CUisis AuthoU(s): ReinhaUt Koselleck and Michaela W ... - iSites

Koselleck + Crisis
of the first half of the century-and beyond-had been imported from the
U.S.A., England, and France. Thus in 1837 the Cologne Chamber of Commerce
reported: "Because in the last two decades our province had entered
into significant direct and indirect relations with North America, it was
inevitable that the adverse effects of this crisis would be felt by our commerce
and factories."126
The belief in the recurrence of crises became no less entrenched. In
1837, Rother, the head of the Prussian Merchant Marine, speaks of "common,
periodically recurring pressures" (without using our term)127; as does
Harkort in 1844: "those crises of market surpluses . . . which consistently
recur within short periods."128 The sense of inevitability is spreading as
well: "there exists no means by which to prevent a commercial crisis.'"129
Needless to say, economic crises were increasingly attributed to technical
innovations. As noted by Henrik Steffens: "There is perhaps no crisis in
modern times more devastating than that caused by the ever increasing introduction
of railways."130
From the 1840s on, the economically-based concept of crisis permeates
the growing literature of social criticisms-coming from all political and
social camps-that had begun to flood the market.'31 "Crisis" was well
suited to conceptualize both the emergencies resulting from contemporary
constitutional or class specific upheavals, as well as the distress caused by
industry, technology, and the capitalist market economy. These could be
treated as symptoms of a serious disease or as a disturbance of the economy's
equilibrium. This undoubtedly prompted Roscher, in 1854, to coin
the general formula: these are crises "the changing substance of which may
take changing forms. Such crises are called 'reforms' if they are resolved
peacefully under the auspices of the established legal system, but 'revolu-
126 "Jahresbericht der Handelskammer Keiln" (1837), cited in Kuczynski, Lage der Arbeiter,
Part 1, vol 11, 69; see also ibid., 42, 100, 110, 132.
127 Christian Rother, "Memorandum des Leiters des k6niglichen Seehandlungsinstituts"
(April 3, 1837), cited in ibid., 7, footnote.
128 Friedrich Harkort, Bemerkungen tiber die Hindernisse der Civilisation und Emancipation
der unteren Klasse (Ebersfeld, 1844); see also J. Kuczynski, Die Geschichte der Lage
der Arbeiter unter dem Kapitalismus, Part 1 vol. 9: Bargerliche und halbfeudale Literatur
aus den Jahren 1840 bis 1847 zur Lage der Arbeiter. Eine Chrestomathie (Berlin, 1960),
127.
129 Karl Quentin, "Ein Wort zur Zeit der Arbeiterkoalitionen" (1840), Kuczynski, Lage
der Arbeiter, Part 1, vol. 9, 185.
130 Henrik Steffens, "Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben" (1844),
cited in Manfred Riedel, "Vom Biedermeier zum Machinenzeitalter," Archiv fir Kulturgeschichte,
43 (1961), 103.
131 See Kuczynski, Lage der Arbeiter, Part 1, vol. 9, 47, 90, 94, 127f., 160ff., 185.
391