Eduard Heimann

Eduard Heimann, (1889-1967) was a German/American economist and historian of economic thought. Heimann was born in Berlin in a social-democratic family (his father Hugo Heimann would later be elected in the Reichstag). He studied social and economic sciences in the universities of Heidelberg, Vienna and Berlin between 1908 and 1912, obtaining the Dr.Phil. in Heidelberg in 1912. His favourite teachers were Alfred Weber, Max Weber and Franz Oppenheimer. After a period of practical work in the private sector he became Secretary General of the first "Sozialisierungskommission" in 1919, which brought him into close contact with Walther Rathenau. In 1922 he switched to an academic career, accepting an appointment as Lecturer of Finance and Social Policy at the University of Freiburg. In 1925 he was appointed Professor of Economics at the University of Hamburg.

With his Christian Socialist views, Heimann was an influential critic of Marxism. He departed sufficiently from Marxian theory to provide it with an "idealistic" edge, almost to the extreme of Manchester School liberalism. In his writings of this period he also developed a model of market socialism, that anticipates the positions taken by Fred M. Taylor, Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner in the "Socialist Calculation Debate" a decade later.

In 1933 he left Germany for political reasons. In the United States he soon found employment in the New School for Social Research, as did many Central-European refugee social scientists.

The University of Hamburg granted him an Honorary Doctorate in 1948.

In 1963 he returned to Hamburg, where he lived the last few years of his life.

Major works of Eduard Heimann

* "Soziale Theorie des Kapitalismus", 1929.
* "Kapitalismus, Organwirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und ihre theoretische Erfassung", 1931, "WWA".
* "Kapitalismus und Sozialismus", 1931.
* "Sozialistische Wirtschafts- und Arbeitsordnung", 1932.
* "Socialism and Democracy", 1934, "Social Research"
* "Planning and the Market System", 1934, "Social Research"
* "Types and Potentialities of European Planning", 1935, "Social Research"
* "What Marx Means Today", 1937, "Social Research"
* "Communism, Fascism or Democracy?", 1938.
* "The Revolutionary Situation of the Middle Classes", 1938, "Social Research".
* "Building our Democracy", 1939, "Social Research"
* "Franz Oppenheimer's Economic Ideas", 1944, "Social Research".
* "History of Economic Doctrines: an introduction to economic theory", 1945.
* "Sozialismus im Wandel der modernen Gesellschaft", 1975

References

* [http://www.econ.uni-hamburg.de/Dokumente/Geschichte_FB03.html Die Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät der Universität Hamburg bis 1969]
* [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/heimann.htm New School profile of Eduard Heimann]