Leopold Caro

Leopold Caro (1864–1939) was a Polish historical school economist, international sociologist working with Gustav von Schmoller's Verein für Socialpolitik (VfS), and a lawyer.

[1] Broadly conceived, he was a conservative symphatizer of the Sanation movement in Polish interwar politics, especially of its technocratic wing under Kazimierz Bartel, while he also maintained some contact with Narodowa Demokracja.

He spent his childhood and youth in Lwów, at the time Hapsburg Lemberg of Galicia province, today Lviv in Ukraine.

There, under the influence of the German historical school and French social solidarism, as well as Wagnerian thought, his economic and sociological views were shaped.

Only after returning from Leipzig, using his comprehensive education, did he expand his scientific interests to include social, economic, sociological, philosophical and historical issues.

Concerning Galicia, he criticized the widespread practice of usury, arbitrage and excessive brokerage within the poor economy as well as human trafficking to the Americas by criminal associations like Zwi Migdal.

Demobilized in 1920 after the end of the Polish-bolshevik war, he returned permanently to Lwów (lived at 21 Akademicka Street) and devoted himself entirely to scientific work.

Frequently, Caro was delegated to international congresses and scientific meetings, for example in Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Prague, Budapest and Bucharest.

His legacy includes several scholarly books, numerous journalistic works and articles published since 1886, in over 60 magazines and daily newspapers.

The development of his concept was influenced (primarily) by Catholic social teaching, as well as Charles Gide, Leon Bourgeois, John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle.

[7] Caro understood society in the way of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, as an organized community striving for the common good and guided by natural law.

Caro's solidarism was based on cooperatives and moderate state interventionism, which united individuals in pursuit of the common good, while not excessively limiting their freedom and creativity.