Social Policy: Hayek and Schmoller Compared

Abstract

The quite difficult task of comparing Hayek's and Schmoller's concept of social policy can only be attempted by confining the discussion to the dominant and basic principles of their prevailing ideas. The reasons are manifold. Just one of them for instance is that Schmoller, as far as I can see, never gave us any workable definition of this ambiguous term, and for Hayek this term is a politically much abused and empty phrase. Another would be that Hayek referred to Schmoller only sporadically and treated the latter's voluminous oeuvre only very peripherally in his own relevant work. I, therefore, suggest the concentration mainly on Hayek's critique of Schmoller's two important components of his somewhat “syndicalistic” system which determined his vague, but still relevant concept of “social policy”.

Citation

Leube, K.R. (1989), "Social Policy: Hayek and Schmoller Compared", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 16 No. 9/10/11, pp. 106-116. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014127