MEMORANDUM

laws. In other words the candidate does not at all touch upon the problem of such
specifically social principles.
His critique of “teleological theories” is unconvincing simply because he
lumps together so differently oriented thinkers as Stammler, Rickert and Sergius
Hessen, the latter being a student of Rickert, but with largely independent views.
The attempt to show that, contrary to communis opinion doctorum, the individual
was in general not harmed, depends on some kind of misunderstanding.
The candidate opposes the common assertion of the relativity of social laws by
a far too convenient argument. When he in this connection, of all things presents
Gresham’s Law as an example of a social law in a strict sense, his position is not
strengthened. Because, even when disregarding that the strictness in this case is
rather problematic, this “Law” stems from the pre-historic period of economic
science, in fact, as Gide on some occasions has pointed out, from the Periclean age.
Although the candidate in his remarks has not contributed much towards
clarifying the issue that the first part of dissertation is dedicated to, it is nevertheless
certain that he seriously has struggled with this difficult topic and reached his own
position on it. Otherwise, the first part does not need to be part of the printed
version, especially as it is only loosely connected to the main object of the
dissertation.”
Apparently, there was not much Bortkiewicz found meritorious in the first part of the
dissertation. Although the original draft has been lost, it seems that Bortkiewicz’s advice of
leaving out the introductory part was heeded.
“There is an intention behind the candidate’s title for the second part of the
dissertation, rather than “The economic circulation” (Der wirtschaftlichen
Kreislauf), he has called it “The economy as circular flow” (Die Wirtschaft als
Kreislauf). The aim was to express that the “circulation concept”
(Kreislaufvorstellung) is the only adequate one for the nature of the economy. (…)
The stated postulate of a “cyclic” point of view, as one might call it, is by
Leontief elevated to become the constituting principle of economics
(Nationalökonomie) as a subject]. Phenomena which do not have the kindness to fit
into this point of view of view are for him excluded from the realm of economics.
He shows no modesty in opposing his “circulation principle” (Kreislaufprinzip) to
the “concept of economic man” and letting the latter virtually be supplanted by the
former. Then he dissolves people in individual activities (“Dienste”) and
perceptions (“Empfindungen”), which with him ranks as elements of the economic
processes along with material goods and do not differ principally from these.
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