1864 - 1943

Nationality:
German

Historical Period:
The 20th Century and Beyond

Groups

• Public Choice

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).

Titles:

• Author: The State

Quotations:

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

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