Quack, born in Zetten to a beer brewer and his wife, commenced studies at Utrecht in 1853, followed by law studies at the Amsterdam Athenaeum Illustre. In Amsterdam, he attended lectures by Jeronimo de Bosch Kemper and Martinus des Amorie van der Hoeven, both Christian critics of liberalism. Following the example of his professors, Quack became convinced that liberalism could not address the social problems of his day. He submitted a thesis about fourteenth-century statehood and earned a doctorate degree in July 1860. In the following year, Quack worked as a clerk at the provincial government of North Holland, then became a journalist, and also worked for some time at the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce. From 1860 onward, he wrote for the literary journalDe Gids, of which he became an editor in 1863. In September 1863, he secured a position as a secretary of the state railway company. Having been appointed professor of political economy at Utrecht University in 1868, Quack presented his students with socialist theories of economics besides teaching the common curriculum of the time. In 1875, he started writing his magnum opus on the history of the socialist movement, De socialisten: Personen en stelsels. The first volume of this book would appear in 1877; the last, twenty years later. Quack was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1877. Also in 1877, Quack left his academic position, to be succeeded by Johan d'Aulnis de Bourouill, and took a job at De Nederlandsche Bank. He proceeded with his historical work, and in fact one of the reasons for switching jobs was the increase in salary, which he needed to buy more books for his studies. Quack was to join the board of directors of De Nederlandsche Bank in 1885, also becoming professor extraordinaire of the history of political economy at the University of Amsterdam, which he remained until 1894. Although a critic of economic liberalism, Quack never joined any of the socialist currents, although he did attend the 1872 Congress of the International. Nor did he join any other political current: he felt related to liberals, in particular Cort van der Linden, but disliked their individualism; he admired socialists' ideals, but not what he considered their "breeding of mistrust and hate" as a means to realize them; his own ideals resembled social conservatism, but he was too much of a democrat to feel related to the conservatism practiced in the Netherlands. He has been described as a "cathedral socialist" with Saint-Simonist ideas. According to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, with whom Quack exchanged some letters, Quack lacked either courage or drive, and with these qualities, he might have become "our Lassalle". Theory and practice were in a state of tension in Quack's life: during the 1903 railroad strikes, he was president of the board of the state railroad company and supported the firing of 11% of the company's personnel. In his memoir, he recalled this episode as "the most cruel page of the book of my life", but still defended the decision.
Works
De socialisten. Personen en stelsels is considered Quack's main work. It is a compendium of biographies of early socialists, including many forgotten thinkers, based on Quack's study of primary sources. Other works include:
