German economist, was a descendant of an old Hanoverian family of officials and judges.
Background
He studied history and political science at Göttingen, where he became a member of Corps Hannovera, and Berlin, and obtained a professorship at Göttingen in 1844 and subsequently at Leipzig in 1848.
Roscher is commonly considered, with Karl Knies and Bruno Hildebrand, to be one of the founders of the “older historical school” of German economics. In his small book Grundriss zu Vorles-ungen tiber die Staatsurithschaft nach geschicht-licher Methode (1843) he based the study of political economy on the principles of historical investigation. He was one of the first economists other than Friedrich List to have done so; although in France Auguste Comte had argued in his Cours de philosophie positive, 1830–1842, that the historical method should be applied to all the social sciences, he had himself concentrated on sociology.
Education
He studied at Göttingen, where he became a member of Corps Hannovera, and Berlin. The main origins of the historical school of political economy may be traced to Roscher. Its fundamental principles are dated to his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirtschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode.
Career
In 1848 he was called to the University of Leipzig, where he remained until his death. Roscher is commonly considered, with Karl Knies and Bruno Hildebrand, to be one of the founders of the “older historical school” of German economics.
In his small book Grundriss zu Vorles-ungen tiber die Staatsurithschaft nach geschicht-licher Methode (1843) he based the study of political economy on the principles of historical investigation.
His only work of lasting significance, however, is his Geschichte der National-oekonomik in Deutschland (1874).
Roscher called his method “historical” or “historico-physiological, ” in contrast to the “philosophical” or “idealistic” method.
Compared to the “younger historical school, ” led by Gustav Schmoller, Roscher was much closer to the classical theory of economics.
He thought that the life of nations, like the vegetable and animal world, has four such stages of development: childhood, youth, manhood, and old age.
Thus, development is in both an ascending and a descending direction (in contrast to List’s theory that evolution is exclusively ascending).
Roscher believed that development could best be studied by inquiring into the history of ancient nations like Greece and Rome, because that history has been terminated.
Three factors of production govern the evolution of every nation: land, labor, and capital.
Of these, one is always predominant in each successive stage of life.
A close, and especially a statistical, knowledge of economic facts, according to the “objectivist” spirit of Leopold von Ranke, would permit, in Roscher’s view, the solution of conflicts of interest between the factors of production.
Roscher was much more skilled in collecting obscure details and understanding particular events and theories than in formulating a theory of his own.
Lacking any systematic theory, he was not forced to come to terms with the historical facts he collected or to recognize the futility of his search for “laws of nature” or “laws of evolution. ”
Roscher could not fulfill the declared aim of his historical approach: to achieve for political economy what the historical approach of F. K. von Savigny and Karl F. Eichhorn had already achieved for the field of law and legislation.
However, his Geschichte der National-oekonomik in Deutschland remains an outstanding work that must be consulted by everyone who does research in that field.