GUMPLOWICZ, LUDWIG

GUMPLOWICZ, LUDWIG (1838–1909), Austrian jurist and sociologist. He was born in Cracow, in Austrian Galicia (now Poland), and studied law at the University of Vienna. An ardent Polish patriot, he participated in the Polish insurrection against Russia in 1863, and as a consequence of the failure both of the rebellion and of subsequent nationalistic activities Gumplowicz had to leave Cracow and availed himself of an opportunity to become a Privatdozent in political science at the University of Graz. In 1862 he was appointed adjunct professor in political science, and 11 years later, in 1893, he received his full professorship. Gumplowicz was baptized, but retained a lively interest in Jewish affairs. Gumplowicz was a proponent of Jewish assimilation. He thought that the Jews, having no territorial basis and no common language, were lacking the prerequisite of a nationality. In a letter directed to Theodor Herzl and dated Dec. 12, 1899, he expressed this view in highly emotional language. Academically, Gumplowicz remained isolated at a provincial university, but he had brilliant students, such as Franco Savorgnan and Franz Oppenheimer, and found himself recognized by early American sociologists. Gumplowicz was one of the first to achieve full emancipation for sociology from the nonsocial sciences by insisting that social phenomena and evolution are distinctive and can be understood only by reference to social causes. That which is unique about social phenomena arises from human groups in interaction rather than from the behavior of individuals abstracted from the influence of association and dissociation. According to Gumplowicz, social and cultural evolution is a product of the struggle between social groups. This struggle replaces individual struggle in his theory of evolution. Gumplowicz offers two basic hypotheses. One, the polygenetic hypothesis, asserting that the species man evolved from various older types at many different times and in many different places, so that between the races there is no blood bond; and two, the hypothesis that an unsurmountable antagonism exists between different groups and races. For Gumplowicz society was the sum total of conflicting ethnic groups, each group being centered around one or more common interests. Thus the struggle between these ethnic groups, which he called races, is relentless. Gumplowicz was pessimistic about progress. His polygenetic view precluded the possibility of unitary evolution. In every society and state partial evolution and progress have taken place; but in every society and state there have also been destruction and setbacks. Therefore, Gumplowicz holds that progress can be observed only in particular periods and particular countries. Another important aspect of Gumplowicz's work includes the distinction he made between simple, limited groupings organized on the basis of consanguinity and community of culture, on the one hand, and compound groupings, such as the state, formed in the process of amalgamation of originally separate groups, such as masters and slaves or ethnic groups. In the state, ethnic groups merge into social classes, a common body of rights and obligations is developed, and internal conflict is toned down and possibly even composed. External conflict between states takes then the place of internal ethnic and class conflicts. Therefore, although Gumplowicz is classified often as a social Darwinist, he was actually one of the first social determinists. In his system, the individual and his motives were useless abstractions. The individual was the product of group experiences; his morals derived from his relations in the particular groups to whom he belonged, whereas his notions of rights could be traced to the accommodative norms developed by the struggle of interest groups in his society. Gumplowicz's most important works include Rasse und Staat (1875), Der Rassenkampf (1893), and Grundriss der Sociologie (1885); the latter is his only work that has been translated into English by Frederick W. Moore, as Outlines of Sociology (1889) and reissued by Irving L. Horowitz (1962). An edition of all of Gumplowicz's writings, under the title Ausgewaehlte Werke, appeared in 1926. An evaluation of Gumplowicz as a Jew is contained in "Scholar and Visionary: the correspondence between Herzl and Ludwig Gumplowicz" (Herzl Yearbook, 1 (1958), 165–80). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Zebowski, Ludwig Gumplowicz: eine Bio-Bibliographie (1926); The Times (London, Aug. 20, 1909), 10a. (Werner J. Cahnman and Alvin Boskoff)