Werner Sombart | |
|---|---|
 Sombart | |
| Born | (1863-01-19)19 January 1863 |
| Died | 18 May 1941(1941-05-18) (aged 78) |
| Nationality | German |
| Known for | Coining the terms "late capitalism" and "creative destruction" |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Economics,sociology,history |
| Institutions | University of Breslau,Handelshochschule Berlin,Friedrich Wilhelm University |
| Doctoral advisor | Gustav von Schmoller Adolph Wagner |
| Doctoral students | Wassily Leontief Richard Löwenthal |
Werner Sombart (/ˈvɜːrnərˈzɒmbɑːrt/;German:[ˈzɔmbaʁt]; 19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a Germaneconomist,historian andsociologist. Head of the "YoungestHistorical 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.
Hismagnum opus wasDer moderne Kapitalismus. It was published in three volumes from 1902 through 1927.[1] InKapitalismus 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 postWorld War I period.[2]
Werner Sombart was born inErmsleben, Harz, the son of a wealthy liberal politician, industrialist, and estate-owner, Anton Ludwig Sombart. He studiedlaw andeconomics at the universities ofPisa,Berlin, andRome. In 1888, he received hisPh.D. from Berlin under the direction ofGustav von Schmoller andAdolph Wagner, then the most eminent German economists.[citation needed]
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 theBremenChamber of Commerce – a junior professorship at the out-of-the-wayUniversity of Breslau. Although faculties at such eminent universities asHeidelberg andFreiburg called him to chairs, the respective governments always vetoed this. Sombart, at that time, was an importantMarxian, someone who used and interpretedKarl Marx – to the point thatFriedrich Engels said he was the only German professor who understoodDas Kapital. Sombart called himself a "convincedMarxist,"[3] but later wrote that "It had to be admitted in the end that Marx had made mistakes on many points of importance."[4]
As one of the German academics concerned with contemporarysocial policy, Sombart also joined theVerein für Socialpolitik (Social Policy Association) around 1888, together with his friend and colleagueMax Weber. This was then a new professional association of German economists affiliated with thehistorical 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.[citation needed]
Sombart was not the firstsociologist to devote an entire book to the concept ofsocial movement as he did in hisSozialismus und soziale Bewegung, published in 1896. His understanding of social movements was inspired by Marx and by a book on social movements byLorenz von Stein. For him, the rising worker's movement was a result of the inherent contradictions ofcapitalism. Theproletarian 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'smagnum opus,Der moderne Kapitalismus (Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart)[5] is a systematic history of economics and economic development through the centuries and very much a work of theHistorical School. The development of capitalism is divided into three stages.[6] The first volume ofDer moderne Kapitalismus published in 1902, deals with proto-capitalism, the origins and transition to capitalism fromfeudalism,[7] and the period he called early capitalism –Frühkapitalismus – which ended before theIndustrial Revolution.[8] In his second volume, which he published in 1916, he described the period that beganc. 1760, as high capitalism –Hochkapitalismus.[9] The last book, published in 1927, treats conditions in the 20th century. He called this stagelate capitalism –Spätkapitalismus, which began withWorld War I.[2] The three volumes were split into semi-volumes which totaled six books.[citation needed]
Although later much disparaged byneo-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., theAnnales school (Fernand Braudel). His work was criticised byRosa 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."[10]
In 1903, Sombart accepted a position as associate editor of theArchiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, where he worked with his colleaguesEdgar 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 toBreslau but closer to political "action" than Breslau. Here, inter alia, companion volumes toModern Capitalism dealing with luxury, fashion, and war as economicparadigms appeared; the former two were the key works on the subject until now. Also in 1906 hisWhy is there no Socialism in the United States? appeared. The book is a famous work on Americanexceptionalism in this respect to this day.[11]
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 betweenProtestantism (especiallyCalvinism) andcapitalism, 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.[12]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.[13]
In his somewhat eclectic 1913 bookDer Bourgeois (translated asThe 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."[14]
In a work published in 1915, a "war book" with the titleHändler 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 toFriedrich Hayek, Sombart revealed an unlimited contempt for the "commercial views of the English people" who had lost all warlike instincts, as well as contempt for "the universal striving for the happiness of the individual".[15] To Sombart, in this work, the highest ideal is the "German idea of the State. As formulated byFichte,Lassalle, andRodbertus, 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".[15]
At last, in 1917, Sombart became professor at theFriedrich Wilhelm University, succeeding his mentorAdolph Wagner. He remained in 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 theHumanities (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 ofAuguste 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 withHans-Georg Gadamer'sHermeneutics, which likewise is aVerstehen-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]
During theWeimar Republic, Sombart moved towardnationalism.[citation needed]
In 1934, he publishedDeutscher Sozialismus where he claimed a "new spirit" was beginning to "rule mankind". The age of capitalism and proletarian socialism was over, with "German socialism" (National-Socialism) taking over. This German socialism puts the "welfare of the whole above the welfare of the individual".[16] German socialism must effect a "total ordering of life" with a "planned economy in accordance with state regulations".[17] The new legal system will confer on individuals "no rights but only duties", and "the state should never evaluate individual persons as such, but only the group which represents these persons".[18] German socialism is accompanied by theVolksgeist (national spirit) which is not racial in the biological sense butmetaphysical: "the German spirit in aNegro is quite as much within the realm of possibility as the Negro spirit in a German".[19] The antithesis of the German spirit is the Jewish spirit, which is not a matter of being bornJewish or believing inJudaism but is a capitalistic spirit.[20] TheEnglish people possess the Jewish spirit and the "chief task" of the German people and National Socialism is to destroy the Jewish spirit."[20]
One of Sombart's daughters, Clara, was married toHans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, who first described theCreutzfeldt–Jakob disease.[citation needed]
Sombart's legacy today is difficult to ascertain because hisNazi affiliations have made an objective reevaluation difficult (while his earlier socialist ones harmed him with the more bourgeois circles), especially inGermany. Ineconomic history, his "Modern Capitalism" is regarded as a milestone and inspiration,[by whom?] although many details have been questioned. Key insights from his economic work concern the emergence ofdouble-entry accounting as a key precondition forcapitalism (a similar thesis was also discussed byOswald Spengler) and the interdisciplinary study of theCity in the sense ofurban 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 ofcapital 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."[21] He also coined the term and concept ofcreative destruction which is a key ingredient ofJoseph Schumpeter's theory ofinnovation (Schumpeter actually borrowed heavily from Sombart, not always with proper reference to the original work by Sombart).[22][23] 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.[citation needed]
One of the reasons of a lack of reception in theUnited States is that most of his works were for a long time not translated intoEnglish – in spite of, and excluding, as far as the reception is concerned, his classic study onWhy There is no Socialism in United States?.
However, in recent years, sociologists have shown renewed interest in Sombart's work.[24]
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