Structural trends of globalization and new accents of economic science

The article analyzes significant shifts in the structure of the balance of power and global leadership associated with the rapid growth of China's financial and economic power and the US infrastructure initiatives in the Indo-Pacific aimed at containing China. The key structural trends of globalization in the context of competition between liberal and communitarian paradigms have been identified. On this basis, the probable shifts in accents of contemporary economic thought are predicted. It is substantiated that due to strengthening the global role of China, particularly in the economic, financial, and infrastructural spheres, today there is a tangible influence of Confucian values and East Asian models of successful modernization of the economy and society on the socio-economic policy of some countries of Central and Eastern Europe against a backdrop of a relative consolidation of their economic positions in the EU. With this regard, the heritage of the German Historical School of economic thought is becoming more relevant. The need to revise the dominant approaches in economic science towards greater focus on ethical, socio-political and other specific historical conditions and factors of economic activity is emphasized.

John Stuart Mill

This article attempts to illustrate the interrelations between theory and history in John Stuart Mill’s political economy. Mill follows a stages theory from the tradition of the Scottish historical school and viewed history as an essential part in understanding economic phenomena. The article stresses the affinities between Mill and the Scottish historical school while at the same time showing how Mill moves between theory and history to verify his views or to show the limit of his economic analysis. This movement, viewed as a part of his attempt to sketch out a middle way between Ricardianism and inductivism, provided Mill the opportunity to make an extensive use of factual data before the professionalization of economic history proper in the late nineteenth century.

OF ALCOHOL, APES, AND TAXES: GÜNTER SCHMÖLDERS AND THE REINVENTION OF ECONOMICS IN BEHAVIORAL TERMS

The article examines an early and idiosyncratic version of behavioral economics or “empirical socio-economics,” which the German economist and taxation expert Günter Schmölders developed in the postwar decades. Relying on both his published papers and his lecture notes and correspondence, it scrutinizes Schmölders’s intellectual upbringing in the tradition of the Historical School of Economics (Historische Schule der Nationalökonomie) and his relation to the emerging ordoliberalism, demonstrating that the roads that led to dissatisfaction with the emerging neoclassical mainstream and the unrealistic behavioral assumptions of macroeconomic models were manifold. Accordingly, it shows that behavioral economics is compatible with various intellectual and political backgrounds and convictions. Yet, it still forms a distinct entity: comparing Schmölders with contemporary and later behavioral economists, I will show that they shared essential methodological assumptions as well as an understanding of human beings as decision-making organisms.

Making Public History:

In June 2020 Black Lives Matter had become prominent in the USA and was taken further in various countries . This included opposition to certain statues and memorials , such as those previously supporting slavery. Such matters were raised in Britain, although both disputes in the past and changes to statues and memorials had previously taken place, for example in Lancaster. Within relatively political progressive places, like Bristol, some disputed memorials had remained. Some press coverage almost implied that there were new recognitions of unknown events even dating back to the early nineteenth century. However, such debates had not been unprecedented. Further, in local disputes or through many past anti racist action and in positive historical school curricula, political and historical positions have been forgotten. Attention should be drawn by public historians to former radical stances and actions. Simply observing and just seeing local stances as new events means being unaware of past activities or ignoring them.

American Legal Thought in Transatlantic Context, 1870-1914

Most American legal scholars have described their nineteenth-century predecessors as deductive formalists. In my recent book, Law’s History : American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History, I demonstrate instead that the first generation of professional legal scholars in the United States, who wrote during the last three decades of the nineteenth century, viewed law as a historically based inductive science. They constituted a distinctive historical school of American jurisprudence that was superseded by the development of sociological jurisprudence in the early twentieth century. This article focuses on the transatlantic context, involving connections between European and American scholars, in which the historical school of American jurisprudence emerged, flourished, and eventually declined.

What Use Is Customary International Law?

Customary international law as a source of general law is given a primary place in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. However, it is historically a concept created by legal doctrine. The very idea of custom supposes legal persons are natural persons living in a dynamic, evolving community. This was the assumption of the historical school of law in the 19th century when the concept of custom was developed. Now the dominant notion of legal personality is the State as an impersonal corporation and international legal theory (Brierly and D’Amato) can see well that the death of the historical school of law has to mean the death of the concept of custom. What should replace it? Two steps need to be taken in sequence. Firstly, following the Swedish realist philosopher Haegerstrom, we have to ascertain the precise constellations of the conflictual attitudes the populations of States have to the patterns of normativity which they project onto international society. Secondly, we should follow the virtue ethics jurisprudence of Paul Ricoeur and others, who develop a theory of critical legal doctrinal judgement, along the classical lines of Aristotle and Confucius, to challenge and sort out the prejudices of peoples into some reasonable shape, whereby these can be encouraged to understand and respect one another. Then one will not have to endure so many silly interpretations of international law such as the one declaring that there are only rocks in the South China Sea and not islands. Such interpretations have nothing to do with the supposedly ordinary legal language analysis of a convention and the State practice surrounding it. They have to do entirely with a continued lack of respect by Western jurists for non-Western societies and nations.

The Ancient Oriental Problematics of the Scientifi c Heritage of Professor O.A. Zhidkov

The article directed to research of the oriental direction in the scientific activity of the famous historian jurist Zhidkov Oleg Andreevich. We analyzed his author’s provisions from textbooks and scientific publications from the middle of the last century, in which he developed a non-trivial outline for comparative oriental studies, as an integral part of the historical school of the RUDN University. Among the important achievements of the professor Zhidkov, there is a bibliographic analysis of the authority works of Western orientalists and Russian oriental jurists, his specific approach to political genesis and the emergence of ancient law, and his polemics with Western orientalists on the varna/class division of the Ancient Eastern population. Zhidkov’s research is also aimed at the identification of a hydrotechnical type of economy (‘landwater commune’), and comparative historical description of the Eastern law and legal institutions. The field of discussion remains the systematicity of law and legal codification in the Ancient East, which his colleagues and followers of his teachings are developing in our days in the scientific heritage of O.A. Zhidkov.

Schumpeter’s Entrepreneur and The German Historical School. A Critical Analysis

This paper provides a fundamental critic of the Schumpeterian concept of entrepreneurship. Being one of the most influential economist of the 20th century, Schumpeter inspired many different lines of economic thought. The nexus of his theory, the concept of entrepreneurship, can be seen as his most important contribution to economic theory. A deeper understanding of the complex work of Schumpeter requires to identify the intellectual roots and the core of his thinking. This paper claims that the core in his thinking can be found in the conceptual basis of the German Historical School. It is reasoned that the Schumpeterian entrepreneur is understandable and inherently consistent, if he is interpreted as a representative of the thought system of German historicism. Key words: German Historical School - Schumpeter - Entrepreneurship. JEL Classification: A12, A14, B15, B25, B31, B53. Resumen: Este artículo critica de forma fundamental el concepto de función empresarial de Schumpeter e identifica que el origen conceptual de su teoría sobre el empresario se encuentra en la Escuela Histórica Alemana. Palabras clave: Escuela Histórica Alemana - Schumpeter - función empresarial. Clasificación JEL: A12, A14, B15, B25, B31, B53.

Historical Legal Science Challenged by Postnonclassical Scientific Rationality

The article shows the methodological problems that face the history of state and law at the present stage of development of scientific rationality. As one of the possible answers to the challenges of new methodological approaches, it is proposed to use the historical and anthropological theory of law, which combines the best achievements of the German historical school of law with anthropocentrism as a direction of the post-classical sociological school of law. It is concluded that this theory is quite applicable for the reconstruction of legal life and identifying patterns of its historical dynamics.