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Schumpeter’s Venture Money

Schumpeter’s Venture
Money
M IC HA E L P E N E D E R , A N D R E A S R E S C H
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch 2021
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
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a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
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above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944055
ISBN 978–0–19–880438–3
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804383.001.0001
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Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the access and support provided by the Austrian State Archives,
the Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna, the Harvard University
Archives, and the Georges F. Doriot Collection at the Harvard Business School.
Ulrich Hedtke provided valuable hints and generously gave us access to numerous
documents from his private archive in Berlin. Georg Herrnstadt supplied
documents from the estate of his mother, Gundl Steinmetz-Herrnstadt. In 1999,
Wolfgang Stolper provided valuable comments on early preliminary results.
We are especially indebted to the probing questions, constructive comments,
and suggestions provided during conversations on our research, for example,
by Felix Butschek, Tom McCraw, Kurt Dopfer, Caroline Gerschlager, Christian
Glocker, Takeo Hoshi, William Janeway, Dale Jorgenson, Martin Kenney, Heinz
D. Kurz, Richard Nelson, Tom Nicholas, Atanas Pekanov, Bill Sahlman, Frederic
M. Scherer, Andrei Shleifer, and Gunther Tichy. We also thank Astrid Nolte for
her invaluable support in proofreading the text. As a matter of course, only the
authors bear responsibility for any remaining omissions, errors, or imprecisions.
The idea for this book arose from repeated meetings of the two authors at Kurt
Dopfer’s Vienna Seminar on Evolutionary Economics. Each chapter benefitted
from numerous suggestions and critical comments freely shared between both
authors. It may be worth mentioning that Andreas wrote Chapters 8 to 10, while
Michael bears the principal responsibility for the remainder of the monograph.
Finally, we want to thank our families, friends, and colleagues for their enduring
patience and support. Michael dedicates the work especially to his wife Beate and
their children, Jonas and Theresa.
List of Figures
7.1. Depicting Schumpeter’s “ad-venture” model of development 139

7.2. Breaking the “circular flow” 147
List of Tables
1.1. Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 1 6

1.2. Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 2 7
2.1. Selected milestones in the early evolution of money 24
3.1. Selected milestones of financial innovation up to the early eighteenth century 36
3.2. Selected milestones of monetary thought up to the nineteenth century 45
4.1. Selected milestones of financial innovation up to the twentieth century 83
5.1. Selected milestones of monetary thought in the nineteenth century 103
8.1. Underwriters of M.L. Biedermann & Co., Bankaktiengesellschaft 182
8.2. The ten largest participants of the first Biedermann syndicate 183
8.3. Biedermann syndicate: important shareholdings of the second and third
issue in 1923 188
8.4. Annual accounts of Biedermann Bank from 1921 to 1925 193
8.5. Biedermann Bank balance sheet for May 24, 1924 in billion kronen 207
9.1. Development of the Braun-Stammfest industrial firms 222
12.1. Selected milestones of monetary ideas since the twentieth century 306
1
Introduction—Schumpeter’s life and vision
Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.
(Heraclitus, ca. 535–475 bce)
In many economic disciplines—ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation

research, and industrial organization to growth theory, business cycles, business
history, and public choice—various ideas of Josef Schumpeter have become widely
accepted or even commonplace. Yet this is not the case in the study of money and
finance, which in fact consumed a disproportionally high portion of his time,
effort, and attention. This neglect partly has to do with difficulties in dealing with
his dedicated focus on innovation and the financing of new ventures. Seeking
to dispel mysteries and misunderstandings, the book will follow Schumpeter’s
distinctive angle to grasp the originality of his “venture theory” of money and
economic development.
This introductory chapter begins with a brief prologue on the logos of “per-
petual change”—arguably the single most characteristic attribute of Schumpeter’s
theoretical vision. Perpetual change also characterized his turbulent personal vita.
Next we therefore offer a brief synopsis of his life and work, referring to a number
of excellent biographical studies for further reading. The final section explains
the aim, scope, and plan of the book, laying out the individual threads that will
intertwine to tell its story.
1.1 Panta rhei—a prologue
Panta rhei, everything flows, or “all entities move and nothing remains still.”1 This
notion, which Heraclitus proclaimed to be the major logos or principle of universal
order, is arguably also the most distinctive characteristic of Schumpeter’s vision
of the economy—one that Stanley Metcalfe described as “restless capitalism.”2
Beyond merely acknowledging that objects continuously change, it considers
change a basic category of existence, in which hardly anything remains constant
except change itself.
1 As quoted in Plato, Cratylus Paragraph Crat. 401 section d line 5. 2 Metcalfe (1998).
Schumpeter’s Venture Money. Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch,

Oxford University Press (2021). © Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804383.003.0001
2 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision
Championing an ontology of “becoming” instead of “being,” Heraclitus encoun-

tered strong opposition. For example, Plato resented the implication that some-
thing cannot exist if it does not change. Relatedly, early Christian scholars opposed
the logos of Heraclitus, because of its presumed denial of a pure and perfect, and
therefore immutable, eternal being behind nature. In turn, for instance, in History
of Economic Analysis (HEA), Schumpeter expressed doubts about Plato’s rigidly
“stationary ideal.”3
From a contemporary perspective, however, the proclaimed irreversibility of
all natural states stands in striking accordance with the laws of thermodynamics,
which arose by the middle of the nineteenth century and provided a “general
account of the time asymmetry of ordinary physical processes.”⁴ In short, the first
law states that in a closed system the total quantity of energy is always conserved,
and that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only flow and change its
form. The second law states that in a closed system entropy, which is a measure of
molecular disorder or randomness, increases over time. Hence, energy degrades
in an irreversible process toward increasing disorder until none is available for
useful work. According to the third law, entropy approaches its constant maximum
value in the final state of thermodynamic equilibrium, where there can be no
further spontaneous change and the system “is completely identified with its
environment.”⁵ In other words, the system ceases to exist.
In contrast, open systems maintain their internal structure by absorbing low-
entropy energy from the environment. Moreover, they allow for novel and complex
structures to emerge, typically implying a more effective use of free energy.⁶ Living
organisms can evolve because they are such open systems. By the middle of the
nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (1809–82) had established a set of general
principles of evolutionary change in natural history. His concept of “natural
selection” was a process of local adaptation, which allowed an increasing variety
of organisms to exploit ever more ecological niches, thus effectively supporting
their means of subsistence. It is foremost a theory of speciation and functional
differentiation under the conditions of a perpetual struggle for existence in the
natural environment. Natural history is therefore a process driven by the interplay
of genetic variation, selection in favor of better adapted varieties, and the accumu-
lation of successful traits by means of genetic inheritance.
Josef Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950) was a progeny of the nineteenth century
and its scientific advances. In economics, this applies foremost to the so-called
“marginalist revolution,” which he thoroughly absorbed from the founders of the
Austrian School of economics at his alma mater in Vienna. This came with a
strong awareness that the analytical tools of perfect equilibria can be useful, but are
invalid as descriptions of reality. Unlike many of his peers, he never discarded the
3 HEA (1954, p. 556). ⁴ Drake (2018b). ⁵ Nicolis and Prigogine (1989, p. 55).
⁶ Georgescu-Roegen (1971); Ayres (1994).
panta rhei—a prologue 3
historical approach, thereby maintaining a strong preoccupation with perpetual

change and development in all social affairs. Innovation thus became his pivotal
focus, further elaborated in a series of general principles thought to govern
economic development. Distinguishing between adaptive and creative response,
his aim was to open the doors to a comprehensive analysis of dynamic systems:
Whenever an economy or a sector of an economy adapts itself to a change in

its data in the way that traditional theory describes […] we may speak of the
development as adaptive response. And whenever the economy or an industry
or some firms in an industry do something else, something that is outside of the
range of existing practice, we may speak of creative response. [The latter] can
always be understood ex post; but it can practically never be understood ex ante,
[while it still] shapes the whole course of subsequent events and their “long-run”
outcome. (“The Creative Response in Economic History” (CRH), 1947, p. 150)
There is a deep connection between Schumpeter and the above strands of thought.
For instance, from 1934 to 1936 he mentored a young Romanian mathematician
and statistician named Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–94), who is best known
for The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), which became a founda-
tional work of ecological economics. Sharing his dedicated interest in economic
structure and dynamics,⁷ Schumpeter offered him a position at the economics
faculty at Harvard and planned to work on a joint treatise.⁸ The plans failed
when Georgescu-Roegen returned to Romania. However, Schumpeter apparently
had a lasting impact. In Georgescu-Roegen’s own words: “Every single one of
his distinctive remarks were seeds that inspired my later works. In this way,
Schumpeter turned me into an economist.”⁹ Among other aspects, both were
apparently influenced by the fact that the laws of thermodynamics command
irreversibility and perpetual qualitative change.1⁰
More widely known, however, are Schumpeter’s struggles with the Darwinian
principles of evolutionary change.11 At a younger age, he was highly critical of
“all kinds of evolutionary thought that centre in Darwin—at least if this means
no more than reasoning by analogy.” Associating it with the mistaken notion of a
“uniform unilinear development,” he proclaimed that “the evolutionary idea is now
discredited in our field” and that “with all the hasty generalisations in which the
word ‘evolution’ plays a part, many of us have lost patience.”12 When he later wrote
the History of Economic Analysis (henceforth HEA) Schumpeter drew a sharper
⁷ “The paramount importance of time for economics comes from the fact that it envelops every
human action, actually, all actions of every life bearing structure” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1994, p. 235).
⁸ Samuelson (1966); Heinzel (2013). ⁹ Georgescu-Roegen (1992, p. 130).
1⁰ Heinzel (2013, p. 263). 11 Nelson and Winter (1982); Metcalfe (1998).
12 Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (TED; 1911/34, p. 57).
distinction. Yet he still forcefully denounced Social Darwinism and its infamous
proponent Herbert Spencer:
No other word but “silly” will fit the man who failed to see that, by carrying
laissez-faire liberalism to the extent of disapproving of sanitary regulations,
public education, public postal service, and the like, he made his ideal ridiculous
and that in fact he wrote what would have served very well as a satire on the
policy he advocated. Neither his economics nor his ethics […] are worth our
while. What is worth our while to note is the argument that any policy aiming at
social betterment stands condemned on the ground that it interferes with natural
selection and therefore with the progress of humanity. The reader should observe,
however, that the almost pathetic nonsense could have been avoided and that the
sound element in his argument could have been partly salvaged by adding “unless
methods more humane and more scientific than natural selection can be found.”
(HEA, 1954, p. 773f)
Conversely, in HEA Schumpeter acknowledged Darwin’s importance in no fewer

than seven independent entries, reserving for him some of his most generous
accolades. He praised the Origin of Species as “one of the most important pieces of
scientific history ever written” and its author as “a living and walking compliment
to himself and also to the economic and cultural system that produced him.”13
Essentially, Schumpeter appreciated Darwin’s principles of evolutionary change,
as applied to natural history, while himself claiming a distinct faculty for the study
of economic development.
1.2 Under the skin, not the veil of money
Panta rhei, or the “continuous stream of ever new waters,” may also be an apt
characterization of monetary history. In short, money has transformed from
being simple symbols of account to precious items that facilitate exchange, and
from there to plain social conventions increasingly cast into mere digital data.
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) and Anna J. Schwartz (1915–2012), two influential
proponents of monetarism, explained their fascination with the fact that money
“is so full of mystery and paradox.” Owing to “fiction” and “myth,” people accept
pieces of paper as means of payment, because they are confident that others will
do the same: “The pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks
they have value, and everybody thinks they have value because in his experience
they have had value”.1⁴ Monetarism is best known for its revitalization of the
13 HEA (1954, p. 444). 1⁴ Friedman and Schwartz (1963, p. 695).

under the skin, not the veil of money 5
classical quantity theory. It portrays money as a veil that is detached from and
has no systematic direct impact on real production and income in the long-term.
In his influential synthesis of the classical orthodoxy, John Stuart Mill (1806–73)
expressed it as follows:
There cannot, in short, be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in the economy

of society, than money; […] The relations of commodities to one another remain
unaltered by money: the only new relation introduced is […] how the exchange
value of money itself is determined. (Mill, 1848/71, p. 351)
In other words, money only matters in determining the average price level, which
must vary in exact proportion to its overall quantity. As a consequence, the latter
has no systematic impact on production or real income, that is, the amount and
type of goods people will actually consume. But there is one exception: since this
“fiction” is neither fragile nor indestructible,1⁵ over expansion or contraction of
the money base can tear the veil and cause an economic crisis. Thus, the nexus
between finance and growth mainly exists in the negative and is to be contained
by sound monetary policy.
Schumpeter dissented from the classical orthodoxy in many respects. Charac-
teristically, he liked to contrast the image of money as a veil with that of money
as a skin, that is, an organ which is invariably and intimately connected to the
living organism.1⁶ The skin carries out indispensable functions, such as enabling
the sensation of touch and heat or helping to regulate body temperature, and at
the same time it reflects the overall health of an organism. Similarly, the condition
of a monetary system simultaneously has an impact on, responds to, and mirrors
the performance of the economy at large. In short, Schumpeter treated money as
endogenous to the economic system.
Having experienced the times of hyperinflation in Austria and therein lost a
fortune, Schumpeter clearly acknowledged the dangers of a mismanaged currency.
However, in contrast to the classical orthodoxy, along with monetarism and other
followers of the quantity theory, he refused to throw the baby out with the bath
water. Instead, he deliberately embraced the historical evolution and growing
speciation of money and finance into increasingly complex social institutions that
are malleable to the various needs of entrepreneurial finance. He absorbed it into a
deliberately monetary theory of development, in which “credit”—defined broadly
as any form of pre-financing of new ventures—is the indispensable alter ego of
entrepreneurial initiative, jointly fostering innovation, structural change, and the
growth of real income.
1⁵ Friedman and Schwartz (1963, p. 696). 1⁶ Das Wesen des Geldes (WDG; 1970, p. 2).
However, before we turn to these core themes of the monograph, we would

like to briefly summarize selected biographical facts in order to plot the personal
background of Schumpeter’s diverse monetary ventures.
1.3 Schumpeter’s life and work
Finally, panta rhei, the principle of perpetual change, offers a succinct description
of Schumpeter’s eventful life story. Living during a time of great political and
social transformation, two world wars, and deep economic crisis, his path was
one of professional struggles, alternating triumphs and defeats, personal drama,
and exceptional endurance (Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Having grown up as a half-
orphan, he would marry three times and even be accused of bigamy. In addition
to his numerous travels, he resided in Moravia, Graz, Vienna, Chernivtsi, Cairo,
and Bonn before finally settling down in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Harvard
University. Among his many professional activities, he worked as a lawyer, state
secretary for finance, bank president, and “proto-venture capitalist.” Yet despite
these temporary distractions from his main calling to pursue an academic career,
his scientific output was exuberant. It comprised various extensive monographs
in addition to innumerable articles and speeches. It is no wonder that his life
and work has been the subject of numerous biographies and treatises which have
regularly found new angles to explore. Given the wealth of existing monographs
Table 1.1 Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 1
Year Milestones
Adolescence
1883 Born in Třešt
1887 Death of his father (a textile manufacturer)
1888 Relocation to Graz
1893–901 Education at an elite highschool in Vienna
1901–6 Studies and PhD at the University of Vienna
1902–5 Management studies at the Export Academy
1906–7 Study trips (Berlin, London, Cambridge, etc.)
1907–20 First Marriage with Gladys Ricarde Seaver
1907 Practice of law in Cairo
Science prodigy
1908 Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie (WHN)
1909–11 Professor at the University of Czernowitz
1911 Theory of Economic Development (TED)
1911–21 Professor at the University of Graz
1913 Visiting professor at Columbia University
1917–18 Money and the Social Product (MSP)
1918 Die Krise des Steuerstaates (KSS)
schumpeter’s life and work 7
Table 1.2 Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 2
Year Milestones
The “great waste”

1919 State secretary for finance (March to August)
1921–24 President of the Biedermann Bank
1921–25 “Proto-Venture Capitalist”
1925–32 Professor at the University of Bonn
1925 Second marriage with Annie Reisinger
1926 Within a short period of time his mother dies, then his wife and son
in childbirth
Harvard
1927/30 Visiting professor at Harvard University
1930 Co-founder of the Econometric Society
1931 Visiting professor in Tokyo
1932–50 Professor at Harvard University
1937 Third marriage with Elizabeth Boody Firuski
1939 US citizenship; Business Cycles (BC)
1942 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (CSD)
1947 Creative Response in Economic History (CRH)
1948 President of the American Economic Association
1950 Dies on January the 8th
1954 History of Economic Analysis (HEA)
1970 Das Wesen des Geldes (WDG)
and shorter articles on Schumpeter,1⁷ in this introduction a brief biographical

sketch should be sufficient to provide a context for our later analyses.
Education and early career
Schumpeter was born in 1883 in the Moravian town of Třešt, which at the
time belonged to the Habsburg Empire and is now part of the Czech Republic.
His mother came from a town near Vienna, while his father was a local textile
manufacturer who belonged to the German-speaking minority of the region. His
father died as a result of a hunting accident when Josef was only 4 years old.
Taking her son and moving to Graz, his mother then married a retired army
officer and member of the Austrian nobility. Her marriage enabled Schumpeter
to attend the Theresianum, an elite secondary school in Vienna. There, he received
a rigorous education, not only in mathematics, science, and history, but also in
Latin, Greek, English, Italian, and French. His knowledge of many languages was
clearly instrumental to his later career. It not only compelled him to practice his
1⁷ See, for instance, März (1983/91); Allen (1991); Swedberg (1991); Stolper (1994); Shionoya (1997);
Hanusch (1999); McCraw (2007); Andersen (2011); Cantner and Dopfer (2015); or Sturn (2016).
skills by reading, but enabled him to directly source literatures from exceptionally
varied historical and geographical origins.
In 1901 he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study jurisprudence (eco-
nomics was not yet an independent branch of study). There, he attended the
classes of Eugen Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich Wieser, and other proponents of the
Austrian School of economics. Furthermore, he had to take a substantial number
of courses in philosophy, a field in which the positivist legacy of the physicist
and philosopher of science Ernst Mach still exerted a strong influence. According
to Andersen, Schumpeter additionally “designed for himself an extensive and
fairly advanced programme of mathematics courses.”1⁸ This rendered Schumpeter
distinctly capable of absorbing modern developments in economic theory and
embracing an open perspective on methodology—especially when compared to
his peers from the Austrian and German Schools, who displayed little inclination
for and often hostility toward the use of mathematical tools in economics.
Schumpeter also signed up to study management at the Export Academy, the
precursor of today’s Vienna University of Economics and Business. Between 1902
and 1905 he took classes that included economic geography, commercial law,
and accounting, as well as the handling of business correspondence in German,
English, and French. Yet, according to our findings and judging from the quite
poor grading, he seems not to have taken these studies very seriously. For example,
on a scale ranging from one (“excellent”) to five (“failed”) he barely passed his
introductory courses in business accounting and bookkeeping with a grade of four
(“sufficient”) in his first semester, and then failed both in the subsequent courses.1⁹
In retrospect, one could consider these poor grades a bad omen for his business
ventures during the 1920s.
After earning his PhD at the University of Vienna in 1906, Schumpeter set out
on educational journeys to Berlin, Paris, London, Oxford, and Cambridge. In 1907,
he married his first wife, Gladys Ricarde Seaver (1871-1932). The couple moved to
Cairo, where Schumpeter represented clients at the International Mixed Tribunal
and made a certain fortune. Simultaneously, he managed to write his habilitation
thesis: Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie (hence-
forth WHN, 1908).2⁰
Habilitation made Schumpeter eligible to hold a chair at a university. He
initially became an associate professor at the University of Cernivtsi,21 where he
1⁸ Andersen (2011, p. 22f). Andersen estimated that mathematics “covered nearly 30 per cent of the
half of Schumpeter’s syllabus that was not dedicated to jurisprudence.”
1⁹ Schumpeter’s studies at the Export Academy went largely unnoticed by his biographers, but was
pointed out by Hedtke and Swedberg (2000, p. 5). Our recent findings on his grading originate from the
Archive of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Report Cards of Josef Schumpeter, 1902/3
to 1904/5, and First Main Catalogue, First Volume, Colloquia (from 1901 to 1908/9).
2⁰ The title translates as “The Nature and Content of Theoretical Economics.”
21 Then called Czernowitz, located in the Habsburg Empire’s eastern provinces (now western
Ukraine).
authored what is arguably his most original and important work:22 the Theory of
Economic Development (henceforth TED; translated to English in 1934). In 1911,
Schumpeter became a full professor at the University of Graz. When in 1913 he left
for Columbia University to work as visiting professor for a year, his wife Gladys
chose to return to England. After Schumpeter came back to Graz, the outbreak of
the First World War made her return unlikely and the communication between
them increasingly difficult. According to McCraw, by 1920 he considered himself
unmarried, without ever having bothered to get a formal divorce.23 More recently,
however, new evidence confirmed that the spouses were formally divorced on
December 24, 1920, at the district court “Innere Stadt” in Vienna.
The “great waste”
During the First World War Schumpeter was a pronounced pacifist opposing
attempts at a custom union with Germany, since he feared this would be the
first step toward a further consolidation of the German-speaking territories.2⁴
In private communication, he advocated a separate peace treaty of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire with the Allied forces, anticipating that the Habsburg monar-
chy would in the end suffer the greatest losses among any war participants.
According to McCraw, his political vision at the time was to save the empire
through a gradual transformation toward constitutional monarchy, similar to the
British example.2⁵
Yet with the end of the First World War the political order in which Schumpeter
had grown up inevitably fell apart. Immersing himself first in politics and then
business, in the war’s aftermath he also found his private life shattered by a series
of spectacular failures. Schumpeter later referred to this period as the gran rifiuto
or “great waste” of his life.2⁶ It began quite innocuously with an economic text
on the crisis of public finance (Die Krise des Steuerstaates; henceforth KSS, 1918),
in which Schumpeter addressed the challenges of economic reconstruction. On
recommendation of Rudolf Hilferding2⁷ he became state secretary for finance in
22 Hanusch and Pyka (2007). 23 McCraw (2007, p. 87f).

2⁴ A letter written in 1916 to his former teacher and member of parliament Heinrich Lammasch,
demonstrates his alertness to the prospect of unification: “Consider what all this means […] A Prussian-
Lutheran-militaristic Central Europe (‘Mitteleuropa’) would from now on confront the rest of the world
like a predatory animal. […] that Austria which we know and love would cease to exist” (quoted from
McCraw, 2007, p. 91).
2⁵ McCraw, (2007, p. 92ff). Hedtke (2004a,b) offers the most comprehensive analysis of Schumpeter’s
political memoranda.
2⁶ McCraw (2007, p. 104).
2⁷ And with the consent of Emil Lederer and Otto Bauer, both former classmates of Schumpeter in
the famous seminar held by Böhm-Bawerk at the University of Vienna.
the coalition government headed by the socialist Karl Renner in March 1919. How-
ever, lacking any party affiliation, independent power base, political experience or
skills, he was forced to resign by August of the same year when the cabinet refused
to support his first financial plan.
To make a brief story2⁸ even shorter, within five months Schumpeter had
managed to alienate the socialist members of the cabinet (in particular the foreign
minister Otto Bauer) by openly opposing unification with Germany, advocating
the complete repayment of the state’s debts, and impeding nationalization by
supporting the sale of industrial shares to foreign investors. At the same time, he
lost the support of the conservative party by demanding a capital levy on all liquid
assets of companies and private citizens in order to curb the post-war inflation.
While the economics behind his proposals seem reasonable, Schumpeter lacked
the awareness and skills with which to form political alliances and antagonized
the cabinet with his solitary, know-it-all demeanor, which bordered on disloyalty.
In light of these shortcomings, few people appreciated his economic principles. Of
those who did, one was his former teacher at the University of Vienna, Friedrich
Wieser. In his diaries he acknowledged that Schumpeter was “not misled by
prevalent sentiment” and “has courage, an asset which cannot be over-praised.”2⁹
After Schumpeter dropped out of the cabinet he had no inclination to return to
his academic position at the University of Graz. Instead, he was keen to live out his
theoretical vision by actively participating in the post-war reconstruction effort,
both as president of the Biedermann Bank and as the co-founder of an industrial
group investing in new, mostly technology-oriented start-up companies. Both
ventures, however, failed, leaving Schumpeter with a large personal debt to pay
off throughout many years to come. Still, he was fortunate to be cleared of any
legal accusations.
In 1925, Schumpeter escaped his inevitable social decline in Vienna by accept-
ing an appointment to hold a chair at the University of Bonn. With the prospect
of another prestigious social position and regular income, he rushed to propose
marriage to Anna Josefina Reisinger (1903–26).3⁰ Yet, according to Austrian law,
Schumpeter’s earlier divorce was considered an obstacle to (re-)marriage and
required formal special permission.31 In Catholic Austria this permission was
2⁸ See, for instance, März (1983/91) and Stolper (1991).

2⁹ Quotation from McCraw (2007, p. 101).
3⁰ Anna Reisinger was twenty years younger than him and the daughter of the concierge of the
apartment building, where Schumpeter’s mother lived in Vienna. Despite their parents’ disapproval,
neither the age difference, nor different social rank, nor the fact that Anna had had an abortion from
a previous relationship seem to have mattered much. Their diaries and letters provide ample evidence
of the genuine affection between the two. See, for example, McCraw (2007, p. 113ff).
31 From 1922 on, a very vague law provided for the possibility of granting special permission for
marriage despite such an obstacle. That same year, Vienna was separated from Lower Austria and
became governed as an independent province by a Social Democrat majority. The provincial governor
of Vienna, Albert Sever, unlike his conservative colleagues in the other provinces, made generous use
of this possibility.
generally denied by the conservative authorities, but at the time afforded liberally
in “Red Vienna.” Josef and Annie had to leave the Catholic church so that
Schumpeter could apply for the indulgence of the “marriage obstacle of marriage,”
which was given without delay. He and his fiancée then joined the Evangelical
Church of the Augsburg Confession and married on November 5, 1925 in the
Protestant city parish church. Neither set of parents attended the ceremony, but
Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), a famous Jewish legal scholar and “architect” of the
Austrian republican constitution was his best man.32
His private happiness with Anna greatly helped Schumpeter cope with his acute
financial distress and new professional start. Their life indeed took a very positive
turn, as both Anna and Josef were well received in Bonn and excitedly expecting a
baby. However, personal tragedy would soon impede their return to a stable life. In
1926, Josef ’s mother passed away. Six weeks later, Anna and the couple’s new-born
son died in childbirth. Having effectively lost at once the three most important
people in his life, Schumpeter never fully recovered. The break is apparent in
both his personality and his scientific output, which changed from the almost
frivolous optimism and self-confidence of his early years to a darker and more
pessimistic, sometimes cynical mindset. In a letter to Gustav Stolper, Schumpeter
clearly articulated what he needed to keep his mind together: “[e]verything now
hangs on my ability to work.”33
Monetary analysis
In the following years, the major focus of Schumpeter’s intellectual effort was
an attempted general treatise on money. However, as he did not rapidly recover
from the above catastrophes, his capacity for focused and productive work was
diminished. Serious writing on the book probably began in 1926, but he was never
able to consolidate his ideas into his aspired general theory of money. Despite
repeated announcements, the money book never materialized into a cohesive work
which he would have considered worthy of publication.
Though his monetary writings remained scattered and fragmented, his general
vision was formed early on and his ideas appear strikingly consistent from the first
to the last, even unfinished posthumous publications.3⁴ Characteristic elements
already appeared in his comprehensive survey of the received doctrine in WHN
(1908). Therein, Schumpeter announced planned extensions, which he realized
a few years later in TED (1911/34). There, the major elements of his monetary
theory were in place, though its broader foundations often remained implicit and
little-developed. In Money and the Social Product (henceforth MSP, 1917–18/56;
32 Budischowsky (2014).
33 From a letter to Gustav Stolper, quotation from McCraw (2007, p. 140).
3⁴ See also Marget (1951) or Naderer (1990).
translated to English in 1956) he set out to expand on the general role of money as
a social technology for the settling of accounts. Influenced by Wieser, he thereby
elaborated an income-expenditure approach with endogenous money that stood
in contrast with the traditional quantity theory. It is mostly based on this theme of
a social clearing mechanism that he envisaged delivering a general treatise within
which he would integrate monetary theory and his dynamic vision of the economy.
During the years in Bonn, Schumpeter expanded on the previous text of MSP,
adding new chapters on such diverse aspects as the history of monetary thought
and the sociology of money or index numbers, and drafting detailed financial flows
between households, firms, banks, and the central bank. Yet progress was slow. In
addition to being drained by unsettling personal tragedy, he poured much time
and attention into public speeches and shorter articles, which he pursued in order
to pay off the debts from his failed financial adventures.
Then, Keynes’ Treatise on Money appeared in 1930. According to some reports,
Schumpeter believed that Keynes had appropriated some of his ideas without
attribution.3⁵ If this was the case, he did not indicate it in public. On the con-
trary, he acknowledged Keynes’ treatise as a “splendid achievement” and “spoke
admiringly” of it in his Bonn lectures.3⁶ In any case, Keynes had raised the bar
for another endogenous theory of money to strike the profession as profoundly
novel. Despite several premature announcements of its publication, Schumpeter
practically ceased work on his “money book” in the early 1930s.3⁷ Finally, an
unfinished and incomplete German version of the manuscript was posthumously
published in 1970 as Das Wesen des Geldes (henceforth WDG), while three further
draft chapters remained in the Harvard University Archives.3⁸
Despite the enormous effort he had invested, Schumpeter considered the book
a failure.3⁹ As did Rothschild (1973), when commanding respect for his “heroic”
decision not to publish it. In contrast, Tichy (1984) appreciated the originality and
relevance of Schumpeter’s contribution, but considered its generalization into a
genuine dynamic theory a vain endeavor. He pointed at Schumpeter’s unlimited
ambition and striving for perfection as the source of failure. And indeed, the
attempted general theory of money and banking often strays into long-winded and
detailed discussions, which many readers will find tedious. While it demonstrates
much intellect and effort, the book adds little new thought compared to his more
radical earlier presentations. Its central contribution is the analysis of the manifold
3⁵ McCraw (2007, p. 155).

3⁶ See Letter to Walter Eucken, April 19, 1932, reproduced in Stolper (1994, p. 48) or Dathe and
Hedtke (2018, p. 19).
3⁷ Schumpeter, however, refused to let the “money book” go for good. In a letter written two months
before his death, he expressed his intention of finishing it within “a year or two” (Hedtke and Swedberg,
2000, p. 391).
3⁸ See Messori (1997) for an excellent discussion.
3⁹ McCraw (2007, p. 155) reports that Schumpeter himself “judged the whole effort ‘a thoroughly
bad performance,’ ” even though he had “poured endless hours into the book.”
interactions through which the credit market coordinates entrepreneurial activity

during the business cycle, which received a much more thorough account than
it had in his previous work. First unknown and then published at a time when
monetary analysis had long shifted to other topics, its appearance had little
impact on the discipline. Among the notable exceptions, Messori acknowledges
its enduring value and considers it “the peak of that stream of analysis,” which
is comprised of Marx, Wicksell, A. Hahn, Robertson, and Keynes.⁴⁰ Contrasting
Schumpeter’s attempt to specify the sequential structure of interactions with the
later methods of optimization. Hellwig points out that “Schumpeter was ahead of
his time in many ways and many unsolved problems still are. You could say that
today we are confused at a higher level.”⁴1
Settling at Harvard
Schumpeter’s turbulent life finally culminated in an industrious late career at

Harvard University. On the initiative of his mentor and friend Frank Taussig
(1859–1940), he first arrived there as a visiting professor in autumn 1927 (his
initial course was on “Money and Banking”)⁴2 and then again in 1930. In 1931
he lectured in Tokyo, before being appointed to a permanent chair at Harvard in
1932. There, his ardent support of a mathematical approach to economics stood
in stark contrast with the lack of any formal modeling in his own work. To the
facile observer this may appear a vain masquerade. However, Andersen’s careful
examination reveals the intriguing inner struggle of a responsible instructor and
creative scientist.⁴3
Together with Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) and Jan Tinbergen (1903–94), Schum-
peter was one of the co-founders of the Econometric Society and chaired its initial
meeting in 1930. After joining the faculty at Harvard, he also became committed to
advancing the use of mathematical tools in the economics curriculum. As nobody
volunteered to do this, he taught the first classes, but soon handed them over to
a more gifted younger generation (in particular, his protégé Wassily Leontief).⁴⁴
Still, he remained alert and attentive to the work of his more mathematically
inclined colleagues. Richard Goodwin, for instance, remembered that Schumpeter
patiently listened to his lectures but found no way to apply the deterministic
models to his own analytical problems. Aware that his theories were too “refrac-
tory to mathematical formulations,” Schumpeter increasingly turned his attention
⁴⁰ Messori (2014, p. 56).

⁴1 Quotation from an oral presentation of Martin Hellwig on Das Wesen des Geldes at a Schumpeter
Colloquium of the University of Vienna, Ocober 14, 2016.
⁴2 McCraw (2007, p. 187). ⁴3 Andersen (2011).
⁴⁴ W.L. Crum invited him to co-author the second edition of his textbook on Rudimentary Mathe-
matics for Economics and Statisticians (Crum and Schumpeter, 1947), after Schumpeter had provided
detailed comments and various amendments to it.
toward the study of history. However, the fact that he failed to produce a formal
representation of his theory never prompted him to discard the promise of precise
analytical tools. In a letter to Gottfried Haberler he admitted to feeling “like Moses
must have felt when he beheld the Promised Land and knew that he himself would
not be allowed to enter it.”⁴⁵
Schumpeter’s thorough theoretical foundations and undogmatic but princi-
pled approach to methodology certainly contributed to the rise and fame of
the economics department at Harvard University. Among the many distinctive
scholars and disciples who worked with or studied under Schumpeter one finds,
for instance, Wassily Leontief, Paul Samuelson, James Tobin, Richard Musgrave,
Richard Goodwin, Hyman Minsky, Paul Sweezy, or John Kenneth Galbraith.
Schumpeter’s private life also took a much needed positive turn when he became
acquainted with Romaine Elizabeth Boody (1898-1953), herself an accomplished
economist, fifteen years younger and also divorced. They married in 1937. Her
letters and correspondence at the University Archives in Harvard reveal an eman-
cipated, confident, and unassuming companion, who must have greatly helped
to stabilize his precarious mental condition. Later, her dedication and support
would render possible the posthumous publication of his final and unfinished
monograph, which she pursued with much skill and endurance. Nevertheless,
Schumpeter’s solitary immersion into his ambitious academic endeavors appears
to have made him increasingly detached from the world around him. Though
many students described him as an exceptionally attentive and flamboyant teacher,
sarcastic statements and ill temper caused tensions within the faculty. Further-
more, at a time when Keynes’ (1936) General Theory proved extremely popular
among his younger disciples, his own repudiation of the New Deal politics con-
tributed to his alienation.
Compared to Keynes, his approach and attitude toward policy generally placed
him outside the limelight when it came to practical relevance and public attention.
While Keynes was never shy to spell out clear political priorities and concrete
policy prescriptions, Schumpeter’s main interest always lay in the essential theo-
retical aspects, even when asked to comment on policy. He attempted to contribute
by helping authorities and the public better understand a situation, but provided
no solutions for the considerable complexity and uncertainty involved in real-
life decisions. We may say that he tried to educate rather than give prescriptions,
pointing at the historical and institutional specificity of a policy, but leaving
the concrete choices (and, accordingly, responsibility) to the policy makers.⁴⁶
For example, in the introduction to Business Cycles (henceforth BC) Schumpeter
frankly declared: “I recommend no policy and propose no plan. […] What our
⁴⁵ Reproduced in Hedtke and Swedberg (2000, p. 240).

⁴⁶ Consequently, the Schumpeterian approach does not lend itself easily to a systematic analysis of
economic policy. See, for example, Hanusch (1999, p. lvi).
time needs most and lacks most is the understanding of the process which people
are passionately resolved to control” (BC, 1939, p. vi).
Finally, and consistently with his earlier pacifism during the First World War,
he favored appeasement with the Nazi regime. He naively hoped that the Germans
would themselves get rid of the tyranny and instead worried more about the rise of
Stalin’s power.⁴⁷ Another reason for his restraint in public statements was that he
still had friends there, whom he cared about, and for whom he feared retaliation.⁴⁸
All these matters taken together, he must have increasingly appeared to be a
hopeless reactionary. In contrast, his enduring support of European migrant
economists, most of whom were either Jewish and/or socialists, in receiving
fellowships and jobs in the US probably went rather unnoticed, except among his
close friends.⁴⁹
By any measure, Schumpeter’s years at Harvard are characterized by an enor-
mous academic output. After he moved there, his attention to the money book
soon gave way to BC (1939), in which he produced a comprehensive elaboration
of the emergence of capitalism with more than 1,000 pages and plenty of historical
and empirical detail. Yet, despite this being the most ambitious project he ever
completed, BC had little enduring impact on the profession. Though reviewers
were generally respectful, they struggled with what to make of the work. One
reason for its lukewarm reception was that Schumpeter considered it a treatise
on business cycles, though it was more an extension and attempted empirical
validation of TED. Thereby, he portrayed the economy as evolving through the
continuous stream of recurrent fluctuations caused by multiple and overlapping
waves of different length. This rendered their statistical identification extremely
difficult and called for detailed historical analysis. Another reason for its failure
was the unfortunate timing of BC. Published three years after Keynes’ General The-
ory, toward the end of the great recession and at the beginning of the Second World
⁴⁷ In the words of McCraw (2007, p. 316): “Schumpeter radically underestimated the Nazi’s strength
and capacity for evil; but at the same time he anticipated with great insight the situation that led to the
Soviet-American Cold War of 1945–89.”
⁴⁸ Schumpeter continued to support the family of Anna Reisinger and in particular Mia Stöckel, his
former secretary and later companion after the death of his second wife. The two maintained a lively
correspondence, which they were aware could be monitored by the German authorities. Schumpeter
regularly sent her money, even after she had married a young economist from Serbia and moved to
Novi Sad. A letter in which her father reported to Schumpeter the killing of Mia and her husband by
the Hungarian allies of Nazi Germany is a deeply stirring document of the cruelty of the regime and
the war (HUG(FP)—4.5, Box 1, Folder “Letter on Mia’s death”).
⁴⁹ See, for instance, McCraw (2007, p. 229ff). In contrast, Schumpeter and his wife, who was an
expert on the Japanese economy, were subject to investigations of the FBI and cleared of potential
sympathies with the war enemy. Rothschild (2015, p. 234) reports on the relationship between
Schumpeter and Eduard März (1908–87), a Jewish emigrant student at Harvard, who—after the end of
the Second World War—found a “strangely peaceful and almost serene Schumpeter who had become
reconciled with the world. März thinks that this may have been due to the fact that he had become
more grateful to be in the US after having learned about the cruelties of the Nazi regime (“Thank God
for America” became a frequent utterance).”
War, Schumpeter’s lengthy elaboration of the wave-like evolution of capitalism was

simply not of great appeal to the profession.
A few years later, however, Schumpeter wrote what would become his most
famous book: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (henceforth, CSD).⁵⁰ While
TED had laid out the basic theoretical framework, BC reached far back in history
for its empirical validation. In contrast, CSD (1942/50) concluded Schumpeter’s
trilogy on the evolution of capitalism with a bold vision of where it might be
headed. Arguably, it is his only book that happened to be in tune with one of the
dominant public concerns of the time. Following the devastations of the Second
World War and appearing on the verge of the Cold War (which was highly charged
with ideological combat) Schumpeter posited an unsettling answer to a simple
question: “Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.”⁵1
From the eminent scholar of the evolution of capitalism, one would have
expected to hear otherwise. And indeed, there are good reasons not to be canonical
about this. On the one hand, Schumpeter’s pessimistic outlook partly reflected his
depressed mental situation during his later years. On the other hand, he never
considered the statement a definite prediction, but rather an extrapolation of
developments that he was concerned about. By bringing them to their logical
conclusion, he hoped to call forth and strengthen the system’s resilience against
it.⁵2 Apparently his personal bet was on the growing socialization of society,
albeit conceding that capitalism could still “have another successful run.”⁵3 In
any case, CSD is a masterful example of his reasoning by apparent paradoxes.
Turning upside down the Marxist prediction of the collapse of capitalism due to its
inherent flaws, Schumpeter argued that capitalism will indeed disband eventually,
but as a consequence of its own success. In short, Schumpeter reasoned that,
due to the growing routinization of innovation, “economic progress tends to
become depersonalized and automatized,” whereby capitalist enterprises render
themselves superfluous through their own achievements:
The perfectly bureaucratized giant industrial unit not only ousts the small or
medium-sized firm and “expropriates” its owners, but in the end it also ousts
the entrepreneur and expropriates the bourgeoisie as a class which in the process
stands to lose not only its income but also what is infinitely more important, its
function. (CSD, 1942/50, p. 134)
⁵⁰ After the disappointing reception of BC, he was surprised by its success, pointing out that he
had pursued it with far less ambition and effort than his previous book. Despite this, it gained much
popularity, especially after the publication of its second edition in 1947 (McCraw, 2007, p. 347ff; p. 371).
⁵1 CSD (1942/50, p. 61).
⁵2 As Schumpeter explained, scientific analysis “never yields more than a statement about the
tendencies present in an observable pattern. And these never tell us what will happen to the pattern but
only what would happen if they continued to act as they have been acting in the time interval covered
by our observation and if no other factors intruded” (CSD, 1942/50, p. 61). In a later speech reprinted
in the third edition of CSD (1942/50, p. 416), he also put it clearly: “I do not advocate socialism. Nor
have I any intention of discussing its desirability or undesirability. […] to make it quite clear that I do
not ‘prophesy’ or predict it.”
⁵3 CSD (1942/50, p. 163).
aims, scope, and plan of the book 17
The reason for this is that the growing trustification of capitalism “takes the life
out of the idea of property” and leads to an “evaporation” of its very substance. At
the same time, capitalism’s “rationalist attitude does not stop at the credentials of
kings and popes but goes on to attack private property and the whole scheme of
bourgeois values.”⁵⁴ Monopoly capitalism thus induces a progressive socialization
of the economy, which Schumpeter considered “culturally indeterminate.”⁵⁵ He
meant that, in principle, socialization is also consistent with the democratic
method of arriving at political decisions through “a competitive struggle for the
people’s vote.”⁵⁶
Returning to the issue of money, the evolutionary trilogy of TED, BC, and
CSD treated monetary questions almost exclusively from the perspective of the
financing of entrepreneurial ventures, along with the mechanisms of propagation
and adaptation they induce throughout the economic system. But Schumpeter
never gave up on his plan for a general treatise on money, and monetary matters
remained on his agenda in his teaching and public speeches (e.g., “The Future
of Gold, Address to the Economic Club of Detroit”, henceforth GOL; 1941).
Furthermore, monetary theory continued to fare prominently in his final years,
when he set out to write the HEA. Though also unfinished and incomplete,
this huge monograph absorbed much of Schumpeter’s time and effort, but again
revealed the familiar productive mind at work.
As a final milestone of his career, Schumpeter was elected president of the
American Economic Association in 1948. But even this important professional
recognition could not lay his mind to rest. Keeping a busy schedule, he still had
plans to return to the money book after first finishing HEA. Finally, the industri-
ousness which had upheld his spirits for many years took its toll. Continuously over
worked,⁵⁷ on January 8th, 1950, he died unexpectedly from a cerebral hemorrhage
at the age of 66. Among the many obituaries that appeared, his friend Gottfried
Haberler probably offered the most personal characterization: “He was a good
laugher and could enjoy exuberantly a stimulating conversation, a good story, a
brilliant joke, but he was fundamentally not a happy man.”⁵⁸
1.4 Aims, scope, and plan of the book
Schumpeter’s major works were mostly informed by and aimed at a long-term

perspective. Distinctively tying history with theory, he reached far back in time
to understand what drives a system and determines its course. Historical and
empirical research provided a laboratory for learning about the processes and
⁵⁴ CSD (1942/1950, p. 142f).

⁵⁵ “[A] society may be fully and truly socialist and yet be led by an absolute ruler or be organized
in the most democratic of all possible ways; it may be aristocratic or proletarian; it may be a theocracy
and hierarchic or atheist or indifferent as to religion” (CSD, 1942/50, p. 170).
⁵⁶ CSD (1942/50, p. 269). ⁵⁷ McCraw (2007, p. 495). ⁵⁸ Haberler (1950, p. 372).
dealing with the perpetual twists and turns of actual events. At the same time, he
reached for a long-term vision through theoretical inspection and utmost abstrac-
tion, thereby seeking to distil a phenomenon’s essential “nature” and function.
Even though development unfolds as a “historical-genetic,” that is, path dependent
process, he believed that evolution ultimately tends to bring its “pure” elements
to the fore. Consequently, he was convinced that good theory can supply the
signposts indicating where a system is most likely headed in the distant future.
Schumpeter’s characteristic emphasis on both history and theory also informed
the plan for this monograph in which we simultaneously aim at three groups
of readers: (i) non specialists with a curious mind, (ii) the “Schumpeterian
economists,” and (iii) those who pay attention to the history of economic thought.
The common point of reference is what we term Schumpeter’s venture money.
More specifically, we aim to lay out and proceed with our analysis along three
“threads.” The first thread is monetary history, more specifically the ongoing
stream of innovations that has enhanced and broadened the scope of financing
new ventures. The second thread is the complementary (but often unaligned)
stream of ideas in the history of monetary thought. Finally, Josef Schumpeter
himself, who envisioned his monetary theory of economic development from a
thorough knowledge of economic history and the history of economic thought, is
the third thread that binds everything together and establishes the boundaries of
our endeavor.
To begin with, Part I provides a brief synopsis of the ongoing stream of “creative
response” in monetary and financial history, as well as the scholarly struggle
to understand and assimilate this in the history of monetary thought up to
Schumpeter’s time. It serves as an introduction to the nonspecialist, providing the
general background.⁵⁹ Chapter 2 starts with a short account of the early origins of
money as a social institution. Chapter 3 addresses the era of ascending capitalism
that Schumpeter characterized by the merits of credit as an instrument with which
to finance new commercial ventures. Such credit, broadly defined, was expanded
in scope and volume for the financing of industrial development. Chapter 4 will
turn our attention to this era.
Following the previous account of Schumpeter’s varied and heterodox intellec-
tual roots, the focus in Part II is on his monetary theory of economic development.
Chapter 5 starts with the marginalist revolution and its consolidation of the
classical monetary orthodoxy, leading directly to Josef Schumpeter’s intellectual
upbringing. In addition, some distinctions are drawn between Schumpeter and
his intellectual kinship with the Austrian School.
⁵⁹ Unlike the remainder of this monograph, Part I draws exclusively from the existing literature
and our original input is limited to an attempted compact presentation of the material at hand as well
as its integration with the other focal themes. Consistently with the historical progression of explicit
theoretical reflection and scholarly writing, references to the history of money and finance dominate the
earlier chapters, whereas the evolution of monetary theory features more prominently in the later ones.
aims, scope, and plan of the book 19
Since Schumpeter never completed the attempted treatise on money, much

material of interest remained scattered across different sources. In part, it is only
hinted at or implicit in his early works, and in part it received systematic treatment
in lesser known articles or remained unpublished, whereas major portions were
only published posthumously. The deliberate reconstruction of his monetary the-
ory in Chapter 6 reveals, however, a strikingly original and coherent conception.
In short, Schumpeter integrated a claim-theory of money with the expenditure-
income approach. This culminated in his rationale of the non-neutrality of money,
which matters for real production by affecting not only the general price level
(as postulated by the monetary orthodoxy) but also relative prices, and hence the
incentives to invest, through explicit structural relations.
Chapter 7 explores the basic premises of Schumpeter’s monetary theory of
economic development, in particular highlighting the role of “venture” money
in financing innovation. It thereby identifies two characteristic forms of ‘venture
money’: (i) the credit channel of “creative destruction,” to which he attached
particular theoretical importance, and (ii) the business case for modern venture
capital, where entrepreneurs and early-stage investors realize the “promoter’s
profit” in the form of capital gains from the issue of new shares.
In practice, Schumpeter afforded much importance to both channels of venture
money. While the literature provides some scarce information on his banking
activities, his role as a kind of proto-venture capitalist went largely unnoticed.
Drawing from the detailed study of documents at various archives in Austria,
Part III concentrates on the detailed business history of both endeavors. Chapter 8
is dedicated to the history of the Biedermann joint-stock bank, whose president
Schumpeter was from its foundation until 1924. While his banking activity has so
far mainly been perceived as a speculative episode, here it is examined as a serious
attempt to put his theoretical considerations of credit-based entrepreneurial devel-
opment into practice. Despite his efforts, the project encountered severe economic
turbulence in the spring of 1924. Its failure was due to unfavorable economic
conditions, contradictory strategic orientations among the shareholder groups,
and mistakes made by those in charge.
In addition to his banking activities, Schumpeter actively pursued the “pro-
moter’s profit” during his brief and unfortunate history as a proto-venture capi-
talist, a subject to which we turn in Chapter 9. He invested on a grand scale in
the foundation of new industrial firms. Given the poor condition of the industrial
sites after years of a war economy, the economic rationale appeared sound, but the
financial scheme, timing, and practical execution were not. In addition to spending
his own wealth, he borrowed heavily from his privileged bank account and raised
considerable funds from third parties. Having established large leverage, he was
unable to refinance short-term loans when Austria was hit with its major banking
crisis in 1924. As the factories failed before they could produce any significant cash
flow, Schumpeter learned the perils of high leverage the hard way. His personal
role in the bank and industrial group are explained in Chapter 10, along with
the financial consequences of the failures that overshadowed his life until the
early 1930s.
Finally, Part IV casts light on the further legacy of Schumpeter’s monetary
ideas up to recent history. Chapter 11 first turns to the challenge posed by the
extraordinary success of the Keynesian revolution. In contrast, Schumpeter’s mon-
etary ideas largely got lost in the following decades, which were dominated by the
rivalry between Keynesian and neoclassical ideas, including their various attempts
at synthesis. In short, the “caravan” had moved on without him. Chapter 12 then
highlights selected traces of the “caravan’s return.” The tides had turned with the
growing attention to financial frictions that began in the early 1970s. The new
literature substantiated Schumpeter’s concern for the financing of new ventures to
be a non-trivial instance of the non-neutrality of money. In the 1990s, connections
to Schumpeter also became more explicit in the literature. Triggered by a large
body of empirical research, the nexus between finance and growth now features
prominently, for instance, in Schumpeterian growth theory, as well as evolutionary
agent-based models. Chapter 13 rounds off the narrative by examining three
cases from recent history in which Schumpeter’s vision appears to be particularly
valid. One is the rise of venture capital in Schumpeter’s close environment during
his years at Harvard. Another example is the Great Recession of 2008–9, and
the third example is the impact of digitalization on the further development of
money. In the final epilogue, we characterize Schumpeter’s monetary theory of
economic development to be an old and often unattended variety that is still rich
in substance.
2
Early origins of money
Money is one of the most perfect instruments which the human mind
has devised [ . . . ]. In the simplicity of conception, in the variety of its
applications and effects, it may be most aptly compared to the letters
of the alphabet.
(F. Wieser, 1914/27, p. 170)
Money is one of the oldest social institutions. Its practical import is so deeply
engrained in the fabric of economic relations that monetary history necessarily
predates any recorded history of deliberate theoretical thought. This chapter
provides a short account of its early origins. It is of significance to our later
discussion of Schumpeter’s monetary theory of development for two reasons:
first, the historical account illustrates the perpetual stream of new monetary
arrangements and their importance to the real economy; second, the historical
record puts into perspective the traditional preoccupation with metallism and
the coinage of money as a means of exchange, which dominated the monetary
orthodoxy at Schumpeter’s time. While his opposition to the received canon was
motivated by theoretical considerations, he certainly would have drawn much
comfort and support from the modern historical record, had it been available
to him. The upshot is that it warrants paying more attention to the phenomena
of credit and account, which are also at the center of his conception. With a touch of
irony we can say that the early history of money will also reveal the modernity of
Schumpeter’s vision.
2.1 Credit and interest
Comprehensive accounts of monetary history date back to about 10,000 years

ago, when the neolithic revolution brought about agriculture in association with
higher population growth. Increased commercial interaction contributed to the
rise of complex social structures, and the record-keeping of the value of economic
transactions was among the first needs to arise. Archaeological evidence from the
Near East dating back to about 7000 bce suggests that clay tokens were the first
proto-financial tools, predating even the invention of writing (Table 2.1).1 They
1 Schmandt-Besserat (1992); Goetzmann (2016, p. 22ff). Berg et al. (2019, p. 65) refer to it as the
early forms of a ledger technology.
Schumpeter’s Venture Money. Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch,

Oxford University Press (2021). © Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804383.003.0002
24 early origins of money
Table 2.1 Selected milestones in the early evolution of money
Time (ca.) Location Earliest known evidence of …
Before Common Era (bce)

7000 Near East Commodity symbols (clay tokens)
3200 Mesopotamia Credit and interest (for agriculture, temple contribu-
tions, bridal gifts, etc.)
3100 Mesopotamia Writing (clay tablets)
3000 Mesopotamia Contract (bullae)
2500 Mesopotamia Compound interest (for war reparations)
1800 Mesopotamia Equity partnerships (for maritime trade)
1045 China Use of cowry shells as money (probably much older)
6th century Greek cities Metal coinage (first in Ephesos, Lydia)
5th century Greek cities Banking (the trapezitai of Piraeus)
3rd century India Ancient bills of exchange (adesha)
221 China Standardized Chinese bronze coin (ban liang)
216 Rome Corporation (societas publicanorum)
Common Era (ce)
211 Rome Life annuity tables (e.g., for paying soldiers)
990s China Private paper exchange bills (jiaozi; Sichuan)
1024 China Paper currency (by exclusive government authority)
symbolized specific economic commodities and were generally of a simple and

abstract shape.
At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the innovation of irrigation agriculture in
Mesopotamia allowed communities to settle year-round and develop first urban
societies with growing populations, increased division of labor, and expand-
ing trade relations that secured the supply of tin and other resources. Writing
and credit soon became two indispensable elements of exchange.2 As early as
3000 bce there is evidence that in Mesopotamia clay tokens were stored in sealed
lay balls, called bullae, a kind of contract which specified the commitment of
future payments (e.g., tributes to the temple, taxes, or loans). Abstract symbols on
the surface of these hollow and fist-sized envelopes of clay depicted the number
and type of tokens inside. Later, the Sumerians began inscribing pictographs into
clay tablets and the accounting symbols evolved into “cuneiform,” the world’s first
writing. Goetzmann vividly portrays the practice:
The oldest Uruk tablets were made circa 3100 bce by scribes who took wet lumps
of clay, shaped them into lozenges, and wrote on them with a wooden stylus. The
stylus had a sharp end and round end—one end for lines and the other for dots.
2 van de Mieroop (2005, p.17).

credit and interest 25
Laid sideways, the stylus could also make triangular and cylindrical impressions.
The combination of these formed a lexicon that scholars have now concluded was
the first writing. (Goetzmann, 2016, p. 24)
Temples were the political and administrative center and the clay tablets were
used to record the contribution and distribution of goods such as barley, cattle, or
other means of subsistence. Agricultural shortfalls, the failure to meet obligatory
contributions to the temple or social commitments, such as bridal gifts, and the
capital needs of long-distance trade triggered credit, with its earliest appearance
documented for the period of about 3200 to 1600 bce.3 Credit was generally short-
term, typically in the form of an advance from the central storehouse, and had to
be paid back during the next harvest. The loan contracts could be passed on to
another person, although there is no indication that they were commonly traded.
Most credit called for interest in terms of additional payback at the end of
the specified period. The Sumerian word for interest, mash, also means “calves,”⁴
pointing at its agricultural roots as a fee on grazing and the natural increase
of livestock. Apart from barley or silver, interest was often paid in the form of
own labor or that of family members or a servant. Debt servitude caused social
unrest and occasionally resulted in the annulment of debts or the release of debt
slaves by royal decree.⁵ Since loans were typically issued for a period shorter
than an agricultural year, the notion of compound interest did not arise. The
earliest evidence of it, however, was found in the context of war reparations in
an inscription from about 2500 bce, in which a rival city was commanded to pay
rent plus cumulative interest for a reconquered territory.⁶
In the early second millennium bce commercial credit was also common and
insurance was even offered, if for an additional fee the loan was cancelled in the
case of the loss of a shipment.⁷ Documents from the city of Ur show that a kind
of limited equity partnership existed, whereby liability was limited to the actual
contribution and the profits were shared, conditional on the success of a maritime
expedition.⁸
As time passed, more private contracts emerged and tax-farmers, for instance,
acted as middlemen, balancing and converting the payments into silver. Shekels
of silver became the common unit of currency with which the government set
3 In later centuries, the Sumerian word ur also became the generic term for loan. “There is enormous
variety in the formulation of loan records but the indispensable elements include what was borrowed,
by whom, and from whom. How regularly, in which form, and when it had to be repaid was also
indicated. Babylonian contracts were almost always dated, often to the day, […]. Since many loans
were an arrangement between two individuals, there were witnesses whose names were listed as well”
(van de Mieroop, 2005, p. 21).
⁴ As does the greek term tokos. The Latin term pecus means “flock.” Goetzmann (2016, p. 44).
⁵ van de Mieroop (2005, p. 28). ⁶ Goetzmann (2016, p. 35ff).
⁷ Ferguson (2008, p. 185). ⁸ Goetzmann (2016, p. 46ff).
the price of commodities, labor, or penalties. Rather than being widely circulated,
silver presumably mainly served as a unit of account:⁹
Although they used a silver based pricing system, more than likely they recorded
their small payments or obligations in accounts—like running a tab at a local
store. They used silver as a “language” of accounts, but a grocer could not
constantly and reliably weigh out shekels of silver while bargaining over barley,
cress, and dates. (Goetzmann, 2016, p. 100)
2.2 Coinage
According to modern historical records, money and credit thus existed long before
the invention of coinage, which evolved in the Mediterranean1⁰ from the early
sixth century bce onward. As is often emphasized in the economics literature,
coinage offered greater flexibility in commercial transactions, especially in trade
over long distances, where trust in an accurate and enforceable system of accounts
was diminished. It avoided counter-party risk in the growing maritime trade of the
Greek city states, when partners were often incapable of enforcing a loan contract
of the kind that had appeared earlier in Mesopotamia.11 In addition, small change
reduced transaction costs in ordinary local commerce.
The first metal coinage may also have originated in China—presumably in order
to mitigate the shortage of money as the economy outgrew the limited availability
of cowry shells.12 Cowries are among the oldest examples of money by means
of a symbolic system of exchange and the pictograph of a shell still appears in
many Chinese characters representing matters of commerce. While their use is
confirmed by ancient documents dating from 1045 bce, they were likely used
before then. They evolved from an article of adornment into a means of payment
between 3000 and 1122 bce.13 After the era of the “warring states”—each using
a different currency, typically bronze cast into shapes of ordinary tools, such as
spades and knives, it was only in 221 bce that the Quin dynasty introduced a
standardized bronze coin to China’s first unified empire (the ban liang).
⁹ See also Orrell and Chlupaty (2016, p. 17).

1⁰ The oldest troves were found in Ephesos in Lydia (which is near Izmir, now Turkey), Athens and
other Greek city states. The earliest Lydian coins were made from a gold-silver alloy (“electrum”).
11 Some authors assert that long-distance trade existed before the introduction of coinage and that
many coins had not circulated far. Alternate explanations therefore emphasize the context of warring
city states. Related to and possibly mitigating the ancient practice of plunder, coinage may originate in
the rulers’ need to pay soldiers and more generally as a means of enhancing commerce and loyalty to
the state. See Orrell and Chlupaty (2016, p. 21).
12 Goetzmann (2016, p. 147ff).
13 Peng (1994). The latter date signals the presence of bronze cowries in royal tombs (Goetzmann,
2016, p. 149).
legal advances 27
2.3 Legal advances
In the fifth century bce, the advancement of legal systems and public institutions
to enforce common rules and contractual commitments was a major driver of
financial development among Greek city states. An ancient banking business arose
in the port of Piraeus, where the “trapezitai”1⁴ took deposits and provided loans for
maritime trade and domestic business or backed expensive social obligations. The
thicker the market, the more easily lenders could diversify their funding among
distinct enterprises and thus accept the risk of shipwreck as well as facilitate other
entrepreneurial ventures.
Written contracts allowed to document loans and commit debtors to certain
payments. These were the basis of the ancient forms of bills of exchange,1⁵ which
probably first emerged in India and Rome, and which later became an important
instrument used to settle accounts among Arab merchants. One of the earliest
recorded examples was the Indian adesh, which constituted orders of payment
from a banker to a third person. In large towns it was used as a letter of credit
among merchants.1⁶ It originated in the third century bce during the Mauryan
period, which had successfully rebelled against the Greek governors.
The Greek advances of the legal system became particularly influential in
the Roman Empire, where money changers (argentarii) provided all kinds of
banking services, ranging from taking deposits to carrying out money transfers
or lending. Schumpeter, for instance, described the risk-bearing contracts drafted
for maritime ventures:
The outstanding case […] is afforded by a contract that the Romans took from
the Greeks, the foenus nauticum. This provided a method for the financing of
maritime trade mainly by removing or relaxing the restrictions on the rate of
interest in consideration of the clause that the “entrepreneur’s” obligation as to
both interest and capital lapsed in case his venture failed to succeed, i.e., that he
owed only if ship and cargo landed safely.
(bc, 1939, p. 615; see also Section 7.9)
Finally, one of Rome’s distinctive own innovations was the societas publicanorum, a
legal association of shareholders exclusively restricted to public contracts, but with
special provisions that anticipated the modern corporation.1⁷ At a time when the
empire was growing faster than its administrative capacity, the earliest documents
mention this innovation in the context of procuring military supplies in 216 bce.
1⁴ “Trapeza” denotes the table on which the financial businesses were conducted.
1⁵ Denzel (2008). 1⁶ Reserve Bank of India (1998, chapter II, p. 1).
1⁷ Malmendier (2005, 2009).
Other public services included construction work, property rights, for example,
for grazing, fishing or mining, and tax-farming. Unlike the regular “societas,” the
publican societies established a separate legal persona that was independent of its
shareholders (the “publicani”) and regularly bid for government contracts at public
auctions. Shares were tradable, and during its heyday this system seems to have
been widespread. Later, this form disappeared when such public contracts were
no longer auctioned—de facto crowded out by public services. Since the special
provisions had never been systematically integrated into the Roman legal system,
they were practically forgotten during the following centuries.1⁸
2.4 “Light and heavy”
In the ancient societies, the transition from a bartering to a monetary economy

stimulated both the Chinese and Greek political philosophers.1⁹ In China, the
outstanding example is the guanzi, a collection of essays attributed to the Jixia
Academy in the city of Linzi.2⁰ It is composed of imaginary dialogues occurring
in the seventh century bce, but probably already composed by various authors
during the fourth century bce and continually revised up to about 26 bce. In
several passages it addresses money and points at its origins in government fiat:
“The rulers cast coins to establish money.”21 Among economic explanations, the
emphasis was placed on its functions as both a medium of exchange and a measure
of value.
The guanzi has, in particular, come to prominence for its earliest known artic-
ulation of the law of supply and demand. Originally, the terms “light and heavy”
simply referred to the weight of the coins, but they were eventually metaphorically
extended to denote its purchasing power. A convenient way of expressing the value
of money relative to that of goods was found: “If coins are heavy, then the myriad of
goods will be light. If coins are light, then the myriad of goods will be heavy”. In an
often-quoted example, the guanzi relates the idea of relative scarcity and resulting
differences in supply and demand to international trade:
Now grain is heavy in our state, and light in the world at large. Then the
other lords’ goods will spontaneously leak out like water from a spring flowing
downhill. Hence if goods are heavy, they will come; if light, they will go.
(quotation from Peng, 1994, p. 96)
1⁸ Malmendier (2005, 2009). 1⁹ Peng (1994, p. 90).

2⁰ Goetzmann (2016). 21 Quotation from Peng (1994, p. 94).
paper money 29
This advanced comprehension of economic relationships was also displayed in

a comparatively abstract idea of money, in which the guanzi emphasized its
(political) function as a general measure of accounts:
If you grasp three coins, there is nothing there to warm you. If you eat them,
there is nothing there to nourish you. The former kings used it to store up goods,
to manage men, and to pacify the world. That which is used to order things is
called a measure. A measure fixes height and subordination, so that things are
not shifting. (quotation from Peng, 1994, p. 95)
2.5 Paper money
While the earliest appearance of metal coinage remains disputed, the Chinese were
certainly the first to introduce paper money. As a primary example of historic
specificity, this radical innovation resulted from particular challenges, as well as
enabling and inducing factors, the confluence of which is owed to the specific
technological, political, and economic circumstances of the time. Furthermore,
the advanced theoretical understanding of monetary matters must also have been
instrumental to this development.
To begin with, the Chinese were already familiar with and practically dependent
on a fiat currency. Eschewing the scarcity of precious metals, such as gold and
silver, coinage in China was mainly minted from the more readily available bronze
or brass alloys. While requiring a strong government and sophisticated adminis-
tration as the ultimate guarantee of the value that was enacted and stamped to the
coin, this system had the benefit of ensuring a more flexible money supply, which
the rulers could better adjust to growing populations and trade. The particular
way in which the bronze coins were used was also rather uncommon by western
standards:
Coins were counted by tale rather than issued in different denominates, and the
basic monetary unit was the single coin (wen or “cash”). Larger units were created
by stringing coins together in units of 100 (mo) and 1,000 (guan) coins. The guan
(or “string of cash”) became the standard unit of account in state finance.
(Von Glahn, 2005, p. 68)
A low intrinsic value together with a lack of higher denominations made this
form of currency very cumbersome in commercial exchange. From the early
ninth century onward, the Chinese government therefore operated depositories
in its capital, where it offered promissory notes called feiqian or “flying cash”
in exchange for bronze coins, which the merchants could later redeem in their
provincial capitals.22
These deficiencies in commercial exchange were further exacerbated in the
province of Sichuan, where coins were minted from iron instead of bronze. In addi-
tion, continued military harassment and conflict was driving monetary expansion
to a point where inflation literally put a “heavy” burden on all kinds of transactions.
In the 990s private merchants therefore began issuing their own “exchange bills”
called jiaozi, which soon enjoyed growing circulation, but were also prone to
abuse and led to a surge of legal disputes. By the year 1005 this development
prompted the provincial government to enforce certain regulations,23 while not
restricting the total amount supplied. Private issue, however, remained precarious,
as investments in illiquid assets such as real estate and other commodities curtailed
the issuers’ ability to redeem. Counterfeiting occurred as well. As a consequence, in
1024 the government assumed control as the exclusive authority for issuing paper
currency.2⁴
Finally, the innovation of fiat money by paper issues was only conceivable
because of China’s advanced knowledge in paper production and printing. More
specifically, the substitution of hemp fiber with tree bark and carved woodblocks
with metal plates enabled the issue of standardized, bright, and durable high-
quality notes in great numbers.
Initially, the government issues of paper currency were successful and especially
popular among the merchants in the growing tea trade, who frequently exchanged
them at a premium above their nominal value.2⁵ In the course of time, however,
radical economic reforms (including the nationalization of private enterprise),
continual problems of counterfeiting, and growing military expenditures led to
a depreciation of the paper currency to less than 10 percent of its face value
by the year 1107.2⁶ Commodity vouchers, such as those based on the state’s salt
monopoly, gained in importance. But then, as in later periods, the Achilles heel of
fiat money was the temptation of government authorities to excessively increase
its issue in response to fiscal crises, thereby fuelling inflation.
From a western perspective, it is easy to blame the system of fiat money
altogether, on the assumption that over time policy will inevitably give in to
the temptation of inflationary practices. However, taking into consideration the
broader historical context, and especially the role of military expenditures, one
22 von Glahn (2005, p. 67).

23 Only merchant houses with sufficient financial resources were allowed to issue notes that had to
apply a standardized format, but bear the seals of the issuer. Instead of a standard denomination being
applied, the value was inscribed on the bill.
2⁴ The issues were in two fixed denominations and had to be redeemed every two years with a
commission fee of 3 percent. See von Glahn (2005).
2⁵ von Glahn (2005, p. 69). 2⁶ von Glahn (2005, p. 87).
paper money 31
may also conclude that the paper money’s deteriorating valuation mainly mirrored
the growing pressure on and declining prospects of the issuing Song rulers, which
were eventually displaced by the Mongol Yuan dynasty:
Yet the final demise of these early experiments in paper money should not
obscure the notable success that Chinese governments attained in creating viable
fiat currencies, particularly in Sichuan, the birthplace of the first paper currency.
While its reach may have exceeded its grasp, the Song state developed a complex
array of fiscal and monetary institutions, including paper currencies, that enabled
the government to mobilize economic resources on an unprecedented scale. The
durability of Song paper money not only as a means of paying taxes to the state,
but also as the common currency of private trade, was indeed a remarkable
achievement. (Von Glahn, 2005, p. 89)
The Mongol leader Kublai Khan (1215–94) would have agreed. He adopted the
Song practice and issued his own fiat paper money. Based simply on the political
power of enforcement, its existence must have come as a venerable shock to those
who in ca. 1300 learned of it from the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (1254–1324).
With the detailed title “How the Great Khan Causes the Bark of Trees, Made into
Something Like Paper, to Pass for Money All over His Country,” Polo’s report
presented fiat money as the “secret of alchemy in perfection”:
All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if
they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a variety of officials, whose
duty it is, have to write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is
prepared duly, the chief officer deputed by the Khan smears the seal entrusted
to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the seal
remains imprinted upon it in red; the money is then authentic. Anyone forging
it would be punished with death.
(Polo and Rustichello, edition of 1920, chapter 24)
The emperor’s fiat also makes the money “pass current universally over all his
kingdoms and provinces and territories,” since “nobody, however important he
may think himself, dares to refuse them on pain of death.” Moreover,
everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may go throughout the
great Khan’s dominions he shall find these pieces of paper current, and shall be
able to transact all sales and purchases of goods by means of them just as well as
if they were coins of pure gold.
Foreign merchants must only sell their gold, silver, or gems to the emperor in
exchange for paper, by means of which they can then pursue their purchases
throughout his territory. Finally,
several times in the year proclamation is made through the city that anyone who
may have gold or silver or gems or pearls, by taking them to the mint shall get a
handsome price for them. And the owners are glad to do this, because they would
find no other purchaser gives so large a price. Thus, the quantity they bring in is
marvellous, though those who do not choose to do so may let it alone. Still, in
this way, nearly all the valuables in the country come into the Khan’s possession.
The detail and historical accurateness of Polo’s report suggest that his travelogue
is original and based on his own experience. But there exists no firm evidence that
he ever traveled further than the Black Sea, and some historians have suspected
that he collected the narrations from other merchants coming from the East.
Furthermore, he dictated his manuscript during his imprisonment in Genoa to
fellow inmate Rustichello da Pisa, who was a professional writer of romances
and likely embellished the tales, exaggerating Polo’s role at the Chinese court.
Perhaps this explains the otherwise astonishing fact that Polo’s account of Chinese
paper money apparently had no major impact on the development of European
monetary thought, to which we will turn in the next section.
2.6 The “substance matter”
Economic analysis in the western hemisphere remained largely ignorant of and

unaffected by the Chinese example of paper money. Similarly, scholars were not
aware of the ancient scripts of the guanzi, which had hinted at the fundamental
economic law of supply and demand much earlier than had European writings.
Even Schumpeter’s HEA, which is certainly one of the most encyclopedic accounts
of the evolution of economic thought, does not mention them.
Schumpeter situated the beginnings of systematic analytical monetary thought
with the Greek philosophers. Not unlike the early Chinese scholars, their eco-
nomic analysis was rudimentary and mainly concerned with business in the
context of a general theory of society and the state. However, the Greeks were
already addressing two of the most enduring questions in monetary analysis:
What is the “substance matter” and, relatedly, what are the constitutive functions
of money? Thereby Schumpeter credited Plato (ca. 427–347 bce) and Aristotle
(384–322 bce) with originating the two archetypes of monetary thought. Accord-
ing to Schumpeter, Plato had considered money as a “symbol devised for the
purpose of facilitating exchange”. More specifically, he referred to Plato’s “canons
Another random document with
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this quite plainly on one occasion, and I should like to remark that
you must not draw any conclusions from this with regard to other
occupied territories. I am completely convinced that in the Eastern
Territories and in the Government General the same centralization
did not exist.
DR. STEINBAUER: What possibilities did you have, then, of
setting up an administration?
SEYSS-INQUART: The initiative for, and the extent of, the
demands made by the Reich came, of course, from the competent
central offices in the Reich. I investigated the demands with my
colleagues in consultation with the Dutch offices. We would then
make counterproposals which seemed to us reasonable for the
Dutch. And if the Reich still demanded more, then we made efforts
not to exceed what could be expected. Until 1943 all demands were
fulfilled by the Dutch authorities themselves. I gave my officials no
authority to make such demands until after this period. Then the
demands became so large, that I no longer expected the Dutch
authorities to supply them.
DR. STEINBAUER: I come back to the question of the Police for
a moment, which, as you said, stood directly under Himmler...
SEYSS-INQUART: You asked what possibilities I had?
DR. STEINBAUER: Yes.
SEYSS-INQUART: I had two possibilities: with the Queen of the
Netherlands and the Government gone to England, I could have
nominated a new Dutch Government, as in Norway, or conducted
the administration of the country myself. I decided on the second
solution.
DR. STEINBAUER: How did you organize the existing Dutch
police force?
SEYSS-INQUART: Whereas the German Police were not in any
way dependent on me, the Dutch police were under my orders; but it
was a matter of course that I should transfer the supervision of the
Dutch police to the Higher SS and Police Leader as well—that is, in
the capacity as my Commissioner General for Security. The Dutch
police were divided into three or four different branches. I think that
we can safely say we were acting in the interests of the occupational
power when we co-ordinated them as regards organization.
DR. STEINBAUER: What was the Home Guard (Landwacht)?
SEYSS-INQUART: The Home Guard was a protection squad
organized by the Dutch National Socialists. In 1943 there were
serious cases of terror attacks on National Socialists—some very
cruel murders. There was the danger of the counterterror of which
we had heard in Denmark and, in fact, several unfortunate incidents
did happen. Consequently I had this Home Guard organized with
orders to act as a regular disciplined auxiliary police force, and to
control street traffic at night, and guard railways, et cetera. The result
was that these acts of terror ceased almost entirely, and until the
middle of 1944 no further difficulties arose.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, we now come to an exceptionally
important chapter.
SEYSS-INQUART: May I just for a moment refer to Exhibit
Seyss-Inquart-101? This document has been held against me by the
Prosecution...
THE PRESIDENT: Is 101 the right designation?
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, the speeches which the
defendant is quoting have been sent down by me to be
mimeographed. Although they are actually already before the
Tribunal, the translation department did not quite catch up, as they
wanted to translate all the affidavits too. So they are not here yet in
the translation, but I hope to have them by tomorrow morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Hasn’t it got a PS number, or any other
designation?
DR. STEINBAUER: It is a book, Exhibit USA-708. The
Prosecution have only quoted individual passages from it.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
SEYSS-INQUART: The Prosecution have quoted Page 167.
On 1 August 1943 I made a speech announcing special
measures which would bring difficulties and restrictions upon the
Dutch, and the Prosecution believe that the shootings which took
place later are connected with it. That is an error. The restrictions I
spoke of in that speech concerned only an order forbidding Dutch
people to stay in places outside their own provinces, so that bands of
terrorists from the northwest could not get to the east. As this
happened just during the vacation time, it really was a restriction for
the Dutch.
DR. STEINBAUER: Now I come to the next question. Did you
change and possibly misuse the existing organization of the lower
courts?
SEYSS-INQUART: I took over the organization of the Dutch
courts entirely. The administration of justice in the Netherlands was
of a commendably high standard. Only on two occasions did I
supplement it. The Dutch judges showed little understanding of the
economic situation. For instance, on one occasion a group of black
market butchers, who had killed large numbers of cattle and brought
them to the black market, were fined 200 guilders; so I installed
special economic judges, Dutchmen, who had more understanding
of these economic necessities. But the legal situation remained as it
was. Of course, we also introduced our German courts, as every
occupational power does.
DR. STEINBAUER: So that we had Dutch courts, German
courts for Germans staying in the Netherlands, and the police
courts?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, but also for the Dutch who violated the
interests of the German occupational forces.
DR. STEINBAUER: Now, it is alleged in the proceedings that
through these courts there were 4,000 executions, which have to be
accounted for.
SEYSS-INQUART: That is completely false. If I take into
account all the death sentences which were pronounced and actually
carried out by the German courts, the police courts, and the military
courts; and if I add to them the cases where Dutchmen lost their
lives in clashes with the executive powers; then, according to a
statement of the Higher SS and Police Leader, up to the middle of
1944 there were less than 800 cases in 4 years—that is to say, less
than were caused by a bombing attack on the town of Nijmegen. The
shootings came afterwards.
DR. STEINBAUER: You also exercised the rights to reprieve, for
which you had a special reprieve department?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
DR. STEINBAUER: In this connection I wish to refer to
Document Seyss-Inquart-75, Page 190 in the document book. This
is the affidavit of Rudolf Fritsch, who was a judge at the Prussian
Supreme Court and reprieve expert for the Reich Commissioner. I
should like to quote two paragraphs from this document, and I refer
to the second paragraph on Page 3:
“In exercising his right to reprieve, the Reich Commissioner
proceeded from the standpoint that this was one of the
most sacred rights of the head of a state, and that it was
especially calculated to create a friendly, confidential
atmosphere between the Germans and the Dutch.
Therefore, in the beginning it was he himself who made the
decision in every case, on the basis of case reports which
were submitted to him together with a suggestion for a
reprieve from the reprieve department. After about 2 to 3
months he delegated the exercise of the right to reprieve
within his own organization to the chief of the Department
for Reprieves. The latter was competent except in the
following cases: 1) the cancellation of proceedings; 2)
decision in case of death sentences; 3) decision in
fundamental questions; 4) decision in isolated cases
without precedent...
“No sentence of death was carried out without there being
an official examination of the question of a reprieve, even
when a formal appeal for a reprieve was not submitted.”
Then I come to Page 5, the last paragraph:
“Since co-operation with authorities in the Dutch courts
proved that they could be trusted, the Reich Commissioner
gradually delegated in the main the right of reprieve to the
Dutch Minister of Justice. From the huge amount of mail
which came in ... I repeatedly learned of police actions
staged by the Gestapo whereby regular jurisdiction was
eliminated.... In such cases I would collect material and use
it to take action in order to bring the persons involved
before regular courts for judgment. And I was actually
successful with such action. This was proof to me that the
Reich Commissioner opposed the wild police methods of
the Gestapo and was an adherent of regular legal
procedure.”
I think that with this we can close this subject of justice and now
come to the question of finance.
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, but the Führer’s order excluding courts
is also very important.
DR. STEINBAUER: Well, if you wish to add something else.
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, it is decisive.
After the strike at Amsterdam, I proposed summary court-martial
procedure. That is not an invention of recent times; it is summary
court procedure for special emergencies, such as you can find in the
legislation of every country. The summary courts martial were
subject to special precautionary provisions. First of all, a proper
judge had to be there; secondly, the defense was allowed a counsel,
who could be Dutch; thirdly, evidence had to be given in the proper
manner, and if the question of guilt was not clearly determined, then
the case had to be transferred to the ordinary courts. This summary
court-martial procedure was only in force for 2 weeks at the time of
the general strike in May 1943. The number of people shot later on
cannot be traced back to these summary courts martial. Also they
had been provided for the special emergency of the Netherlands
again becoming a theatre of war.
In the meantime, however, a decree came from the Führer
which had already been made public in an order from the High
Command of the Armed Forces. I refer to 1155-PS—no, I beg your
pardon, that is wrong—it is Document 835-PS.
On 30 July 1944 the Führer ordered that all non-German
civilians in occupied territories who were guilty of sabotage or terror
actions were to be handed over to the Security Police. The Higher
SS Leader and I both objected to this order, as we clearly realized
what damaging effects it would have, especially in the Netherlands.
Through such an order the Dutch would only be driven into illegal
organizations.
During a period of 4 to 6 weeks the Higher SS and Police
Leader never carried out the order. But he then received a severe
reprimand from Himmler, and from that time on he was obliged to
deal with the Dutch who had been arrested for sabotage or illegal
activities, and had to judge them according to his own jurisdiction,
shooting them when necessary. One can account in this way for the
shootings on a larger scale, but I do not believe that there were as
many as 4,000. As often as I could, I urged the Security Police to be
most careful in carrying out this order, but I never received any
reports on the individual cases. I had the impression that there were
perhaps 600 to 700.
DR. STEINBAUER: If I understood you correctly, then this was a
police affair, which was directly...
SEYSS-INQUART: At all events it no longer came under my
authority or influence. But if, at that time, I gave the Security Police
orders to check up on an illegal movement somewhere, I
nevertheless had to realize that some Dutchman or other, who was
discovered to be the leader of such a movement, would be shot by
the Police without the courts or myself being able to investigate the
case. But then I could not desist from safeguarding the security of
the occupational authorities, because the Führer decree had been
issued.
DR. STEINBAUER: I now come to the chapter of finance. A
document has been presented here where a certain Mr. Trip
announces his resignation. Who was this gentleman?
SEYSS-INQUART: Mr. Trip was the President of the Bank of the
Netherlands—that is to say, the bank of issue—and he was also the
General Secretary for Finance. I think he can readily be considered
one of the world’s leading banking experts. He is an outstanding
personality and one of the men described today as a Dutch patriot.
DR. STEINBAUER: He was also General Secretary for Finance,
was he not?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes. Until March 1941 he was the General
Secretary for Finance. In my first speech to the general secretaries I
said that I would not ask any general secretary to do anything that
was contrary to his conscience. If he thought that there was
something he felt he could not do, then he could resign without any
harm to himself. I said that all I asked was that he carry out my
orders loyally as long as he remained in office. Mr. Trip was in office
until March 1941, and then he resigned because there was
something he refused to carry out. He did this without the slightest
disadvantage to himself.
DR. STEINBAUER: Who was his successor?
SEYSS-INQUART: I should like to say that what Mr. Trip carried
out until March 1941 is, in my opinion, justifiable in every respect.
Otherwise he most certainly would not have done it.
His successor was Mr. Rost van Tonningen. Rost van Tonningen
was a League of Nations Commissioner in Austria who there had
had tasks similar to those I gave him in the Netherlands.
DR. STEINBAUER: What about the costs of occupation?
SEYSS-INQUART: As far as the civilian administration was
concerned, Mr. Trip and I agreed that I receive 3 million guilders a
month. Then there was another 20 million in fines in addition to that.
During the first 3 years I saved 60 million guilders, which remained in
the Netherlands as a special bequest.
As far as the cost of the military occupation was concerned, I
had no authority to check that. The Armed Forces put in their
demands to the Minister of Finance, and I then received orders to
place the money at their disposal. During 1941, the Reich exacted
indirect occupation costs. It took the point of view that not only the
expenses which were incurred directly in the Netherlands should be
paid for, but that the cost of preparations in the Reich should be
borne too. Fifty million marks per month were demanded—partly in
gold. Later this contribution was designated as voluntary assistance
for the East...
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean marks, or do you mean
guilders?
SEYSS-INQUART: Marks, 50 million marks. Later on this
contribution was called voluntary assistance for the East, for political
reasons, but of course it was not so. Later on, the Reich demanded
that this sum be increased to 100 millions, but I refused.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. Trip retired as General Secretary for
Finance because the foreign currency embargo, which still existed at
the time between Germany and the Netherlands, was lifted?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, that is correct. I received a request by
my administration for the purpose of intensifying economic
exchanges between the Reich and the Netherlands—to lift the
foreign currency embargo so that, without having recourse to banks
of issue, guilders could be exchanged for marks, and vice versa. The
fundamental possibility of such exchanges had already been
determined under Mr. Trip, but it was subject to the control of the
bank of issue, that is to say, of the Netherlands Bank as well. Mr. Trip
raised objections and I passed the matter on to Berlin. Berlin decided
that it was to be carried out and Mr. Trip resigned. I appointed Mr.
Rost van Tonningen, President of the Bank of the Netherlands, and I
published the decree.
I wish to say that the President of the Reichsbank, Herr Funk,
was against this procedure, and I can quote in explanation that at
that time the effects could not be foreseen as turning out as
catastrophic as they did later on. At that time the Netherlands were
completely cut off, and the Reich had reached the height of its
power. It was to be expected that the mark would become the
leading currency in Europe, and that thereby the guilder would have
been given the same importance. In February 1941, for instance,
imports from the Reich into the Netherlands were greater than the
exports from the Netherlands into the Reich. Reich Minister Funk
always held the view that these were real debts, so that in the event
of a different outcome of the war such debts which amounted to
some 4½ billion would have had to be paid back to the Netherlands.
DR. STEINBAUER: If I understood you correctly, it was your
General Secretary for Finance, Dr. Fischböck, who suggested this
matter contrary to the wishes of Trip.
SEYSS-INQUART: I do not know whether the suggestion came
from Fischböck alone. I presume that he must have talked it over
with other people; but it was he who put the matter to me.
DR. STEINBAUER: You have also been accused of imposing
collective penalties in the form of fines, which is contrary to
international law.
SEYSS-INQUART: Collective fines are prohibited under
international law only in case of individual offenses. The large
collective fine of 18 million guilders was imposed in connection with
the general strike in Amsterdam, Arnhem, and Hilversum, in which
the entire population took part. Later, I had collective fines paid back
whenever it was discovered that definite individuals were responsible
for the offense.
DR. STEINBAUER: Can you give us any example?
SEYSS-INQUART: I think witness Schwebel will be able to tell
you that. It was in towns in the south of Holland where it happened.
DR. STEINBAUER: You are also accused by the Prosecution of
responsibility for what happened in the hostage camp in
Michelsgestel. What have you to say to that?
SEYSS-INQUART: I can take full and absolute responsibility for
what happened in the hostage camp in St. Michelsgestel. It was not
a hostage camp in the actual sense of the word: I took Dutchmen
into custody only when they had shown themselves to be active in
resistance movements. The camp at St. Michelsgestel was not a
prison. I visited it. The inmates of the camp played golf. They were
given leave, in the case of urgent family affairs or business matters.
Not a single one of them was ever shot. I think the majority of the
present Dutch Ministers were at St. Michelsgestel. It was a sort of
protective custody to temporarily hinder them from continuing their
anti-German activities.
DR. STEINBAUER: In addition to this you are said to have
prohibited the reading of pastoral letters, and to have put Catholic
priests and Lutheran ministers in concentration camps?
SEYSS-INQUART: It is true that I prohibited one pastoral letter,
which may happen in times of occupation—because it publicly
opposed the measures of the occupational power and incited people
to disobedience. That was an isolated case, and it never happened
again—for the good reason, too, that there were no more
provocations of such a kind in the pastoral letters. In fact, I even
intervened and canceled the prohibition issued by the Police,
whenever it was a matter only of a criticism toward the measures
taken by the occupational powers, and there was no incitement to
resistance.
I myself never sent priests to concentration camps. On the
contrary, at the beginning of 1943 after having made repeated urgent
requests, I finally received a list from the Security Police with the
names of the priests who were shut up in concentration camps.
There were 45 or 50 of them altogether. Three or four were
mentioned as having died in the concentration camp. On the
grounds of the facts of their case, I sought out about a third of them
and demanded their release; for the second third I demanded
investigation within the coming 6 months; and it was only as far as
the last third was concerned that it was impossible for me to
intervene without violating my own responsibility towards the Reich.
Dutch hostages were also taken for purposes of reprisal. When
the Netherlands came into the war, the Germans in the Dutch East
Indies were put into prison and allegedly mistreated. The Reich
demanded the arrest of 3,000 Dutchmen. The Security Police
arrested 800 and took them to Buchenwald. When I heard that the
mortality was high, I made such urgent appeals that the hostages
were finally returned. They were then accommodated in such a way
that one could no longer talk of a prison. They were given leave, and
when necessary I released them. In the end, I had less than 100.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, you are said to have prohibited
prayers in church, and especially prayers for the Queen.
SEYSS-INQUART: That is incorrect. The prayers in Dutch
churches were obvious demonstrations. Prayers were made—as
was quite natural—for the Queen of the Netherlands, and for her
happiness and prosperity, and the fulfillment of her wishes. At the
same time there were prayers for the Reich Commissioner, for his
enlightenment. I was severely reproached for tolerating these
demonstrations. But I found nothing wrong with these prayers, and
did not prohibit them. Perhaps, in some isolated cases a subordinate
authority would put in his say, but this was always suppressed.
DR. STEINBAUER: That would not have been so bad; but it is
said that you were particularly cruel and had a large number of
people shot without legal proceedings. What have you to say to that?
SEYSS-INQUART: As far as I can remember, there was only
one real case of hostages being shot—that is, people were shot
without there being any causal connection with a crime. This
occurred in August 1942, and the case has already been brought up
here. It was handled strictly according to the so-called Hostage Law,
which has been quoted here. It was in connection with an attack on
an army transport, and 50 or 25 hostages were to be shot. It was, I
think, the Higher SS and Police Leader who made the demand
through the Military Commander upon request of the High Command
of the Army.
My intervention consisted in reducing this figure to 5 and in
looking over the list which had been submitted to me by other
departments, and which has been read out here in court. I, too,
noticed something peculiar about it. The Higher SS and Police
Leader had expressly emphasized that the list had been drawn up
strictly in keeping with the directives, saying that the attack could be
traced back to rightist circles of resistance, not to those on the Left,
so that no workers could be shot. I only exercised my influence
insofar as I caused the Higher SS and Police Leader to cross off the
list the names of fathers with several children.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, what do you know, in detail, about
the people who were shot when the camp at Vught was evacuated?
SEYSS-INQUART: When the British and Canadians were
advancing through Belgium toward the south of Holland, I had so
much to do to keep order in my province that I could not pay any
special attention to the camp at Vught, which was under police
direction. The Higher SS and Police Leader informed me generally
that the most seriously charged political prisoners, numbering about
200, would be transferred to the Reich, that the less seriously
charged political prisoners would be set free, and that ordinary
criminals would be placed under the command of a Dutch police
officer and handed over to the Canadians. It was only here that I
heard some people had been shot, and the only way I can explain it
is that at the last minute the Reich forbade these people to be
transported into the Reich and gave orders for them to be shot. I do
not believe there were 600 of them, because from what the witness
Kollpuss said there seem to have been some 130 to 150. But even
that is enough.
DR. STEINBAUER: What do you know about the shooting of
hostages after the attack on the SS and Police Leader Rauter?
SEYSS-INQUART: The attack on the Higher SS and Police
Leader came from the resistance movement, and was carried out
with British weapons.
DR. STEINBAUER: What do you know about the Putten case?
SEYSS-INQUART: Excuse me, I have not finished my previous
statement.
DR. STEINBAUER: Oh, you want to give a more exact...
SEYSS-INQUART: Himmler, at that time, gave orders for 500
hostages to be shot. Rauter’s deputy Dr. Schöngarth refused, and
informed me that there were a number of Dutchmen in the prisons
who were to be shot, in accordance with the Führer’s order, because
they had been convicted of other acts of sabotage. He had hesitated,
he said, since the number was somewhat larger, but now he could
not hesitate any longer. He did not give me the actual figure. In this
situation I could not, in my opinion, prevent him from carrying out the
order, because we had to suppress the resistance movement by all
means. The movement had been organized and supplied with arms
by the Dutch Government in London, and it presented a serious
danger to the German occupational forces.
Two hundred and thirty Dutchmen were supposed to be shot—
amongst them 80 in Apeldoorn alone—and this seemed to me a lot.
But Dr. Schöngarth told me that in the north of Apeldoorn there was
a center of the illegal resistance movement.
DR. STEINBAUER: I want to ask you, last of all, what do you
know about the Putten case?
SEYSS-INQUART: In Putten there was an attack on German
officers. Three were murdered. The whole thing took place within the
Armed Forces, the SS, and the Police; and I knew that measures of
reprisal were planned. I myself, at that time, was concerned with the
construction of defenses. The Higher SS and Police Leader informed
me that he had received the order to burn the village of Putten, and
to transfer the male population to a concentration camp in the Reich.
However, he had reduced the figure to 40 percent, and later on he
reported to me that there was a high mortality rate in German
concentration camps. Both he and I applied to the military
commander to have these men returned. The military commander
agreed. Whether this order could still be carried out I do not know.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, perhaps at this point we
could have a short recess?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. STEINBAUER: Your Lordship, I should like to come back to

the question of the embargo on foreign currencies.
The Defendant Reich Marshal Göring has just informed me,
during the recess, that in this conflict, Fischböck, Trip, and Wohlthat
on the one hand, and on the other Funk, who was against it, and he
himself, Göring, as head of the Four Year Plan, made a decision to
lift the embargo on foreign currencies. And he writes me here, “I bear
the responsibility.” So it was a decision which was taken by Göring.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Steinbauer, it is not, of course, a regular
way in which to inform the Tribunal about anything, to tell them what
one of the defendants may have said to you during an adjournment.
DR. STEINBAUER: He wrote it.
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid that doesn’t make it any better.
You may ask the witness any question about it.
DR. STEINBAUER: As regards the question of shooting without
a court sentence, I should like to refer to a very important document.
Exhibit Seyss-Inquart-77, Page 199. This is Document F-224 D, a
report made by Kriminalkommissar Mund. He says the following on
Page 3:
“In my opinion it is very likely that General Christiansen
demanded the maximum number of victims to be executed.
Christiansen spoke of numerous measures of reprisal to
Rauter, who was an impulsive and tactless man, and he on
his part applied pressure to the Commander of the Security
Police (Dr. Schöngarth)...”
He reports further on Page 5:
“It was often a question of prisoners who had already been
sentenced to death by the Higher SS and Police Leader.
“Reprisals for punishable acts were a matter for the Police.
After August 1944, and in accordance with an order of the
Führer’s, these measures of reprisal were interpreted in
such a way that a number of Dutchmen were shot for acts
of sabotage and attempts at murder although they had
been arrested for entirely different reasons.”
SEYSS-INQUART: May I explain that briefly?
DR. STEINBAUER: Please do.
SEYSS-INQUART: For example, leading members of the
resistance movement were arrested, and on examination by the
Higher SS and Police Leader it was decided that they should be shot
according to the Führer’s orders. The Higher SS and Police Leader
had called upon his court officer for this examination. When later on
an attempt to blow up a bridge was made, instead of shooting
hostages these men were taken and shot. That was the exact
opposite of the shooting of hostages—or at least, it was supposed to
be.
DR. STEINBAUER: Now, I come to Chapter IV-B,
“Concentration Camps and Prisons.” My first question: Who was
competent in these matters?
SEYSS-INQUART: For concentration camps and for police
detention prisons, the Police were competent. For court detention
prisons, and court authorities, I myself was competent—that is, the
court prisons were under my charge.
DR. STEINBAUER: Were there concentration camps in the
Netherlands, too?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, especially the big concentration camp
of Putten near Hertogenbosch. Then also a police transit camp near
Amersfoort, and a Jewish assembly camp in Westerborg. I have
already spoken of St. Michelsgestel; that was a protective custody
camp. And then there might be mentioned the camp at Ommen,
which was neither a police nor a concentration camp, but abuses
occurred there.
DR. STEINBAUER: What can you tell me about the
Hertogenbosch Camp?
SEYSS-INQUART: Hertogenbosch was originally meant as a
Jewish assembly camp, at the time when we intended to keep the
Jews in the Netherlands. But Reichsführer Himmler gave orders for it
to be turned into a concentration camp. After some reflection I was
satisfied with this idea. In consideration of the fact that I could not
prevent Dutchmen from being put into concentration camps, I
preferred them to be in concentration camps in the Netherlands,
where I might still be able to exert a certain influence.
DR. STEINBAUER: But there are supposed to have been
excesses in these concentration camps, too—for example,
especially in the Vught Camp, which you mentioned.
SEYSS-INQUART: That is quite true. There were excesses in
prisons, as well as in concentration camps. In wartime I consider this
almost unavoidable, because subordinates get unlimited power over
others and it cannot adequately be controlled. Whenever I heard of
any excesses, I took steps—the first time toward the end of 1940, or
1941, when the president of my German court reported to me that a
prisoner had been brought up with injuries from blows on the head. I
had the case investigated, and the prison warden received
disciplinary punishment and was sent back to the Reich.
In the Vught Concentration Camp, soon after its opening, there
was a high mortality rate. Immediately I had an investigation started,
using the services of Dutch medical personnel. Every day—and later
on every week—I had the mortality figures reported to me, until they
sank to what was approximately a normal level. Of course, I do not
know whether the director of the camp reported the normal death
cases only, or whether he included the cases of shooting—I could
not say.
In this camp there were excesses due to drinking parties and
reveling; brawls and fights were also heard now and then. The head
of the camp was removed and sent to the Reich. I noted that the
Higher SS and Police Leader had apparently himself tried to
maintain order, although he was not in charge of the camps; they
were under Gruppenführer Pohl.
There was one very serious case which, in Document Number
F-224 D, is described under the title, “Women in Cell.” The head of
the camp, allegedly for disciplinary reasons, had a large number of
women crowded into a cell overnight, whereby three or four women
were smothered to death. When we heard of that, we demanded
court action. The Central Administration in Berlin refused, and we
turned to Reichsführer SS Himmler and did not give in. The head of
the camp was put on trial and received at least 4 years—I believe
even a sentence of 8 years. That is indicated, moreover, in the
French report.
DR. STEINBAUER: What about the Amersfoort Camp?
SEYSS-INQUART: That was a police transit camp—that is, for
police prisoners who were to be turned over to the courts, or who
were to be sent to the Reich; or persons who refused labor service
who were being sent to the Reich. In general, they were not to be
there more than 6 or 8 weeks. There were Dutch guards in this camp
—not Dutch Police, but a voluntary SS guard company, I believe.
Excesses did occur here. General Secretary Van Damm called
my attention to the fact that a Dutchman was supposed to have been
beaten to death there. I urged the Higher SS and Police Leader to
bring this case to light. He did this through his court officer, and sent
the documents to me. According to the documents, severe
mistreatment occurred, but no one was killed, and the persons
responsible were punished.
I repeatedly called the attention of the Higher SS and Police
Leader to the fact that concentration camps and prisons in wartime
actually favored the perpetration of brutal excesses. If, here or there,
not a severe case but certain mistreatment was reported to me, I
always called his attention to it. He then reported to me either that
the case had not occurred, or that he had taken steps, and so forth.
In particular, I always had the food ration statistics of the
concentration camps and prisons reported to me. The food rations
were satisfactory. I believe that the Dutch in the concentration camps
and prisons, at the end of 1944 and in 1945, received more than the
Dutch in the western Netherlands. Of course, I do not want to give
too much importance to this fact, because the Dutch did suffer from
hunger.
DR. STEINBAUER: Then there was the Westerborg Camp.
SEYSS-INQUART: The Dutch Government had already set up
Westerborg as a completely free camp for Jews who had fled from
Germany. This was enlarged into an assembly camp for Jews. In the
camp itself there were Jewish guards to maintain order. Dutch Police
guarded the camp on the outside. There was only a detail of the
Security Police for supervision in the camp. In all the files I found no
report about excesses in the camp itself. Every Sunday clergymen
went to the camp, at least one clergyman for the catholic Jews, and
one for the so-called Christians. They, too, never reported anything.
DR. STEINBAUER: We will speak about their removal later on.
Now I would like to speak about Ommen. There is a long report
on that.
SEYSS-INQUART: Ommen was intended as a training camp for
those Dutch who voluntarily wanted to be employed in the economy
in the Eastern Territories. They were given instruction on the country,
the people, and their language. The head of the camp borrowed
prisoners from a neighboring Dutch prison for the work. Then I
received reports that these prisoners were being mistreated. The
judges of Amsterdam turned to me. I gave the Dutch judges of
Amsterdam permission to personally inspect the camp and speak to
the prisoners. That was done, according to Document F-224(d), on 5
March 1943. Thereupon the Amsterdam judges wrote a long letter to
the General Secretary for Justice. They complained about the
mistreatment of the prisoners, which they had noted, and about the
fact that Dutch prisoners were transferred to prisons in the Reich for
labor assignment. The complaints were justified, and I ordered that
the prisoners be sent back from the Ommen Camp to the Dutch
penal institution, and that Dutch prisoners be returned from German
prisons to Dutch prisons. This procedure was correct, and therefore I
necessarily took due steps to settle the matter.
DR. STEINBAUER: But now I have to ask you a certain
question and confront you with a charge. Document RF-931 shows
that you removed judges who made such complaints, namely, in
Leeuwarden.
SEYSS-INQUART: In my eyes the procedure of the court of
Leeuwarden was incorrect. These judges did not consult me, but
publicly asserted in a verdict that the Dutch prisoners were being
sent to German concentration camps and shot. According to the
facts, which lay before me, that was false. I then informed them of
the results obtained by the Amsterdam judges. The Leeuwarden
judges refused to pass further judgments. I asked them to continue
to officiate, but they refused. I then dismissed them as persons who
refused to work. Of course, I could have had them tried by a German
court with charges of making atrocity propaganda.
DR. STEINBAUER: Did you receive complaints from the Red
Cross about conditions in the camps?
SEYSS-INQUART: In the Netherlands we had the arrangement
that a representative of the Dutch Red Cross, Mrs. Van Overeem,
could visit all concentration camps and prisons, especially for the
purpose of verifying whether the food packages were being
delivered. Neither Mrs. Van Overeem nor the heads of the Dutch
Red Cross ever directed any complaint to me. I should like to say
that this circumstance was especially gratifying for me, because the
Dutch complained about everything, and if for a change I received no
complaints, then that was a certain relief for me.
I should like to remark that about the beginning of 1944,
according to the reports submitted to me, about 12,000 Dutch
persons were in concentration camps or prisons. That is the same as
if today, in all of Germany, 120,000 Germans were in prisons or
camps. That occasioned my setting up legal commissions which had
to visit the camps and the prisons in order to make investigations
and determine what prisoners could be released or placed on trial.
Naturally, in cases where there were orders for arrest from Berlin, I
could do nothing.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, so you say that you waged a
constant struggle with the Police on this question?
SEYSS-INQUART: I would not like to call it a struggle.
DR. STEINBAUER: Do you believe that you were successful?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes. I believe so, on the basis of certain
definite facts. I have followed the proceedings here very carefully,
and—we have heard most terrible things. The reports from the
Netherlands, it seems to me, are not that bad. I do not want to say
that I disclaim every excess. However, such reports as those about
Breedonck in Belgium, do not exist. The reports show beatings as
the most serious charge. There is only a single report here—that is
Document F-677, the report of the tax collector Bruder—which
attains the level of the usual atrocity reports. But I do not believe that
this report should be accepted at its face value, since Bruder does
not even say who told him this. And the information itself is not
credible. He asserts, for example, that the prisoners who were at
work had to prostrate themselves before every SS guard. I do not
believe that the camp authorities would have permitted that, because
then the prisoners would not have been able to work.
It is hard for me to say, but I do not think that conditions in the
Netherlands were quite as bad as all that.
DR. STEINBAUER: I think that I can now conclude this chapter
and turn to Point V of the Indictment, which deals with the question
of labor commitment. What problems did you have in the
Netherlands in the field of labor commitment?
SEYSS-INQUART: In the field of labor commitment we must
distinguish between three or perhaps four different phases. When I
came to the Netherlands, there were about 500,000 unemployed:
registered unemployed, those who might become so due to
demobilization of the Dutch land and naval forces, part-time workers,
and so forth. It was an urgent problem—not only a social one—for
me to reduce the number of unemployed. For, in the first place, such
an army of unemployed is without doubt a good source of recruits for
illegal activities. In the second place, as the war continued, it was to
be expected that the material condition of the unemployed would
steadily become worse.
At that time we instituted measures which I must, despite all
charges, call voluntary labor recruitment. That lasted until the middle
of 1942—that is, about 2 years. During that period, I gave neither the
German nor the Dutch labor authorities full power to press any
worker to work abroad. Without doubt there was a certain economic
pressure, but I believe that always exists in this connection. The
recruitment was carried out by the Dutch labor offices, which were
subordinate to the Dutch General Secretary for Social
Administration. There were German inspectors in the labor offices.
There were also private hiring agencies; companies from the Reich
sent their own agents over. On the whole, about 530,000 Dutchmen
were engaged to work in the Reich. In the period which I call
“voluntary,” 240,000 to 250,000 volunteers went to the Reich and
about 40,000 to France.
By the first half of 1942, this reservoir had been used up. The
Reich demanded more workers. We then considered introducing
compulsory labor service. I recall I did not receive instructions to this
effect from Sauckel, but from Bormann as a direct Führer order.
Now, labor commitment occurred predominantly, but not exclusively,
in the following way. Young and, as far as possible, unmarried
Dutchmen were called to the labor office, where they received
certificates of conscription for work in the Reich. The Dutch report
itself says that only a few refused. Of course, some of those who
refused were arrested by the Police and taken to the Reich. The
Higher SS and Police Leader reported to me that this totaled 2,600
people of about 250,000 to 260,000 labor conscripts, and of the total
engaged 530,000 persons. So this meant only 1 percent, or even 0.5
percent. I believe that the figure resulting from compulsory measures
in the Reich was no lower—or higher.
At the beginning of 1943 the Reich demanded a large
commitment of workers, and I was advised to draft whole age groups
to send to the Reich. I call attention to the fact that all of these
workers received free labor contracts in the Reich and were not put
into labor camps. I decided to draft three young age groups—I
believe 21 to 23 years of age—in order to spare married men. The
success was satisfactory in the first group; in the second group it
was moderate; and in the third it was quite bad. I realized that I could

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Money Machine: A Trailblazing American Venture in China

Make Money Trading Options 1st Edition Michael Sincere

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Schumpeter’s Venture Money

7.1. Depicting Schumpeter’s “ad-venture” model of development 139

1.1. Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 1 6

In many economic disciplines—ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation

1.1 Panta rhei—a prologue

Schumpeter’s Venture Money. Michael Peneder and Andreas Resch,

2 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

Championing an ontology of “becoming” instead of “being,” Heraclitus encoun-

panta rhei—a prologue 3

historical approach, thereby maintaining a strong preoccupation with perpetual

Whenever an economy or a sector of an economy adapts itself to a change in

4 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

Conversely, in HEA Schumpeter acknowledged Darwin’s importance in no fewer

1.2 Under the skin, not the veil of money

13 HEA (1954, p. 444). 1⁴ Friedman and Schwartz (1963, p. 695).

under the skin, not the veil of money 5

There cannot, in short, be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in the economy

6 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

However, before we turn to these core themes of the monograph, we would

1.3 Schumpeter’s life and work

Table 1.1 Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 1

schumpeter’s life and work 7

Table 1.2 Selected milestones of Schumpeter’s life and work Pt. 2

The “great waste”

and shorter articles on Schumpeter,1⁷ in this introduction a brief biographical

Education and early career

8 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

schumpeter’s life and work 9

The “great waste”

22 Hanusch and Pyka (2007). 23 McCraw (2007, p. 87f).

10 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

2⁸ See, for instance, März (1983/91) and Stolper (1991).

schumpeter’s life and work 11

12 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

3⁵ McCraw (2007, p. 155).

schumpeter’s life and work 13

interactions through which the credit market coordinates entrepreneurial activity

Schumpeter’s turbulent life finally culminated in an industrious late career at

⁴⁰ Messori (2014, p. 56).

14 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

⁴⁵ Reproduced in Hedtke and Swedberg (2000, p. 240).

schumpeter’s life and work 15

16 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision

War, Schumpeter’s lengthy elaboration of the wave-like evolution of capitalism was

aims, scope, and plan of the book 17

1.4 Aims, scope, and plan of the book

Schumpeter’s major works were mostly informed by and aimed at a long-term

⁵⁴ CSD (1942/1950, p. 142f).

18 introduction—schumpeter’s life and vision