Lujo Brentano (1844-1931)

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Born	December 18, 1844 Aschaffenburg, Germany
Died	September 9, 1931 (aged 86) München, Germany
Fields	Economist
Institutions	University of Munich
Alma mater	University of Göttingen Ph.D. Trinity College Dublin
Doctoral advisor	Adolph Wagner Habitilation Johann Alfons Renatus von Helferich Ph.D.
Doctoral students	Theodor Heuss Robert Kuczynski Werner Hegemann Fukuda Tokuzō Hans Ehrenberg

Lujo Brentano (18 December 1844 – 9 September 1931) was an eminent German economist and social reformer.

Biography

Lujo Brentano, born in Aschaffenburg into one of the most distinguished German-Catholic intellectual families (originally of Italian descent), attended school in Augsburg and Aschaffenburg. He studied in Dublin (Trinity College), Münster, Munich, Heidelberg (doctorate in law), Würzburg, Göttingen (doctorate in economics), and Berlin (habilitation in economics, 1871).

He was a professor of economics and state sciences at the universities of Breslau, Strasbourg, Vienna, Leipzig, and most importantly, Munich (1891–1914). With Ernst Engel, the statistician, he made an investigation of the English trade unions. After the revolution of November 1918, he served in prime minister Kurt Eisner‘s government as People’s Commissar (Minister) for Trade, but only for some days in December 1918. In 1914, he signed the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three.

Brentano died in Munich in 1931.

Legacy

Brentano was a Kathedersozialist (reform-minded) and a founding member of the Verein für Socialpolitik. His influence on the social market economy, and on many Germans who would be leaders just after the end of World War II, can hardly be overrated.

Note: It is often mistakenly claimed that Brentano was called Ludwig Joseph, and that “Lujo” was a kind of nickname or contraction. This is incorrect; while he was given his name after a Ludwig and a Joseph, Lujo was his real and legal first name. (See his autobiography, Mein Leben…, below, p. 18.)

Bibliography