A new start and expansion: the alliance between the university and the International Labour Office in Basel

The economics sciences first experienced a boom in Basel beginning in 1899. The sense of new beginnings stemmed not least from an outside institution: the International Labour Office, planned since 1897, was founded in Basel in 1901, where it remained until 1919. Two important appointments were closely connected to the institution.

In 1899, the Austrian economist Stephan Bauer (1865–1934) was appointed to the Basel chair of economics. Bauer had already made a name for himself as a representative of the younger historical school (the later phase of the German historical school of economics) as the founder and coeditor of the Zeitschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Journal for social and economic history), later known as the Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Quarterly journal for social and economic history). Arriving in Basel, he embarked on a dual career. At the university, he taught as an extraordinary (associate) professor; at the same time, he took on the position of general secretary at the International Association for Legal Labour Protection and, in 1901, the management of the International Labour Office, which he headed until the office was dissolved in 1919.

Parallel to Bauer’s academic appointment, various circles outside the university pursued efforts to establish a second chair in economics, with Basel’s banks and trading companies calling for more robust education in commercial and financial science. Initially, there was even discussion of founding a separate Basel commercial college. Yet when this project failed in a referendum in 1903 for financial reasons, subsequent debates focused on strengthening teaching in commercial science at the university with a second professorship. Financial support from the Swiss Bank Association Foundation helped finally establish this professorship in 1909. It was first filled by Julius Landmann (1877–1931), the candidate vigorously supported by the foundation; Landmann came from a Jewish banking family in Galicia, had studied at various German universities in addition to Basel and Bern, and had worked at the Basel International Labour Office under Stephan Bauer after completing his doctorate in Bern. With a comprehensive study on the history of Swiss labor protection legislation, he made a name for himself with a broader professional public in 1904. Thereafter, he also played a role in founding the Swiss National Bank, where he worked in a leading position since 1907. Despite having not completed a habilitation, but with support from Stephan Bauer, he made the leap to the newly created professorship in 1909.

In his position as a professor of economics and statistics with special focus on commerce, Landmann further expanded his diverse activities. As a university teacher, he was one of the first economists to truly connect with students. His lectures were popular and well-attended not only by academic audiences but also by members of the public. The many dissertations he supervised also attest to the lively response from students. In addition, Landmann expanded his engagements outside the university. He took over the editing of Switzerland’s leading economic journal, the Zeitschrift für schweizerische Statistik und Volkswirtschaft, in addition to authoring expert opinions for a range of political officials, including the Swiss Department of Economic Affairs and the Department of Finance, various cantonal authorities, and the government of Liechtenstein.

The Founding of the Swiss Economic Archives
Julius Landmann was also instrumental in founding the Swiss Economic Archives. Having already established a corporate archive as an employee of the Swiss National Bank,

after his move to Basel he vigorously campaigned for the collection of archival materials and printed documents on economic topics that the Basel-City State Archives had been assembling for some years to be systematically organized and transformed into an independent institution. This initiative led to the creation of the Swiss Economic Archives in 1910, organizationally attached in its first decade to the State Archives but independent beginning in 1921, with its own management (Fritz Mangold). The Economic Archives saw its mission as a documentation center for economic and corporate issues, targeting both academic research and the broader public.

Profiling Basel’s Economics Sciences: a symbiotic relationship between economics and the social sciences
This constellation with Stephan Bauer and Julius Landmann enabled the University of Basel to successfully establish itself as a center for economic science with a focus on social reform and worker protection in the German-speaking world between 1900 and the outbreak of the First World War. The broad profile covered by its research and teaching always included social science or sociological topics under the umbrella of national economy. In Basel, as at other German-speaking universities until the First World War, the economic sciences were genealogically and institutionally linked to the social sciences. Unlike at other universities, though, this symbiosis between economic and social sciences remained effective in Basel into the twentieth century, at least until the 1960s. The situation, as noted above, meant that the development of the social science disciplines, especially sociology, was largely driven by the chairs in national economics: this field, which saw itself as part of a social science canon, essentially provided the founding for sociology as separate discipline in Basel.

With this profile, Basel clearly distinguished itself from other Swiss universities in the early twentieth century, where one of two traditions prevailed. Either the historical school with a stronger economic orientation gained dominance, without interest in the young field of sociology, as in Zurich and Bern; or, as in Lausanne under Léon Walras and later Vilfredo Pareto, quantitative and mathematical approaches to the economic sciences were pursued early on.

This specific profile of the economic sciences in Basel manifested itself in approaches even before the First World War. Since Stephan Bauer held his professorship only as a secondary occupation – from 1901 he was primarily director of the International Labour Office – a new appointment could be made to the chair. After a short interlude, the German economist Robert Michels (1876–1936) was appointed in 1913. Michels was a student of Max Weber and Werner Sombart and had written various innovative works in sociology and political science. Accordingly, his professorship was designed to be interdisciplinary: though still explicitly dedicated to the field of “economics and statistics,” it was linked through its holder to a teaching assignment in sociology. Michels arrived in Basel via a circuitous route. As an avowed socialist, his academic career prospects in the German Empire were limited. For political reasons, various German universities denied him the habilitation he planned to complete, despite Max Weber’s support. Michels finally completed his habilitation in Turin in 1907 and subsequently took on Italian citizenship alongside his German nationality. In Basel, Michels regularly lectured on sociological topics, including the history of sociological theory, the sociology of parties, or the “women’s question.”