Gheorghe Taşcă. Romanian Capitalism and Cooperation - Past and Present

Personality of the period 1907-1951, born on January 30, 1875 and deceased under severe conditions on 12 March 1951 in the prison in Sighet, Maramureş County. A law graduate in 1899 with the work entitled "On the evolution of rural property in Romania", he began practicing in the lawyers' bar in Ilfov County, as well as his collaboration with the political economy teacher Nicolae Basilescu. After several years of practicing lawyer he decides to pursue doctoral studies in law in Paris and in 1907 he holds the thesis "La question agreaire. Commentaire critique of rural legislation in Roumanie, Angleterre, Ireland, Allemagne“ (Taşcă 1926, 4). Upon returning to the country, he earned the lecturer's lecture at the Department of Political Economy of the Faculty of Law. Motivated by the fact that a law doctor does not entitle him to teach economics and determined by this reasoning, Gheorghe Taşcă returns to Paris to attend the doctoral school in economics, and in 1910 he holds the thesis "Les nouvelles reformes agraires en Roumanie" Doctor of Economics. In 1925 he was elected and became a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The term political economy in Gheorghe Taşca's concept covers the whole spectrum of economic sciences: "The political economy deals with the research of the norms by which goods that are necessary for the satisfaction of human needs are produced, circulated and distributed." Involved in the economic scientific and political life, Gheorghe Taşca had a particularly active activity especially in the development of the cooperative system. This research paper is an improved and updated English version of a study presented at the International Conference "Agriculture and Rural Development in a Regional Perspective," 2016, Bucharest, Romania, organized by the Institute of Agrarian Economy of the Romanian Academy.