Lorenz von Stein

Lorenz von Stein
Lorenz von Stein
Born	(1815-11-18)18 November 1815 Eckernförde, Schleswig, Denmark
Died	23 September 1890(1890-09-23) (aged 74) Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Nationality	German
Institution	University of Vienna
Field	Political economics
Alma mater	University of Kiel
Other notable students	Carl Menger

Lorenz von Stein (18 November 1815 – 23 September 1890) was a German economist, sociologist, and public administration scholar from Eckernförde. As an advisor to Meiji period Japan, his conservative political views influenced the wording of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan.

Stein was born in the seaside town of Borby in Eckernförde in Schleswig-Holstein as Wasmer Jacob Lorentz. He studied philosophy and jurisprudence at the universities of Kiel and Jena from 1835–1839, and at the University of Paris from 1841–1842. Between 1846 and 1851 Stein was an associate professor at the University of Kiel, and also served as a member of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848. His advocacy of independence for his native Schleswig, then part of Denmark, led to his dismissal in 1852.

In 1848, Stein published a book entitled Socialist and Communist Movements since the Third French Revolution (1848) in which he introduced the term "social movement" into scholarly discussions—depicting actually in this way political movements fighting for the social rights understood as the welfare rights.

This theme was repeated in 1850, when Stein published a book titled History of the French Social Movements from 1789 to the Present (1850). For Stein, the social movement was basically understood as a movement from society to the state, created by the inequalities in the economy, making the proletariat part of politics through representation. The book was translated into the English by Kaethe Mengelberg and published by Bedminster Press in 1964 (Cahman, 1966)