Imperialism and Social Classes by Joseph Schumpeter

Author:Joseph Schumpeter [Joseph Schumpeter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61016-042-1
Publisher: The World Publishing Company
Published: 1966-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

Social Classes in an Ethnically Homogeneous Environment

PREFATORY NOTE

The basic idea here briefly set forth dates back to the year 1910 and was first presented in a lecture course for laymen on the subject of “State and Society” which I delivered at the University of Czernowitz (Cernauti) in the winter of 1910-1911. Subsequently, at Columbia University in the winter of 1913-1914, I presented it at length in a course entitled “The Theory of Social Classes.” Since that time I have never altogether stopped developing my thoughts and analyzing the material on the subject, but after 1916 the topic took second place to other interests. Hence I am glad to seize upon the occasion of a lecture, delivered on November 19, 1926, at the University of Heidelberg, under the title “Leadership and Class Formation,” to formulate once again and to publish for the first time a line of reasoning which, according to my present plan of work, I shall be able to work out fully only years from now, if at all. I offer this by way of explanation, though not of excuse, for the gaps and unevennesses in the following presentation, which stand in regrettable contrast to the length of time during which the thoughts matured and the amount of effort that went into them.

The qualifying phrase, “in an ethnically homogeneous environment,” is not meant to deny the significance of racial differences in explaining concrete class formations. On the contrary, my early thinking on the subject followed the paths of the racial theory of classes, as it is found in the works of Gumplowicz, upon which I came while I was still at school. One of the strongest impressions of my apprenticeship came from Haddon, the ethnologist, who, in a course given at the London School of Economics late in 1906, demonstrated to us the differing racial types of various classes of Asiatic peoples, with the aid of countless photographs. Nevertheless, this is not the heart of the matter, not the reason why there are social classes. True, even the cursory outline, imperfect in every respect, which I present in the following, must at one point take account of this factor—since no explicit presentation would be possible otherwise. But in order not to complicate the basic features of the picture, I thought it best to exclude the racial factor in what I have to say. When it comes to investigating the “essential nature” of a social phenomenon, it is often proper and necessary to ignore certain external factors that may be quite characteristic or at least common. They may be “essential” in many respects, but not for the purposes in hand.

The theory of social classes has not attracted an amount of study truly commensurate with its fundamental importance. Marx, for example, who recognized its importance and even exaggerated it in one direction, offered a theory of the evolution of classes, but not really a theory of classes themselves. Even so, it is scarcely fair for Sombart to say (Sozialismus und Soziale Bewegung, p.

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