NON NOVA, NOVITER? HEINRICH DIETZEL AND THE LAST SIGH OF CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY IN GERMANY

The Methodenstreit dominated economic discourse in the late nineteenth-century Germany. In this environment, one author stood out amongst the rest: Heinrich Dietzel. Dietzel proposed a theory and method, his Sozialökonomik (social economics), as a solution for the Methodenstreit. This reformulation was based in correcting what he perceived as mistakes of classical political economy that created confusion by not explaining what they saw as self-evident. His intention was to detach from the latest developments (both in British and German political economy) as well as from what he saw as erroneous criticism that, at the time, existed in German-speaking countries. This paper presents Dietzel’s perspective on the reformulation of classical political economy, focusing on the definition of an economic science, the proper method for theoretical statements, and the theory of value.