LUJO BRENTANO looked to study the problems in the most intensified Capitalist Exploited Industrial city in the then world, London. His solution would lean to a strong independent trade unionism. Back in Germany, BRENTANO realized his compatriot professors were as argumentative as political leaders. BRENTANO and his circle were branded socialists and compared The MANCHESTER SCHOOL of laissez-faire to Baconians, hostile to too much theorizing. By 1872 BRENTANO and others such as Schmoller, convened a conference in Eissenach to articulate a program of political economy at once humane and realistic. A 'World Spirit' was invoked .. as every well meaning individual must work to realize the great ideals of culture. This leaned toward a metaphysical theorizing of history - sympathetic readers saw BRENTANO and Schmoller's work toward modern unions as valiant fighters against the revolutionary menace from Social Democrats, the selfish economic program of Junkers and Robber Barons, and that greatest of scourges - the favored servant of both - IGNORANCE.
BRENTANO had faith in the state, even BISMARCK's so-called state socialism. BISMARCK listened to BRENTANO's essays yet made decisions on too vastly politicized grounds. BRENTANO hoped for more, when BISMARCK's demise came with Wilhelm II accession and promise for a fresh course for social policy; two years later BISMARCK was dismissed. Yet Wilhelm II would also loose all steam as his hopes were misplaced.
BRENTANO would become increasingly turned to the Left. He wrote on tariff policy but as a liberal he thundered against a bill that would have sent anyone interfering with strikebreakers to the penitentiary. BRENTANO frequently returned to England and devoted his last years to a bulky economic history of his favorite country. He called his autobiography published in his last year, 1931, at age 87: ' My Life in the Struggle for the Social Development of Germany'. To relieve the crippling sense of an inability to make a difference to spawn socialist theories yet setting at naught the nature of man and neglecting all the fundamental facts of human existence :: BRENTANO believed in dependable facts and sound theories as the only way out. To relieve this sense of helplessness, the problems of human life must be better stated ! The a priori reasoning of political economy, orthodox and unorthodox alike fails from want of Reality.
We need to begin with a true picture of the MODERN Industrial organism :: like BRENTANO :: Charles Booth looked beyond a naive BACONIANISM of REALITY ; facts have a framework, following HUXLEY in sitting down before fact as a little child. Both BRENTANO and BOOTH created the ground floor for the Welfare Systems of the 20th Century, beginning with Britain's Welfare State.
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