Othmar Spann

Othmar Spann (1878 to 1950) was a conservative Austrian philosopher, sociologist and economist. Raised in Altmannsdorf near Vienna, he studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and political science in Zurich and Bern, and took his doctorate in political science at the University of Tübingen in 1903. After empirical work on workers in Frankfurt and a post with the Austrian statistical central commission, he became professor of economics and statistics at the German Technical University in Brno, and in 1919 professor of economics and social studies at the University of Vienna. His radical anti-liberal and anti-socialist views, based on early nineteenth century Romantic ideas such as those of Adam Müller, antagonised political factions in Austria during the interwar years.