Portrait of Franz Oppenheimer

Quotes by Franz Oppenheimer

1864 – 1943

Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) was a German sociologist whose pioneering historical analysis of the development of the state was based upon the distinction between the “political means” of acquiring wealth (such as coercion and taxation) and the “economic means” (through peaceful and voluntary exchange).

Bio

Oppenheimer featured as the March 2023 OLL Birthday. Read it here

Titles

Origin of Government

Franz Oppenheimer argues that there are two fundamentally opposed ways of acquiring wealth: the “political means” through coercion, and the “economic means” through peaceful trade (1922)

Franz Oppenheimer

The State

Franz Oppenheimer on the origin of the state in conquest and subjection by one group over another (1907)

Franz Oppenheimer