Lowe (Lowe),Adolph b. March 4, 1893; Stuttgart, Wurttemberg d.June 3, 1995;Wolfenbuttel, Lower Saxony
Jewish Socialist and economic theorist who left Germany in 1933 and became an important member of the New School for Social Research in New York. After finishing high school, Lowe studied history, philosophy, sociology, and political economy at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Tubingen.
Conscripted during World War I, Lowe was put in charge of foodstuff control by General Erich von Ludendorff. He actively participated in the November revolution of 1918 on the side of the Social Democrats and advanced quickly to become the representative of the new provisionary government in the council responsible for the demobilization of the German army. In 1919 Lowe became the political adviser of the first minister for labor and later chancellor, Gustav Bauer.Between 1919 and 1926, Lowe was appointed to various positions in the ministry of economics and the statistical office of the government. In 1926 he was offered a professorship of economics (the chair was previously occupied by Ferdinand Tonnies) at the University of Kiel. In 1931 he accepted a professorship at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Taking over this chair from Carl Grunberg, Lowe became a member of what later came to be known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Thought.
Looking back, Lowe recognized already in 1927 that the Weimar Republic was in deep trouble. He even suggested that it might not survive. For Lowe the Social Democratic Party was the only political force that unconditionally supported the Weimar Republic. However, he faulted the Social Democrats for their alienation of religious voters and members as well as the failure to attract middle-class support. Against all hope, Lowe wanted to contribute to the integration of religion into social democracy. Therefore, he became a member of the Berlin circle of religious Socialists. This circle, founded by the theologian Paul Tillich, attempted to bridge atheistic Socialist thought with religious tradition.
Because Tillich contended that Karl Marx’s concept of history was influenced by prophetical thinking and Jewish religious tradition, religious socialism also provided a bridge between Jews and Christians.When Adolf Hitler became chancellor in January 1933, Lowe had to leave the country immediately. He escaped to England, where he received a university position in Manchester. While he felt welcomed in 1933 as a persecuted Jewish Socialist, the situation became unbearable after England declared war against Germany, and Lowe was now treated as an enemy alien. When he received his British passport in 1939, the British authorities erased the dots on top of the “o,” thus anglicizing his name. Lowe did not object but decided to leave England for the United States. In 1940 he traveled to New York after he had received an invitation to join the New School for Social Research. Lowe
Adolph Lowe, Jewish Socialist and economic theorist who left Germany in 1933 and became an important member of the New School for Social Research in New York. (Courtesy of Rachel Aubrey, Hanover, N.H.)
remained in New York until 1983. On his ninetieth birthday, he permanently moved back to Germany to live close to his daughter in Wolfenbuttel. Between 1983 and 1995, Lowe worked on a major treatment of ethical and philosophical aspects of his political economy.
Based on his experience and his research as an economist, Lowe argued that modern economies cannot function independently of and without state regulation. Unlimited market economies necessarily produce mass unemployment and are limited only by moral norms imposed by family and church. The state, according to Lowe, has to step in and to take over the protective function of the family. Modern societies do not need less, but more, state control. A well-developed bureaucracy would guarantee social justice. The question is therefore not whether central planning should happen or not, but just whether it should be carried out by democratic or autocratic means.
Lowe rejected the model of state-run economies in Communist countries, but not socialism as an idea, which can serve as a goal for modern societies. As such, socialism is not a social and economic category that actually can be realized, but an ethical ideal that people strive to accomplish without ever reaching it.Michael Rudloff
See also Frankfurt School; Intellectual Exile References and Further Reading Krohn, Claus-Dieter. Der Philosophische Okonom. Zur intellektuellen Biographie Adolf Lowes. Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 1996.
Lowe, Adolph. On Economic Knowledge: Toward a Science of Political Economics. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.
------. Has Freedom a Future? New York: Praeger, 1988.
Pfeiffer, Arnold. Religiose Sozialisten. Dokumente der Weltrevolution, vol. 6. Olten/Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter, 1976.