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Karl Wilhelm Bücher (16 February 1847,Kirberg,Hesse – 12 November 1930,Leipzig,Saxony) was a Germaneconomist, one of the founders ofnon-market economics, and the founder ofjournalism as an academic discipline.[citation needed]
Karl Bücher was born in Kirberg, a small village inHesse, as the son of a small, not very successful brushmaker and farmer; his grandfather Philipp was a cabinet-maker. Karl's mother, Christiane née Dorn, was the daughter of a baker[citation needed]. Bücher attended a private preparatory school with a Pastor in nearbyDauborn and 1863–1866 the Catholic Gymnasium in Hadamar, where he wasprimus omnium[citation needed]. A former teacher of Bücher's recommended he attend university and, after much discussion, Bücher's parents finally consented[citation needed].
Bücher studied at theUniversity of Bonn (also part ofPrussia), concentrating onHistory and Classics, with the aim to become a Gymnasium teacher[citation needed]. Bücher's most important professor was the Ancient Historian Arnold Schäfer[citation needed]. For a while, he was a private tutor in Heppenheim to finance his studies, and then continued inGöttingen andBonn, culminating in 1870 in aDr.phil. (Ph.D.) in History and Epigraphy with a (published) dissertation entitledDe gente Aetolica amphictyoniae participe[citation needed]. After spending some time as agymnasium teacher andjournalist, especially inFrankfurt where he was famous for his liberal, anti-Bismarck views, Bücher decided to opt for academe and took hisHabilitation at theUniversity of Munich[citation needed].
In 1882 Bücher was elected by the faculty to an extraordinary professorship at theUniversity of Erlangen, Bücher failed to receive Ministerial approval. However, he also received and accepted a call to a Chair at theUniversity of Tartu (thenDorpat), theGerman-language university in the then Russian province ofLivonia. The call enabled him to marry his fiancée at the time Emilie Mittermaier[citation needed].
At Dorpat, Bücher held the Chair ofEthnography,Geography, andStatistics as successor ofWilhelm Stieda, concentrating almost exclusively onstatistics. Here, he conceived "newspaper science" (Zeitungswissenschaften) as a new field ofscholarship. On 17 August (29 Augustnew-style) 1883, Bücher's only son and child Friedrich, later a judge in Leipzig, was born. In the same year, Bücher received, and accepted out of family considerations, a call to the Chair of Economics and Statistics at theUniversity of Basel as successor of Alphons Thun. He stayed there until 1890, during which time he developed a friendship with the historian and culturalphilosopherJakob Burckhardt. Bücher was elected President of the Statistical-Economical Association; his work was mainly Basel-focused and statistical. In Basel, he delivered the first lectures, also the first lectures in Europe at all, on "newspaper science"[citation needed].
In 1889/90, Bücher accepts a call to the economics chair at theTechnical Superior School inKarlsruhe, in theGrand Duchy of Baden, previously held byEberhard Gothein[citation needed].
The plan to call Bücher to the Chair of Economics at theUniversity of Leipzig in theKingdom of Saxony as successor ofLujo Brentano failed forpolitical reasons; Bücher was still judged as tooliberal. However, the University of Leipzig created a second chair in economics, with the addition of statistics. Bücher was suggested unanimously and without competition, and at the time received official approval[citation needed].
His Leipzig tenure (1892–1916) was Bücher's most fruitful time. In 1893, he publishedDie Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft (The Rise of the National Economy), his most important book, and the foundational study of non-market (exchange and gift) economics. The 17th and last edition of the original run appeared in 1926–1930; it was translated into French and English and went through six editions in America. In 1895, Bücher was elected corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Science, Historical Class. In 1896,Arbeit und Rhythmus (Labor and Rhythm) appeared; there are six editions until 1924. It was translated intoRussian in 1899 and reprinted in 1923.[1]
In 1901, Bücher became co-editor, withAlbert Schäffle, then sole editor after 1904, of the eminentZeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft (Magazine for All Political Sciences) established in 1844[2] as the first German economic journal of an academic standard and is still published today as "The Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics".[3] He edited this key journal of German economics and administration until 1924. In 1901/1902 he served asVice Chancellor of the Faculty of Philosophy, in 1902/1903 as Dean of the Faculty ofPhilosophy, and in 1903/04 asRector of theUniversity of Leipzig[citation needed].
In 1916, based on his bad experience withpress andpropaganda duringWorld War I, Bücher founded theInstitut für Zeitungswissenschaften (Institute for Newspaper Science) at theUniversity of Leipzig (after having established a departmental division already in 1915). It was the first institute of its type in Europe, and its founding marks the beginning of the academic study of media communication in Germany.[4] Until 1926, Bücher headed the Institute and promoted the field, establishing it as a scholarly discipline in Germany with lasting results. In 1919, during the abortive Germanrevolution, Bücher published a booklet about the socialization of factories as well as his highly successfulautobiography,Lebenserinnerungen (Life Memories)[citation needed].
Bücher was, for some time a member of the Leipzig City Council. Next to his earned doctorate, he received honorary ones of Law (Dr.jur.h.c.) from Gießen and of economics (Dr.rer.pol.) from Bonn. He was part of the Royal SaxonGeheimer Hofrat and a member of theRoyal Saxon Academy[citation needed].
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