Kuyper’s Armory: The First Chair of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1904 –1948

1. Introduction

The School of Business and Economics, as the Faculty of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) is known today, was founded in 1948. Getting it off the ground proved difficult, mainly due to a small candidate pool of professors who were both thoroughly Reformed^[1] and proficient in economics. The faculty began with three professors and about 100 students and would grow into a mature academic institution in the following decades. Several articles have been written about the fortunes of the “Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences,” as it was eventually called (Peelen 1988; Visser 1999; Knol 1980; Andriesse, Beijlevelt, and Van Walderveen 1986; Knol 1988; Harmsma 2016). Far less attention has been paid to a precursor, the first chair of economics at the VU, which dates from the early twentieth century.

This first professorship of economics was established in 1904 as the “chair of economics and statistics” within the VU’s Faculty of Law. The practice of situating the study of economics within law faculties was then quite common in the Netherlands and abroad. In the Dutch academic landscape of those days, law schools were a natural setting for what was then still widely referred to as staathuishoudkunde or political economy (Duyverman 1978): the study of how the state’s economy could best be organized via legal and political means. Until 1913, when the Nederlandsche Handels-Hoogeschool (the Netherlands or “Rotterdam” School of Commerce) was founded in Rotterdam, no institutions or faculties for higher education in economics existed anywhere in the Netherlands. At the universities of other Dutch cities—Leiden, Groningen, Utrecht, and the Municipal University of Amsterdam (UvA)—professors of political economy resided in law faculties. Also at the Technische Hoogeschool (Technical School) in Delft, students received training in political economy from a law professor. This was precisely how the legislator envisioned it: The Dutch Higher Education Act of 1876 had made Principles of Political Economy a compulsory course for undergraduates, and Political Economy as well as Theory of Statistics compulsory for doctoral or Masters students in law. A modern science of economics, more or less independent of law and politics, did not yet exist in the Netherlands.

If anything was remarkable, it was the fact that a chair of economics was set up at a relatively early stage in the history of the VU. The VU, founded in 1880 by Abraham Kuyper and others as an institution for Reformed (“Neocalvinist”) science and scholarship (Van Deursen 2008, chap. 1), was dominated at the time by theologians. These regarded economic ethics as part of their discipline as well. Furthermore, the Faculty of Law had become a one-person affair after two professors had been dismissed (Bruijn 2015b). And while there was a need for economic reflection based on Reformed principles, it was also a bold venture in a time of economic change, as the Industrial Revolution only intensified. The history of the chair of economics at the VU is therefore at least as interesting as that of the later Faculty of Economics. It sheds light not only on the development of economics as a science, but also on the relationship between economics and faith, and more broadly the legacy of Kuyper’s ideal of Christian science.

In this contribution I discuss the historical background of the chair, its establishment, and its historical significance. Finally, I briefly discuss the early days of the Faculty of Economics. The thesis defended in this article, summarized in the concluding section, is threefold: first, that the establishment of the chair fulfilled a long-cherished wish, second, that Diepenhorst could not meet the original expectation that came with it, and third, that he nevertheless played an important role in educating the Reformed segment of the population.

2. Prehistory of the Chair of Economics

Prior to the establishment of the chair of economics, the subject of political economy was not taught anywhere at the VU. Offering economic education, however, was the express wish of the university’s co-founder Kuyper (Knol 1980, 407–8, 417). The VU began in 1880 with three faculties—Theology, Law, and Literature—with a total of five professors and three students. In his speech at the inauguration of the new university in October of that year, Kuyper emphasized that the Calvinist foundations of the VU should permeate all its departments. This naturally included the Faculty of Law, which in Kuyper’s eyes faced an urgent societal responsibility. “If, aside from science, the Christian conscience is opposed both to the prevailing political economy and to the current business practices and to the rapacious nature of social relationships,” Kuyper said (1880, 31), then practicing the science of political economy on a Reformed-Christian basis was no less than an academic duty.^[2] And if the VU wanted to be recognized as a full-fledged university, courses in political economy were required by the aforementioned law of 1876 regardless.

The main obstacle at the Faculty of Law was a lack of manpower and expertise (I. A. Diepenhorst 1980; Bruijn 2015a). In 1880 it had only one professor: D. P. D. Fabius (1851–1931). One decade later, A. F. de Savornin Lohman (1837–1924) and his son, the VU’s first doctoral student, W. H. de Savornin Lohman (1864–1932), had joined the staff. Although he wrote on socioeconomic issues as a student, Fabius, now a busy professor, found no time to further engage in economic theory. Savornin Lohman Sr., in turn, said he lacked economic expertise (Van Deursen 2008, 57–58). In a way, this was not a problem for the young VU at its formative phase. In Kuyper’s conception of the university, political economy was at best an auxiliary science. Economics (“oeconomie,” as he called it), statistics, politics, diplomacy, sociology and the like were “all together only auxiliary sciences, the purpose of which is to make state law in particular, but to some extent also civil law, not wander about by guesswork, but to make it walk in the full light of the knowledge of facts, situations, and relations,” he wrote in his theological encyclopedia (Kuyper 1894, 156).

In the 1880s and 1890s, however, the predatory social relations that Kuyper feared were becoming manifest as the Industrial Revolution conquered the Netherlands. The so-called sociale quaestie (social question) of poverty and unemployment was becoming a serious concern in Reformed circles. At the instigation of the Christian workers’ association Patrimonium, the First Christian Social Congress held meetings in November 1891 (Bratt 2013, 222–25). As general chairman, Kuyper delivered the opening address in the packed hall of the Maatschappij voor den Werkenden Stand (Society for the Working Class) building. He began by expressing his disappointment that no Reformed political economists could be welcomed at the conference. “As the sad fruit of the state monopoly, which still prevails here in the field of higher education, we do not even have any men of the profession; not one of us has appeared at this congress as a specialist in political economy” (Kuyper 1891, 1). Sadly enough, the VU was still dependent on private funding, its degrees were not yet officially recognized, and the science of political economy was not yet taught.

Partly as a result of the First Christian Social Congress, the VU board—which almost in its entirety attended—began to push for economic education (Van Deursen 2008, 58).^[3] One month before the congress, Anthony Brummelkamp raised the question in the Board of Curators whether it would be desirable for the Faculty of Law to pay attention to the “sociological [sic] questions of the present time.” One decided to ask Savornin Lohman Sr. to expand his classes in constitutional law with a “few questions of a sociological nature, in accordance with what he had previously declared to be necessary and useful.” One month after the congress, the curators again discussed Brummelkamp’s letter that stressed the need for the Faculty of Law to “pave the way to bring about a Christian conception of the social question in the world of science.” The president asked Savornin Lohman Sr., but he declared as he had not studied sociological issues, therefore he could not be expected to lecture on them. Stating that the study of political economy was “most necessary from the perspective of anti-revolutionary principles,” the curators immediately after decided to write a letter to the faculty asking for advice. The answer came some six months later: the faculty fully shared the board’s view, but could not bear the burden of teaching political economy. The subject required the strength of a full professor, “both because of the breadth of the subject and the wrong direction in which it had been developed from the beginning.” The search for a suitable candidate had to be continued.

In 1895 the problem seemed to be solved after all. Savornin Lohman Jr. informed the Senate that he was willing to teach the course Political Economy (he used the French title Economie Politique) in addition to his main course in civil law, in such a way that non-law students could take it as well (Bruijn 2015b, 51). With the publication of Samenwerking op maatschappelijk gebied inzonderheid door volksbanken (Social Cooperation particularly through National Banks, 1895), Lohman had ventured into socioeconomic analysis and now felt competent to share his insights with others. That year’s timetable of lectures, the Series Lectionum, indeed mentions Political Economy (under the Latin title Economia Politica) under his name. However, it appears that the course was never taught due to lack of interest. In December 1895 Savornin Lohman Jr. resigned, leaving the field of political economy fallow again. At the next annual meeting, curator Theodore Heemskerk once again pointed out that a “well-regulated connection [should be] established between our principles and the science of political economy” (Heemstra and Seefat 1897, lxxi). Socioeconomic issues such as workers’ wages and free trade demanded attention from a Reformed perspective as soon as possible.

Now the time had come for VU sympathizers in the country to raise their voices and insist on the importance of a Reformed viewpoint informing the study of economics. At the close of the century, the later Christian Social writer Rev. R. J. W. Rudolph gave a lecture at one of the provincial days of the VU (meant to promote the institution in various provinces) emphasizing precisely this point (see Rullman 1930, 131–38). Rudolph observed a struggle between revolutionaries and anti-revolutionaries over questions of law, which had been stripped of its divine character. This struggle was most serious in the social sphere, where numerous problems related to working conditions, wages, and pensions demanded answers. Laborers were threatened by the monster of unemployment, and small-scale entrepreneurs by the power of big business. Because of liberalism with its economic philosophy of laissez-faire, laissez-aller, employers and employees everywhere were “like two armies facing each other” (Rudolph 1898, 8–14). Hence the call for Calvinists to participate in the holy struggle to uphold divine law. According to Rudolph, the VU in particular was called to train “legal knights” (ridders van het recht) able to derive legal principles from the Bible and in turn to educate others. As to the socioeconomic problems just mentioned, he claimed that “only Reformed legal scholarship can give the right answer to all these questions. Therefore, it is highly necessary that the subject of political economy be practiced at the Faculty of Law of the Vrije Universiteit” (Rudolph 1898, 21–23).

All in all, it was crystal clear what was expected of the Faculty of Law at the turn of the century. It was seen as a Neocalvinist armory—as theologian Ph. J. Hoedemaker (1880, 17–19) called the university as a whole at its inception—that was to provide weapons for the political and social fight against liberalism and socialism. Many evils including various socioeconomic ones were at issue. What the nation needed were Reformed jurists capable of resisting liberal economic theories and encroaching socialism.

3. Establishment of the Chair of Economics

In 1904, nearly twenty years after Kuyper’s express wish, the Faculty of Law finally found someone to take up and pass on arms: P. A. (Pieter) Diepenhorst (1879–1953) (Bruijn and Van der Woude 2015). On November 18, Diepenhorst was appointed Professor of Economics and Statistics and Related Subjects. The deeply felt need for a teacher of political economy at the VU was met at last. Only 25 years old, Diepenhorst was a home-grown jurist who had received his doctorate magna cum laude from Fabius just a few months earlier. “Early, actually too early, I was called to the professorship,” Diepenhorst wrote in his memoirs (2003, 31). His colleagues at other Dutch universities—H. B. Greven (Leiden), W. A. Reiger (Groningen), J. d’Aulnis de Bourouill (Utrecht), M. W. F. Treub (Municipal University of Amsterdam), and B. H. Pekelharing (Delft)—all were well past their fifties. Because of his young age, the socialist daily Het Volk consistently referred to Diepenhorst as “the little professor.” From the VU’s point of view, however, age hardly mattered. The Reformed community could no longer wait and, equally important, to obtain the long-hoped-for effectus civilis (the official recognition of the VU’s academic degrees) a staff of three professors per faculty was required. Anne Anema (1872–1966), appointed shortly before Diepenhorst, along with Fabius completed the trio.

Diepenhorst began his academic career at a time when, by international standards, the study of political economy in the Netherlands was quite backward. Stationed at faculties of law, Dutch political economists merely transmitted—or “preached”—the doctrines of the classical school of Adam Smith in Britain and Jean-Baptiste Say in France (Zuidema 1992; Hasenberg Butter 2011; Schoorl and Plasmeijer 2011), and were indifferent toward real theoretical-economic concepts. They were preoccupied by practical matters and if they grappled with economic theories at all—rather than unquestioningly passing theories on to their students—it was in response to actual questions of economic policy. This also explains why those in and around the VU who were troubled by the social question pushed for a chair. Tiemen de Vries, a self-proclaimed candidate for a professorship at its Faculty of Law (Hengstmengel 2023, 918–20), even called political economy “the social question in scientific form” (Vries 1904, 7–8). As far back as the 1870s, political economy in Dutch academic circles went beyond imitating the classical school and gradually began to be influenced by the German historical school of economics, the Marginal Revolution, Institutionalism, and—somewhat later—the Austrian school (Elzas 1992, 75–9; Tieben and Schoorl 2016). While Dutch writers on economics remained strongly policy-oriented, they increasingly focused on international debates and witnessed the transformation of the science of political economy to the science of economics. The name of Diepenhorst’s chair, which was incidentally the same as that of the Municipal University of Amsterdam, testifies to the latter.

In terms of his profile, Diepenhorst was a match made in heaven to the VU. He combined a Reformed background with economic expertise and had proven to be an excellent student. In anti-revolutionary political circles, Diepenhorst began to make a name for himself as a speaker on the dangers of socialism and Marxism. In 1900, when he earned a doctorate from the Municipal University that the VU could not grant, he did not mince words when he defended a number of theses: “Calvin, more than any other reformer, has had a great and praiseworthy influence on economic life” (P. A. Diepenhorst 1900, 12). In his VU dissertation Calvijn en de economie (Calvin and the Economy), defended in early 1904, he would elaborate on this contention in detail. None other than Kuyper congratulated him on this “fine” study: his dissertation had an appropriate and topical subject, was well developed, and showed an unusual degree of scholarship.^[4]

At first glance, Calvin and the Economy offered nothing more than a thorough study of John Calvin’s economic thought. The Genevan Reformer, Diepenhorst believed to have demonstrated, perceived the essence of economic phenomena with “the eye of a genius,” and therefore deserved a place in any history of economics textbook. While the Dutch term economie in the title could mean both economy and economics, what the reader should not expect was an attempt at Neocalvinist economics: “There is no question of attempting to develop a system of economics on Calvinistic foundations” (P. A. Diepenhorst 1904a, 20). Nevertheless, Diepenhorst ventured an apology in the last chapter, demonstrating the positive relationship between Calvinism as a worldview and the science of economics. Contrary to what Herbert Spencer claimed (namely that Calvinists subscribed to divine arbitrariness), Calvinism’s confidence in divine order created an appetite for science, including economics. Of course, the latter was never value-free. The economist’s philosophy of life—his views on religion, law, and morality—could not help but permeate his economic theory. Calvinism seeks to bring economic life to fruition, but in doing so it demands “that in economics one must reckon with the eternal and essentially unchangeable principles of God’s Word” (P. A. Diepenhorst 1904a, 326). A Neocalvinist science of economics required no less than this lofty starting point.

On November 18, 1904, Diepenhorst delivered his inaugural address De klassieke school in de economie (The Classical School of Economics). Diepenhorst’s subject seems somewhat old-fashioned, as the influence of the Anglo-French classical school was waning. Although nineteenth-century Dutch political economy had been dominated by classical economics, new schools and trends were on the rise. According to the inaugurating professor, however, debate over the classical school had not yet lost urgency. It still had many representatives and kindred spirits in Europe, he showed in an intellectual tour. Many economists still stood “on the soil of the classics,” whether they were aware of it or not. This was cause for concern because classical doctrines were based on two “pernicious principles,” namely, that man acts out of self-interest and that economics has the character of a natural science. As a result, economics had lost sight of the diversity and plurality of real life. Repeatedly one encountered in the works of the classical school “vulgar materialistic expressions.” Such spiritual factors as religion, law, and morality, which transcend the material, were rarely taken into account. This should not be surprising, Diepenhorst argued, since the classical school emerged in the atmosphere of deism. “If economics is to develop properly,” he concluded, “it is necessary to break with the starting point of the classics [i.e., the exponents of the classical school]” (P. A. Diepenhorst 1904b, 35).^[5] In part this had already been accomplished by the German historical school of economics, which fully recognized the influence of morality and religion. Its relativism, however, called for a more radical alternative: namely, an economics “according to the demands of the Calvinist worldview,” which Diepenhorst believed could bear rich fruit. Apparently, as he said in his words of thanks to the directors of the VU, they considered him capable to “draw the outlines along which Calvinist economics should develop” (1904b, 41–42).

These modest words from a brand-new professor should be seen against the background of sky-high expectations. Much more was expected of Diepenhorst than simply outlining the contours of Neocalvinist economics. “His subject was in accordance with the wishes of Kuyper and the Senate: the actualization of the principles to be found in Calvinism” (Stellingwerff 1987, 27). In other words, on Diepenhorst’s shoulders rested the duty to build a genuinely Neocalvinist system of economics that would relate to everyday issues. Of course, as noted in the church periodical De Heraut (Nov. 27, 1904), one could not expect him to have his own system at this stage. Such a thing admittedly required years of study. Nevertheless, Diepenhorst’s criticism of existing schools of economics from a Neocalvinist point of view created the desire for such a Neocalvinist system. Diepenhorst was to become a “Calvinist guide,” as the daily newspaper De Standaard (Dec. 26, 1904) put it, in the largely unknown territory of economics. Whether the young professor could live up to this expectation remained to be seen.

4. Diepenhorst’s Professorship

What Diepenhorst succeeded at, regardless of the other expectations, was launching the long-awaited economics curriculum. In the same academic year as the establishment of the chair, 1904–5, he offered three courses. That year’s timetable of lectures, the so-called Series Lectionum, solemnly announced the courses as Economiae elementa, Economiae capita selecta, and Statisticae methodum et usum. The annual report only mentioned Economics (“Oeconomie”), in which Diepenhorst dealt mainly with historical topics, and Statistics, in which he discussed the history of statistics as well as some theory “especially the law of large numbers”. We do not know how many students attended these new courses. In any case, Method and Use of Statistics must have been unpopular and was never offered again—and subsequently this part of his teaching assignment was dropped.

Throughout the years until his retirement, Diepenhorst regularly taught Principles of Economics and Selected Topics in Economics, invariably on Fridays and Saturdays. Between 1905 and 1923 records were kept of how many students participated in his courses and also, until 1937, what topics he covered.^[6] The number of students attending his Principles of Economics lectures ranged between 7 and 14, whereas Selected Topics attracted from 8 to 25. Diepenhorst prescribed his own textbooks, but recommended Kuyper’s works and handbooks by Dutch, French, and German economists as well.^[7]

Although some say that Diepenhorst had little professorial flair, he must have been an engaging teacher. One of his students, the future philosopher of law and colleague Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), characterized Diepenhorst in a memorial address as a distinguished pedagogue. His teacher combined rhetorical skill with a sparkling and humorous spirit. Ideological weapons, however, were “not provided in abundance.”^[8] Diepenhorst was the first to admit that his lectures did not dig very deep. This apparent superficiality was intentional, he claimed. With a view to training jurists, a general overview of the history of economics and the principles of economics sufficed. He believed that a mathematical approach, which contemporary economists were increasingly using, should be avoided, and that economic theory should be related to concrete policy issues. Economics “unintelligible to the common man” according to Diepenhorst was of little use. Theory without application—“theocracy” with a small “t”—only alienated the economist and his audience from reality (P. A. Diepenhorst 1949, 4–5).

Diepenhorst’s publications breathe the same spirit. He published numerous books and articles on economics, agriculture, and social issues. The more theoretical works include Voorlezingen over de economie (Lectures on Economics, 4 volumes, 1910, 1914, 1915, 1928), Grondbeginselen der economie (Principles of Economics, 1917), De loonarbeid (On Wage Labor, 1931), De eigendom (On Property, 1933), and Leerboek van de economie (Textbook of Economics, 2 volumes, 1934, 1935). Several went through multiple editions, Principles of Economics even seven. Yet these works testify more to diligence than to originality, as VU historian A. Th. Van Deursen (2008, 98) summed up nicely. The farmer’s son from the Dutch village of Strijen was an incredibly hard worker with an astonishing erudition, but did not qualify as a theorist. Diepenhorst did not publish in academic journals, except for The Business Economist: Monthly Journal of Accountancy and Commercial Science (1924–34), of which he was editor-in-chief. According to Dooyeweerd again, in-depth reflections on the methodology and philosophy of economics could not be found in the writings of Diepenhorst. Instead, practical-political problems were always at the forefront. On the occasion of his retirement, the newspaper De Rotterdammer (Dec. 31, 1948) called Diepenhorst someone who popularized rather than developed the science of economics.

Diepenhorst’s professorship more or less coincided with the phase in Dutch economics that was “growing away from provincialism” (Elzas 1992). For one thing, economics in the Netherlands became increasingly professionalized. Since 1913, the day the Rotterdam School of Commerce opened its doors, new faculties and journals of economics had been established, which added to the academic prestige of the field. For another, Dutch economics became more theoretical. Economists no longer uncritically imported theories from abroad, but began to contribute to international debates themselves. Thanks to internationally recognized economists from the Rotterdam School such as J. Tinbergen, J. G. Koopmans, and H. Theil, the mathematical approach to economics gained ground in the 1930s and 1940s. Meanwhile, Diepenhorst stuck to the old, “provincial” tradition of a mathematically-free economics geared at questions of economic policy—and in this he certainly was not alone.

At the risk of doing an injustice, one could say Diepenhorst also lacked an economics or economic methodology of his own. The best examples from which to distill such a system, his Lectures, Principles, and Textbook, are primarily comprehensive overviews of economic themes and theories, with a sharp focus on economic practice. The author is most critical in discussing the nature and history of economic science, but here too he does not really present an alternative to the views he criticizes. That said, Diepenhorst offered his own emphases.^[9] Most importantly, he wanted to assign a central place to man as the image-bearer of God. Indeed, to him economics was not a theory of goods but a science of man. Diepenhorst accordingly objected to a so-called reine Ökonomie (“pure economics”) full of fictions and abstractions, of which homo economicus is the most notorious example. Economics ideally dealt with real human beings in the fullness of social life, which the economist could study both deductively and inductively. At the same time, economics could not be a voraussetzungslose science. Worldviews influence economic life as well as economic science, and fortunately so. “From the Christian religion emanates a rich blessing for economic action and thought,” Diepenhorst believed (1935, 26). Especially in Calvinism valuable principles could be found (1922, 20–24). Although the Bible is not an economics textbook, it may be used—with great caution—in the development of economic doctrines. “In the light of revelation, with an eye to historical development, forging through reality, the practitioner of economics must harmoniously combine deduction and induction” (1922, 41–42; 1935, 46).

To Diepenhorst, doing economics according to God’s revelation did not mean applying Bible texts to contemporary economic issues. He opposed the biblicism of another Reformed compatriot writing on economics at the time, J. A. Nederbragt (I. A. Diepenhorst 1980, 118). Diepenhorst now and then referred to Scripture or devoted a chapter to a biblical view of the subject in question, but he was cautious not to identify (Neo)Calvinist as biblical. As he acknowledged at the end of his career, there is risk in referring explicitly to God’s Word: one might be tempted to appeal lightly to Scripture in order to “back one’s own opinion” (P. A. Diepenhorst 1948, 23; 1949, 9). It was better to take biblical principles, as highlighted by Calvinism and rediscovered in Neocalvinism, as “guidelines” on major economic issues. Yet, the system of Neocalvinist economics that some longed for did not materialize. It was simply too high an expectation for Diepenhorst to meet.

One might wonder why he failed to construct such a system, as had been attempted, for example, by De Vries in his unfinished trilogy Principles of Political Economy (Hengstmengel 2023, 918–22). Perhaps it was Diepenhorst’s realization that a deductive approach to economics based on Neocalvinist principles ultimately was a dead end.^[10] Lack of time may also have played a role. The economics professor had numerous ancillary positions, both in the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Christian Social movement.^[11] The supervision of students must have demanded much of his time as well. He developed a close relationship with many students and took delight in guiding them after graduation in their further careers. What is more, Diepenhorst was of great value to the Faculty of Law when it came to mentoring doctoral students. He supervised no less than 63 dissertations (some in non-economic fields), more than any of his colleagues at the faculty. A personal highlight must have been the supervision of the dissertation Juvenile Unemployment and how to Deal with it (1931), written by his son Isaäc Nicolaas Theodoor and dedicated “to my supervisor and his spouse.”

5. Toward a Faculty of Economics

On December 15, 1949, Diepenhorst hung his toga on the willow trees. Because of the long-term illness of his successor, T. P. van der Kooy (1902–92), however, he continued teaching courses in economics at the Faculty of Law for a while. In his well-attended valedictory lecture he took stock of trends in economics teaching and denounced the “supremacy of mathematics” in economic theory. The ideal of reine Ökonomie or pure economics presupposed isolation, abstraction, and deduction and ultimately was based on a static view of society. Economics—especially when taught to law students—should assume simplicity and realism. After all, Diepenhorst claimed, is not simplicity the hallmark of truth? Two years earlier, in a commemorative address, he had also pointed out an ongoing secularization of economic thought. Publications that “testify to and build on faith in God” were painfully rare (P. A. Diepenhorst 1948, 23). The long-awaited Faculty of Economics at the VU thus faced an important task.

The first schools or faculties of economics in the Netherlands were established in Rotterdam in 1913, Amsterdam (UvA) in 1921, and Tilburg (Roman Catholic School of Commerce) in 1927. The first calls for an independent faculty of economics at the VU, which for decades consisted of only three faculties, were heard as early as the 1920s. It was required to have five faculties with at least three professors each by the middle of the twentieth century, in order to obtain and maintain the coveted effectus civilis. A faculty of economics was an obvious expansion option. By 1930, however, the choice fell on a faculty of mathematics and physics. For the fifth faculty, to be established before 1955, the Senate insisted on a faculty of medicine, whereas the Board of Directors and Board of Curators preferred economics, which would be not only cheaper but also easier to implement.

In the 1930s, pressure to add economics to the studies offered at the VU came from below (“Uitbreiding?” 1939). At a meeting of one of the Provincial Committees, detailed inquiries were made about a faculty of economics. Was it not desirable to consider socioeconomic questions from a “fundamentally scientific” point of view, and to have this Calvinist university offer “principled education” to workers from Reformed circles? The directors could only affirm this question. In the same year, 1939, the Anti-Revolutionary Party MP and Christian National Trade Union Federation (C. N. V.) representative Christiaan “Red” Smeenk gave a speech at a local VU promotion day in Arnhem in which he pointed to the struggle occurring in economics. Different “principles” opposed each other and influenced economic practice. Partly thanks to the VU, socioeconomic study from a Calvinist perspective had begun, but was not yet mature. Moreover, Smeenk argued, new economic circumstances called for a truly Reformed economics. His wish for the VU was that it would enable professors “to devote themselves to principled and practical economic studies” (De Heraut 1939).

The possibility of establishing a faculty of economics was explored from 1939 on by two committees in which Diepenhorst participated. A major problem was finding suitable candidate professors. An interim solution to erect an economic study center at the VU, where new talents could be trained by Diepenhorst and others, did not go through. The sudden death of the dream candidate Jan Ridder (1910–46) caused further delays. But on May 15, 1948, it was finally decided to proceed with the constitution of a “Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences.” With three full professors (supplemented by a few endowed professors from the VU’s own ranks), the faculty was able to begin its work “by the grace of God” (Grosheide 1950, 67–68). On Monday, October 4, 1948, the new faculty held its opening lectures. The triumvirate of J. Zijlstra (general economics), Z. W. Sneller (economic history), and F. L. van Muiswinkel (business economics) was soon supplemented with the aforementioned Van der Kooy (political economy) and several lecturers.

Having spent his entire career at the Faculty of Law, Diepenhorst applauded the “happy decision” to establish an independent faculty of economics.^[12] In his view, it reflected the “growing importance of both economics and our university.” Contrary to what Kuyper had once claimed, economics was much more than an auxiliary science. An independent faculty met the need for more specialized study of economics on the one hand, and for supplying theoretically trained practitioners on the other. According to Diepenhorst, both also held significance for the VU. “Against the view that builds the science of economics on the natural force of the economic motive, born from a welfare deficit, and isolates this motive from ethical factors, it has to set its [own] scientific practice which binds economic considerations as well to the Word of God.”

Diepenhorst’s hopes were not universally shared. Some, like the VU’s house organ, Vrije Universiteitsblad, expressed their joy that economic issues were finally being addressed from a Reformed perspective: While not all social and economic problems would be solved immediately, the “Calvinist voice” would be heard more often in this field than before (“Een nieuw begin” 1948).^[13] Others were less enthusiastic. Even the initial three professors were reluctant to press their Reformed worldview in the crucial questions of economics. Zijlstra, Sneller, and Van Muiswinkel all came from the Rotterdam School of Commerce and were exporting the ideal of a value-free economics propagated there by F. de Vries to Amsterdam. Consequently, there was a “Rotterdam atmosphere” at the VU’s Faculty of Economics from its very beginning (Visser 1999; Harmsma 2016).

6. Concluding Remarks

The further history of the Faculty of Economics in light of the original VU ideals is a topic for another article. The fact is that the faculty commenced at a time when Kuyper’s Neocalvinist ideal of Christian science started to crumble. The VU’s unique character of Christian scholarship gradually gave way to the idea of science practiced by Christians (Van Deursen 2006). In the case of the new faculty, as compared to Diepenhorst’s preliminary work, this change was more abrupt. Diepenhorst himself must have regretted this development, but did not live with this disappointment for long: he died in 1953 in Epe, where his son was mayor. His approach of normative economics based on Reformed principles was continued at the VU by Van der Kooy, and by Bob Goudzwaard (1934–2024) at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences (Kouwenhoven 1987, 150). Much to his chagrin, there was no place for Goudzwaard at the Faculty of Economics. Even though Goudzwaard received his doctorate in Rotterdam, he was said to confuse the students with his normative economics ideas.

When it comes to Diepenhorst’s significance, the emphasis is usually on his service to the Christian Social movement as a whole. For example, one of the few articles devoted to him calls him a living example of the “emancipation of the common folk.” It portrays Diepenhorst as the farmer’s son from the rural Hoeksche Waard in South-Holland who became one of the Reformed opinion leaders (Bruijn and Van der Woude 2015, 73). Less attention has been paid to the way he helped develop the first chair of economics at the VU. In summary, Diepenhorst introduced many generations of VU students to the fundamentals of economics, thus making the field build the Reformed “pillar” in society. The system of Neocalvinist economics that he was expected to develop did not materialize, and may not have been what he ultimately aspired to. His preparatory work on Christian economics was certainly no sine qua non for the later Faculty of Economics. But it must have stimulated its establishment anyway.

The establishment of Diepenhorst’s chair of economics itself fulfilled an old desire. Already in the circles of the Dutch Réveil, long before the VU came into existence, there were allusions to an intrinsically Christian political economy (Hengstmengel 2023). Then, and later with Kuyper and his followers, social and economic ills provided the impetus. Economics was staathuishoudkunde or political economy and, as such, stood at the service of economic policy. In other words, to borrow the subtitle of a well-known book from the 1970s, it was about “economics as if people mattered.” This premise, which Diepenhorst embodied, has lost none of its relevance. The global challenges of economic instability, inequality, and climate change call for the integration of a broad concept of welfare and well-being into economic theory. This need seems to be increasingly recognized by mainstream economists. Meanwhile, there is no harm in continuing to insist on a more human-centered economics, one that places the welfare of people as well as the interests of the environment at its center.