抄録
It has been just 150 years since Wilhelm Roscher outlined the historical method of economics in his Grundriß. With the publication of this manifestoprogramme and his lifework in five volumes, System der Volkswirtschaft (1854-1894), where he put the historical method in practise, Roscher is considered to be the founder of (Older) Historical School of German Economics. His ultimate goal of the historical method was to discover the development laws of nations as a part of natural laws in analogy to human physical development by comparing all civilized nations in the world history. On the problem of what Roscher would achieve by the historical method, however, it is important to make clear that he did not intend at all to construct the new other theories than classical economics, but only to supplement classical-abstract doctrines by a great many of historial-concrete investigations and development laws, and to educate legislators' or administrators' sense in understanding the complexity of economic phenomena that could avoid them falling “Ricardian Vice” (J. Schumpeter). We must pay attention to the fact that Roscher could completely take over the theories of classical economics built on “self-interest”, because he firmly believed as Lutheran a harmony between “self-interest” and “public-interest”. In this sense, “the spiritual initiator” would be more appropriate term than the “founder of Historical School of German Economics”.
