Conrad Schmidt

This article is about the economist, philosopher and journalist Conrad Schmidt. For the writer see Konrad Schmidt .

Conrad Schmidt. Photography around 1885.

Conrad Schmidt (born November 25, 1863 in Königsberg , Prussia, † October 14, 1932 in Berlin ) was a German economist , philosopher and journalist .

Life

Conrad Schmidt was the son of Carl Schmidt (1825–1898) and Katharina Schmidt born. Rupp (1837-1925). He was the older brother of the sculptor Käthe Kollwitz . In the mid-1880s he studied in Berlin and received his doctorate in 1886 at the University of Königsberg with a thesis The natural labor wage , in which he compared the wage and exploitation theories of Johann Karl Rodbertus and Karl Marx . Schmidt rejected the Marxian theory as an unproven hypothesis in favor of the Rodbertuschen, which was based on the assumption of natural rights. After further Marx studies, Schmidt revised this judgment and became a supporter of Marxism .

Schmidt turned to a problem that Friedrich Engels had posed in 1885 in the preface to volume 2 of Das Kapital . He announced his solution to Engels, whereupon, on the intercession of Engels and Karl Kautsky , the work The Average Profit Rate based on Marx's Law of Value was published in 1889 . But the award went to Peter Fireman.

Schmidt made the acquaintance of Friedrich Engels, with whom he spent several evenings at home. There is a lively correspondence between the two of them, from which in particular the letters from Engels to Schmidt on October 27, 1890 and March 12, 1895 are considered important documents of Marxism.

tomb

In 1890, at the advice of Engels, he took up a position in Switzerland as an editor at the Zurich Post . He turned increasingly from an erroneously attributed to Friedrich Engels economic determinism, and Neo-Kantian positions. He emphasized the ethical aspects of the labor movement such as willingness to make sacrifices, a sense of duty and loyalty to the party. In Schmidt's view, these properties arose from original animal, over-egoistic instincts, which would have developed in living beings in the course of evolution in order to preserve their own species, and which are made more and more conscious and rationalized in humans, and are now embodied by the working class. Since Schmidt saw no possibility of an academic career in Switzerland, he returned to Berlin in 1895, where he worked for the social democratic weekly Vorwärts . He was chairman of the Free Volksbühne from 1897 to 1918. In 1919 Konrad Haenisch appointed him professor at the Berlin Polylitechnikum.

Conrad Schmidt was buried in the artist department of Berlin's central cemetery in Friedrichsfelde . His sister Käthe Kollwitz created the gravestone. Conrad Schmidt was married to Anna Butzke (1863–1924).

Works

• The natural wage . Gustav Fischer, Jena 1886. (Dissertation Phil. University of Königsberg) University and City Library Cologne - Königsberg dissertations
• The average rate of profit based on Marx's law of value . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart 1889. Digitized
• Social question and land nationalization . Verlag der Berliner Volkstribüne, Berlin 1890. Digitized
• Spinoza , a champion of the new worldview. Lecture given by Conrad Schmidt . Rubenow in commission, Berlin 1890.
• Subsequent remarks on the Bernstein discussion . In: Socialist monthly books . 3 = 5 (1899), No. 10, pp. 493-499. Digitized
• Comrade Mehring and the Free Volksbühne . In: The new time . Review of intellectual and public life . 18.1899-1900, Volume 2 (1900), Issue 48, pp. 659-662. Digitized
• A philosophy of money . In: Socialist monthly books . 5 = 7 (1901), issue 3, pp. 180-185, digitized
• The Psychological Direction in National Economy . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life . 10.1891-92, Volume 2 (1892), Issue 41, pp. 459-464. Digitized
• Sombart's book on modern capitalism . In: Socialist monthly books . 6 = 8 (1902), No. 9, pp. 678-685. On-line
• On the theory of the industrial reserve army . In: Socialist monthly books . 8 = 10 (1904), H. 2, pp. 120-128. Digitized
• In memory of Karl Marx . In: Socialist monthly books . 12 = 14 (1908), H. 5, pp. 265-272. Digitized
• On the method of theoretical economics . In: Socialist monthly books . 21 (1915), No. 10, pp. 492-502.
• Letters from Friedrich Engels to Conrad Schmidt .
  • Preliminary remark by the recipient . In: Socialist monthly books. 26 (1920), No. 11, pp. 662-667. Digitized
  • London 12. 188 9. In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), No. 12, pp. 740-744. Digitized
  • London April 12th 1890 . In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), No. 13, pp. 794-797. Digitized
  • London October 27th 1890 . In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), H. 14, pp. 871-876. Digitized
  • Ryde Isle of Wight July 1st, 1891 . In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), No. 15, pp. 948-951. Digitized
  • London 4th February 1892 . In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), No. 16, pp. 1000-1007. Digitized
  • London March 12th 1895 Digitized
• For Friedrich Engel's 100th birthday . In: Socialist monthly books . 26 (1920), H. 16, pp. 995-999. Digitized
• Money and "Schwundgeld" magic, Silvio Gesell's message of salvation . JWW Dietz Nachf., Berlin 1924.
• After the Lassalle centenary . In: Socialist monthly books . 31 (1925), no. 5, pp. 259-263. Digitized
• Friedrich Engels: Mr. Eugen Dühring's upheaval in science . With a review by Prof. Conrad Schmidt. 11. unchang. Edition JWW Dietz Nachf., Berlin 1928.

literature

• Paul Kampffmeyer : Conrad Schmidt's life work . In: Socialist monthly books . 38. (1932), No. 11, pp. 897-904. Digitized
• Conrad Schmidt . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Deceased personalities . Vol. 1. JHW Dietz Nachf., Hanover 1960, p. 267.
• Manfred Müller: Conrad Schmidt's contribution to the spread of the economic theory of Karl Marx from the end of the eighties to the middle of the nineties . In: Contributions to Marx / Engels research . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1968, pp. 161-167.
• Stanley Pierson: Marxist Intellectuals and the working-class mentality in Germany, 1887-1912 , Harvard University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-67455-123-7 , pp. 46-52.
• Dimitrij Owetschkin: Conrad Schmidt, revisionism and social democratic theory. On the theoretical development of social democracy before 1914 . Klartext, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-89861-170-1
• Jürgen Scheele: Political Economy and Theory History of the Labor Movement in the Socio-Philosophical Comparative. To the discussion with Conrad Schmidt . In: Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Renewal . Vierteljahresschrift , 2004, 60 (2004), pp. 70–85. ISSN  0940-0648

Web links

• Literature by and about Conrad Schmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Georgi Plechanow : Conrad Schmidt against Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1898) on Marxists.org, first published in German in Die Neue Zeit , 1898/1899, Vol. 1, No. 5
• Overview of Conrad Schmidt's courses at the University of Zurich (summer semester 1892 to summer semester 1896)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The family tree is contained in the book: Käthe Kollwitz. The diaries . Edited by Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz, Siedler, Berlin 1989. ISBN 3-88680-251-5 .
2. ↑ Carl Erich Vollgraf, “The price riddle literature before the third book is published”, in: Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe . Department II, Volume 14, Akademie-Verlag Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003733-4 , pp. 482-486.
3. ↑ Friedrich Engels: Foreword to Volume 3 of Das Kapital . 4th October 1894.
4. ^ Friedrich Engels: Letter to Conrad Schmidt in Zurich . March 12, 1895.
5. ↑ Friedrich Engels: Engels to Joseph Bloch in Königsberg . September 21, 1890.
6. ^ Stanley Pierson: Marxist Intellectuals , 1993, p. 52.
7. ^ Paul Kampffmeyer, p. 897.
8. ^ Joachim Hoffmann : Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. A German national cemetery. Cultural history guide . Das Neue Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-360-00959-2 , p. 138.