Alfred Kähler
Alfred Kähler (born May 8, 1900 in Lübeck , † September 12, 1981 in Little Rock , Arkansas ) was a German economist. He dealt with the question of the extent to which technical progress promotes unemployment and at the same time compensates for it by creating new jobs.
Live and act
Kähler completed his school days in Lübeck. He then trained as a lathe operator and locksmith . In 1924 he took the substitute matriculation examination and was able to begin studying political science in Kiel and Berlin in the winter semester of 1924/25 . As his first academic degree, Kähler received the diploma for economics at Kiel University at the end of 1927 . In the corresponding diploma thesis he dealt with Alfred Weber's wage theory and Henry Ford's theses on wages and purchasing power .
From 1929 to 1933, he succeeded Erwin Marquardt as head of the workers' college in Harrisleefeld near Flensburg . Kähler received his doctorate in Kiel in 1932 with a thesis on the layoff of workers as a result of technical progress . This work was considered a pioneering achievement in both methodological and theoretical terms. It was supervised by the sociologist and economist Adolf Löwe , who taught at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel at the Institute for World Economy . Kähler was involved in the research work of this institute during his doctorate.
Löwe, who emigrated to Great Britain after the National Socialist seizure of power , suggested a scholarship for Kähler at the University of Cambridge from Arthur Cecil Pigou . This endeavor failed, however, because of John Maynard Keynes , who pointed out that Kähler could earn a living from his learned profession.
Kähler emigrated to the United States in 1934 . Until his retirement he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York . There Kähler had intensive contact with a number of social democratic emigrants, for example as part of the German Labor delegation . In contrast to his colleagues at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, however, he did not succeed in being noticed by a broad specialist audience. The emigration forced by National Socialism in Germany is considered to be the uprooting of this scientist.
literature
- Harald Hagemann: Kähler, Alfred E. In: Harald Hagemann , Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.): Biographical handbook of German-speaking economic emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11284-X , pp. 293-297.
Web links
- Literature by and about Alfred Kähler in the catalog of the German National Library
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Kähler, Alfred |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kähler, Alfred E. |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American economist |
DATE OF BIRTH | May 8, 1900 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Lübeck |
DATE OF DEATH | September 12, 1981 |
Place of death | Little Rock , Arkansas |