Schmalenbach, Eugen

Schmalenbach, Eugen 

Born Aug. 20,1873, in Schmalen-bach, near Halver, Westphalia; died Feb. 20, 1955, in Cologne. German economist.

In 1906, Schmalenbach became a professor at the University of Cologne. In such works as Financing (1915) and Dynamic Balance (1919) he examined questions pertaining chiefly to the theory of balanced accounts and the financing of capitalist enterprises. Elevating the capitalists’ notions about their day-to-day activities to the status of theoretical concepts, he created a “science of enterprises,” which systematized rules for the most profitable management of the economy. Writing as a defender of monopoly capital, he outlined paths for the improvement of accounting, techniques of commerce, commodity circulation, and credit as means of increasing profits and overcoming the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. An ideologist of “organized” capitalism, Schmalenbach advocated the organization of the economy into trusts with the help of the state.