Herzl and the history of economic thought
There are several reasons why Herzl does not fit into the usual histories of economics. He was not an economist. His focus was on one religious group, unlike conventional economics, which has always been more concerned with classes and nations.
He was an early institutionalist of a rather special kind. In modern terms, he was an applied economist in the property rights theory tradition.His practical outlook and the rejection of profit as the principal economic motivator are but two of the traits he shares with most institutionalists. For him, motives that influence economic behaviour were not necessarily economic. Group behaviour, not price, was a central theme. Most of his economic generalizations were relative to time and place. Custom, habit and law were all important factors in the organization of group life.
Herzl’s work is a solid example of quality classical work in law and economics. It is also much more than that. It is also as Jurgen Backhaus has pointed out, ‘a remarkable exercise in applied law and economics’ (1996, p. 127). His attempt to connect the problems he saw with solutions using compatible incentives is worthy of the best law and economics studies of today.
History has shown that Herzl was right about many things. Israel is in existence. Classical law and economics had its uses. Should not the modern practitioner know and use the appropriate methods of both the old and new? Is it not possible that the older ways of doing law and economics might have modern applications? Could it be that rejecting the classical approach to law and economics might be a bit premature?
Note
1. There is a huge literature on both Herzl and Zionism. For eight early writings about him, see Herzl (1946, p. 158). For a sample of others, see Jozsef Patai (1946), Ludwig Lewisohn (1955), Oscar K. Rabinowicz (1958), Norman Kotker (1972), Desmond Stewart (1974), Amos Elon (1975), Ernst Pawel (1989), Steven Beller (1991) and Jacques Kornberg (1993).
The Herzl Yearbooks (New York: Herzl Press, 1958-96) have much about him. There have long been bibliographies on Israel and Zionism. For an older one, see Iva Cohen (1970). For an annotated list of books on Zionism currently recommended by some distinguished scholars, see the Internet file: ftp://shamash.nysernet.org/israel/lists/scj-faq/reading-lists/ zionism.References
Backhaus, Jurgen (1996), ‘On building a sovereign state from scratch: the law and economics of Theodor Herzl’s programmatic work’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (2), June, 127-30.
Balabkins, Nicholas (1996), ‘Providing infrastructure for a future state: reading Herzl’s Der Judenstaat in 1996’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (2), June, 167-74.
Beller, Steven (1991), Herzl, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Blum, Mark E. (1996), ‘The influence of Austrian humanism in Theodor Herzl’s vision of a Jewish State’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (2), June 175-92.
Cohen, Iva (1970), Israel: A Bibliography, New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Elon, Amos (1975), Herzl, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Herzl, Theodor (1936), Der Judenstaat: Elfte Auflage, Berlin: Judischer Verlag. (The original German title is Der Judenstaat; Versuch einer modernen Losung der Judenfrage; reprinted as Der Judenstaat, Zurich: Manne, 1988. I worked from the 1936 reprint.)
Herzl, Theodor (1946), The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question, with introduction by Louis Lipsky, New York: American Zionist Emergency Council (biography based on the work of Alex Bein); reprinted as The Jewish State, New York: Dover Publications, 1988.
Herzl, Theodor (1960), Old-New Land (tAltneuland), trans. from the original German, with revised notes, by Lotta Levensohn and a new preface by Emanuel Neumann, 2nd edn with revised footnotes, New York: Bloch; originally published in 1902.
Kornberg, Jacques (1993), Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Kotker, Norman (1972), Herzl, the King, New York: Scribner.
Lewisohn, Ludwig (ed.) (1955), Theodor Herzl: A Portrait for this Age, ed. and with an introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn, Preface by David Ben-Gurion, Cleveland: World Publishing Co.
Patai, Jozsef (1946), Star over Jordan; The Life of Theodor Herzl, trans. from the Hungarian by Francis Magyar, New York: Philosophical Library.
Pawel, Ernst (1989), The Labyrinth of Exile: A Life of Theodor Herzl, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Rabinowicz, Oscar K. (1958), Herzl, Architect of the Balfour Declaration, New York: Herzl Press.
Stewart, Desmond (1974), Theodor Herzl, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company.
43