁸ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 425.

¹⁹ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 545.

²⁰ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 390-1.

²¹ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 390-1.

²² Lippert, 1. c. I, p. 471.

²³ Kulischer, “The history of the development of interest from capital.” Jahrbücher für National Œkon-omie. III series, vol. 18, p. 318, Jena, 1899: (Says Strabo: “Plunderers and from the scant supplies of their native land covetous of the lands of others.”)

²⁴ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 128.

²⁵ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 591.

²⁶ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 870.

²⁷ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 890-1.

²⁸ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 888-9.

²⁹ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 103-04.

³⁰ Thurnwald, Staat und Wirtschaft im altem Egypten. Zeitschrift für Sos. Wissenchaft, vol. 4 1901, pp. 700-01.

³¹ Ratzel, 1. c. II, pp. 404-05. (Gumplowicz, Bassenkampf, p. 264: “Egypt, rich and self-sufficient, says Ranke, invited the avarice of neighboring tribes, who served other gods. Under the name of the Shepherd peoples, foreign dynasts and foreign tribes ruled Egypt for centuries. “Truly, the summary of universal history could not be begun with more characteristic words than those of Ranke. For in the words applied to Egypt the quintessence of the whole history of mankind is summed up.”— Translator.)

³² Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 165.

³³ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 485.

³⁴ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 480.

³⁵ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 165.

³⁶ Buhl, Soziale Verhältnisse der Israelii en, p. 13.

³⁷ Ratzel, 1. c. II, p. 455.

³⁸ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 628.

³⁹ Ratzel, 1. c. I, p. 625.

⁴⁰ Cieza de Leon, “Seg. parte de la crònica del Peru.” P. 75, cit. by Cunow, Inkareich (p. 62, note 1).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface
• I The State: Theories of the State
• II The Genesis Op the State
• III The Primitive Feudal State
• IV The Maritime State
• V The Development of the Feudal State
• VI The Development of the Constitutional State
• VII The Tendency of the Development of the State
• Notes