Götz Briefs

Götz (Anton) Briefs, Götz A ( ntony ) Briefs ( born January 1, 1889 in Eschweiler, † May 16, 1974 in Rome) was a Roman Catholic social theorists, social ethicist, social philosopher and economist.

Life

Götz Briefs studied from 1908 in Munich History and Philosophy, moved to Bonn in 1909, later to Freiburg. In 1911 he received his doctorate with an economic study on the alcohol cartel summa cum laude. In 1913 he qualified as a professor in Freiburg with a font for classical economics with particular reference to the average rate of profit.

In 1919 he was appointed as a professor of economics at the Albert -Ludwigs- University of Freiburg. In the same year he was involved in the drafting of the law works. In 1921 he is full professor at the Julius- Maximilians -Universität Würzburg, 1923, he returns to Freiburg. 1926 letter to take up a professorship at the Technical University of Berlin. In 1928 he founded in Berlin with Paul Riebensahm the Institute of Sociology and Social Business Operations. Due to the nazis influence he emigrated in 1934 to the USA. Götz Briefs is first visiting professor at the Catholic University of America, 1937, he received a call as a full professor at the Georgetown University in Washington.

Besides Theodor Brauer, Gustav Gundlach, Paul Jostock, Franz Hermann Mueller, Heinrich Rommen and Oswald von Nell- Breuning letter was a member of the " Königswinterer circle " on Königswinterer Institute for Social and Economic Order.

He has published over 350 scientific contributions. Götz Briefs received numerous scholarships and six honorary doctorates. In 1959 he was honored with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 1968 with the Great Cross of Merit with Star. He was an honorary member of the K.D.St.V. Borusso Saxonia Berlin, the K.D.St.V. Hercynia Freiburg im Breisgau and the K.D.St.V. Wildenstein Freiburg im Breisgau in the CV.

Götz Briefs was buried in the German cemetery in the Vatican, Campo Santo Teutonico.

According to him, the idol - Briefs - way at the Inde in his home town of Eschweiler is named since 1989.

Work

Starting point of his scientific work is the emergence and development of the proletariat, which he - in contrast to Karl Marx - not seen as a revolution motor, since wage workers generally was less interested in cementing their state, but rather on a social advancement. This idea is for him - next to a Christian social superstructure - essential for the emergence of the social market economy, which ( in contrast to a stalls or class society ) allows such social mobility. Is the letter in the 1920s still advocate the union, he kristisiert later especially the German trade unions as rigid. He coined the phrase " fortified unions ", which moved away from its core mission, the negotiation of collective wages, and increasingly verlierten the reality of life of workers from the eyes. It may be that one reason for his change of his new environment in the U.S.. Here he also met Joseph Schumpeter know personally that puts entrepreneurship at the center of his work.

In philosophical and ethical terms Goetz Briefs has been used for a reconciliation of ( Ordo - ) liberalism with Catholic social teaching. His emigration is an example of the brain drain, which began after the so-called " Rohm Putsch " in 1934 among German intellectuals. Despite his anti-Marxist stance letter was hated the Nazis because of his Catholic faith.