With the election of Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Presidency, it is perhaps time well-spent to yet again reflect upon the relation between capitalism and democracy. Today I post a 1947 proposal for the creation of a complementary pair of interdisciplinary seminars on problems of capitalism and democracy to be taught in the University of Chicago’s Divisional Social Science M.A. program. The proposal was written by a 34 year old Austrian, Berthold Franz Hoselitz ( the future founding editor of the journal Economic Development and Cultural Change), and presumably circulated among the respective departments of the Division of Social Science for approval. The copy transcribed here comes from Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution together with the agenda for the faculty meeting when the proposal was scheduled to be discussed. We see from the course announcements that the proposal was accepted.
The poor image of Hoselitz from 1940 is partially compensated for by the fact that it is (up to now) the only image I have been able to find of him at all.
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Fun Fact: Hoselitz taught John Nash
Q. …Did you have any teacher through your period at university which was particularly a role model to you?…
John Nash: I certainly had some good teachers who were very helpful to me and influential. For example, in economics I only took one economics course and I was an undergraduate study in Pittsburgh at what is now called Carnegie Mellon, but by coincidence the person who taught the course, it was a course in international economics, and by coincidence this was someone who came from Austria. So there’s actually to consider Austrian economics is like a different school than typical American or British. So I was by coincidence influenced by an Austrian economist [Bert F. Hoselitz, Associate Professor of Economics appointed October 1, 1947, resigned September 1948, Carnegie Institute of Technology.] which may have been a very good influence.
Source: Interview with Dr. John Nash at the 1st Meeting of Laureates in Economic Sciences in Lindau, Germany, September 1-4, 2004. Interviewer: Marika Griehsel.
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Biographical Note
Bert F. Hoselitz was born Berthold Frank Hoselitz in Vienna, Austria in 1913. He received his doctor of law degree in 1936 from the University of Vienna. He left Austria in 1938, traveling first to England, then to the U.S., where he taught briefly at Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana. He enrolled in the University of Chicago , receiving an M.A. in Economics in 1945. Hoselitz joined faculty at Chicago as an instructor in 1945, and became emeritus in 1978.
Hoselitz advocated interdisciplinary scholarship and his work pushed the common wisdom within economics at the time by considering the role of cultural and sociological factors on economic development. In pursing this line of inquiry, he developed professional relationships with scholars around the globe, though particularly in Asia, and participated in both a research and advisory capacity for a broad spectrum of academic research projects that spanned traditionally distinct social science disciplines. In 1962, Hoselitz supervised a pair of National Science Foundation sponsored studies examining the social and economic entailments of developments in science and technology within Asia, primarily India. At a broader level, he was also active in efforts to bring diverse social science disciplines into conversation with one another. In 1958 began participating in an editorial and authorial capacity for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
Hoselitz’s scholarly activities were not confined to academic research and teaching. He was also active and engaged in policy discussions concerning development and the developing world. In the early phase of his career Hoselitz participated in an array of applied research projects, advising work and professional associations related to economic development and development policy more broadly. For example, he wrote for the United Nations on issues related to economic development, beginning with a 1952 technical-assistance mission to El Salvador, and in the late fifties he served on a team of advisors to the government of India concerning the plan for the national capital region.
In addition to his global professional engagements, Hoselitz also remained an active participant and organizer in the scholarly community of his home institution at Chicago. In 1952 Hoselitz founded the Research Center in Economic Development and Cultural Change at Chicago as well as the affiliated interdisciplinary journal Economic Development and Cultural Change, published through the University of Chicago Press. Hoselitz served as editor from the journal’s inception until 1985. He also served on the committee of the Norman Wait Harris Memorial Foundation based at the University of Chicago which focuses on issues of international interest and works to facilitate the exchange of knowledge about the diverse peoples of the world. In this capacity, Hoselitz organized visits by lecturers, funded conferences and facilitated the foundation’s publishing efforts.
Considered an interdisciplinary pioneer and an expert on the social and cultural dimensions of economic development, Professor Emeritus Bert Hoselitz died in Chicago on February 14, 1995.
Source: University of Chicago Library. Guide to the Bert F. Hoselitz papers, 1923-1987.
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DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
A G E N D A
Tuesday, June 3, 1947, at 1. p.m. in Room SS 424
- Students’ Business:
- Tom, Chiu-Faat Joseph: Petition to take Chinese as second language.
- Berkman, Herman G.: Petition to take Planning as major field of specialization; to take intensive examination in French only.
- Murphy, J. Carter: Petition to substitute Mathematics for second language.
- Schwitzer, Selma: Petition for Mathematics to be one of secondary fields of specialization for A.M. (alternative). Other fields statistics and theory.
- Weil, R.A.: Petition to waive residence requirement.
Recommendation to Candidacy. Tentative approval of thesis topic: “Federal Aid to Achieve State-Local Co-operation in a Counter-Cyclical Fiscal Policy.”
- Weil, R.A.: Petition to waive residence requirement.
Recommendation to Candidacy.
Tentative approval of thesis topic: “Federal Aid to Achieve State-Local Co-operation in a Counter-Cyclical Fiscal Policy.” - Seminar, course and staff for “Problems of Capitalism and Democracy”
- Plans for counseling students during summer and next fall.
- New business.
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OUTLINE FOR A PROGRAM ON THE “PROBLEM OF CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY”
I. Background
Some two years ago the History Department of the University of Chicago discussed the possibility of instituting in their Department so-called “problem-courses”. Instead of subdividing the subject matter of history on the basis of time periods and countries or regions, they felt that major problems, notably those of capitalism and democracy, should be studied in their historical perspective. These plans were thought over for some time but were not put into effect during the war, chiefly because of lack of suitable personnel who could be charged with the preparation and execution of these courses.
When, a few months ago, the Divisional Masters Committee met, and when it was decided that the Divisional Master’s program should provide for a more generalized program than that provided by departmental courses, the suggestion was made that the courses on the history of capitalism and the history of democracy might be worked out in a manner in which not only the historical sweep of the two institutions would be under consideration, but where also the problems arising in the two areas would be studied. The courses were thus conceived by the Divisional Masters Committee as comprising an analysis of historical background as well as the “nature” and problems of capitalism and of democracy.
When these courses were discussed it was the feeling of some members of the Divisional Masters Committee that what was needed to be stressed more and made more explicit than could be done by giving two apparently unrelated courses in isolation, was the problem of the interrelations of capitalism and democracy, or (in different words) the relationship of economic organization and the realization of political values of liberty, equality, and justice. This dilemma was met by the Masters committee by declaring the courses to be long into one “field” of study and by suggesting that the students be asked to take the courses simultaneously, by providing for parallel planning and teaching of the courses, as much as possible, and by providing an examination over the two courses (the field) in which the interrelations between economic organization and political values was stressed.
This plan was submitted to the Executive Committee of the Division of the Social Sciences and accepted as part of a program for the Divisional Masters Degree. At a later meeting between representatives of the Divisional Masters Committee and members of the Department of Economics, Political Science, and History, the problem was discussed again, and reasons for combination of the two courses, as well as reasons against brought forward. In addition the proposal was made and accepted that a faculty seminar be established which concern itself with the whole problem raised by the relationship of economic and political organization, notably the interrelations of capitalist, free enterprise, economic organization and political democracy.
II. Some Thoughts on a Program for Studying the Problem of Capitalism and Democracy.
A seminar or a combined course on the problems of capitalism and democracy seem to me to involve two sub-problems which ought to be separated from each other. One is the examination of the relationship of given economic institutions in the particular political framework and the processes which would be set in motion both in the political and economic field by attempts to realize certain aims of human welfare, or other chiefly political values, such as justice, freedom, etc.
The other problem would involve a study of actual processes of the interaction of political and economic institutions, their mutual interrelations in the past under different conditions in their dependence upon it given set of values in the particular hierarchies in which these values were accepted in certain countries and at certain times.
Both approaches may be dynamic but the first would primarily be analytical in that it would study the probable consequences of economic and political policies upon each other and therefore would in part deal with the study of how the existing institutions would be shaped by policies designed to meet social objectives in a more adequate way then is being done at present. In this analysis existing institutions such as constitutional arrangements, legal rules, the whole economic structure and possibly the international power structure as they affect the various countries, would be the starting point of the examination. This analysis would deal with problems which are of the utmost importance in the light of the discussion going on currently. It would have to take up those problems which presently are generally assumed under the heading of the relationship of freedom and planning. I think that it might be well for the Department to arrange the questions of a general and wide character affecting the whole social structure be included as well as more limited problems dealing with very specific economic or political policies in particular fields and their repercussions on the whole social structure.
The historical part could be used, it appears to me, for the following purposes.
(1) It could throw light on the coexistence of particular economic and political institutions especially on the historical coexistence of capitalism and democracy.
(2) It could provide evidence to show how and to what extent changes which either of the two institutions undergo undergoes in industrial civilization, have affected the other, and therefore could provide a basis for making certain analogies which present policies actually in operation or proposed.
(3) It would have to be supplemented by an analysis of the influence of the institutions of industrial capitalism and democratic political organization upon the formation of human personality, and vice versa the influence of human motivations and psychological factors upon the social, economic and political organization of the time.
(4) I am not certain whether an analysis of the origins of capitalism would be fruitful in this connection, but I think that it would be useful in the historical part to provide for a comparison between the social structure of the 19th century in the economic organization which it manifested in political values which it claimed to realize, and other societies, their economic and technological equipment and their political organization. If this can be supplemented by a comparison of the “basic personalities” in the two cultures, this might throw additional light on the question whether industrial capitalism and political democracy are bound up with each other, whether the ties exist in the social field exclusively, what ties are provided by the personality structure of the individuals composing the society and what evidence is provided by the historical incidence of attempts simultaneously to realize certain economic and political aims.
It seems to me, therefore, a defect that in the original planning of the program social psychologists and social anthropologists did not participate and I would think that both of these have important contributions to make.
Although it would be difficult clearly to separate the analytical approach which is concerned with examination of concrete presently existing problems confronting us in America and European countries as well as some of the “backward” countries, from the historical problems, I don’t think that such a separation would be necessary as long as it is logically plain that in the one area we are dealing with the application of generalizations drawn from history and other social sciences on practical policies, whereas in the other field we deal with an attempt to give a comprehensive examination of why particular processes occur, when and where they occurred and what factors were responsible for their occurrence. In other words, the two approaches would complement each other and would give opportunity to representatives of all the social science disciplines to make a contribution.
We frequently talk about the problem of modern society and I think we mean primarily by this the set of problems outlined above. Although as individuals we feel inclined that we must provide answers of what will be the probable effects of concrete policies, all of us attempt to build those answers into a logical framework which comprises the totality of social arrangements in which, therefore, is colored by our conception of political and cultural processes as well as economic ones. Any clarification of the relationships of these processes in present-day society which can be deduced by analytical study or by an examination of historical periods from which analogies for present-day action can be provided might therefore give at least a partial answer. I would like to see both the seminar and a course or combination of courses be carried on on the basis of these thoughts. If a more complete outline is desirable I shall gladly provide one.
Respectfully submitted
Bert Hoselitz
May 22, 1947
Source: Hoover Institution Archives, Milton Friedman Papers, Box 79, Folder “79.1 University of Chicago, Minutes, Economics Department 1946-1949”.
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DIVISIONAL COURSES
[…]
Social Science 300A,B,C. The Nature and Problems of Capitalism. A study of the economic institutions of capitalist society in the more critical phases of their development up to the present, with particular emphasis on the social and political context in which economic change occurs. Closely correlated with Social Science 301A, B,C, which is taken concurrently. Enrolment limited to students under the Divisional Master’s Program. Aut, Win, Spr: MWF 10:30; Staff.
Social Science 301A,B,C. The Nature and Problems of Democracy (identical with Political Science 300A,B,C). Examination of the political institutions of Western society, especially in their relation to the development of democratic ideals and practices. Major concern is with American institutions as they operate in the context of both democratic ideals and political reality. Taken concurrently with Social Science 300 A, B, C. Enrolment limited to students under the Divisional Master’s Program. Aut, Win, Spr: MWF 10:30; Staff.
Source: University of Chicago, Announcements Vol. XLIX, No. 9 (July 1, 1949). The Division of the Social Sciences, Sessions of 1949-1950. p. 10.
Image Source: Declaration of Intention to apply for U.S. citizenship by Bertold Franz Hoselitz (alias Hazlitt), August 8, 1940.