Ludwig Gumplowicz (9 March 1838 – 19 August 1909) was a Polish sociologist, jurist, historian, and political scientist, who taught constitutional and administrative law at the University of Graz.
Gumplowicz was the son of a Jewish carpet and porcelain manufacturer, Abraham Gumplowicz. Gumplowicz is considered to be one of the founding fathers of sociology across German-speaking countries. While living under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, he witnessed many violent anti-Semitic conflicts between ethnic groups, which influenced his sociological theories of social conflict and explaining social phenomena later on in life. His contributions to the fields of social science, political science, and jurisprudence allowed these fields to expand under the lens of Gumplowicz's applications of sociological generalizations. In all three areas, he was a straightforward and vivacious writer who excelled in controversy. He was well known for his skepticism of the permanence of social progress and his belief that the state emerges from inevitable confrontation rather than unity or divine inspiration.
Personal life
Early life and heritage
As a child of a Polish family of Jewish origin, Gumplowicz grew up in a family that was part of a progressive Jewish group that advocated for a comprehensive social assimilation program for all Jews. Before the outbreak of the January Insurrection of 1863, the Gumplowicz family's home was one of the outposts of conspiracy. During the Insurrection, it had become a lodging place for vulnerable youth and a refuge for the wounded. Ludwik's father, Abraham, assisted in the insurgency's planning, and his two older brothers fought alongside him. Ludwig Gumplowicz and his wife both converted to Calvinism to escape prevailing antisemitism.
Judaism was always present for Gumplowicz and his family while growing up. Therefore, the well-being of the Jewish people was essential to him. Even though his father, Abraham Gumplowicz, tried to assimilate into the community of Krakow, Jews were often seen as second-class citizens. This brought Gumplowicz many obstacles that he had to face as a Jew. He wrote several articles in which he attempted to bring attention to the issues of antisemitism and the emancipation of the Jews.
Education
He then went on to study at the universities of Kraków and Vienna and became a professor of public law at the University of Graz in 1875. He and his wife, Franciska, had two sons. In 1875, Gumplowicz began studying law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He then went to study in Vienna for a year, and then returned to Kraków to receive a doctoral law degree. He culminated in the foundation of the first Sociological Society in Graz. In 1860, he began his journalistic career. From 1869 to 1874 he edited his own magazine the Kraj (the Country). Then, in 1875, at the age of thirty-seven, he entered the University of Graz as a lecturer in the science of administration and Austrian administrative law. In 1882, he became an associate professor, and in 1893 a full professor. Gumplowicz then retired from academia in 1908.
State
He saw the state as an institution which served various controlling elites at different times. In analysis, he leaned towards macrosociology, predicting that if the minorities of a state became socially integrated, they would break out in war. In his 1909 publication, Der Rassenkampf (Struggle of the Races), he foresaw a world war. According to Gumplowicz, a state that overlapped in scope with a country and was associated with the nation in people's imagination started to take on the role of a social agent. It is a combination of moral, physical, economic, and cultural elements that have been blended in varying amounts across time and among various social groupings. Consanguinity was the primary link in the groupings, but as the world evolves, economic and mental pressures became increasingly significant. Gumplowicz defines syngenism as Human beings, according to Gumplowicz, have an inherent propensity to form communities and create a sense of unity. He called this syngenism (syngenetic). Syngenism is a term used to describe a society with a distinct culture that develops a sense of belonging as a whole, as well as a sense of brotherhood in the sense that they are of the same species. Gumplowicz had another disciple in Manuel González Prada. Prada lived in Peru and found Grumplowicz's theories on ethnic conflict useful for understanding not only the Spanish conquest of Quechua peoples during the sixteenth century but also how the descendants of the Spanish (and other European immigrants) continued to subordinate the indigenous peoples. Most striking in this regard is González Prada’s essay "Our Indians" included in his Horas de lucha after 1924. Brazilian essayist Euclides da Cunha also acknowledges Gumplowicz's influence in the preliminary note to his influential study Os Sertões (1902), an in-depth analysis of the 1896-1898 War of Canudos between Brazil's Republican government and the residents of Canudos in the backlands of Bahia.
Referenced work
In his publication, The Outlines on Sociology (1899), Gumplowicz reviews the works of Comte, Spencer, Bastian, and Lippert. He also reviews the relations of economics, politics, the comparative study of law, the philosophy of history, and the history of civilization to the science of society.
Sociologists influenced by him were Gustav Ratzenhofer, Albion W. Small, Franz Oppenheimer. The social scientists Émile Durkheim, León Duguit, Harold J. Laski, and others elaborated Gumplowicz's view of political parties as interest groups. Also influenced Erazm Majewski and Mieczyslaw Szerer.
Criticism
A criticism of Gumplowicz's work is that he presents a rather narrow interpretation of the nature of social phenomena. He placed a large emphasis on social groups as well as the sociological investigation of their conflict as a unit. In doing so, Gumplowicz minimized the importance of the individual and magnified the coercion and determination that is excepted by the group to the individual. This was further than other sociologists, such as Durkheim, Sighele, LeBon, or Trotter went.
Critical authors like Jerzy Szacki have stated that Gumplowicz's influence was undoubtedly aided by the fact that his scholarly work took place outside of the time's major intellectual centers, as well as the fact that his more intriguing theories about his sociological method were more thoroughly developed by other theorists, such as sociologism by Durkheim and conflict theory by Marx. Gumplowicz was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 1907, and his health was failing, as was Franciska's health. In a letter, he wrote "we are both thinking more of the other side (<small>an's Jenseits denizen</small>), and life is a burden to us." As such, they both ended their life together, ending the pain of Gumplowicz's cancer.