Werner Sombart

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Werner Sombart
Died18 May 1941(1941-05-18) (aged 78)
NationalityGerman
Known forCoining the term "late capitalism"
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics, sociology, history
InstitutionsUniversity of Breslau, Handelshochschule Berlin, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität
Doctoral advisorGustav von Schmoller
Adolph Wagner
Doctoral studentsWassily Leontief
Richard Löwenthal

Werner Sombart (/ˈvɜːrnər ˈzɒmbɑːrt/; German: [ˈzɔmbaʁt]; 19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a German economist, historian and sociologist. Head of the "Youngest Historical School," he was one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century. The term late capitalism is accredited to him. The concept of creative destruction associated with capitalism is also of his coinage. His magnum opus was Der moderne Kapitalismus. It was published in 3 volumes from 1902 through 1927. In Kapitalismus he described four stages in the development of capitalism from its earliest iteration as it evolved out of feudalism, which he called proto-capitalism to early, high and, finally, late capitalism —Spätkapitalismus— in the post World War I period.[1]

Life and work

Wirtschaftsleben im Zeitalter des Hochkapitalismus, 1928

Early career, socialism and economics

Werner Sombart was born in

Ermsleben, Harz, the son of a wealthy liberal politician, industrialist, and estate-owner, Anton Ludwig Sombart. He studied law and economics at the universities of Pisa, Berlin, and Rome. In 1888, he received his Ph.D. from Berlin under the direction of Gustav von Schmoller and Adolph Wagner
, then the most eminent German economists.

As an economist and especially as a social activist, Sombart was then seen as radically left-wing, and so only received — after some practical work as head lawyer of the

Marxist,"[2] but later wrote that "It had to be admitted in the end that Marx had made mistakes on many points of importance."[3]

As one of the German academics concerned with contemporary social policy, Sombart also joined the Verein für Socialpolitik (Social Policy Association) around 1888, together with his friend and colleague Max Weber. This was then a new professional association of German economists affiliated with the historical school, who saw the role of economics primarily as finding solutions to the social problems of the age and who pioneered large scale statistical studies of economic issues.

Sombart was not the first

proletarian situation created a "love for the masses", which, together with the tendency "to a communistic way of life" in social production, was a prime feature of the social movement.[citation needed
]

Sombart's magnum opus, Der moderne Kapitalismus (Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart)

industrial revolution.[7] In his second volume, which he published in 1916, he described the period that began c. 1760, as high capitalism —Hochkapitalismus.[8] The last book, published in 1927, treats conditions in the 20th century. He called this stage late capitalismSpätkapitalismus, which began with World War I.[1]
The three volumes were split into semi-volumes which totaled six books.

Although later much disparaged by neo-classical economists,[citation needed] and much criticized in specific points, Der moderne Kapitalismus is still today a standard work with important ramifications for, e.g., the Annales school (Fernand Braudel). His work was criticised by Rosa Luxemburg, who attributed to it "the express intention of driving a wedge between the trade unions and the social democracy in Germany, and of enticing the trade unions over to the bourgeois position."[9]

In 1903 Sombart accepted a position as associate editor of the Archives for Social Science and Social Welfare, where he worked with his colleagues Edgar Jaffé and Max Weber.[citation needed]

In 1906, Sombart accepted a call to a full professorship at the Berlin School of Commerce, an inferior institution to

paradigms appeared; the former two were the key works on the subject until now. Also in 1906 his Why is there no Socialism in the United States? appeared. The book is a famous work on American exceptionalism in this respect to this day.[10]

Sombart's 1911 book, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (The Jews and Modern Capitalism), is an addition to Max Weber's historic study of the connection between Protestantism (especially Calvinism) and Capitalism, with Sombart documenting Jewish involvement in historic capitalist development. He argued that Jewish traders and manufacturers, excluded from the guilds, developed a distinctive antipathy to the fundamentals of medieval commerce, which they saw as primitive and unprogressive: the desire for 'just' (and fixed) wages and prices; for an equitable system in which shares of the market were agreed and unchanging; profits and livelihoods modest but guaranteed; and limits placed on production. Excluded from the system, Sombart argued, the Jews broke it up and replaced it with modern capitalism, in which competition was unlimited and the only law was pleasing the customer.[11] Paul Johnson, who considers the work "a remarkable book", notes that Sombart left out some inconvenient truths, and ignored the powerful mystical elements of Judaism. Sombart refused to recognize, as Weber did, that wherever these religious systems, including Judaism, were at their most powerful and authoritarian, commerce did not flourish. Jewish businessmen, like Calvinist ones, tended to operate most successfully when they had left their traditional religious environment and moved on to fresher pastures.[12]

In his somewhat eclectic 1913 book Der Bourgeois (translated as The quintessence of capitalism), Sombart endeavoured to provide a psychological and sociological portrait of the modern businessman, and to explain the origins of the capitalist spirit. The book begins with "the greed for gold", the roots of private enterprise, and the types of entrepreneurs. Subsequent chapters discuss "the middle class outlook" and various factors shaping the capitalist spirit - national psychology, racial factors, biological factors, religion, migrations, technology, and "the influence of capitalism itself."[13]

In a work published in 1915, a "war book" with the title Händler und Helden Sombart welcomed the "German War" as the "inevitable conflict between the English commercial civilisation and the heroic culture of Germany". In this book, according to

Rodbertus, the state is neither founded nor formed by individuals, nor an aggregate of individuals, nor is its purpose to serve any interests of individuals. It is a 'Volksgemeinschaft' (people's community) in which the individual has no rights but only duties. Claims of the individual are always an outcome of the commercial spirit. The 'ideas of 1789' – Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity – are characteristically commercial ideals which have no other purpose but to secure certain advantages to individuals." Sombart further claims that the war had helped the Germans to rediscover their "glorious heroic past as a warrior people"; that all economic activities are subordinated to military ends; and that to regard war as inhuman and senseless is a product of commercial views. There is a life higher than the individual life, the life of the people and the life of the state, and it is the purpose of the individual to sacrifice himself for that higher life. War against England was therefore also a war against the opposite ideal – the "commercial ideal of individual freedom".[14]

Middle career and sociology

At last, in 1917, Sombart became professor at the

Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, succeeding his mentor Adolph Wagner. He remained on the chair until 1931 but continued teaching until 1940. During that period he was also one of the most renowned sociologists alive, more prominent a contemporary than even his friend Max Weber.[citation needed] Sombart's insistence on Sociology as a part of the Humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) — necessarily so because it dealt with human beings and therefore required inside, empathic "Verstehen" rather than the outside, objectivizing "Begreifen" (both German words translate as "understanding" into English) — became extremely unpopular already during his lifetime. It was seen as the opposite of the "scientification" of the social sciences, in the tradition of Auguste Comte, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber — (although this is a misunderstanding since Weber largely shared Sombart's views in these matters) — which became fashionable during this time and has more or less remained so until today. However, because Sombart's approach has much in common with Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutics, which likewise is a Verstehen-based approach to understanding the world, he is coming back in some sociological and even philosophical circles that are sympathetic to that approach and critical towards the scientification of the world. Sombart's key sociological essays are collected in his posthumous 1956 work, Noo-Soziologie.[citation needed
]

Late career and Nazism

During the Weimar Republic, Sombart moved toward nationalism.

In 1934 he published Deutscher Sozialismus where he claimed a "new spirit" was beginning to "rule mankind". The age of capitalism and proletarian socialism was over, with "German socialism" (

Jewish or believing in Judaism but is a capitalistic spirit.[19] The English people possess the Jewish spirit and the "chief task" of the German people and National Socialism is to destroy the Jewish spirit."[19]

One of Sombart's daughters, Clara, was married to Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, who first described the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.

Legacy

Sombart's legacy today is difficult to ascertain, because the alleged

double-entry accounting as a key precondition for Capitalism (a similar thesis was also discussed by Oswald Spengler) and the interdisciplinary study of the City in the sense of urban studies. Like Weber, Sombart makes double-entry bookkeeping system an important component of modern capitalism. He wrote in "Medieval and Modern Commercial Enterprise" that "The very concept of capital is derived from this way of looking at things; one can say that capital, as a category, did not exist before double-entry bookkeeping. Capital can be defined as that amount of wealth which is used in making profits and which enters into the accounts."[20] He also coined the term and concept of creative destruction which is a key ingredient of Joseph Schumpeter's theory of innovation (Schumpeter actually borrowed heavily from Sombart, not always with proper reference to the original work by Sombart).[21][22] In sociology, mainstream proponents still regard Sombart as a 'minor figure' and his sociological theory an oddity; today it is more philosophical sociologists and culturologists who, together with heterodox economists, use his work. Sombart has always been very popular in Japan.[citation needed
]

One of the reasons of a lack of reception in the United States is that most of his works were for a long time not translated into English - in spite of, and excluding, as far as the reception is concerned, the classic study on Why there is no Socialism in America.

However, in recent years sociologists have shown renewed interest in Sombart's work.[23]

Bibliography

  • Sombart, Werner (1905) [1896]: Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer. English translation: Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1898.
  • Sombart, Werner (1909) [1903]: Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Berlin: G. Bondi.
  • Sombart, Werner (1906): Das Proletariat. Bilder und Studien. Die Gesellschaft, vol. 1. Berlin: Rütten & Loening.
  • Sombart, Werner (1906): Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? Tübingen: Mohr. Several English translations, incl. (1976): Why is there No Socialism in the United States? New York: Sharpe.
  • Sombart, Werner (1911): Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben. Leipzig: Duncker. Translated into English: The Jews and Modern Capitalism., Batoche Books, Kitchener, 2001.
  • Sombart, Werner: Der moderne Kapitalismus. Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Final edn. 1928, repr. 1969, paperback edn. (3 vols. in 6): 1987 Munich: dtv. (Also in Spanish; no English translation yet.)
  • Sombart, Werner (1913): Krieg und Kapitalismus. München: Duncker & Humblot, 1913.
  • Sombart, Werner (1913): Der Bourgeois. München und Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1913.
  • Sombart, Werner (1913): Luxus und Kapitalismus. München: Duncker & Humblot, 1922. English translation: Luxury and capitalism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Sombart, Werner (1915): Händler und Helden. München: Duncker & Humblot. 1915.
  • Sombart, Werner (1934): Deutscher Sozialismus. Charlottenburg: Buchholz & Weisswange. English translation (1937, 1969): A New Social Philosophy. New York: Greenwood.
  • Sombart, Werner (1938): Vom Menschen. Versuch einer geisteswissenschaftlichen Anthropologie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  • Sombart, Werner (1956): Noo-Soziologie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  • Sombart, Werner (2001): Economic Life in the Modern Age. Nico Stehr & Reiner Grundmann, eds. New Brunswick: Transaction. (New English translations of key articles and chapters by Sombart, including (1906) in full and the segment defining Capitalism from (1916))

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Sombart, Werner (1927). Spätkapitalismus Late capitalism. Der moderne Kapitalismus. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  2. S2CID 154171970
    ..
  3. ^ Werner Sombart (1896), Socialism and the Social System NY: Dutton and Sons, translated by M. Epstein, p. 87
  4. OCLC 221289916
    . eventually 3 volumes
  5. ^ Sombart, Werner Archived 2016-07-02 at the Wayback Machine. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968. Encyclopedia.com.
  6. ^ Lehmann, Hartmut (1993). "The Rise of Capitalism: Weber versus Sombart". In Roth, Gunther (ed.). Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 195–208.
  7. ^ Sombart, Werner (1902). Frühkapitalismus - Early capitalism. Der moderne Kapitalismus. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  8. ^ Sombart, Werner (1902). Hochkapitalismus - High capitalism. Der moderne Kapitalismus. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
  9. .
  10. Reason
  11. ^ Werner Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism, English trans., London 1913. Cited in Johnson, p.284
  12. ^ Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p.284
  13. ^ Werner Sombart, The quintessence of capitalism: a study of the history and psychology of the modern businessman. New York: Howard Fertig, 1967.
  14. ^ a b Hayek, Friedrich: The Road to Serfdom. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, p. 126.
  15. ^ Harris, pp. 808-9.
  16. ^ Harris, pp. 810-11.
  17. ^ Harris, p. 811.
  18. ^ Harris, pp. 812-13.
  19. ^ a b Harris, p. 813.
  20. ^ Lane, Frederic C; Riemersma, Jelle, eds. (1953). Enterprise and Secular Change: Readings in Economic History. R. D. Irwin. p. 38. (quoted in "Accounting and rationality" Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine)
  21. ^ Reinert, Erik. Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter. In Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).
  22. ^ "Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-05-07. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
  23. ^ Joas, Hans (2003). War and modernity. .

Further reading

External links