Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had obtained legislation under which the state gave a degree of unemployment insurance and old age support, but other laws also needed change.

In 1888 Stammler gave his support to the draft code, rejecting the fatalist views of nationalists such as Otto von Gierke who thought a people's law must unfold naturally.

[2] Stammler became a leading thinker in European jurisprudence, along with Gustav Radbruch (1878–1949) and Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), all of whom were greatly influenced by neo-Kantian philosophy.

[1] Stammler was impressed by the achievement of the great classical jurists in making the law an ars boni et aequi – a science of what is good and just.

[3]Stammler and his friend Paul Natorp of the Marburg School subscribed to Immanuel Kant's concept of progress towards a moral end.

[10] Stammler and Natorp accepted the humanitarian and social goals of the socialists, but rejected economic determination, class struggle and metaphysical materialism.

[3] In his first major work, Wirtschaft und Recht (1896), Stammler opposed the Marxist view that law was determined by economic forces.

[2] He questioned the Marxist ideal of a society with collective ownership of the means of production that ignored the critical role of law in ensuring social justice.

[13] In Stammler's view, law should be seen as one of the regulating standards for the social economy, in which people cooperate to meet their needs through production and exchange of goods and services.