Pitfalls of Super-Bureaucracy

WEBER, Max.

Der Sozialismus. Vienna, Phobus, Pimmer, 1918.

8vo, pp. [iv], 36 (including publisher’s catalogue in the last 2 pp.); some uniform toning, but a very good copy, uncut in the original publisher’s green printed wrappers, upper wrapper printed in red; edges a little frayed, one or two minor chips, a little sunned in places.

£300

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US $397 €347

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First edition of Weber’s early and influential lecture articulating the author’s sceptical view on socialism.

Weber here foresees the authoritarian and bureaucratic tendencies of state socialism. His commitment to liberal democratic values, even stronger within the context of revolutions, is forcefully argued, as he applies his sociology of authority and bureaucracy within real-world political analysis: he highlights the dangers of ‘iron-cage bureaucracy’, of over-reliance on planning rather than markets, of lack of innovative drive, and of the destabilizing, authoritarian side-effects of revolutions. The lecture was later reprinted in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie und Sozialpolitik (1924).

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Preceding Bastiat

CAREY, Henry Charles.

The Past, the Present and the Future.

First edition. Carey vigorously appeals for tariff protection and attacks the Ricardian theory of rent. He argues that ‘the historical sequence of cultivation at least in the United States was the exact reverse of the one proposed by Ricardo, namely, from inferior to superior land, apparently because returns from the application of capital to land yield increasing rather than diminishing returns’ (Blaug). The similarity of ideas between Bastiat and Carey is well documented, particularly the close parallelism in their theories of the origin of land value. However, Haney observes that ‘Carey impresses the reader as decidedly the more original, and on the whole his work antedated Bastiat’s’ (p. 338). His ideas caused much controversy and were refuted by Mill in his Principles of Political Economy (1848).

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates – a Democrat Speaker’s Copy

[LINCOLN, Abraham, and Stephen DOUGLAS.]

Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in the celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois … also, the two great Speeches of Mr. Lincoln in Ohio, in 1859, as carefully prepared by the Reporters of each Party, and published at the times of their Delivery.

First edition, later issue, with a rule above the printer’s names on the copyright page and advertisements stating fifteen thousand copies sold, of the Lincoln–Douglas Senate campaign debates of 1858, ‘historically the most important series of American political debates’ (Howes), our copy owned by the first Democrat Speaker of the House of Representatives after the Civil War.

Bernard Quaritch Ltd

Rare books & manuscripts since 1847

Pitfalls of Super-Bureaucracy

WEBER, Max.

Der Sozialismus. Vienna, Phobus, Pimmer, 1918.