Anton Menger von Wolfensgrün (12 September 1841, Maniów, Galicia – 6 February 1906,

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), was an Austrian juridical expert and social theorist who aside from his collegiate works predominantly dedicated himself to propagating socialist literature on juridical grounds. He is the author of "The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor", "The Civil Law and the Poor" among others. He was the brother of

Austrian economist The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...

Carl Menger Carl Menger von Wolfensgrün (; ; 28 February 1840 – 26 February 1921) was an Austrian economist and the founder of the Austrian School of economics. Menger contributed to the development of the theories of marginalism and marginal utility ...

Life and works

Menger was a university professor for the law of civil process in Vienna from 1874 until 1899, where he was also the Vice Chancellor from 1895 to 1896. Carl Menger was his brother. Menger's theses and arguments stem from a changed social structure, that was shaped by the economic crisis (1873) and social questions that sought answers from liberal politics ("

invisible hand The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the British moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the unintended greater social benefits and public good brought about by individuals acting in their own self-interests. Smith originally mention ...

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...

) in the pursuit of social justice. His juridical interests are assumed to be different than Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in dealing with all theoretical legal issues. In Menger's juridical theory, he dismissed the basis of positive law from natural law. Rather, he argued that the backbone of law was merely a gauge of societal power relations. His name is also famous in connection with the collection of original socialist literature in Vienna. Menger collected everything that he could procure and began a book tour through Paris, London and Berlin, where his special socialist collection was unique in the world for the time. Mengers private library was acquired by the Sozialwissenschaftlichen Studienbibliothek der Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien in the 1920s.

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...

tried to grapple with Menger's (1886) attacks on Marx's

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in Historical mater ...

as well as his fundamental project to ground socialism in legal theory in "Juridical Socialism" ("Die Neue Zeit", 2, Jg. 1887; abgedr. MEW 21, 491 ff.): "The evidence shows that Marx was a plagiarist, and this is proof that the concept of surplus value was already brought about in another sense before Marx!" The Mengergasse in Floridsdorf (21. Bezirk) was named after him in 1919.

Publications

* ''Die Zulässigkeit neuen thatsächlichen Vorbringens in den höheren Instanzen. Eine civilprocessualische Abhandlung''. 1873. * ''Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag in geschichtlicher Darstellung''. Cotta, Stuttgart 1886. * ''Gutachten über die Vorschläge zur Errichtung einer eidgenössischen Hochschule für Rechts- und Staatswissenschaft''. Zürich, J. J. Schabelitz. 1889 * ''Das Bürgerliche Recht und die besitzlosen Volksklassen. Eine Kritik des Entwurfs eines Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches für das Deutsche Reich''. 1890. * ''Die sozialen Aufgaben der Rechtswissenschaft. ( Antrittsrede bei Übernahme des Rektorates der Universität Wien ). 1896 ( 2. Auflage Wien, Braumüller 1905 ) * ''Neue Staatslehre''. 1903. * ''Neue Sittenlehre''. Jena, G. Fischer, 1905.

Literature

* * Gerhard Oberkofler: ''Anton Menger (1841-1906)''. In: Bewahren Verbreiten Aufklären. Hrsg. Günter Benser und Michael Schneider. Bonn-Bad Godesberg 2009 , S. 196-20
online (pdf)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Menger, Anton 1841 births 1906 deaths People from Sanok County People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Austrian untitled nobility Austrian jurists