The Jews and Modern Capitalism
Werner Sombart
Translated by M. Epstein
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Notes and References
Part I: The Contribution of the Jews to Modern
Economic Life
Part II. The Aptitude of the Jews of Modern
Capitalism
Part III. The Origin of the Jewish Genius
Chapter 14. The Vicissitudes of the Jewish People
Werner Sombart is undoubtedly one of the most striking
personalities in
the Germany of to-day. Born in 1863, he has devoted himself to
re-search
in economics, and has contributed much that is valuable to
eco-nomic
thought. Though his work has not always been accepted without
challenge, it has received universal recognition for its
brilliance, and his
reputation has drawn hosts of students to his lectures, both at
Breslau,
where he held the Chair of Economics at the University
(1890--1906),
and now in Berlin at the Handelshochschule, where he occupies a
simi-lar
position.
But Sombart is an artist as well as a scholar; he combines reason
with imagination in an eminent degree, and he has the gift, seldom
enough
associated with German professors, of writing in a lucid, flowing,
al-most
eloquent style. That is one characteristic of all his books, which
are worth noting. The rise and development of modern capitalism has
been the theme that has attracted him most, and his masterly
treatment
of it may be found in his Der moderne Kapitalismus (2 vols.,
Leipzig,
1902). In 1896 he published Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung, which
quickly went through numerous editions and may be described as one
of
the most widely read books in German-speaking countries.1 Die
deutsche
Volkswirtschaft im 19ten Jahrhundert appeared in 1903, and Das
Pro-letariat
in 1906.
For some years past Sombart has been considering the revision of
his magnum opus on modern capitalism, and in the course of his
studies
came across the problem, quite accidentally, as he himself tells
us, of
the relation between the Jews and modern capitalism. The topic
fasci-nated
him, and he set about inquiring what that relationship precisely
was. The results of his labours were published in the book 2 of
which this.6/Werner Sombart
is an English edition.
The English version is slightly shorter than the German original.
The portions that have been left out (with the author's
concurrence) are
not very long and relate to general technical questions, such as
the mod-ern
race theory or the early history of credit instruments.
Furthermore,
everything found within square brackets has been added by the
transla-tor.
My best thanks are due to my wife, who has been constantly helpful
with suggestions and criticisms, and to my friend Leon Simon for
the
verse rendering on pp. 000--000.
M. E. London, April 21, 1913.
Notes to Introduction
1. An English version was prepared by the present writer and
issued by
Messrs. J. M. Dent Co. in 1909, under the title Socialism and the
Social Movement.
2. Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben. Leipzig: Duncker und
Humblot.
1911.
Two possible methods may be used to discover to what extent any
group
of people participated in a particular form of economic
organization.
One is the statistical; the other may be termed the genetic.
By means of the first we endeavour to ascertain the actual number
of persons taking part in some economic activity -- say, those who
establish trade with a particular country, or who found any given
indus-try
-- and then we calculate what percentage is represented by the
mem-bers
of the group in which we happen to be interested. There is no doubt
that the statistical method has many advantages. A pretty clear
concep-tion
of the relative importance for any branch of commerce of, let us
say, foreigners or Jews, is at once evolved if we are able to show
by
actual figures that 50 or 75 per cent of all the persons engaged
in that
branch belong to either the first or the second category named.
More
especially is this apparent when statistical information is
forthcoming,
not only as to the number of persons but also concerning other or
more
striking economic factors -- e.g., the amount of paid-up capital,
the
quantity of the commodities produced, the size of the turnover,
and so
forth. It will be useful, therefore, to adopt the statistical
method in ques-tions
such as the one we have set ourselves. But at the same time it will
soon become evident that by its aid alone the complete solution
cannot
be found. In the first place, even the best statistics do not tell
us every-thing;
nay, often the most important aspect of what we are trying to
discover is omitted. Statistics are silent as to the dynamic
effects which.8/Werner Sombart
strong individualities produce in economic, as indeed in all human
life
-- effects which have consequences reaching far beyond the limits
of
their immediate surroundings. Their actual importance for the
general
tendency of any particular development is greater far than any set
of
figures can reveal. Therefore the statistical method must be
supplemented
by some other.
But more than this. The statistical method, owing to lack of
infor-mation,
cannot always be utilized. It is indeed a lucky accident that we
possess figures recording the numberof those engaged in any
industry
or trade, and showing their comparative relation to the rest of
the popu-lation.
But a statistical study of this kind, on a large scale, is really
only
a possibility for modern and future times. Even then the path of
the
investigator is beset by difficulties. Still, a careful
examination of vari-ous
sources, including the assessments made by Jewish communities on
their members, may lead to fruitful results. I hope that this book
will
give an impetus to such studies, of which, at the present time,
there is
only one that is really useful -- the enquiry of Sigmund Mayr, of
Vienna.
When all is said, therefore, the other method (the genetic), to
which
I have already alluded, must be used to supplement the results of
statis-tics.
What is this method? We wish to discover to what extent a group of
people (the Jews) influence or have influenced the form and
develop-ment
of modern economic life -- to discover, that is, their qualitative
or,
as I have already called it, their dynamic importance. We can do
this
best of all by enquiring whether certain characteristics that mark
our
modern economic life were given their first form by Jews, i.e.,
either
that some particular form of organization was first introduced by
the
Jews, or that some well-known business principles, now accepted on
all
hands as fundamental, are specific expressions of the Jewish
spirit. This
of necessity demands that the history of the factors in economic
devel-opment
should be traced to their earliest beginnings. In other words, we
must study the childhood of the modern capitalistic system, or, at
any
rate, the age in which it received its modern form. But not the
childhood
only: its whole history must be considered. For throughout, down to
these very days, new elements are constantly entering the fabric
of capi-talism
and changes appear in its characteristics. Wherever such are noted
our aim must be to discover to whose influence they are due. Often
enough this will not be easy; sometimes it will even be
impossible; and
scientific imagination must come to the aid of the scholar.
Another point should not be overlooked. In many cases the
people.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/9
who are responsible for a fundamental idea or innovation in
economic
life are not always the inventors (using that word in its
narrowest mean-ing).
It has often been asserted that the Jews have no inventive powers;
that not only technical but also economic discoveries were made by
non-Jews alone, and that the Jews have always been able cleverly to
utilize the ideas of others. I dissent from this general view in
its entirety.
We meet with Jewish inventors in the sphere of technical science,
and
certainly in that of economics, as I hope to show in this work.
But even
if the assertion which we have mentioned were true, it would prove
nothing against the view that Jews have given certain aspects of
eco-nomic
life the specific features they bear. In the economic world it is
not
so much the inventors that matter as those who are able to apply
the
inventions: not those who conceive ideas (e.g., the hire-purchase
sys-tem)
as those who can utilize them in everyday life.
Before proceeding to the problem before us -- the share of the Jews
in the work of building up our modern capitalistic system -- we
must
mention one other point of importance. In a specialized study of
this
kind Jewish influence may appear larger than it actually was. That
is in
the nature of our study, where the whole problem is looked at from
only
one point of view. If we were enquiring into the influence of
mechanical
inventions on modern economic life the same would apply: in a
mono-graph
that influence would tend to appear larger than it really was. I
mention this point, obvious though it is, lest it be said that I
have exag-gerated
the part played by the Jews. There were undoubtedly a thousand
and one other causes that helped to make the economic system of our
time what it is. Without the discovery of America and its silver
trea-sures,
without the mechanical inventions of technical science, without
the ethnical peculiarities of modern European nations and their
vicissi-tudes,
capitalism would have been as impossible as without the Jews.
In the long story of capitalism, Jewish influence forms but one
chap-ter.
Its relative importance to the others I shall show in the new
edition
of my Modern Capitalism, which I hope to have ready before long.
This caveat will, I trust, help the general reader to a proper
appre-ciation
of the influence of Jews on modern economic life. But it must be
taken in conjunction with another. If on the one hand we are to
make
some allowance, should our studies apparently tend to give Jews a
pre-ponderating
weight in economic affairs, on the other hand, their contri-bution
is very often even larger than we are led to believe. For our
researches can deal only with one portion of the problem, seeing
that all.10/Werner Sombart
the material is not available. Who to-day knows anything definite
about
the individuals, or groups, who founded this or that industry,
estab-lished
this or that branch of commerce, first adopted this or that
busi-ness
principle? And even where we are able to name these pioneers with
certainty, there comes the further question, were they Jews or not?
Jews -- that is to say, members of the people who profess the
Jew-ish
faith. And I need hardly add that although in this definition I
pur-posely
leave out any reference to race characteristics, it yet includes
those Jews who have withdrawn from their religious community, and
even descendants of such, seeing that historically they remain
Jews.
This must be borne in mind, for when we are determining the
influence
of the Jew on modern economic life, again and again men appear on
the
scene as Christians, who in reality are Jews. They or their
fathers were
baptized, that is all. The assumption that many Jews in all ages
changed
their faith is not far fetched. We hear of cases from the earliest
Middle
Ages; in Italy, in the 7th and 8th centuries; at the same period
in Spain
and in the Merovingian kingdoms; and from that time to this we find
them among all Christian nations. In the last third of the 19th
century,
indeed, wholesale baptisms constantly occurred. But we have
reliable
figures for the last two or three decades only, and I am therefore
inclined
to doubt the statement of Jacob Fromer that towards the end of the
twenties in last century something like half the Jews of Berlin
had gone
over to Christianity.1 Equally improbable is the view of Dr. Wemer,
Rabbi in Munich, who, in a paper which he recently read, stated
that
altogether 120,000 Jews have been baptized in Berlin. The most
reliable
figures we have are all against such a likelihood. According to
these, it
was in the nineties that apostasy on a large scale first showed
itself, and
even then the highest annual percentage never exceeded 1.28 (in
1905),
while the average percentage per annum (since 1895) was 1.
Neverthe-less,
the number of Jews in Berlin who from 1873 to 1906 went over to
Christianity was not small; their total was 1869 precisely.2
The tendency to apostasy is stronger among Austrian Jews,
espe-cially
among those of Vienna. At the present time, between five and six
hundred Jews in that city renounce their faith every year, and
from 1868
to 1903 there have been no less than 9085. The process grows
apace; in
the years 1868 to 1879 there was on an average one baptism annually
for every 1200 Jews; in the period 1880 to 1889 it was one for
420--430
Jews; while between 1890 and 1903 it had reached one for every
260--
270. 3.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/11
But the renegade Jews are not the only group whose influence on
the economic development of our time it is difficult to estimate.
There
are others to which the same applies. I am not thinking of the
Jewesses
who married into Christian families, and who, though they thus
ceased
to be Jewish, at any rate in name, must nevertheless have retained
their
Jewish characteristics. The people I have in mind are the
crypto-Jews,
who played so important a part in history, and whom we encounter in
every century. In some periods they formed a very large section of
Jewry.
But their non-Jewish pose was so admirably sustained that among
their
contemporaries they passed as Christians or Mohammedans. We are
told, for example, of the Jews of the South of France in the 15th
and
16th centuries, who came originally from Spain and Portugal (and
the
description applies to the Marannos everywhere): "They practised
all
the outward forms of Catholicism; their births, marriages and
deaths
were entered on the registers of the church, and they received the
sacra-ments
of baptism, marriage and extreme unction. Some even took or-ders
and became priests."4 No wonder then that they do not appear as
Jews in the reports of commercial enterprises, industrial
undertakings
and so forth. Some historians even to-day speak in admiring phrase
of
the beneficial influence of Spanish or Portuguese "immigrants." So
skil-fully
did the crypto-Jews hide their racial origin that specialists in
the
field of Jewish history are still in doubt as to whether a certain
family
was Jewish or not.5 In those cases where they adopted Christian
names,
the uncertainty is even greater. There must have been a large
number of
Jews among the Protestant refugees in the 17th century. General
rea-sons
would warrant this assumption, but when we take into consider-ation
the numerous Jewish names found among the Huguenots the
prob-ability
is strong indeed.6
Finally, our enquiries will not be able to take any account of all
those Jews who, prior to 1848, took an active part in the economic
life
of their time, but who were unknown to the authorities. The laws
for-bade
Jews to exercise their callings. They were therefore compelled to
do so, either under cover of some fictitious Christian person or
under
the protection of a "privileged" Jew, or they were forced to
resort to
some other trick in order to circumvent the law. Reliable
authorities are
of opinion that the number of Jews who in many a town lived
secretly in
this way must have been exceedingly large. In the forties of last
century,
for example, it is said that no less than 12,000 Jews, at a
moderate
estimate, were to be found in Vienna. The wholesale textile trade
was at.12/Werner Sombart
that time already in their hands, and entire districts in the
centre of the
city were full of Jewish shops. But the official list of traders
of 1845
contained in an appendix the names of only sixty-three Jews, who
were
described as "tolerated Jewish traders," and these were allowed to
deal
only in a limited number of articles.7
But enough. My point was to show that, for many and various
rea-sons,
the number of Jews of whom we hear is less than those who actu-ally
existed. The reader should therefore bear in mind that the
contribu-tion
of the Jews to the fabric of modern economic life will, of
necessity,
appear smaller than it was in reality.
What that contribution was we shall now proceed to show.
One of the most important facts in the growth of modern economic
life
is the removal of the centre of economic activity from the nations
of
Southern Europe -- the Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese, with
whom
must also be reckoned some South German lands -- to those of the
North-West -- the Dutch, the French, the English and the North
Ger-mans.
The epoch-making event in the process was Holland's sudden
rise to prosperity, and this was the impetus for the development
of the
economic possibilities of France and England. All through the 17th
cen-tury
the philosophic speculators and the practical politicians among the
nations of North-Western Europe had but one aim: to imitate
Holland in
commerce, in industry, in shipping and in colonization.
The most ludicrous explanations of this well-known fact have been
suggested by historians. It has been said, for example, that the
cause
which led to the economic decline of Spain and Portugal and of the
Italian and South German city states was the discovery of America
and
of the new route to the East Indies; that the same cause lessened
the
volume of the commerce of the Levant, and therefore undermined the
position of the Italian commercial cities which depended upon it.
But
this explanation is not in any way satisfactory. In the first
place, Levantine
commerce maintained its pre-eminence throughout the whole of the
17th
and 18th centuries, and during this period the prosperity of the
maritime
cities in the South of France, as well as that of Hamburg, was very
closely bound up with it. In the second place, a number of Italian
towns,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/13
Venice among them, which in the 17th century lost all their
importance,
participated to a large extent in the trade of the Levant in the
16th cen-tury,
and that despite the neglect of the trade route. It is a little
difficult
to understand why the nations which had played a leading part
until the
15th century -- the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese --
should
have suffered in the least because of the new commercial relations
with
America and the East Indies, or why they should have been placed at
any disadvantage by their geographical position as compared with
that
of the French, the English or the Dutch. As though the way from
Genoa
to America or the West Indies were not the same as from Amsterdam
or
London or Hamburg! As though the Spanish and Portuguese ports were
not the nearest to the new lands -- lands which had been
discovered by
Italians and Portuguese, and had been taken possession of by the
Portu-guese
and the Spaniards!
Equally unconvincing is another reason which is often given. It is
asserted that the countries of North-Western Europe were strong
con-solidated
states, while Germany and Italy were disunited, and accord-ingly
the former were able to take up a stronger position than the
latter.
Here, too, we ask in wonder whether the powerful Queen of the
Adriatic
was a weaker state in the 16th century than the Seven Provinces in
the
17th? And did not the empire of Philip II excel all the kingdoms
of his
time in power and renown? Why was it, moreover, that, although
Ger-many
was in a state of political disruption, certain of its cities, like
Hamburg or Frankfort-on-the-Main, reached a high degree of
develop-ment
in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as few French or English
cities
could rival?
This is not the place to go into the question in all its
many-sidedness.
A number of causes contributed to bring about the results we have
men-tioned.
But from the point of view of our problem one possibility should
not be passed over which, in my opinion, deserves most serious
consid-eration,
and which, so far as I know, has not yet been thought of. Cannot
we bring into connexion the shifting of the economic centre from
South-ern
to Northern Europe with the wanderings of the Jews? The mere
suggestion at once throws a flood of light on the events of those
days,
hitherto shrouded in semi-darkness. It is indeed surprising that
the par-allelism
has not before been observed between Jewish wanderings and
settlement on the one hand, and the economic vicissitudes of the
differ-ent
peoples and states on the other. Israel passes over Europe like the
sun: at its coming new life bursts forth; at its going all falls
into decay..14/Werner Sombart
A short résumé of the changing fortunes of the Jewish people since
the
15th century will lend support to this contention.
The first event to be recalled, an event of world-wide import, is
the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and from Portugal (1495 and
1497). It should never be forgotten that on the day before
Columbus set
sail from Palos to discover America (August 3, 1492) 300,000 Jews
are
said to have emigrated from Spain to Navarre, France, Portugal and
the
East; nor that, in the years during which Vasco da Gama searched
for
and found the sea-passage to the East Indies, the Jews were driven
from
other parts of the Pyrenean Peninsula.1
It was by a remarkable stroke of fate that these two occurrences,
equally portentous in their significance -- the opening-up of new
conti-nents
and the mightiest upheavals in the distribution of the Jewish
people
-- should have coincided. But the expulsion of the Jews from the
Pyrenean Peninsula did not altogether put an end to their history
there.
Numerous Jews remained behind as pseudo-Christians (Marannos), and
it was only as the Inquisition, from the days of Philip II
onwards, be-came
more and more relentless that these Jews were forced to leave the
land of their birth.2 During the centuries that followed, and
especially
towards the end of the 16th, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews
settled in
other countries. It was during this period that the doom of the
economic
prosperity of the Pyrenean Peninsula was sealed.
With the 15th century came the expulsion of the Jews from the
Ger-man
commercial cities -- from Cologne (1424--5), from Augsburg
(1439--40), from Strassburg (1438), from Erfurt (1458), from
Nuremberg
(1498--9), from Ulm (1499), and from Ratisbon (1519).
The same fate overtook them in the 16th century in a number of
Italian cities. They were driven from Sicily (1492), from Naples
(1540--
1), from Genoa and from Venice (1550). Here also economic decline
and Jewish emigration coincided in point of time.
On the other hand, the rise to economic importance, in some cases
quite unexpectedly, of the countries and towns whither the
refugees fled,
must be dated from the first appearance of the Spanish Jews. A good
example is that of Leghorn,3 one of the few Italian cities which
enjoyed
economic prosperity in the 16th century. Now Leghorn was the goal
of
most of the exiles who made for Italy. In Germany it was Hamburg
and
Frankfort 4 that admitted the Jewish settlers. And remarkable to
relate, a
keen-eyed traveller in the 18th century wandering all over Germany
found everywhere that the old commercial cities of the Empire,
Ulm,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/15
Nuremberg, Augsburg, Mayence and Cologne, had fallen into decay,
and that the only two that were able to maintain their former
splendour,
and indeed to add to it from day to day, were Frankfort and
Hamburg.5
In France in the 17th and 18th centuries the rising towns were
Marseilles, Bordeaux, Rouen -- again the havens of refuge of the
Jew-ish
exiles.6
As for Holland, it is well-known that at the end of the 16th
century
a sudden upward development (in the capitalistic sense) took place
there.
The first Portuguese Marannos settled in Amsterdam in 1593, and
very
soon their numbers increased. The first synagogue in Amsterdam was
opened in 1598, and by about the middle of the 17th century there
were
Jewish communities in many Dutch cities. In Amsterdam, at the
begin-ning
of the 18th century, the estimated number of Jews was 2400. 7 But
even by the middle of the 17th century their intellectual
influence was
already marked; the writers on international law and the political
phi-losophers
speak of the ancient Hebrew commonwealth as an ideal which
the Dutch constitution might well seek to emulate.8 The Jews
themselves
called Amsterdam at that time their grand New Jerusalem.9
Many of the Dutch settlers had come from the Spanish Netherlands,
especially from Antwerp, whither they had fled on their expulsion
from
Spain. It is true that the proclamations of 1532 and 1539 forbade
the
pseudo-Christians to remain in Antwerp, but they proved
ineffective.
The prohibition was renewed in 1550, but this time it referred
only to
those who had not been domiciled for six years. But this too
remained a
dead letter: "the crypto-Jews are increasing from day to day."
They took
an active part in the struggle for freedom in which the
Netherlands were
engaged, and its result forced them to wander to the more northerly
provinces.10 Now it is a remarkable thing that the brief space
during
which Antwerp became the commercial centre and the money-market of
the world should have been just that between the coming and the
going
of the Marannos.11
It was the same in England. The economic development of the
coun-try,
in other words, the growth of capitalism,12 ran parallel with the
influx of Jews, mostly of Spanish andPortuguese origin.13
It was believed that there were no Jews in England from the time of
their expulsion under Edward I (1290) until their more or less
officially
recognized return under Cromwell (1654--56). The best authorities
on
Anglo-Jewish history are now agreed that this is a mistake. There
were
always Jews in England; but not till the 16th century did they
begin to.16/Werner Sombart
be numerous. Already in the reign of Elizabeth many were met with,
and the Queen herself had a fondness for Hebrew studies and for
inter-course
with Jews. Her own physician was a Jew, Rodrigo Lopez, on
whom Shakespeare modelled his Shylock. Later on, as is generally
known, the Jews, as a result of the efforts of Manasseh ben
Israel, ob-tained
the right of unrestricted domicile. Their numbers were increased
by further streams of immigrants including, after the 18th
century, Jews
from Germany, until, according to the author of the Anglia Judaica,
there were 6000 Jews in London alone in the year 1738. 14
When all is said, however, the fact that the migration of the Jews
and the economic vicissitudes of peoples were coincident events
does
not necessarily prove that the arrival of Jews in any land was the
only
cause of its rise or their departure the only cause of its
decline. To assert
as much would be to argue on the fallacy "post hoc, ergo propter
hoc."
Nor are the arguments of later historians on this subject
conclusive, and
therefore I will not mention any in support of my thesis.15 But
the opin-ions
of contemporaries always, as I think, deserve attention. So I will
acquaint the reader with some of them, for very often a word
suffices to
throw a flood of light on their age.
When the Senate of Venice, in 1550, decided to expel the Marannos
and to forbid commercial intercourse with them, the Christian
merchants
of the city declared that it wouldmean their ruin and that they
might as
well leave Venice with the exiles, seeing that they made their
living by
trading with the Jews. The Jews controlled the Spanish wool trade,
the
trade in Spanish silk and crimsons, sugar, pepper, Indian spices
and
pearls. A great part of the entire export trade was carried on by
Jews,
who supplied the Venetians with goods to be sold on commission; and
they were also bill-brokers.16
In England the Jews found a protector in Cromwell, who was
actu-ated
solely by considerations of an economic nature. He believed that he
would need the wealthy Jewish merchants to extend the financial and
commercial prosperity of the country. Nor was he blind to the
useful-ness
of having moneyed support for the government.17
Like Cromwell, Colbert, the great French statesman of the 17th
century, was also sympathetically inclined towards the Jews, and
in my
opinion it is of no small significance that these two organizers,
both of
whom consolidated modern European states, should have been so
keenly
alive to the fitness of the Jew in aiding the economic (i.e.,
capitalistic)
progress of a country. In one of his Ordinances to the Intendant
of.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/17
Languedoc, Colbert points out what great benefits the city of
Marseilles
derived from the commercial capabilities of the Jews.18 The
inhabitants
of the great French trading centres in which the Jews played an
impor-tant
role were in no need of being taught the lesson; they knew it from
their own experience and, accordingly, they brought all their
influence
to bear on keeping their Jewish fellow-citizens within their
walls. Again
and again we hear laudatory accounts of the Jews, more especially
from
the inhabitants of Bordeaux. In 1675 an army of mercenaries ravaged
Bordeaux, and many of the rich Jews prepared to depart. The Town
Council was terrified, and the report presented by its members is
worth
quoting. "The Portuguese who occupy whole streets and do
consider-able
business have asked for their passports. They and those aliens who
do a very large trade are resolved to leave; indeed, the
wealthiest among
them, Gaspar Gonzales and Alvares, have already departed. We are
very much afraid that commerce will cease altogether."19 A few
years
later the Sous-Intendant of Languedoc summed up the situation in
the
words "without them (the Jews) the trade of Bordeaux and of the
whole
province would be inevitably ruined."20
We have already seen how the fugitives from the Iberian Peninsula
in the 16th century streamed into Antwerp, the commercial
metropolis
of the Spanish Netherlands. About the middle of the century, the
Em-peror
in a decree dated July 17, 1549 withdrew the privileges which had
been accorded them. Thereupon the mayor and sheriffs, as well as
the
Consul of the city, sent a petition to the Bishop of Arras in
which they
showed the obstacles in the way of carrying out the Imperial
mandate.
The Portuguese, they pointed out, were large undertakers; they had
brought great wealth with them from the lands of their birth, and
they
maintained an extensive trade. "We must bear in mind," they
continued,
"that Antwerp has grown great gradually, and that a long space of
time
was needed before it could obtain possession of its commerce. Now
the
ruin of the city would necessarily bring with it the ruin of the
land, and
all this must be carefully considered before the Jews are
expelled." In-deed,
the mayor, Nicholas Van den Meeren, went even further in the
matter. When Queen Mary of Hungary, the Regent of the Netherlands,
was staying in Ruppelmonde, he paid her a visit in order to defend
the
cause of the New Christians, and excused the conduct of the rulers
of
Antwerp in not publishing the Imperial decree by informing her
that it
was contrary to all the best interests of the city.21 His efforts,
however,
were unsuccessful, and the Jews, as we have already seen, left
Antwerp.18/Werner Sombart
for Amsterdam.
Antwerp lost no small part of its former glory by reason of the
departure of the Jews, and in the 17th century especially it was
realized
how much they contributed to bring about material prosperity. In
1653
a committee was appointed to consider the question whether the Jews
should be allowed into Antwerp, and it expressed itself on the
matter in
the following terms: "And as for the inconveniences which are to be
feared and apprehended in the public interest -- that they (the
Jews)
will attract to themselves all trade, that they will be guilty of
a thousand
frauds and tricks, and that by their usury they will devour the
wealth of
good Catholics -- it seems to us on the contrary that by the trade
which
they will expand far beyond its present limits the benefit derived
will be
for the good of the whole land, and gold and silver will be
available in
greater quantities for the needs of the state."22
The Dutch in the 17th century required no such recommendations;
they were fully alive to the gain which the Jews brought. When
Manasseh
ben Israel left Amsterdam on his famous mission to England, the
Dutch
Government became anxious; they feared lest it should be a
question of
transplanting the Dutch Jews to England, and they therefore
instructed
Neuport, their ambassador in London, to sound Manasseh as to his
intentions. He reported (December 1655) that all was well, and that
there was no cause for apprehension. "Manasseh ben Israel hath
been to
see me, and did assure me that he doth not desire anything for the
Jews
in Holland but only for those as sit in the Inquisition in Spain
and Por-tugal."
23
It is the same tale in Hamburg. In the 17th century the importance
of the Jews had grown to such an extent that they were regarded as
indispensable to the growth of Hamburg's prosperity. On one
occasion
the Senate asked that permission should be given for synagogues to
be
built, otherwise, they feared, the Jews would leave Hamburg, and
the
city might then be in danger of sinking to a mere village.24 On
another
occasion, in 1697, when it was suggested that the Jews should be
ex-pelled,
the merchants earnestly entreated the Senate for help, in order to
prevent the serious endangering of Hamburg's commerce.25 Again, in
1733, in a special report, now in the Archives of the Senate, we
may
read: "In bill-broking, in trade with jewellery and braid and in
the manu-facture
of certain cloths the Jews have almost a complete mastery, and
have surpassed our own people. In the past there was no need to
take
cognizance of them, but now they are increasing in numbers. There
is.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/19
no section of the great merchant class, the manufacturers and
those who
supply commodities for daily needs, but the Jews form an important
element therein. They have become a necessary evil."26 To the
callings
enumerated in which the Jews took a prominent part, we must add
that
of marine insurance brokers.27
So much for the judgment of contemporaries. But as a complete
proof even that will not serve. We must form our own judgment from
the facts, and therefore our first aim must be to seek these out.
That
means that we must find from the original sources what
contributions
the Jews made to the building-up of our modern economic life from
the
end of the 15th century onward -- the period, that is, when Jewish
history and general European economic progress both tended in the
same
direction. We shall then also be able to state definitely to what
extent the
Jews influenced the shifting of the centre of economic life.
My own view is, as I may say in anticipation, that the importance
of
the Jews was twofold. On the one hand, they influenced the outward
form of modern capitalism; on the other, they gave expression to
its
inward spirit. Under the first heading, the Jews contributed no
small
share in giving to economic relations the international aspect
they bear
to-day; in helping the modern state, that framework of capitalism,
to
become what it is; and lastly, in giving the capitalistic
organization its
peculiar features, by inventing a good many details of the
commercial
machinery which moves the business life of to-day, and
co-operating in
the perfecting of others. Under the second heading, the importance
of
the Jews is so enormous because they, above all others, endowed
eco-nomic
life with its modern spirit; they seized upon the essential idea of
capitalism and carried it to its fullest development.
We shall consider these points in turn, in order to obtain a proper
notion of the problem. Our intention is to do no more than ask a
ques-tion
or two, and here and there to suggest an answer. We want merely to
set the reader thinking. It will be for later research to gather
sufficient
material by which to judge whether, and to what extent, the views
as to
cause and effect here propounded have any foundation in actual
fact.
The transformation of European commerce which has taken place since
the shifting of the centre of economic activity owed a tremendous
debt
to the Jews. If we consider nothing but the quantity of
commodities that.20/Werner Sombart
passed through their hands, their position is unique. Exact
statistics are,
as I have already remarked, almost non-existent; special research
may,
however, bring some figures to light that will be useful. At
present there
is, to my knowledge, only some slight material on this head, but
its
value cannot be overestimated.
It would appear that even before their formal admission into
En-gland
-- that is, in the first half of the 17th century -- the extent of
the
trade in the hands of Jews totalled one-twelfth of that of the
whole king-dom.
1 Unfortunately we are not told on what authority this calculation
rests, but that it cannot be far from the truth is apparent from a
state-ment
in a petition of the merchants of London. The question was whether
Jews should pay the duty on imports levied on foreigners. The
petition-ers
point out that if the Jews were exempted, the Crown would sustain a
loss of ten thousand pounds annually.2
We are remarkably well informed as to the proportion of trading
done by Jews at the Leipzig fairs,3 and as these were for a long
period
the centre of German commerce, we have here a standard by which to
measure its intensive and extensive development. But not alone for
Ger-many.
One or two of the neighbouring countries, especially Bohemia
and Poland, can also be included in the survey. From the end of
the 17th
century onwards we find that the Jews take an increasing share in
the
fairs, and all the authorities who have gone into the figures are
agreed
that it was the Jews who gave to the Leipzig fairs their great
impor-tance.
4
It is only since the Easter fair of 1756 that we are able to
compare
the Jewish with the Christian traders, as far as numbers are
concerned,
for it is only from that date that the Archives possess statistics
of the
latter. The average number of Jews attending the Leipzig fair was
as
follows: --
1675-1680 416
1681-1690 489
1691-1691 834
1701-1710 854
1711-1720 769
1721-1730 899
1731-1740 874
1741-1748 708
1767-1769 995.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/21
1770-1779 1652
1780-1789 1073
1790-1799 1473
1800-1809 3370
1810-1819 4896
1820-1829 3747
1830-1839 6444
Note especially the speedy increase towards the end of the 17th and
18th centuries and also at the beginning of the 19th.
If we glance at the period 1766 to 1839, we see that the fairs were
visited annually by an average of 3185 Jews and 13,005 Christians
--
that is to say, the Jews form 24.49 per cent, or nearly
one-quarter of the
total number of Christian merchants. Indeed, in some years, as for
ex-ample
between 1810 and 1820, the Jewish visitors form 33% per cent of
the total of their colleagues (4896 Jews and 14,366 Christians).
This is
significant enough, and there is no need to lay stress on the fact
that in
all probability the figures given in the table are underestimated.
The share taken by Jews in the commerce of a country may some-times
be ascertained by indirect means. We know, for example, that the
trade of Hamburg with Spain and Portugal, and also with Holland, in
the 17th century was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews.5 Now
some 20 per cent. of the ships' cargoes leaving Hamburg were
destined
for the Iberian Peninsula, and some 30 per cent for Holland.6
Take another instance. The Levant trade was the most important
branch of French commerce in the 18th century. A contemporary
au-thority
informs us that it was entirely controlled by Jews -- "buyers,
sellers, middlemen, bill-brokers, agents and so forth were all
Jews."7
In the 16th and 17th centuries, and even far into the 18th, the
trade
of the Levant as well as that with, and via, Spain and Portugal,
was the
broadest stream in the world's commerce. This mere generalization
goes
far to prove how preeminent, from the purely quantitative point of
view,
the Jews were in forwarding the development of international
intercourse.
Already in Spain the Jews had managed to obtain control of the
greater
portion of the Levant trade, and everywhere in the Levantine ports
Jew-ish
offices and warehouses were to be found. Many Spanish Jews at the
time of the expulsion from Spain settled in the East; the others
jour-neyed
northwards. So it came about that almost imperceptibly the
Levantine trade became associated with the more northerly peoples.
In.22/Werner Sombart
Holland, more especially, is the effect of this seen: Holland
became a
commercial country of world-wide influence. Altogether, the
commer-cial
net, so to say, became bigger and stronger in proportion as the
Jews
established their offices, on the one hand further afield, on the
other in
closer proximity to each other.8 More particularly was this the
case
when the Western Hemisphere -- largely through Jewish influence --
was drawn into the commerce of the world. We shall have more to say
on this aspect of the question in connexion with the part the Jews
played
in colonial foundations.
Another means by which we may gain a clear conception of what
the Jews did for the extension of modern commerce is to discover
the
kind of commodities in which they for the most part traded. The
quality
of the commerce matters more than its quantity. It was by the
character
of their trade that they partially revolutionized the older forms,
and thus
helped to make commerce what it is to-day.
Here we are met by a striking fact. The Jews for a long time
practi-cally
monopolized the trade in articles of luxury, and to the fashionable
world of the aristocratic 17th and 18th centuries this trade was
of su-preme
moment. What sort of commodities, then, did the Jews specialize
in? Jewellery, precious stones, pearls and silks.9 Gold and silver
jewellery,
because they had always been prominent in the market for precious
metals. Pearls and stones, because they were among the first to
settle in
those lands (especially Brazil) where these are to be found; and
silks,
because of their ancient connexions with the trading centres of
the Ori-ent.
Moreover, Jews were to be found almost entirely, or at least
pre-dominantly,
in such branches of trade as were concerned with exporta-tion
on a large scale. Nay, I believe it may with justice be asserted
that
the Jews were the first to place on the world's markets the staple
articles
of modern commerce. Side by side with the products of the soil,
such as
wheat, wool, flax, and, later on, distilled spirits, they dealt
throughout
the 18th century specially in textiles,10 the output of a rapidly
growing
capitalistic industry, and in those colonial products which for
the first
time became articles of international trade, viz., sugar and
tobacco. I
have little doubt that when the history of commerce in modern times
comes to be written Jewish traders will constantly be met with in
connexion with enterprises on a large scale. The references which
quite
by accident have come under my notice are already sufficient to
prove
the truth of this assertion.11.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/23
Perhaps the most far-reaching, because the most revolutionary,
in-fluence
of the Jews on the development of economic life was due to their
trade in new commodities, in the preparation of which new methods
supplanted the old. We may mention cotton,12 cotton goods of
foreign
make, indigo and so forth.13 Dealing in these articles was looked
upon at
the time as "spoiling sport," and therefore Jews were taunted by
one
German writer with carrying on "unpatriotic trade"14 or
"Jew-commerce,
which gave little employment to German labour, and depended for the
most part on home consumption only."15
Another great characteristic of "Jew-commerce," one which all later
commerce took for its model, was its variety and many-sidedness.
When
in 1740 the merchants of Montpelier complained of the competition
of
the Jewish traders, the Intendant replied that if they, the
Christians, had
such well-assorted stocks as the Jews, customers would come to them
as willingly as they went to their Jewish competitors.16 We hear
the same
of the Jews at the Leipzig fairs: "The Jewish traders had a
beneficial
influence on the trade of the fairs, in that their purchases were
so varied.
Thus it was the Jews who tended to make trade many-sided and forced
industry (especially the home industries) to develop in more than
one
direction. Indeed, at many fairs the Jews became the arbiters of
the
market by reason of their extensive purchases."17
But the greatest characteristic of "Jew-commerce" during the
ear-lier
capitalistic age was, to my mind, the supremacy which Jewish
trad-ers
obtained, either directly or by way of Spain and Portugal, in the
lands from which it was possible to draw large supplies of ready
money.
I am thinking of the newly discovered gold and silver countries in
Cen-tral
and South America. Again and again we find it recorded that Jews
brought ready money into the country.18 The theoretical speculator
and
the practical politician knew well enough that here was the source
of all
capitalistic development. We too, now that the mists of Adam
Smith's
doctrines have lifted, have realized the same thing. The
establishment of
modern economic life meant, for the most part, and of necessity,
the
obtaining of the precious metals, and in this work no one was so
suc-cessfully
engaged as the Jewish traders. This leads us at once to the
subject of the next chapter, which deals with the share of the
Jews in
colonial expansion..24/Werner Sombart
We are only now beginning to realize that colonial expansion was no
small force in the development of modern capitalism. It is the
purpose of
this chapter to show that in the work of that expansion the Jews
played,
if not the most decisive, at any rate a most prominent part.
That the Jews should have been keen colonial settlers was only
natu-ral,
seeing that the New World, though it was but the Old in a new garb,
seemed to hold out a greater promise of happiness to them than
cross-grained
old Europe, more especially when their last Dorado (Spain)
proved an inhospitable refuge. And this applies equally to all
colonial
enterprises, whether in the East or the West or the South of the
globe.
There were probably many Jews resident in the East Indies even in
me-diaeval
times,1 and when the nations of Europe, after 1498, stretched
out their hands to seize the lands of an ancient civilization, the
Jews
were welcomed as bulwarks of European supremacy, though they came
as pioneers of trade. In all likelihood -- exact proofs have not
yet been
established -- the ships of the Portuguese and of the Dutch must
have
brought shoals of Jewish settlers to their respective Indian
possessions.
At any rate, Jews participated extensively in all the Dutch
settlements,
including those in the East. We are told that Jews were large
sharehold-ers
in the Dutch East India Company.2 We know that the Governor of
the Company who, "if he did not actually establish the power of
Hol-land
in Java, certainly contributed most to strengthen it,"3 was called
Cohn (Coen). Furthermore, a glance at the portraits of the
Governors of
the Dutch colonies would make it appear that this Coen is not the
only
Jew among them.4 Jews were also Directors of the Company;5 in
short,
no colonial enterprise was complete without them.6
It is as yet unknown to what extent the Jews shared in the growth
of
economic life in India after the English became masters there. We
have,
however, fairly full information as to the participation of the
Jews in the
founding of the English colonies in South Africa and Australia.
There is
no doubt that in these regions (more particularly in Cape Colony),
well-nigh
all economic development was due to the Jews. In the twenties and
thirties of the 19th century Benjamin Norden and Simon Marks came
to
South Africa, and "the industrial awakening of almost the whole
inte-rior
of Cape Colony" was their work. Julius Mosenthal and his brothers
Adolph and James established the trade in wool, skins, and mohair.
Aaron
and Daniel de Pass monopolized the whaling industry; Joel Myers
com-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/25
menced ostrich fanning. Lilienfeld, of Hopetown, bought the first
dia-monds.
7 Similar leading positions were occupied by the Jews in the other
South African colonies, particularly in the Transvaal, where it is
said
that to-day twenty-five of the fifty thousand Jews of South Africa
are
settled.8 It is the same story in Australia, where the first
wholesale trader
was Montefiore. It would seem to be no exaggeration therefore that
"a
large proportion of the English colonial shipping trade was for a
consid-erable
time in the hands of the Jews."9
But the real sphere of Jewish influence in colonial settlements,
espe-cially
in the early capitalistic period, was in the Western Hemisphere.
America in all its borders is a land of Jews. That is the result
to which a
study of the sources must inevitably lead, and it is pregnant with
mean-ing.
From the first day of its discovery America has had a strong
influ-ence
on the economic life of Europe and on the whole of its
civilization;
and therefore the part which the Jews have played in building up
the
American world is of supreme import as an element in modern
develop-ment.
That is why I shall dwell on this theme a little more fully, even
at
the risk of wearying the reader.10
The very discovery of America is most intimately bound up with
the Jews in an extraordinary fashion. It is as though the New World
came into the horizon by their aid and for them alone, as though
Colum-bus
and the rest were but managing directors for Israel. It is in this
light
that Jews, proud of their past, now regard the story of that
discovery, as
set forth in the latest researches.11 These would seem to show
that it was
the scientific knowledge of Jewish scholars which so perfected the
art of
navigation that voyages across the ocean became at all possible.
Abraham
Zacuto, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of
Salamanca, completed his astronomical tables and diagrams, the
Almanach perpetuum, in 1473. On the basis of these tables two other
Jews, Jose Vecuho, who was Court astronomer and physician to John
II
of Portugal, and one Moses the Mathematician (in collaboration with
two Christian scholars), discovered the nautical astrolabe, an
instru-ment
by which it became possible to measure from the altitude of the
sun the distance of a ship from the Equator. Jose further
translated the
Almanack of his master into Latin and Spanish.
The scientific facts which prepared the way for the voyage of
Co-lumbus
were thus supplied by Jews. The money which was equally nec-essary
came from the same quarter, at any rate as regards his first two
voyages. For the first voyage, Columbus obtained a loan from Louis
de.26/Werner Sombart
Santangel, who was of the King's Council; and it was to Santangel,
the
patron of the expedition, and to Gabriel Saniheg, a Maranno, the
Trea-surer
of Aragon, that the first two letters of Columbus were addressed.
The second voyage was also undertaken with the aid of Jewish money,
this time certainly not voluntarily contributed. On their
expulsion from
Spain in 1492, the Jews were compelled to leave much treasure
behind;
this was seized by Ferdinand for the State Exchequer, and with a
por-tion
of it Columbus was financed.
But more than that. A number of Jews were among the companions
of Columbus, and the first European to set foot on American soil
was a
Jew -- Louis de Torres. So the latest researches would have us
be-lieve.
12
But what caps all -- Columbus himself is claimed to have been a
Jew. I give this piece of information for what it is worth,
without guar-anteeing
its accuracy. At a meeting of the Geographical Society of
Madrid, Don Celso Garcia de la Riega, a scholar famous for his
re-searches
on Columbus, read a paper in which he stated that Christobal
Colon (not Columbus) was a Spaniard who on his mother's side was of
Jewish descent. He showed by reference to documents in the town of
Pontevedra, in the province of Galicia, that the family of Colon
lived
there between 1428 and 1528, and that the Christian names found
among
them were the same as those prevalent among the relatives of the
Span-ish
admiral. These Colons and the Fonterosa family intermarried. The
latter were undoubtedly Jews, or they had only recently been
converted,
and Christobal's mother was called Suzanna Fonterosa. When
disor-ders
broke out in the province of Galicia the parents of the discoverer
of
America migrated from Spain to Italy. These facts were
substantiated
by Don Celso from additional sources, and he is strengthened in his
belief by distinct echoes of Hebrew literature found in the
writings of
Columbus, and also because the oldest portraits show him to have
had a
Jewish face.
Scarcely were the doors of the New World opened to Europeans
than crowds of Jews came swarming in. We have already seen that the
discovery of America took place in the year in which the Jews of
Spain
became homeless, that the last years of the 15th century and the
early
years of the 16th were a period in which millions of Jews were
forced to
become wanderers, when European Jewry was like an antheap into
which
a stick had been thrust. Little wonder, therefore, that a great
part of this
heap betook itself to the New World, where the future seemed so
bright..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/27
The first traders in America were Jews. The first industrial
establish-ments
in America were those of Jews. Already in the year 1492 Portu-guese
Jews settled in St. Thomas, where they were the first plantation
owners on a large scale; they set up many sugar factories and gave
employment to nearly three thousand Negroes.13 And as for Jewish
emi-gration
to South America, almost as soon as it was discovered, the stream
was so great that Queen Joan in 1511 thought it necessary to take
mea-sures
to stem it.14 But her efforts must have been without avail, for the
number of Jews increased, and finally, on May 21, 1577, the law
forbid-ding
Jews to emigrate to the Spanish colonies was formally repealed.
In order to do full justice to the unceasing activity of the Jews
in
South America as founders of colonial commerce and industry, it
will
be advisable to glance at the fortunes of one or two colonies.
The history of the Jews in the American colonies, and therefore the
history of the colonies themselves, falls into two periods,
separated by
the expulsion of the Jews from Brazil in 1654.
We have already mentioned the establishment of the sugar industry
in St. Thomas by Jews in 1492. By the year 1550 this industry had
reached the height of its development on the island. There were
sixty
plantations with sugar mills and refineries, producing annually,
as may
be seen from the tenth part paid to the King, 150,000 arrobes of
sugar.15
From St. Thomas, or possibly from Madeira,16 where they had for a
long time been engaged in the sugar trade, the Jews transplanted
the
industry to Brazil, the largest of the American colonies. Brazil
thus
entered on its first period of prosperity, for the growth of the
sugar
industry brought with it the growth of the national wealth. In
those early
years the colony was populated almost entirely by Jews and
criminals,
two shiploads of them being brought thither annually from
Portugal.17
The Jews quickly became the dominant class, "a not inconsiderable
num-ber
of the wealthiest Brazilian traders were New Christians."18 The
first
Governor-General was of Jewish origin, and he it was who brought
order into the government of the colony. It is not too much to say
that
Portugal's new possessions really began to thrive only after Thomé
de
Souza, a man of exceptional ability, was sent out in 1549 to take
mat-ters
in hand.19 Nevertheless the colony did not reach the zenith of its
prosperity until after the influx of rich Jews from Holland,
consequent
on the Dutch entering into possession in 1642. In that very year,
a num-ber
of American Jews combined to establish a colony in Brazil, and no
less than six hundred influential Dutch Jews joined them.20 Up to
about.28/Werner Sombart
the middle of the 17th century all the large sugar plantations
belonged to
Jews,21 and contemporary travellers report as to their many-sided
ac-tivities
and their wealth. Thus Nieuhoff, who travelled in Brazil from
1640 to 1649, says of them:22 "Among the free inhabitants of
Brazil that
were not in the (Dutch West India) Company's service the Jews were
the
most considerable in number, who had transplanted themselves
thither
from Holland. They had a vast traffic beyond the rest; they
purchased
sugar-mills and built stately houses in the Receif. They were all
traders,
which would have been of great consequence to the Dutch Brazil had
they kept themselves within the due bounds of traffic." Similarly
we
read in F. Pyrard's Travels:29 "The profits they make after being
nine or
ten years in those lands are marvellous, for they all come back
rich."
The predominance of Jewish influence in plantation development
outlasted the episode of Dutch rule in Brazil, and continued,
despite the
expulsion of 1654, 24 down to the first half of the 11th
century.25 On one
occasion, "when a number of the most influential merchants of Rio
de
Janeiro fell into the hands of the Holy Office (of the
Inquisition), the
work on so many plantations came to a standstill that the
production
and commerce of the Province (of Bahio) required a long stretch of
time
to recover from the blow." Later, a decree of the 2nd March 1768
or-dered
all the registers containing lists of New Christians to be
destroyed,
and by a law of 25th March 1773 New Christians were placed on a
footing of perfect civic equality with the orthodox. It is
evident, then,
that very many crypto-Jews must have maintained their prominent
posi-tion
in Brazil even after the Portuguese had regained possession of it
in
1654, and that it was they who brought to the country its
flourishing
sugar industry as well as its trade in precious stones.
Despite this, the year 1654 marks an epoch in the annals of
Ameri-can-
Jewish history. For it was in that year that a goodly number of the
Brazilian Jews settled in other parts of America and thereby moved
the
economic centre of gravity.
The change was specially profitable to one or two important islands
of the West Indian Archipelago and also to the neighbouring
coastlands,
which rose in prosperity from the time of the Jewish influx in the
17th
century. Barbados, which was inhabited almost solely by Jews, is a
case
in point.26 It came under English rule in 1627; in 1641 the sugar
cane
was introduced, and seven years later the exportation of sugar
began.
But the sugar industry could not maintain itself. The sugar
produced
was so poor in quality that its price was scarcely sufficient to
pay for.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/29
the cost of transport to England. Not till the exiled "Dutchmen"
from
Brazil introduced the process of refining and taught the natives
the art
of drying and crystallizing the sugar did an improvement manifest
it-self.
As a result, the sugar exports of Barbados increased by leaps and
bounds, and in 1661 Charles II was able to confer baronetcies on
thir-teen
planters, who drew an annual income of £10,000 from the island.
By about the year 1676 the industry there had grown to such an
extent
that no fewer than 400 vessels each carrying 180 tons of raw sugar
left
annually.
In 1664 Thomas Modyford introduced sugar manufacturing from
Barbados into Jamaica,27 which in consequence soon became wealthy.
Now, while in 1656, the year in which the English finally wrested
the
island from Spain, there were only three small refineries in
Jamaica, in
1670 there were already 75 mills at work, many of them having an
output of 2000 cwts. By 1700 sugar was the principal export of
Ja-maica
and the source of its riches. The petition of the English merchants
of the colony in 1671, asking for the exclusion of the Jews, makes
it
pretty plain that the latter must have contributed largely to this
develop-ment.
The Government however, encouraged the settlement of still more
Jews, the Governor in rejecting the petition remarking 28 that "he
was of
opinion that his Majesty could not have more profitable subjects
than
the Jews and the Hollanders; they had great stocks and
correspondence."
So the Jews were not expelled from Jamaica, but "became the first
trad-ers
and merchants of the English colony."29 In the 18th century they
paid all the taxes and almost entirely controlled industry and
commerce.
Of the other English colonies, the Jews showed a special preference
for Surinam.30 Jews had been settled there since 1644 and had
received
a number of privileges -- "whereas we have found that the Hebrew
nation . . . have . . . proved themselves useful and beneficial to
the
colony." Their privileged position continued under the Dutch, to
whom
Surinam passed in 1667. Towards the end of the 17th century their
proportion to the rest of the inhabitants was as one to three, and
in 1730
they owned 115 of the 344 sugar plantations.
The story of the Jews in the English and Dutch colonies finds a
counterpart in the more important French settlements, such as
Martinique,
Guadeloupe, and San Domingo.81 Here also sugar was the source of
wealth, and, as in the other cases, the Jews controlled the
industry and
were the principal sugar merchants.
The first large plantation and refinery in Martinique was
established.30/Werner Sombart
in 1655 by Benjamin Dacosta, who had fled thither from Brazil with
900 co-religionists and 1100 slaves.
In San Domingo the sugar industry was introduced as early as 1587,
but it was not until the "Dutch" refugees from Brazil settled
there that it
attained any degree of success.
In all this we must never lose sight of the fact that in those
critical
centuries in which the colonial system was taking root in America
(and
with it modern capitalism), the production of sugar was the
backbone of
the entire colonial economy, leaving out of account, of course,
the min-ing
of silver, gold and gems in Brazil. Indeed, it is somewhat
difiicult
exactly to picture to ourselves the enormous significance in those
centu-ries
of sugar-making and sugar-selling. The Council of Trade in Paris
(1701) was guilty of no exaggerated language when it placed on
record
its belief that "French shipping owes its splendour to the
commerce of
the sugar-producing islands, and it is only by means of this that
the navy
can be maintained and strengthened." Now, it must be remembered
that
the Jews had almost monopolized the sugar trade; the French branch
in
particular being controlled by the wealthy family of the Gradis of
Bor-deaux.
32
The position which the Jews had obtained for themselves in Central
and South America was thus a powerful one. But it became even more
so when towards the end of the 17th century the English colonies in
North America entered into commercial relations with the West
Indies.
To this close union, which again Jewish merchants helped to bring
about,
the North American Continent (as we shall see) owes its existence.
We
have thus arrived at the point where it is essential to consider
the Jewish
factor in the growth of the United States from their first
origins. Once
more Jewish elements combined, this time to give the United States
their
ultimate economic form. As this view is absolutely opposed to that
gen-erally
accepted (at least in Europe), the question must receive full
con-sideration.
At first sight it would seem as if the economic system of North
America was the very one that developed independently of the Jews.
Often enough, when I have asserted that modern capitalism is
nothing
more or less than an expression of the Jewish spirit, I have been
told that
the history of the United States proves the contrary. The Yankees
them-selves
boast of the fact that they throve without the Jews. It was an
American writer -- Mark Twain, if I mistake not -- who once
consid-ered
at some length why the Jews played no great part in the
States,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/31
giving as his reason that the Americans were as "smart" as the
Jews, if
not smarter. (The Scotch, by the way, think the same of
themselves.)
Now, it is true that we come across no very large number of Jewish
names to-day among the big captains of industry, the well-known
specu-lators,
or the Trust magnates in the country. Nevertheless, I uphold my
assertion that the United States (perhaps more than any other
land) are
filled to the brim with the Jewish spirit. This is recognized in
many
quarters, above all in those best capable of forming a judgment on
the
subject. Thus, a few years ago, at the magnificent celebration of
the
250th anniversary of the first settlement of the Jews in the
United States,
President Roosevelt sent a congratulatory letter to the Organizing
Com-mittee.
In this he said that that was the first time during his tenure of
office that he had written a letter of the kind, but that the
importance of
the occasion warranted him in making an exception. The persecution
to
which the Jews were then subjected made it an urgent duty for him
to
lay stress on the splendid civic qualities which men of the Jewish
faith
and race had developed ever since they came into the country. In
men-tioning
the services rendered by Jews to the United States he used an
expression which goes to the root of the matter -- "The Jews
partici-pated
in the up-building of this country."33 On the same occasion
ex-President
Cleveland remarked: "I believe that it can be safely claimed
that few, if any, of those contributing nationalities have
directly and
indirectly been more influential in giving shape and direction to
the
Americanism of to-day."34
Wherein does this Jewish influence manifest itself? In the first
place,
the number of Jews who took part in American business life was
never
so small as would appear at the first glance. It is a mistake to
imagine
that because there are no Jews among the half-dozen well-known
multi-millionaires,
male and female, who on account of the noise they make in
the world are on all men's lips, therefore American capitalism
necessar-ily
lacks a Jewish element. To begin with, even among the big Trusts
there are some directed by Jewish hands and brains. Thus, the
Smelters'
Trust, which in 1904 represented a combination with a nominal
capital
of 201,000,000 dollars, was the creation of Jews -- the
Guggenheims.
Thus, too, in the Tobacco Trust (500,000,000 dollars), in the
Asphalt
Trust, in the Telegraph Trust, to mention but a few, Jews occupy
com-manding
positions.36 Again, very many of the large banking-houses be-long
to Jews, who in consequence exercise no small control over
Ameri-can
economic life. Take the Harriman system, which had for its goal
the.32/Werner Sombart
fusion of all the American railways. It was backed to a large
extent by
Kuhn, Loeb Co., the well-known banking firm of New York.
Espe-cially
influential are the Jews in the West California is for the most
part
their creation. At the foundation of the State Jews obtained
distinction
as Judges, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, and so on, and last but
not least, as business men. The brothers Seligman -- William,
Henry,
Jesse and James -- of San Francisco; Louis Sloss and Lewis Gerstle
of
Sacramento (where they established the Alaska Commercial Company),
Hellman and Newmark of Los Angeles, are some of the more prominent
business houses in this part of the world. During the gold-mining
period
Jews were the intermediaries between California and the Eastern
States
and Europe. The important transactions of those days were
undertaken
by such men as Benjamin Davidson, the agent of the Rothschilds;
Albert
Priest, of Rhode Island; Albert Dyer, of Baltimore; the three
brothers
Lazard, who established the international banking-house of Lazard
Freres
of Paris, London and San Francisco; the Seligmans, the Glaziers and
the Wormsers. Moritz Friedlaender was one of the chief "Wheat
kings."
Adolph Sutro exploited the Cornstock Lodes. Even to-day the
majority
of the banking businesses, no less than the general industries,
are in the
hands of Jews. Thus, we may mention the London, Paris and American
Bank (Sigmund Greenbaum and Richard Altschul); the
Anglo-Califor-nian
Bank (Philip N. Lilienthal and Ignatz Steinhart); the Nevada Bank;
the Union Trust Company; the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Los
Angeles; John Rosenfeld's control of the coalfields; the Alaska
Com-mercial
Company, which succeeded the Hudson Bay Company; the North
American Commercial Company, and many more.36
It can scarcely be doubted that the immigration of numerous Jews
into all the States during the last few decades must have had a
stupen-dous
effect on American economic life everywhere. Consider that there
are more than a million Jews in New York to-day, and that the
greater
number of the immigrants have not yet embarked on a capitalistic
ca-reer.
If the conditions in America continue to develop along the same
lines as in the last generation, if the immigration statistics and
the pro-portion
of births among all the nationalities remain the same, our
imagi-nation
may picture the United States of fifty or a hundred years hence as
a land inhabited only by Slavs, Negroes and Jews, wherein the Jews
will
naturally occupy the position of economic leadership.
But these are dreams of the future which have no place in this
connexion, where our main concern is with the past and the
present..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/33
That Jews have taken a prominent share in American life in the
present
and in the past may be conceded; perhaps a more prominent share
than
would at first sight appear. Nevertheless, the enormous weight
which, in
common with many others who have the right of forming an opinion on
the subject, I attach to their influence, cannot be adequately
explained
merely from the point of view of their numbers. It is rather the
particu-lar
kind of influence that I lay stress on, and this can be accounted
for
by a variety of complex causes.
That is why I am not anxious to overemphasize the fact, momen-tous
enough in itself, that the Jews in America practically control a
number of important branches of commerce; indeed, it is not too
much
to say that they monopolize them, or at least did so for a
considerable
length of time. Take the wheat trade, especially in the West; take
to-bacco;
take cotton. We see at once that they who rule supreme in three
such mighty industries must perforce take a leading part in the
eco-nomic
activities of the nation as a whole. For all that I do not labour
this
fact, for to my mind the significance of the Jews for the economic
devel-opment
of the United States lies rooted in causes far deeper than these.
As the golden thread in the tapestry, so are the Jews interwoven
as a
distinct thread throughout the fabric of America's economic
history;
through the intricacy of their fantastic design it received from
the very
beginning a pattern all its own.
Since the first quickening of the capitalistic spirit on the
coastlands
of the ocean and in the forests and prairies of the New World,
Jews have
not been absent; 1655 is usually given as the date of their first
appear-ance.
37 In that year a vessel with Jewish emigrants from Brazil, which
had become a Portuguese possession, anchored in the Hudson River,
and the passengers craved permission to land in the colony which
the
Dutch West India Company had founded there. But they were no humble
petitioners asking for a favour. They came as members of a race
which
had participated to a large extent in the new foundation, and the
gover-nors
of the colony were forced to recognize their claims. When the ship
arrived, New Amsterdam was under the rule of Stuyvesant, who was no
friend to the Jews and who, had he followed his own inclination,
would
have closed the door in the face of the newcomers. But a letter
dated
March 26, 1665, reached him from the Court of the Company in
Amsterdam, containing the order to let the Jews settle and trade
in the
colonies under the control of the Company, "also because of the
large
amount of capital which they have invested in shares of this
Company."38.34/Werner Sombart
It was not long before they found their way to Long Island, Albany,
Rhode Island and Philadelphia.
Then their manifold activities began, and it was due to them that
the
colonies were able to maintain their existence The entity of the
United
States to-day is only possible, as we know, because the English
colonies
of North America, thanks to a chain of propitious circumstances,
ac-quired
i degree of power and strength such as ultimately led to their
complete independence. In the building up of this position of
supremacy
the Jews were among the first and the keenest workers.
I am not thinking of the obvious fact that the colonies were only
able to achieve their independence by the help of a few wealthy
Jewish
firms who laid the economic foundations for the existence of the
New
Republic. The United States would never have won complete
indepen-dence
has not the Jews supplied the needs of their armies and furnished
them with the indispensable sinews of war. But what the Jews
accom-plished
in this direction did not arise out of specifically American
condi-tions.
It was a general phenomenon, met with throughout the history of
the modern capitalistic States, and we shall do justice to
instances of it
when dealing with wider issues.
No. What I have in mind is the special service which the Jews
ren-dered
the North American colonies, one peculiar to the American
Con-tinent
-- a service which indeed gave America birth. I refer to the simple
fact that during the 17th and 18th centuries the trade of the Jews
was the
source from which the economic system of the colonies drew its
life-blood.
As is well known, England forced her colonies to purchase all the
manufactured articles they needed in the Mother-country. Hence the
balance of trade of the colonies was always an adverse one, and by
constantly having to send money out of the country they would have
been drained dry. But there was a stream which carried the precious
metals into the country, a stream diverted in this direction by
the trade
of the Jews with South and Central America. The Jews in the English
colonies maintained active business relations with the West Indian
Is-lands
and with Brazil, resulting in a favourable balance of trade for the
land of their sojourn. The gold mined in South America was thus
brought
to North America and helped to keep the economic system in a
healthy
condition.39
In the face of this fact, is there not some justification for the
opinion
that the United States owe their very existence to the Jews? And
if this
be so, how much more can it be asserted that Jewish influence made
the.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/35
United States just what they are -- that is, American? For what we
call
Americanism is nothing else, if we may say so, than the Jewish
spirit
distilled.
But how comes it that American culture is so steeped in Jewishness?
The answer is simple -- through the early and universal admixture
of
Jewish elements among the first settlers. We may picture the
process of
colonizing somewhat after this fashion. A band of determined men
and
women -- let us say twenty families -- went forth into the wilds to
begin their life anew. Nineteen were equipped with plough and
scythe,
ready to clear the forests and till the soil in order to earn
their livelihood
as husbandmen. The twentieth family opened a store to provide their
companions with such necessaries of life as could not be obtained
from
the soil, often no doubt hawking them at the very doors. Soon this
twen-tieth
family made it its business to arrange for the distribution of the
products which the other nineteen won from the soil. It was they,
too,
who were most likely in possession Of ready cash, and in case of
need
could therefore be useful to the others by lending them money. Very
often the store had a kind of agricultural loan-bank as its
adjunct, per-haps
also an office for the buying and selling of land. So through the
activity of the twentieth family the farmer in North America was
from
the first kept in touch with the money and credit system of the Old
World. Hence the whole process of production and exchange was from
its inception along modern lines. Town methods made their way at
once
into even the most distant villages. Accordingly, it may be said
that
American economic life was from its very start impregnated with
capi-talism.
And who was responsible for this? The twentieth family in each
village. Need we add that this twentieth family was always a Jewish
one, which joined a party of settlers or soon sought them out in
their
homesteads?
Such in outline is the mental picture I have conceived of the
eco-nomic
development of the United States. Subsequent writers dealing
with this subject will be able to fill in more ample details; I
myself have
only come across a few. But these are so similar in character that
they
can hardly be taken as isolated instances. The conclusion is
forced upon
us that they are typical. Nor do I alone hold this view. Governor
Pardel
of California, for example, remarked in 1905: "He (the Jew) has
been
the leading financier of thousands of prosperous communities. He
has
been enterprising and aggressive."40
Let me quote some of the illustrations I have met with. In
1785.36/Werner Sombart
Abraham Mordccai settled in Alabama. "He established a trading-post
two miles west of Line Creek, carrying on an extensive trade with
the
Indians, and exchanging his goods for pinkroot, hickory, nut oil
and
peltries of all kinds."41 Similarly in Albany: "As early as 1661,
when
Albany was but a small trading post, a Jewish trader named Asser
Levi
(or Leevi) became the owner of real estate there."42 Chicago has
the
same story. The first brick house was built by a Jew, Benedict
Schubert,
who became the first merchant tailor in Chicago, while another Jew,
Philip Newburg, was the first to introduce the tobacco business.43
In
Kentucky we hear of a Jewish settler as early as 1816. When in that
year the Bank of the United States opened a branch in Lexington, a
Mr.
Solomon, who had arrived in 1808, was made cashier.44 In
Maryland,45
Michigan,46 Ohio 47 and Pennsylvania 48 it is on record that
Jewish trad-ers
were among the earliest settlers, though nothing is known of their
activity.
On the other hand, a great deal is known of Jews in Texas, where
they were among the pioneers of capitalism. Thus, for example,
Jacob
de Cordova "was by far the most extensive land locator in the State
until 1856." The Cordova's Land Agency soon became famous not only
in Texas but in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the
own-ers
of large tracts of Texas land resided. Again, Morris Koppore in
1863 became President of the National Bank of Texas. Henry Castro
was an immigration agent; "between the years 1843--6 Castro
intro-duced
into Texas over 5000 immigrants . . . transporting them in 27
ships, chiefly from the Rhenish provinces. . . . He fed his
colonists for a
year, furnished them with cows, farming implements, seeds,
medicine,
and in short with everything they needed."49
Sometimes branches of one and the same family distributed
them-selves
in different States, and were thereby enabled to carry on business
most successfully. Perhaps thebest instance is the history of the
Seligman
family. There were eight brothers (the sons of David Seligman, of
Bayersdorf, in Bavaria) who started a concern which now has
branches
in all the most important centres in the States. Their story began
with
the arrival in America in the year 1837 of Joseph Seligman. Two
other
brothers followed in 1839; a third came two years later. The four
began
business as clothiers in Lancaster, moving shortly after to Selma,
Ala.
From here they opened three branches in three other towns. By 1848
two more brothers had arrived from Germany and the six moved North.
In 1850, Jesse Seligman opened a shop in San Francisco -- in the
first.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/37
brick house in that city. Seven years later a banking business was
added
to the clothing shop, and in 1862 the house of Seligman Brothers
was
established in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris and
Frankfort.50
In the Southern States likewise the Jew played the part of the
trader
in the midst of agricultural settlers.51 Here also (as in Southern
and
Central America) we find him quite early as the owner of vast
planta-tions.
In South Carolina indeed, "Jew's Land" is synonymous with "Large
Plantations."52 It was in the South that Moses Lindo became famous
as
one of the first undertakers in the production of indigo.
These examples must suffice. We believe they tend to illustrate our
general statement, which is supported also by the fact that there
was a
constant stream of Jewish emigration to the United States from
their
earliest foundation. It is true that there are no actual figures
to show the
proportion of the Jewish population to the total body of settlers.
But the
numerous indications of a general nature that we do find make it
pretty
certain that there must always have been a large number of Jews in
America.
It must not be forgotten that in the earliest years the population
was
thinly scattered and very sparse. New Amsterdam had less than 1000
inhabitants.53 That being so, a shipful of Jews who came from
Brazil to
settle there made a great difference, and in assessing Jewish
influence
on the whole district we shall have to rate it highly.54 Or take
another
instance. When the first settlement in Georgia was established,
forty
Jews were among the settlers. The number may seem insignificant,
but
when we consider the meagre population of the colony, Jewish
influence
must be accounted strong. So, too, in Savannah, where in 1733 there
were already twelve Jewish families in what was then a tiny
commercial
centre.55
That America early became the goal of German and Polish Jewish
emigrants is well known. Thus we are told: "Among the poorer Jewish
families of Posen there was seldom one which in the second quarter
of
the 19th century did not have at least one son (and in most cases
the
ablest and not least enterprising) who sailed away across the
ocean to
flee from the narrowness and the oppression of his native land."56
We
are not surprised, therefore, at the comparatively large number of
Jew-ish
soldiers (7243 ) 57 who took part in the Civil War, and we should
be
inclined to say that the estimate which puts the Jewish population
of the
United States about the middle of the 19th century at 300,000 (of
whom
30,000 lived in New York)58 was if anything too
moderate..38/Werner Sombart
The development of the modern colonial system and the establishment
of the modern State are two phenomena dependent on one another. The
one is inconceivable without the other, and the genesis of modern
capi-talism
is bound up with both. Hence, in order to discover the importance
of any historic factor in the growth of capitalism it will be
necessary to
find out what, and how great a part that factor played in both the
colo-nial
system and the foundation of the modern State. In the last chapter
we considered the Jews in relation to the colonial system; in the
present
we shall do the same for the modern State.
A cursory glance would make it appear that in no direction could
the Jews, the "Stateless" people, have had less influence than in
the
establishment of modern States. Not one of the statesmen of whom we
think in this connexion was a Jew -- neither Charles the Fifth, nor
Louis the Eleventh, neither Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, Cromwell,
Frederick William of Prussia nor Frederick the Great.1 However,
when
speaking of these modern statesmen and rulers, we can hardly do so
without perforce thinking of the Jews: it would be like Faust
without
Mephistopheles. Arm in arm the Jew and the ruler stride through
the age
which historians call modern. To me this union is symbolic of the
rise of
capitalism, and consequently of the modern State. In most
countries the
ruler assumed the role of protector of the persecuted Jews against
the
Estates of the Realm and the Gilds -- both pre-capitalistic
forces. And
why? Their interests and their sympathies coincided. The Jew
embodied
modern capitalism, and the ruler allied himself with this force in
order
to establish, or maintain, his own position. When, therefore, I
speak of
the part played by the Jews in the foundation of modern States, it
is not
so much their direct influence as organizers that I have in mind,
as rather
their indirect co-operation in the process. I am thinking of the
fact that
the Jews furnished the rising States with the material means
necessary
to maintain themselves and to develop; that the Jews supported the
army
in each country in two ways, and the armies were the bulwarks on
which
the new States rested. In twoways: on the one hand, the Jews
supplied
the army in time of war with weapons, and munition and food; on the
other hand, they provided money not only for military purposes but
also
for the general needs of courts and governments. The Jews
throughout
the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were most influential as
army-purvey-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/39
ors and as the moneyed men to whom the princes looked for financial
backing. This position of the Jews was of the greatest consequence
for
the development of the modern State. It is not necessary to
expatiate on
this statement; all that we shall do is to adduce instances in
proof of it.
Here, too, we cannot attempt to mention every possible example. We
can only point the way; it will be for subsequent research to
follow.
The Jews as Purveyors
Although there are numerous cases on record of Jews acting in the
ca-pacity
of army-contractors in Spain previous to 1492, I shall not refer
to this period, because it lies outside the scope of our present
consider-ations.
We shall confine ourselves to the centuries that followed and
begin with England.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the Jews had already achieved
re-nown
as army-purveyors. Under the Commonwealth the most famous
army-contractor was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, "the great Jew,"
who
came to London some time between 1630 and 1635, and was very soon
accounted among the most prominent traders in the land. In 1649 he
was one of the five London merchants entrusted by the Council of
State
with the army contract for corn.2 It is said that he annually
imported
into England silver to the value of £100,000. In the period that
ensued,
especially in the wars of William III, Sir Solomon Medina ("the Jew
Medina") was "the great contractor," and for his services he was
knighted,
being the first professing Jew to receive that honour.3
It was the same in the wars of the Spanish Succession; here, too,
Jews were the principal army-contractors.4 In 1716 the Jews of
Strassburg
recall the services they rendered the armies of Louis XIV by
furnishing
information and supplying provisions.8 Indeed, Louis XIV's
army-con-tractor-
in-chief was a Jew, Jacob Worms by name;6 and in the 18th
century Jews gradually took a more and more prominent part in this
work. In 1727 the Jews of Metz brought into the city in the space
of six
weeks 2000 horses for food and more than 5000 for remounts.7
Field-Marshal
Maurice of Saxony, the victor of Fontenoy, expressed the opin-ion
that his armies were never better served with supplies than when
the
Jews were the contractors.8 One of the best known of the Jewish
army-contractors
in the time of the last two Louis was Cerf Beer, in whose
patent of naturalization it is recorded that "... in the wars
which raged in
Alsace in 1770 and 1771 he found the opportunity of proving his
zeal in
our service and in that of the State."9.40/Werner Sombart
Similarly, the house of the Gradis, of Bordeaux, was an
establish-ment
of international repute in the 18th century. Abraham Gradis set up
large storehouses in Quebec to supply the needs of the French
troops
there.10 Under the Revolutionary Government, under the Directory,
in
the Napoleonic Wars it was always Jews who acted as purveyors.11 In
this connexion a public notice displayed in the streets of Paris
in 1795 is
significant. There was a famine in the city and the Jews were
called
upon to show their gratitude for the rights bestowed upon them by
the
Revolution by bringing in corn. "They alone," says the author of
the
notice, "can successfully accomplish this enterprise, thanks to
their busi-ness
relations, of which their fellow citizens ought to have full
ben-efit."
12 A parallel story comes from Dresden. In 1720 the Court Jew,
Jonas Meyer, saved the town from starvation by supplying it with
large
quantities of corn. (The Chronicler mentions 40,000 bushels.)18
All over Germany the Jews from an early date were found in the
ranks of army-contractors. Let us enumerate a few of them. There
was
Isaac Meyer in the 16th century, who, when Cardinal Albrecht
admitted
him a resident of Halberstadt in 1537, was enjoined by him, in
view of
the dangerous times, "to supply our monastery with good weapons and
armour." There was Joselman von Rosheim, who in 1548 received an
imperial letter of protection because he had supplied both money
and
provisions for the army. In 1546 , there is a record of Bohemian
Jews
who provided great; coats and blankets for the army.14 In the next
cen-tury
(1633) another Bohemian Jew, Lazarus by name, received an offii
cial declaration that he "obtained either in person, or at his own
ex-pense,
valuable information for the Imperial troops, and that he made it
his business to see that the army had a good supply of ammunition
and
clothing."15 The Great Elector also had recourse to Jews for his
military
needs. Leimann Gompertz and Solomon Elias were his contractors for
cannon, powder and so forth.16 There were numerous others: Samuel
Julius, remount contractor under the Elector Frederick Augustus of
Saxony; the Model family, court-purveyors and army-contractors in
the
Duchy of Ansbach in the 17th and 18th centuries are well known.17
In
short, as one writer of the time pithily expresses it, "all the
contractors
are Jews and all the Jews are contractors."18
Austria does not differ in this respect from Germany, France and
England. The wealthy Jews, who in the reign of the Emperor Leopold
received permission to re-settle in Vienna (1670) -- the
Oppenheimers,
Wertheimers, Mayer Herschel and the rest -- were all
army-contrac-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/41
tors.19 And we find the same thing in all the countries under the
Austrian
Crown.20 Lastly, we must mention the Jewish army-contractors who
provisioned the American troops in the Revolutionary and Civil
Wars.21
The Jews as Financiers
This has been a theme on which many historians have written, and we
are tolerably well informed concerning this aspect of Jewish
history in
all ages. It will not be necessary for me, therefore, to enter
into this
question in great detail; the enumeration of a few well-known
facts will
suffice.
Already in the Middle Ages we find that everywhere taxes,
salt-mines
and royal domains were farmed out to Jews; that Jews were royal
treasurers and money-lenders, most frequently, of course, in the
Pyrenean
Peninsula, where the Almoxarife and the Rendeiros were chosen
prefer-ably
from among the ranks of the rich Jews. But as this period does not
specially concern us here, I will not mention any names but refer
the
reader to the general literature on the subject.22
It was, however, in modern times, when the State as we know it
to-day
first originated, that the activity of the Jews as financial
advisers of
princes was fraught with mighty influence. Take Holland, where
al-though
officially deterred from being servants of the Crown, they very
quickly occupied positions of authority. We recall Moses Machado,
the
favourite of William III; Delmonte, a family of ambassadors (Lords
of
Schoonenberg); the wealthy Suasso, who in 1688 lent William two
mil-lion
gulden, and others.23
The effects of the Jewish haute finance in Holland made themselves
felt beyond the borders of the Netherlands, because that country
in the
17th and 18th centuries was the reservoir from which all the needy
princes
of Europe drew their money. Men like the Pintos, Delmontes, Bueno
de
Mesquita, Francis Mels and many others may in truth be regarded as
the leading financiers of Northern Europe during that period.24
Next, English finance was at this time also very extensively
con-trolled
by Jews.25 The monetary needs of the Long Parliament gave the
first impetus to the settlement of rich Jews in England. Long
before their
admission by Cromwell, wealthy crypto-Jews, especially from Spain
and Portugal, migrated thither via Amsterdam: the year 1643 brought
an exceptionally large contingent. Their rallying-point was the
house of
the Portuguese Ambassador in London, Antonio de Souza, himself a
Maranno. Prominent among them was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal,
who.42/Werner Sombart
has already been mentioned, and who was as great a financier as he
was
an army contractor. It was he who supplied the Commonwealth with
funds. The little colony was further increased under the later
Stuarts,
notably under Charles the Second. In the retinue , of his
Portuguese
bride, Catherine of Braganza, were quite a number of moneyed Jews,
among them the brothers Da Sylva, Portuguese bankers of Amsterdam,
who were entrusted with the transmission and administration of the
Queen's dowry.26 Contemporaneously with them came the Mendes and
the Da Costas from Spain and Portugal, who united their families
under
the name of Mendes da Costa.
About the same period the Ashkenazi (German) Jews began to ar-rive
in the country. On the whole, these could hardly compare for wealth
with their Sephardi (Spanish) brethren, yet they also had their
capitalis-tic
magnates, such as Benjamin Levy for example.
Under William III their numbers were still further increased, and
the links between the court and the rich Jews were strengthened.
Sir
Solomon Medina, who has also been already mentioned, followed the
King from Holland as his banker, and with him came the Suasso,
an-other
of the plutocratic families. Under Queen Anne one of the most
prominent financiers in England was Menasseh Lopez, and by the time
the South Sea Bubble burst, the Jews as a body were the greatest
finan-cial
power in the country. They had kept clear of the wild speculations
which had preceded the disaster and so retained their fortunes
unim-paired.
Accordingly, when the Government issued a loan on the Land
Tax, the Jews were in a position to take up one quarter of it.
During this
critical period the chief family was that of the Gideons, whose
represen-tative,
Sampson Gideon (1699--1762), was the "trusted adviser of the
Government," the friend of Walpole, the "pillar of the State
credit." In
1745, the year of panics, Sampson raised a loan of £1,700,000 for
the
assistance of the Government. On his death his influence passed to
the
firm of Francis and Joseph Salvador, who retained it till the
beginning
of the 19th century, when the Rothschilds succeeded to the
financial
leadership.
It is the same story in France, and the powerful position held by
Samuel Bernard in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV and in
the
whole of that of Louis XV may serve as one example among many. We
find Louis XIV walking in his garden with this wealthy Jew, "whose
sole merit," in the opinion of one cynical writer,27 "was that he
sup-ported
the State as the rope does the hanged man." He financed the.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/43
Wars of the Spanish Succession; he aided the French candidate for
the
throne of Poland; he advised the Regent in all money matters. It
was
probably no exaggeration when the Marquis de Dangeau spoke of him
in one of his letters 28 as "the greatest banker in Europe at the
present
time." In France also the Jews participated to a large extent in
the re-consolidation
of the French East India Company after the bursting of
the South Sea Bubble.29 It was not, however, until the 19th
century that
they won a really leading position in financial circles in France,
and the
important names here are the Rothschilds, the Helphens, the
Foulds, the
Cerfbeers, the Duponts, the Godchaux, the Dalemberts, the Pereires
and others. It is possible that in the 17th and 18th centuries
also a great
many more Jews than those already mentioned were active as
financiers
in France, but that owing to the rigorous exclusion of Jews they
became
crypto-Jews, and so we have no full information about them.
It is easier to trace Jewish influence in finance in Germany and
Austria through that clever invention -- the status of "Court Jew."
Though the law in these countries forbade Jews to settle in their
bound-aries,
yet the princes and rulers kept a number of "privileged" Jews at
their courts. According to Graetz,30 the status of "Court Jew" was
intro-duced
by the Emperors of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Be
that as it may, it is an undoubted fact that pretty well every
State in
Germany throughout the 17th and 18th centuries had its Court Jew or
Jews, upon whose support the finances of the land depended.
A few examples by way of illustration. In the 17th century 31 we
find
at the Imperial Court Joseph Pinkherle, of Goerz, Moses and Jacob
Marburger, of Gradisca, Ventura Parente of Trieste, Jacob Bassewi
Batscheba Schmieles in Prague, the last of whom the Emperor
Ferdinand
raised to the ranks of the nobility under the title von Treuenburg
on
account of his faithful services. In the reign of the Emperor
Leopold I
we meet with the respected family of the Oppenheimers, of whom the
Staatskanzler Ludewig wrote in the following terms.32 After saying
that
the Jews were the arbiters of the most important events, he
continues:
"In the year 1690 the Jew Oppenheimer was well known among
mer-chants
and bankers not only in Europe but throughout the world." No
less famous in the same reign was Wolf Schlesinger, purveyor to the
court, who in company with Lewel Sinzheim raised more than one
large
loan for the State. Maria Theresa utilized the services of
Schlesinger
and others, notably the Wertheimers, Amsteins and Eskeles. Indeed,
for
more than a century the court bankers in Vienna were Jews.33 We
can.44/Werner Sombart
gauge their economic influence from the fact that when an
anti-Jewish
riot broke out in Frankfort-on-the-Main, the local authorities
thought it
wise in the interest of credit to call upon the Imperial Office to
interfere
and protect the Frankfort Jews, who had very close trade relations
with
their brethren in Vienna.34
It was not otherwise at the smaller German courts. "The
continu-ally
increasing needs of the various courts, each vying with the other
in
luxury, rendered it imperative, seeing that communication was by no
means easy, to have skilful agents in the commercial centres."
Accord-ingly
the Dukes of Mecklenburg had such agents in Hamburg; Bishop
John Philip of Wurzburg was in 1700 served by Moses Elkan in
Frank-fort.
This activity opened new channels for the Jews; the enterprising
dealer who provided jewels for her ladyship, liveries for the
court cham-berlain
and dainties for the head cook was also quite willing to negotiate
a loan.35 Frankfort and Hamburg, with their large Jewish
population,
had many such financial agents, who acted for ruling princes
living at a
distance. Besides those already mentioned we may recall the
Portuguese
Jew, Daniel Abensur, who died in Hamburg in 1711. He was
Minister-resident
of the King of Poland in that city, and the Polish Crown was
indebted to him for many a loan.36 Some of these agents often
moved to
the court which borrowed from them, and became "Court Jews."
Frederick Augustus, who became Elector of Saxony in 1694, had a
number of them: Leffmann Berentz, of Hanover, J. Meyer, of Hamburg,
Berend Lehmann, of Halberstadt (who advanced money for the election
of the King of Poland) and others.37 Again, in Hanover the Behrends
were Chief Court Purveyors and Agents to the Treasury;38 the
Models,
the Fraenkels and the Nathans acted in a similar capacity to the
Duchy
of Ansbach. In the Palatinate we come across Lemte Moyses and
Michel
May, who in 1719 paid the debt of 2½ million gulden which the
Elector
owed the Emperor,39 and lastly, in the Marggravate of Bayreuth,
there
were the Baiersdorfs.40
Better known perhaps are the Court Jews of the
Brandenburg-Prus-sian
rulers -- Lippold, under Joachim II; Gomperz and Joost Liebmann,
under Frederick III; Veit, underFrederick William I; and Ephraim,
Moses,
Isaac and Daniel Itzig, under Frederick II. Most famous of all the
Ger-man
Court Jews, the man who may be taken as their archetype, was
Suess-Oppenheimer, who was at the court of Charles Alexander of
Wiirtemberg.41
Finally, we must not leave unmentioned that during the 18th
cen-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/45
tury, more especially in the Revolutionary Wars, the Jews played no
small role as financiers in the United States of America. Haym
Salomon 42
ranks side by side with the Minis and the Cohens in Georgia,43 but
the
most prominent of them all was Robert Morris, the financier par
excel-lence
of the American Revolution.44
And now comes an extraordinary thing. Whilst for centuries
(espe-cially
during the 17th and the 18th -- the two so momentous in the
growth of the modern State) the Jews had personal financial
dealings
with the rulers, in the century that followed (but even during the
two
already mentioned) the system of public credit gradually took a new
form. This forced the big capitalist from his dominating position
more
and more into the background, and allowed an ever-increasing number
of miscellaneous creditors to take his place. Through the
evolution of
the modern method of floating loans the public credit was, so to
speak,
"democratized," and, in consequence, the Court Jew became
superflu-ous.
But the Jews themselves were not the least who aided the growth of
this new system of borrowing, and thus they contributed to the
removal
of their own monopoly as financiers. In so doing they participated
to a
greater degree than ever before in the work of building up the
great
States of the present.
The transformation in the public credit system was but a part of a
much vaster change which crept over economic life as a whole, a
meta-morphosis
in which also the Jews took a very great share. Let us con-sider
this change in its entirety.
Tt is a matter of common knowledge that the Stock Exchange in
modern
times is becoming more and more the heart of all economic
activities.
With the fuller development of capitalism this was only to be
expected,
and there were three clear stages in the process. The first was
the evolu-tion
of credit from being a personal matter into one of an impersonal
relationship. It took shape and form in securities. Stage two:
these secu-rities
were made mobile -- that is, bought and sold in a market. The last
stage was the formation of undertakings for the purpose of creating
such securities.
In all the stages the Jew was ever present with his creative
genius..46/Werner Sombart
We may even go further and say that it was due specifically to the
Jew-ish
spirit that these characteristics of modern economic life came into
being.
The Origin of Securities 1
Securities represent the standardization of personal
indebtedness.2 We
may speak of "standardization" in this sense when a relationship
which
was originally personal becomes impersonal; where before human
be-ings
directly acted and reacted on each other, now a system obtains. An
instance or two will make our meaning clear. Where before work was
done by man, it is now done by a machine. That is the
standardization of
work. In olden times a battle was won by the superior personal
initiative
of the general in command; nowadays victory falls to the leader who
can most skilfully utilize the body of experience gathered in the
course
of years and can best apply the complicated methods of tactics and
strategy; who has at his disposal the best guns and who has the
most
effective organization for provisioning his men. We may speak in
this
instance of the "standardization" of war. A business becomes
standard-ized
when the head of the firm who came into personal contact with his
employees on the one hand and with his customers on the other, is
suc-ceeded
by a board of directors, under whom is an army of officials, all
working on an organized plan, and consequently business is more or
less of an automatic process.
Now, at a particular stage in the growth of capitalism credit
became
standardized. That is to say, that whereas before indebtedness
arose as
the result of an agreement between two people who knew each other,
it
was now rearranged on a systematic basis, and the people concerned
might be entire strangers. The new relationship is expressed by
nego-tiable
instruments, whether bill of exchange or security or banknote or
mortgage deed, and a careful analysis of each of them will prove
this
conclusively.
Of the three persons mentioned in a bill of exchange, the specified
party in whose favour the document is made out (the payee) or, if
no
name is mentioned, the bearer of the document may be quite unknown
to
the other two; he may have had no direct business relation with
the party
making out the bill (the drawer), yet this document establishes a
claim
of the former on the latter -- general and impersonal.3
The security gives the owner the right to participate in the
capital
and the profit of a concern with which he has no direct personal
contact..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/47
He may never even have seen the building in which the undertaking
in
question is housed, and when he parts with his security to another
per-son
he transfers his right of participation.
Similarly with a banknote. The holder has a claim on the bank of
issue despite the fact that he personally may never have deposited
a
penny with it.
So, in short, with all credit instruments: an impersonal
relationship
is established between either an individual or a corporation on
the one
hand (the receiver of moneys), and an unknown body of people (we
speak of "the public") on the other -- the lender of moneys.
What share did the Jews take in the creation of this credit
machin-ery?
It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to show what that share
was by reference to documentary evidence, even if we had a very
full
account of the position of the Jews in the early economic history
of most
lands. But unfortunately that aspect of economic development which
would have been invaluable for the solution of the problem in hand
has
been sadly neglected. I refer to the history of money and of
banking in
the Pyrenean Peninsula during the last centuries of the Middle
Ages.
But even if such a history were at our disposal, the question
would still
be difficult to answer. We must remember that the origins of
economic
organization can no more be discovered by referring to documentary
evidence than the origins of legal institutions. No form of
organization
or tendency in economic life can be traced to a particular day or
even a
particular year. It is all a matter of growth, and the most that
the eco-nomic
historian can do is to show that in any given period this or that
characteristic is found in business life, this or that
organization domi-nates
all economic activities. Even for this the ludicrously inadequate
sources at our disposal are hardly sufficient. The historian will
have to
turn to the general history of the particular group in which he
happens
to be interested.
To take an instance. The history of bills of exchange can scarcely
be written merely by referring to the few mediaeval bills which
chance
has left to us. Such documents are certainly useful to supplement
or
correct general theories. But we must formulate the general
theories
first. Let us take a case in point. The bill which for a long time
was held
to be the oldest extant was drawn by a Jew, Simon Rubens, in the
year
1207. This is hardly sufficient evidence on which to base the
assertion
that the Jews were the inventors of this form of credit
instrument.4 Ear-lier
bills have come to light recently, drawn by non-Jews, but they do
not.48/Werner Sombart
render testimony strong enough for the statement that the Jews
were not
the inventors of bills. Do we know how many thousands of bills
circu-lated
in Florence or Bruges, and how can we be sure which section of
the population issued them? We do know, however, that the Jews were
occupied throughout the Middle Ages in money-dealing, that they
were
settled in various parts of Europe and that they carried on a
continuous
intercourse with each other. From these facts we may draw the
tolerably
certain conclusion that "the Jews, the intermediaries in
international
trade, utilized on a large scale the machinery of foreign
exchanges, then
traditionally current in the Mediterranean lands, and extended
it."5
That this method of reasoning requires great caution is
self-evident.
Yet it may lead to useful conclusions for all that. There are
cases, as we
shall see, where the share of the Jews in the extension of some
economic
policy or machinery may be proved by a fund of documentary
evidence.
In other instances, and they are numerous, we must content
ourselves if
it can be shown that, at any particular time and in any given
place, there
must have been some special reason for the utilization by Jews of
a form
of economic organization then current.
Bearing this in mind, let us enquire into the genesis of one or two
types of credit instruments.
The Bill of Exchange
Not merely the early history of the bill of exchange but rather
that of the
modern endorsable bill is what we are concerned with most of all.
It is
generally accepted that the endorsing of bills of exchange had
been fully
developed prior to the 17th century, and the first complete legal
recogni-tion
of such endorsement was found in Holland (Proclamation in
Amsterdam of January 24, 1651).6 Now, as we shall see presently,
all
developments in the money and credit systems of Holland in the 17th
century were due more or less to Jewish influence. Some authorities
trace the origin of endorsable bills of exchange to Venice, where
they
were made illegal by a law of December 14, 1593. 7 It is fairly
certain
that the use of circulating endorsable bills in Venice must have
been first
commenced by Jews, seeing that we know that nearly all
bill-broking in
the Adriatic city in the 16th century was in their hands. In the
petition of
the Christian merchants of Venice of the year 1550 (to which
reference
has already been made) the passage relating to the bill business
of Jews
reads as follows 8 : --.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/49
We carry on the same commerce with them also in matters of
ex-change,
because they continually remit to us their money . . . send-ing
cash, in order that we may change it for them for Lyons,
Flanders and other parts of the world on our Exchange, or indeed
that we may buy for them silken cloths and other merchandise
according to their convenience, gaining our usual commission.
That which we say of the inhabitants of Florence holds good also
of the other merchants of the same Spanish and Portuguese na-tion,
who dwell in Flanders, Lyons, Rome, Naples, Sicily and other
countries, who lay themselves out to do business with us, not only
in exchanges but in sending hither merchandise of Flanders,
sell-ing
corn from Sicily and buying other merchandise to transport to
other countries.
A further development in the endorsing of bills appears to have
taken place at the fairs of Genoa in the 16th century. Who, we may
ask,
were the "Genoese," met with everywhere throughout that century,
but
especially at the famous fairs of Besancon, dominating the money
mar-ket,
and who all of a sudden showed a remarkable genius for business
and gave an impetus to the growth of new methods, hitherto unknown,
for cancelling international indebtedness? It is true that the
ancient
wealthy families of Genoa were the principal creditors of the
Spanish
Crown as well as of other needy princes. But to imagine that the
descen-dants
of the Grimaldis, the Spinolas, the Lercaras exhibited that
ex-traordinary
commercial ability which gave a special character to the
activity of the Genoese in the 16th century; to think that the old
nobility
gadded about the fairs at Besancon or elsewhere, or even sent
their agents
with never-failing regularity -- this appears to me an assumption
hardly
warranted without some very good reason. Can the explanation be
that
the Jews brought new blood into the decrepit economic body of
Genoa?
We know 9 that fugitives from Spain landed at Genoa, that some of
the
settlers became Christians, that the rest were admitted into Novi,
a small
town near Genoa, and that the Jews of Novi did business with the
capi-tal;
we know, too, that the newcomers were "for the most part
intelligent
Jewish craftsmen, capitalists, physicians," and that in the short
space of
time between their arrival and 1550 they had become so unpopular in
Genoa that they had aroused the hatred of the citizens; we know,
finally,
that there were constant communications between the Genoese bankers
and the Jewish, or rather Maranno, banking houses of the Spanish
cit-ies,
e.g., with the Espinosas, the leading bankers in
Seville.10.50/Werner Sombart
Securities (Stocks and Shares)
If we should wish to speak of securities in those cases where the
capital
of a business concern is split up into many parts, and where the
liability
of the capitalists is limited, we have ample justification for so
doing in
the case of the Genoa Maones, in the 14th century,11 the Casa di
San
Giorgio (1407) and the important trading companies of the 17th
cen-tury.
But if stress is laid on the standardization of the
credit-relation-ship,
it will not be before the 18th century that we shall find
instances of
joint-stock enterprise and of securities. For the early
contributions to a
joint-stock never lost their personal character. The Italian
Monies were
impregnated through and through with the personality of their
founders.
In the case of the Maones, the personal factor was no less
important
than the financial; while at the Bank of St. George in Genoa, the
fami-lies
concerned jealously guarded the principle that each one should
ob-tain
its proper share in the directing of the work of the bank. The
trading
companies too had a strong personal element. In the English East
India
Company, for instance, it was not until 1650 that shares could be
trans-ferred
to strangers, but they had to become members of the Company.
In all early instances the security was for unequal and varying
sums.
The personal relationship thus showed itself plainly enough. In
some
companies shares could not be transferred at all except by consent
of all
the other members. In fact, the security was just a certificate of
mem-bership,
and throughout the 18th century such securities as were made
out in the name of a specified person predominated.12 Even where
there
was freedom of transfer from one person to another (as in the case
of the
Dutch East India Company) the process was beset with innumerable
obstacles and difficulties.18
The modern form of security can therefore not be found before the
18th century. If now it be asked what share did the Jews have in
the
extension of this form of credit in modern times, the reply is
obvious
enough. During the last hundred and fifty or two hundred years,
Jews
have beenlargely instrumental in bringing about the
standardization of
what was before a purely personal relationship between the holder
of
stock and the company in which he participated. I am bound to
admit,
however, that I cannot adduce direct proofs in support of my
thesis. But
indirectly the evidence is fairly conclusive. Jews were great
speculators,
and speculation must of necessity tend to substitute for the
security
wherein the holder is specified one which has no such limitation.
A little.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/51
reflection will show therefore that Jews must have had no small
influ-ence
on the standardization of securities. In some cases it may even be
demonstrated that speculation was responsible for the change from
se-curities
of differing amounts to those of equal value. The Dutch East
India Company is a case in point. Originally its shares were of
all val-ues;
later only 3000 florin shares were issued.14
Banknotes
Many opinions prevail as to the precise occasion when banknotes
first
came into use. For my own part I lay stress on the standardization
here
also. The first time any banker issued a note without reference to
some
specific deposit a new type of credit instrument, the modern
banknote,
came into being. There were banknotes in existence long before
that.15
But they bore the depositor's name and referred to his money.16 I
believe
that in all probability the personal banknote became a general
(imper-sonal)
one in Venice about the beginning of the 15th century. There are
on record instances dating from that time of banks making written
prom-ises
to pay over and above the sums deposited with them. An edict of the
Venetian Senate as early as 1421 made it an offence to deal in such
documents.17 The first permission to establish a bank was granted
to
two Jews in 1400, and their success was so great that the nobili
made
haste to follow their example.18 The question arises, may these
two Jews
be regarded as the fathers of the modern (impersonal) banknote?
But perhaps no particular firm introduced the new paper money. It
may have come into existence in order to satisfy the needs of some
locality. Nevertheless, if we take as the place of its origin the
town where
the earliest banks reached a high degree of perfection, we shall
surely be
on the safe side. From this point of view Venice is admirably
qualified.
Now Venice was a city of Jews, and that is wherein its interest
for us lies
in this connexion. According to a list dating from the year 1152,
there
were no fewer than 1300 Jews in Venice.19 In the 16th century their
number was estimated at 6000; and Jewish manufacturers employed
4000 Christian workmen.20 These figures, to be sure, have no
scientific
value, but they do show that the Jews must have been pretty
numerous
in Venice. From other sources we are acquainted with some of their
activities. Thus, we find Jews among the leading bankers -- one of
the
most influential families were the Lipmans; and in 1550, as we have
already noted, the Christian merchants of Venice stated that they
might
as well emigrate if trade with the Marannos were forbidden
them..52/Werner Sombart
It is possible that the Marannos may have founded the business of
banking even while they were yet in Spain. We have, however, no
satis-factory
information, though many writers have dealt with the subject.21
There is a strong probability that at the time when measures were
taken
against them (16th century) the Jews were the leading bankers in
the
Pyrenean Peninsula. If this be so, is not the presumption
justifiable that
before then, too, the Jews engaged in banking?
Furthermore, Jews were prominent and active figures wherever in
the 17th century banks were established. They participated in the
foun-dation
of the three great banks of that period -- the Bank of Amsterdam,
the Bank of England and the Bank of Hamburg. But as none of these
owed its origin to purely commercial causes, I shall not emphasize
their
importance in connexion with the Jews. The facts, nevertheless,
are in-teresting,
and I would therefore state that the experience which the Jews
gathered when the Bank of Amsterdam was founded served them in
good stead when in 1619 the Hamburg Bank came into being. No less
than forty Jewish families took shares in the new concern. As for
the
Bank of England, the latest authorities 22 on its history are
agreed that
the suggestion for the Bank came from Jewish immigrants from
Hol-land.
Public Debt Bonds
The earliest bonds issued for public loans were addressed to some
indi-vidual
lender, and it was long before they changed then" character and
became "general" instruments. In Austria, to take one example, it
was
not until the Debt of 1761 was contracted that the bonds had
coupons
attached which gave the bearer the right to receive interest.24
Previous
to that, the bond was of the nature of a private agreement; the
Crown or
the Treasury was the debtor of some specific lender.25
To what extent the Jews were responsible for the "standardization"
of public credit it is difficult to estimate. So much is certain,
that Will-iam
III's advisers were Jews; that public borrowing in the German
States
was commenced on the model of Holland, most probably through the
influence of Dutch Jews who, as we have already seen, were the
chief
financiers in German and Austrian lands. Speaking generally, Dutch
Jews were most intimately concerned in European finance in the 18th
century.26
As for private loan-bonds or mortgage-deeds, we know very little of
their history, and it is almost impossible to compute the direct
influence.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/53
of the Jews here. But indirectly the Jews were, in all likelihood,
the
originators of this species of credit instrument, more especially
of mort-gage
deeds. We have it on record that Dutch bankers, from about the
middle of the 18th century onward, advanced money to colonial
plant-ers
on the security of their plantations. Mortgage-deeds of this kind
were bought and sold on the Stock Exchange, just like Public Debt
bonds. The bankers who dealt in them were called "correspondentie"
or
"Directeurs van de negotiatie," and the instruments themselves
"obligatie." Documents to the value of no less than 100,000,000
gulden
were in circulation before the crash of the 1770's.27
I must confess that nowhere have I found any mention of Jewish
bankers participating in these speculations. Yet even the most
superfi-cial
acquaintance with the Dutch moneymarket in the 18th century can
scarcely leave room for doubt that Jews must have been largely
inter-ested
in this business. It is a well-known fact (as I hope to show) that
in
those days anything in Holland connected with money-lending, but
es-pecially
with stocks and shares and speculation, was characteristically
Jewish. We are strengthened in this conclusion through knowing that
most of the business in mortgage-banking was carried on with the
colony
of Surinam. Of the 100,000,000 gulden of mortgage-deeds already
men-tioned,
60,000,000 worth was from Surinam. Now Surinam, as we noted
above, was the Jewish colony par excellence. The possibility that
the
credit relationship at that time between Surinam and the Motherland
was maintained by other than Jewish houses is well-nigh excluded.
So much for the "sources" regarding the Jewish share in the
devel-opment
of modern credit instruments. The sum-total is not much; it is
for subsequent research to fill in the details and to add to them.
Yet I
believe the evidence sufficient for the general conclusion that in
the stan-dardization
of modern credit the Jews took no inconsiderable share. This
impression will only be deepened if we think for a moment of the
means
by which the standardization was brought about or, at any rate,
facili-tated.
I mean the legal form of the credit instruments, which in all
prob-ability
was of Jewish origin.
There is no complete agreement among authorities on the history of
legal documents as to the origin of credit instruments.28 But in
my opin-ion
the suggestion that they owe their modern form to Jewish influence
has much to be said for it. Let it be remembered that such
documents
first came into use among merchants, in whose ranks the Jewish
element
was not insignificant. The form that became current received
recogni-.54/Werner Sombart
tion in judicial decisions, and eventually was admitted into the
body of
statute law, first of all presumably in Holland.
The only question is. Can we possibly deduce modern credit
instru-ments
from Rabbinic law? I believe we can.
In the first place, the Bible and the Talmud are both acquainted
with
credit instruments. The Biblical passage is in the Book of Tobit,
iv. 20;
v. 1, 2, 3; ix. 1, 5.
The best known passage in the Talmud is as follows (Baba Bathra,
172): --
"In the court of R. Huna a document was once produced to this
effect: T, A.B., son of C.D., have borrowed a sum of money from
you.'
R. Huna decided that 'from you' might mean 'from the Exilarch or
even
from the King himself.'"
Second, in later Jewish law, as well as in Jewish commercial
prac-tice,
the credit instrument is quite common. As regards practice, special
proof is hardly necessary; and as for theory, let me mention some
Rab-bis
who dealt with the problem.29
First in importance was Rabbenu Asher (1250--1327), who speaks
of negotiable instruments in his Responsa (lxviii. 6, 8). "If A
sends
money to B and C, and notes in his bill 'payable to bearer by B
and C,'
payment must be made accordingly." So also R. Joseph Caro in his
Choshen Mishpat: "If in any bill no name is mentioned but the
direction
is to 'pay bearer,' then whoever presents the bill receives
payment" (lxi.
10; cf. also 1.; lxi. 4, 10; lxxi. 23). R. Shabbatai Cohen in his
Shach. (1.
7; lxxi. 54) is of the same opinion.
Thirdly, it is very likely that the Jews, in the course of
business,
independently of Rabbinic laws, developed a form of credit
instrument
which was quite impersonal and general in its wording. I refer to.
the
Mamre (Mamram, Momran).30 It is claimed that this document first
appeared among the Polish Jews in the 16th century, or even
earlier. Its
form was fixed, but a space was left for the name of the surety,
some-times,
too, for the amount in question. There is no doubt that such
docu-ments
were in circulation during three centuries and were very popular,
circulating even between Christians and Jews. Their value as
evidence
consists in that they already had all the characteristics of
modern instru-ments:
(1) the holder put the document in circulation by endorsement;
(2) there is no mention of the personal relationship of the debtor
and the
creditor; (3) the debtor may not demand proof of endorsement or
trans-fer;
(4) if the debtor pays his debt without the presentation of the
Mamre.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/55
having been made to him, it is considered that he has not really
dis-charged
his obligation; and lastly (5) the cancellation of the document is
almost the same as it is to-day -- if it is lost or stolen the
holder of the
document informs the debtor; public notice is given by a
declaration
posted up for four weeks in the synagogue, wherein the bearer of
the
instrument is requested to come forward; at the end of four weeks,
if
nothing happens, the creditor demands payment of the debtor.
In the fourth place, it would appear that Jewish influences were
potent in the development of many weighty points of legal
practice. Let
me mention some.
(1) During the 16th century there circulated in different parts of
Europe credit instruments with blanks for filling in names. What
was
their origin? Is there not a possibility that they emanated from
Jewish
commercial circles, having been modelled on the pattern of the
Mamre?
They are met with in the Netherlands,31 in France 32 and in
Italy.33 In the
Netherlands they appeared towards the beginning of the 16th
century at
the Antwerp fairs, just when the Jews began to take a prominent
part in
them. An Ordinance of the year 1536 states explicitly that "at the
Antwerp
fairs payment for commodities was made by promissory notes, which
might be passed on to third persons without special permission."
It would
seem from the wording that the practice of accepting notes in
payment
for goods was a new one. What sort of documents were these notes?
Can they have been Christian Mamrem? Even more Jewish were the
documents in vogue in Italy a century later. I mean the first known
"open" note, issued by the Jewish bill-brokers, Giudetti, in
Milan. The
note was for 500 scudi, payable through John Baptist Germanus at
the
next market day in Novi to the personal order of Marcus
Studendolus in
Venice for value received. Studendolus sent the bill to de Zagnoni
Brothers
in Bologna "with his signature, leaving a sufficient blank space
at the
end for filling in the amount, and the name of the person in whose
favour
the de Zagnonis preferred payment to be made." The recorder of this
instance remarks 34 that "Italian financial intercourse could
hardly have
thought of a facility of this kind, had there not been a model
somewhere
to imitate. Such a model is found in France, where from the 17th
cen-tury
onward bearer bonds were in general circulation." The question at
once suggests itself, how did this document arise in France. Will
the
example of Holland account for it? Even in Italy it may be a case
of
Maranno influence -- Studendolo(?) in Venice, Giudetti in Milan!
(2) Of very great significance in the development of modern
credit.56/Werner Sombart
instruments is the Antwerp Custom of 1582, wherein it is for the
first
time admitted that the holder of a note has the right of suing in
a court of
law.35 This conception spread rapidly from Antwerp to Holland -- as
rapidly, indeed, as the Jewish refugees from Belgium settled down
among
the Dutch.36
(3) In Germany the first State to adopt credit instruments was
Saxony.
In the year 1747 an adventurer of the name of Bischopfield
suggested to
the Minister of Finance the plan of a Public Loan, and it seems
that
Bischopfield was in communication with Dutch Jews at the time.37
Fur-ther,
an ordinance of 20th September 1757 forbade Dutch Jews to
specu-late
in Saxon Government Stock. All of which points to Jewish influ-ence
-- on the one side of the Dutch Jews, and on the other of Polish
Jews, owing to the connexion of the royal houses of Saxony and
Poland.
So great was this influence that one authority comes to the
definite con-clusion
that the Mamre became the model for credit instruments.38
(4) Among the instruments wherein the name of the holder was
in-serted
we must include marine insurance policies. It is recorded that the
Jewish merchants of Alexandria were the first to use the formulae
"o
qual si voglia altera persona," "et qwsvis alia persona" and "sive
quamlibet aliam personam" ("or to any other person desired").39
Now why did the Jewish merchants of Alexandria adopt this legal
form? The answer to this question is of the gravest import, more
espe-cially
as I believe that the causes for which we are seeking were inherent
in the conditions of Jewish life.
(5) That leads me to my fifth consideration. It was to the
interest of
the Jews to a very large degree -- in some respects even it was to
the
interest of the Jews alone -- to have a proper legal form for
credit
instruments. For what was it that impelled the Jewish merchants of
Al-exandria
to make out their policies to bearer? Anxiety as to the fate of
their goods. Jewish ships ran the risk of capture by Christian
pirates and
the fleets of His Catholic Majesty, who accounted the wares of
Jews and
Turks as legitimate booty. Hence the Jewish merchants of Alexandria
inserted in their policies some fictitious Christian name, Paul or
Scipio,
or what you will, and when the goods arrived, received them in
virtue of
the "bearer" formula in their policies.
How often must the same cause have actuated Jews throughout the
Middle Ages! How often must they have endeavoured to adopt some
device which concealed the fact that they were the recipients
either of
money or of commodities sent from a distance. What more natural
than.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/57
that they should welcome the legal form which gave "the bearer" the
right of claiming what the document he had entitled him to. This
for-mula
made it possible for fortunes to vanish if the Jews in any locality
passed through a storm of persecution. It enabled Jews to deposit
their
money wherever they wanted, and if at any time it became
endangered,
to remove it through the agency of some fictitious person or to
transfer
their rights in such a way as not to leave a trace of their former
posses-sions.
40 It may seem inexplicable that while throughout the Middle Ages
the Jews were deprived of their "all" at very short intervals,
they man-aged
to become rich again very quickly. But regarded in the light of our
suggestion, this problem is easily explained. The fact was that
the Jews
were never mulcted of their "all"; a good portion of their wealth
was
transferred to a fictitious owner whenever the kings squeezed too
tight.
Later, when the Jews commenced to speculate in securities and
com-modities
(as we shall see in due course) it was only to be expected that
they would extend the use of this form of bond, more particularly
in the
case of securities.41 It is obvious that if a big loan is
subscribed by a
large number of comparatively small contributors bearer bonds offer
facilities of various kinds.42
The remark of a Rabbi here and there demonstrates this
conclu-sively.
One passage in the commentaries of R. Shabbatai Cohen is
dis-tinctly
typical. "The purchaser of a bond," he says, "may claim dam-ages
against the debtor if he pays the debt without obtaining a receipt,
the reason being that as there is no publicity in the transaction
this prac-tice
is detrimental to dealings in such instruments. It is true that
Rabbenu
Asher and his school expressed no view concerning Shetarot
(instru-ments)
of all kinds, which the Rabbis introduced in order to extend
com-merce.
That is because dealings in such instruments were not very com-mon,
owing to the difficulty of transfer. But the authorities were
think-ing
only of personal bonds. In the case of bearer bonds, the
circulation
of which at the present time (i.e., the 17th century) is greater
far than
that of commodities, all ordinances laid down by the Rabbis for the
extension of commerce are to be observed."
(6) Here again we touch a vital question. I believe that if we
were to
examine the whole Jewish law concerning bearer bonds and similar
in-struments
we should find -- and this is my sixth point -- that such
documents spring naturally from the innermost spirit of Jewish
law, just
as they are alien to the spirit of German and Roman law.
It is a well-known fact that the specifically Roman conception
of.58/Werner Sombart
indebtedness was a strictly personal one.43 The obligatio was a
bond
between certain persons. Hence the creditor could not transfer his
claim
to another, except under exceedingly difficult conditions. True,
in later
Roman law the theory of delegation and transmission was interpreted
somewhat liberally, yet the root of the matter, the personal
relationship,
remained unchanged.
In German law a contract was in the same way personal; nay, to a
certain extent it was even more so than in Roman law. The German
principle on the point was clear enough. The debtor was not
obliged to
render payment to any one but the original creditor to whom he had
pledged his word. There could in no wise be transference of claim
-- as
was the case in English law until 1873. It was only when Roman law
obtained a strong hold on Germany that the transfer of claims
first came
into vogue. The form it took was that of "bearer bonds" -- the
embodi-ment
of an impersonal credit relationship.
It is admitted that the legal notion underlying all "bearer"
instru-ments
-- that the document represents a valid claim for each successive
holder -- was not fully developed either in the ancient world or
in the
Middle Ages.44 But the admission holds good only if Jewish law be
left
out of account. Jewish law was certainly acquainted with the
imper-sonal
credit relationship.45 Its underlying principle is that obligations
may be towards unnamed parties, that you may carry on business with
Messrs. Everybody. Let us examine this principle a little more
closely.
Jewish law has no term for obligation: it knows only debt ("Chov")
and demand ("Tvia"). Each of these was regarded as distinct from
the
other. That a demand and a promise were necessarily bound up with
some tangible object is proved by the symbolic act of acquisition.
Con-sequently
there could be no legal obstacles to the transfer of demands or
to the making of agreements through agents. There was no necessity
therefore for the person against whom there was a claim to be
defined,
the person in question became known by the acquisition of certain
com-modities.
In reality claims were against things and not against persons.
It was only to maintain a personal relationship that the possessor
of the
things was made responsible. Hence the conception that just as an
obli-gation
may refer to some specified individual, so also it may refer to
mankind as a whole. Therefore a transference of obligations is
effected
merely by the transference of documents.
So much would appear from the view held by Auerbach. Jewish
law is more abstract in this respect than either Roman or German
law..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/59
Jewish law can conceive of an impersonal, "standardized" legal
rela-tionship.
It is not too much to assume that a credit instrument such as
the modern bearer bond should have grown out of such a legal
system as
the Jewish. Accordingly, all the external reasons which I have
adduced
in favour of my hypothesis are supported by what may be termed an
"inner" reason.
And what is this hypothesis? That instruments such as modern bearer
bonds owe thenorigin chiefly to Jewish influences.
Buying and Selling Securities
The Evolution of a Legal Code Regulating Exchange
In modern securities we see the plainest expression of the
commercial
aspect of our economic life. Securities are intended to be
circulated, and
they have not served their true purpose if they have not been
bought and
sold. Of course it may be urged that many a security rests
peacefully in
a safe, yielding an income to its owner, for whom it is a means to
an end
rather than a commodity for trading in. The objection has a good
deal in
it. A security that does not circulate is in reality not a
security at all; a
promissory note might replace it equally well. The characteristic
mark
of a security is the ease with which it may be bought and sold.
Now if to pass easily from hand to hand is the real raison d'être
of
the security, everything which facilitates that movement matters,
and
therefore a suitable legal code most of all. But when is it
suitable? When
it renders possible speedy changes in the relationship between two
people,
or between a person and a commodity.
In a society where every commodity continues as a rule in the
pos-session
of one and the same person, the law will strive all it can to fix
every relationship between persons and things. On the other hand,
if a
body of people depends for its existence on the continued
acquisition of
commodities, its legal system will safeguard intercourse and
exchange.
In modern times our highly organized system of intercommunica-tion,
and especially dealings in securities and credit instruments of all
kinds, has facilitated the removal of old and the rise of new
legal rela-tionships.
But this is contrary to the spirit of Roman and German law,
both of which placed obstacles in the way of commodities changing
hands. Indeed, under these systems any one who has been deprived
of a
possession not strictly in accordance with law may demand its
return
from the present owner, without the need of any compensation, even
though his bona-fides be established. In modern law, on the other
hand,.60/Werner Sombart
the return of the possession can be made only if the claimant pays
the
present owner the price he gave for it -- to say nothing of the
possibility
that the original owner has no claim whatever against the present
holder.
If this be so, whence did the principle, so alien to the older
systems,
enter into modern law? The answer is that in all probability it
was from
the Jewish legal code, in which laws favouring exchange were an
inte-gral
part from of old.
Already in the Talmud we see how the present owner of any object
is protected against the previous owners. "If any one," we read in
the
"Mishna" (Baba Kama, 114b and 115a), "after it has become known
that a burglary took place at his house finds his books and
utensils in the
possession of another, this other must declare on oath how much he
paid
for the goods, and on his receiving the amount returns them to the
origi-nal
owner. But if no burglary has taken place, there is no need for
this
procedure, for it is then assumed that the owner sold the goods to
a
second person and that the present owner bought them." In every
case,
therefore, the present owner obtains compensation, and in certain
given
circumstances he retains the objects without any further ado. The
"Gamara," it is true, wavers somewhat in the discussion of the
passage,
but in general it comes to the same conclusion. The present owner
must
receive "market protection," and the previous owner must pay him
the
price he gave.
The attitude of the Talmud, then, is a friendly one towards
exchange,
and the Jews adopted it throughout the Middle Ages. But more than
that
-- and this is the important point -- they succeeded quite early in
getting the principle recognized by Christian law-courts in cases
where
Jews were concerned. For centuries there was a special enactment
regu-lating
the acquisition of moveables by Jews; it received official
recogni-tion
for the first time in the "Privileges" issued by King Henry IV to
the
Jews of Speyers in 1090. "If a commodity that has been stolen," we
read
therein, "is found in the possession of a Jew who declares that he
bought
it, let him swear according to his law how much he paid for it,
and if the
original owner pays him the price, the Jew may restore the
commodity
to him." Not only in Germany, but in other lands too 46 (in France
al-ready
about the middle of the 12th century), is this special ordinance
for
Jews to be met with.47.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/61
The Stock Exchange
But when all is said, the principal thing was to establish a
suitable mar-ket
for credit instruments. The Stock Exchange answered the purpose.
And just as the commodities there to be bought and sold were
imper-sonal
embodiments of claims, so, too, was the dealing divested of its
personal character. Indeed, this is a feature of the Stock
Exchange which
differentiates it from other markets. It is no longer the
trustworthiness
that a merchant enjoys in the estimation of his fellow-merchants,
based
upon personal experience, that underlies business activities, but
the gen-eral,
abstract valuation of credit, the ditto di Borsa. Prices are no
longer
formed by the higgling of two or more traders talking over their
transac-tions,
but rather by a mechanical process, representing the average of a
thousand and one units.48
As for the history of the Stock Exchange (in the broadest
connota-tion
of the term), it may be divided into two periods -- (1) from its
beginning in the 16th to the end of the 18th century, an epoch of
growth
and development, and (2) from the 19th century to the present day,
when
the Stock Exchange dominates all economic activities.
It is now generally agreed that the origin of Stock Exchange
dealing
most likely began with the associating of bill-brokers.49 The
centres
where the famous exchanges first arose in the 16th and 17th
centuries
were previously well known for a brisk trade in bills.
The important thing for us is that just when the Stock Exchanges
came into being the Jews almost entirely monopolized bill-broking.
In
many towns, indeed, this business was regarded as a Jewish
specialty.
That such was the case in Venice we have already seen.50 It was
also
true of Amsterdam, though we must add that the first mention of
Jews in
that capacity was not until the end of the 17th century.51 Despite
this,
however, I believe we shall be safe in assuming that previous to
that
date also they were influential bill-brokers.
In Frankfort-on-the-Main we hear the same story. Already in the
16th century a contemporary"52 says of the Jews who came to the
fan's
that their presence was "hardly ornamental but certainly very
useful,
especially in the bill-discounting business." Again, in 1685, the
Chris-tian
merchants of Frankfort complained that the Jews had captured the
whole of the business of bill-broking.53 Lastly, Gliickel von
Hamein
states in her Memoirs that friends of her family dealt in bills,
"as was
customary among Jews."34
As for Hamburg, Jews certainly introduced the business of
bill-.62/Werner Sombart
broking there. A hundred years after the event (1733) a document
in the
Archives of the Senate expressed the opinion that "Jews were almost
masters of the situation in bill-broking and had quite beaten our
people
at it."55 And even as late as the end of the 18th century the Jews
were
almost the only purchasers of bills in Hamburg. Among other German
towns, it is recorded that in Furth bill-broking (in the 18th
century) was
almost entirely in Jewish hands.56
The position in Vienna was no different. The Austrian capital, as
is
well known, became a notable centre as a stock market at the end
of the
18th century, and the State Chancellor Ludewig remarks concerning
the
activities of the Jews under Leopold I, "chiefly in Vienna by the
influ-ence
and credit of the Jews business of the greatest importance is often
transacted. Especially exchanges and negotiations of the first
import in
the market."
So in Bordeaux, where we are told 57 "the chief business activity
is
buying bills and introducing gold and silver into the realm." Even
from
so far north as Stockholm the same story reaches us.58 There also
the
Jews dominated the bill-broking market in the early 19th century
(1815).
As the principal bill-brokers of the period, the Jews must have had
much to do with the establishment of the Stock Market. But more
than
that. They gave the Stock Exchange and its dealings their peculiar
fea-tures
in that they became the "originators of speculation in futures,"
and, indeed, of speculation generally.
When speculation in stocks first arose is as yet difficult to
deter-mine.
Some have held 59 that the Italian cities furnish examples of this
kind of dealing as early as the 15th century.60 But to my mind
this has
not yet been conclusively proved.61
Not in Italy in the 15th, but in Amsterdam in the 17th century will
the beginnings of modern speculation have to be more correctly
placed.
It is almost certain that the Dutch East India Company's shares
called
stock-jobbing into existence. The large number of shares of equal
value
that were suddenly put into circulation at that time, the strong
specula-tive
temper of the age, the great interest taken in the Company ever
since its foundation, the changing rates of profit that its
activities pro-duced
-- all these must surely have given an impetus to stock and share
dealing on the Amsterdam Exchange,62 then already a highly
developed
institution. In the space of only eight years dealing in stock
became so
general and so reckless that it was regarded as an evilby the
authorities,
who tried to abolish it. A proclamation by the Government of the
26th.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/63
February, 1610, forbade merchants to sell more shares than they
actu-ally
possessed. Similar prohibitions were issued in 1621, 1623, 1677,
1700 and so on, all equally without effect.
Who were the speculators? The answer is, all those irrespective of
religion who had sufficient money to enable them to participate.
Never-theless
the assumption will not be too bold that the Jews were more
prominent than others in this activity. Their contribution to the
growth
of Stock Exchange business was their specialization in stockbroking
and the device of dealing in futures. We are not without evidence
on
both points. Towards the end of the 18th century it was a generally
accepted fact that Jews had "discovered" the stock and share
business.63
This belief does not necessarily prove anything; yet that it was
without
any foundation is hardly likely, especially as there are witnesses
to give
it support. Nicolas Muys van Holy, who has already been mentioned,
says that Jews were the principal stockholders -- already in the
second
half of the 17th century. Later they are found as large investors
in both
the Dutch India Companies. De Pinto 64 is the authority as regards
the
Dutch East India Company, and for the West India Company there is
the letter of the Directors to Stuyvesant,65 the Governor of New
Amsterdam, requesting him to allow the Jews to settle in the
Company's
colony, "also because of the large amount of capital which they
have
invested in shares of the Company." Referring to both companies,
Manasseh ben Israel 66 reported to Cromwell "that the Jews were
enjoy-ing
a good part of the Dutch East and West India Company."
Most significant of all, however, the book which for the first time
exhaustively treated of Stock Exchange business in all its
branches was
written by a Portuguese Jew in Amsterdam, towards the end of the
17th
century. I refer to Don Joseph de la Vega's Confusion de
confusiones,
etc., which appeared in 1688, 67 and which a Stock Exchange
specialist
has described as "being still the best description, both in form
and sub-stance,
of stock and share dealing even to-day." The book bears witness
to the fact that a Jew was the first "theorist" in the sphere of
specula-tions
in futures. De la Vega was himself engaged in commerce and his
treatise clearly reflects the atmosphere in which he lived.
De la Vega's book in conjunction with the other evidence quoted
cannot but lead to the conclusion that if the Jews were not
actually the
"fathers" of Stock Exchange business they were certainly primarily
con-cerned
in its genesis.
Should this view nevertheless be sceptically received by some,
I.64/Werner Sombart
have a trump card in the way of direct proof in support of it.
We possess a report, probably of the French Ambassador in The
Hague, written for his Government in the year 1698, wherein he
dis-tinctly
states that the Jews held the Stock Exchange business in their
hands, and shaped its development as they willed. The most salient
pas-sages
68 here follow in full: --
In this State (Holland) the Jews have a good deal of power and
according to the prognostications of these pretended political
specu-lators,
themselves often unreliable, the prices of these stocks vary
so considerably that they cause transactions to take place several
times a day, transactions which merit the term wager or bet rather
than business; the more so, as the Jews who dominate this kind of
activity are up to all manner of tricks which take in people, even
if
they be ever so skilled.... Their Jewish brokers and agents, the
cleverest of their kind in all the world.... Bonds and shares, of
all
of which they hold large amounts.
The author, acquainted as he is with all the secrets of Stock
Ex-change
activity, describes at length how the Jews succeeded in obtaining
the influential position they held on the Amsterdam Stock
Exchange. I
shall refer to this in due course.
Much light is thrown on the conditions of the Stock Exchange in the
Dutch capital when compared with those in other centres. Let us
take
London first, which from the 18th century onward succeeded
Amsterdam
as the chief financial centre in Europe. The predominance of Jews
in the
Stock Exchange in London is perhaps more apparent even than in the
case of Amsterdam. The growing activity in the London Stock market
towards the end of the 17th century may be traced to the exertions
of
Amsterdam Jews, who at that time began to settle in England. If
this be
so, it is proof positive that the Jews were in large measure
responsible
for the expansion of Stock Exchange dealing in Amsterdam. Else how
could they have been so influential in the London Exchange, highly
developed as it then already was?
One or two particulars in the story of the accession to power of
the
Jews in the London Exchange may be noted.
In 1657 Solomon Dormido applied for admission as a member of
the Exchange, from which Jews were officially excluded. The law
which
ordered this exclusion seems to have been conveniently forgotten.
Any-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/65
how, towards the end of the 17th century the Exchange (which since
1698 had become known as 'Change Alley) was full of Jews. So
numer-ous
did they become that a special corner of the building was
designated
the "Jews' Walk." "The Alley throngs with Jews," wrote a
contempo-rary.
69
Whence these throngs?70 The answer is obvious. They came in the
train of William III from Amsterdam, and brought with them the
ma-chinery
of Stock Exchange dealings in vogue there. The events, as re-lated
by John Francis, are regarded as a true presentation by many
au-thorities,
even on the Jewish side.
The Stock Exchange was like Minerva: it appeared on the scene
ready armed. The principal participants in the first English loan
were
Jews: they assisted William III with their advice, and one of
them, the
wealthy Medina, was Marlborough's banker, giving the General an
an-nual
grantof £6,000 and receiving in return the advantage of being first
in the field with news of the wars. The victories of the English
troops
were as profitable to Medina as they were honourable for England.
All
the tricks bound up with rising and falling prices, lying reports
from the
seat of war, the pretended arrival of couriers, the formation of
financial
cliques and cabals behind the scenes, the whole system of Mammon's
wheels -- they knew them all, the early fathers of the Stock
Exchange,
and utilized them to the full to their own advantage.
By the side of Sir Solomon Medina ("the Jew Medina," as he was
called), who may be regarded as having originated speculation in
the
public funds in England, we may place a number of other wealthy
Jews
of the reign of Anne, all of whom speculated on the Stock Exchange.
Manasseh Lopez was one. He amassed a fortune in the panic which
followed the false news that the Queen was dead, buying up all
Govern-ment
Stock which had fallen in price in consequence. A similar story is
told of Sampson Gideon, known among the Gentiles as "the great Jew
broker."71 A notion of the financial strength of the Jews in the
London of
those days may be obtained when it is recalled that at the
beginning of
the 18th century the number of Jewish families with an annual
income
between £1000 and £2000 was put by Picciotto at 100; those with an
annual income of £300 at 1000; whilst some individual Jews, such as
Mendes da Costa, Moses Hart, Aaron Frank, Baron d'Aguilar, Moses
Lopez Pereira, Moses or Anthony da Costa (who towards the end of
the
17th century was a Director of the Bank of England) and others were
among the wealthiest merchants in London..66/Werner Sombart
It is evident then that the wealth of the Jews brought about Stock
Exchange speculation on a large scale. But more striking still,
the busi-ness
of stock-jobbing as a specialized profession was introduced into
the London Exchange by Jews, probably in the first half of the 18th
century. As far as I am aware this fact has hitherto passed
unnoticed.
But there is abundant proof in support of it.
Postlethwayt, who is pretty reliable in matters of this kind,
asserts 72
that "Stock-jobbing . . . was at first only the simple occasional
transfer-ring
of interest and shares from one to another as persons alienated
their
estates; but by the industry of the stockbrokers, who got the
business
into their hands, it became a trade; and one, perhaps, which has
been
managed with the greatest intrigue, artifice, and trick that ever
anything
which appeared with a face of honesty could be handled with; for,
while
the brokers held the box, they made the whole exchange the
gamesters,
and raised and lowered the prices of stocks as they pleased and
always
had both buyers and sellers, who stood ready, innocently to commit
their money to the mercy of their mercenary tongues."
That Jews formed a considerable proportion of brokers is
well-known.
As early as 1697, out of one hundred sworn brokers on the
London Exchange, no fewer than twenty were Jews and aliens.
Doubt-less
their number increased in the centuries that followed. "The
He-brews
flocked to 'Change Alley from every quarter under heaven," wrote
Francis. Indeed, a reliable observer of the 1730's (that is to
say, a gen-eration
after their first appearance on the London Exchange) remarks 73
that there were too many Jewish brokers for them all to do
business,
consequently this "has occasioned almost one half of the Jew
brokers to
run into stock-jobbing." The same authority puts the number of Jews
then in London at 6000.
This process, by which stock-jobbing was in a sense the outcome of
stockbroking, was not limited to London. The same tendencies showed
themselves in Frankfort. Towards the end of the 17th century the
Jews
there were in possession of the entire broking business,74 and
gradually
no doubt worked their way into stock-jobbing. In Hamburg 75 the
Portu-guese
Jews had four brokers in 1617, whilst a little later there were
twenty. Taking these facts into consideration, taking into
consideration
also that public opinion regarded the Jews as responsible for the
growth
of arbitrage business on the London Exchange,76 and that Jews
partici-pated
to a great degree in the big speculations in Government Stock
towards the end of the 18th century, we shall be forced to agree
with the.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/67
view that has been expressed by a first-rate authority,77 that if
to-day
London is the chief financial centre of the world, it owes this
position in
large measure to the Jews.
In the period of early capitalism, the Stock Exchanges of other
towns
lagged far behind those of Amsterdam and London. Even in Paris it
was
not until towards the end of the 18th century that business became
at all
brisk. The beginnings of stock speculation (or Agiotage, as it is
called
in France) can be traced to the early 18th century; Ranke 78
discovered
the term Agioteur in a letter of Elisabeth Charlotte, dated 18th
January,
1711. The writer is of the opinion that the term had some connexion
with the billets de monnaye (bills) but that it was unknown
before. It
would seem, therefore, that the Law period left no lasting
impression.
For even in the 1730's the economic pre-eminence of England and
Hol-land,
both more capitalistically advanced than their neighbour, was felt
in France. One writer of the time 79 makes this clear. "The
circulation of
stock is one of the sources of great wealth to our neighbours;
they have
a bank, dividendsare paid, and stock and shares are sold."
Apparently
then such was not the case in France. Even in 1785, an edict (7th
Au-gust)
proclaimed that "the King is informed that for some time past a
new kind of commodity has been introduced into the capital" --
viz.,
stocks and shares.
The condition of comparative unimportance which Stock Exchange
activities occupied in France during the 18th century is a direct
indica-tion
that the Jews had little influence on the economic life of France
(and
especially of Paris) in that period. The cities in which they
resided, such
as Lyons or Bordeaux, were hardly favourable to the development of
stockbroking. In Lyons, however, there was for a short space, in
the
16th century, a fairly brisk trade in what would to-day be called
securi-ties,
but no satisfactory reasons have as yet been offered to explain
it.80
Anyhow, it had no after-effects.
But to return to Paris. What stockbroking it had it probably owed
to
the Jews. The centre of this business was in the Rue Quincampoix,
which later became notorious through the swindles connected with
the
name of Law. Now in this particular street there lived, in the
words of a
reliable authority,81 "many Jews." Be that as it may, the man with
whom
the first stock speculations in France were connected, one who was
a
greater master of the art of manipulation than even Law, was Samuel
Bernard, the well-known financier of Louis XIV. No wonder then that
the billets de monnaye, when they became merely bits of valueless
pa-.68/Werner Sombart
per, were nicknamed Bernardines.82 And as for John Law, his
knowl-edge
of the mechanism of the Stock Exchange had been acquired in
Amsterdam.83 Whether he was himself a Jew (it has been held 84 that
Law == Levy) I have been unable to discover. It is, however, quite
possible. Was not his father a "goldsmith" (and banker)? He was,
it is
true, a Christian, but that is not necessarily a proof of his
non-Jewishness.
The Jewish appearance of the man in portraits (for example, in the
Ger-man
edition (1720) of his Money and Trade Considered) rather sup-ports
the thesis that he was a Jew. On the other hand, the peculiar
mix-ture
of the lordling and the adventurer which characterized his nature
is
against the assumption.
In Germany the Exchanges of Frankfort and Hamburg, the two Jew-ish
towns par excellence, alone reached a position of any importance.
Illustrations of the Jewish influence have already been dealt with.
As for Berlin, it may be said that the Stock Exchange there was a
Jewish institution from its very inception. At the beginning of
the last
century, even before 1812, when they were emancipated, the Jews
pre-dominated
numerically on the Exchange. Of the four Presidents, two
were Jews; and the whole Stock Exchange Committee was made up as
follows: -- 4 Presidents, 10 Wardens of the two Gilds, 1 of the
Elbe
Seamen's Gild, and 8 "of the merchants of the Jewish nation,
elected
thereto." Out of a total of 23, therefore, 10 were Jews. That is
to say,
professing Jews: it is impossible to determine whether, and how
many,
baptized Jews and crypto-Jews were in the committee.
As it is, their number shows plainly enough that stockbroking had
its large quota of Jews. Of six sworn bill-brokers three were
Jews. Fur-ther,
of the two sworn brokers in cotton and silk, one was a Jew, and his
substitute was also a Jew. That is to say, of a total of three,
two were
Jews.85
Stockbroking so far as Germany in the 18th century was concerned
was carried on only in Hamburg and Frankfort. Already at the
begin-ning
of that century trading in securities was forbidden. A proclamation
of the Hamburg Council, dated 19th July, 1720, expresses itself as
fol-lows:
-- "The Council has heard to its abhorrence and great disgust,
that certain private citizens, under the pretext of founding an
assurance
company, have on their own authority commenced business as dealers
in shares. The Council fears that harmful consequences may ensue
there-from
as well to the public at large, as also to the said private
citizens."86
It seems that the powers that be were only voicing the general
feeling in.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/69
the matter; "the dangerous and wickedly ruinous trade in stocks and
shares" a writer of the tune 87 indignantly called it.
Were Jews here also the originators? So much at least is certain,
that the impetus to stock-dealing came from the circles of the
assurers,
as is apparent from the above-mentioned proclamation of 1720. Now,
as a matter of fact, it is known that Jews actively stimulated the
growth
of marine insurance in Hamburg.88 Any further evidence as to Stock
Exchange influences is only indirect. The same applies to
Frankfort The
first certain trace dates from 1817, and refers to Augsburg. There
is on
record the decision of a court of law in a bill case of the 14th
February
in the year mentioned. A motion to enforce payment of the
difference in
the price of a credit-instrument which rose owing to the rise of
the mar-ket-
rate was dismissed, on the ground that it was of the nature of a
game
of hazard. The sum in question was 17,630 florins, and the original
contract was for delivery of 90,000 florins' worth of lottery
tickets in
the Bavarian State Lottery. The plaintiff's name was Heymann, the
defendant's H. E. Ullmann! This is the first attested case of
speculation
in bonds in Germany.89
But with the year 1817 we reach a period which differed from the
preceding one, and which I consider as opening a new epoch in the
history of Stock Exchange transactions. Why new? What were its
spe-cial
features that it should be described by that dreadful word
"mod-ern"?
Judgments on the Stock Exchange by contemporaries then and now
show how widely different a position it occupies to-day from what
it did
even a hundred years ago.
Until well on in the 18th century, even in capitalistic circles,
specu-lation
in the public funds was looked at askance. The standard commer-cial
handbooks and dictionaries in English, French, Italian and German,
which have come down to us from the 18th century, either make no
mention at all of dealings in stocks (especially in the
economically "back-ward"
countries), or if, like Postlethwayt, they do treat of the subject,
they cannot sufficiently express their contempt for it. The view
concern-ing
the Stock Exchange which is to-day held by the petty trader, the
small shopkeeper or the farmer was in the 18th century that of the
rich
merchant. When in 1733 Sir John Barnard's Bill (to prevent the
"infa-mous
practice of stock-jobbing") was being discussed in the House of
Commons, all the speakers were unanimous in their condemnation of
the business. Half a generation later the same harsh terms are to
be.70/Werner Sombart
found in the pages of Postlethwayt, who refers to "those
mountebanks
we very properly call stockbrokers." Stock-jobbing he regards as a
"pub-lic
grievance," which has become "scandalous, to the nation."90 No
wonder that the legislation of the period completely forbade the
busi-ness.
But the dislike of the Stock Exchange went deeper still. It was
bound
up with an aversion for what the Exchange rested on -- securities
in
general. Naturally the interests of the State coincided with those
who
defended the trade in securities, so that Ruler and Jobber were
ranged as
a lonely couple on one side, while everybody else was on the other
--
save only those who indulged in the purchase of securities. In
truth, the
National Debt was looked upon as something of which States had need
to be ashamed, and the best men of their generation were agreed
that its
growth was an evil which should be combated by all possible means.
Thinkers and practical men were united on this point. In commercial
circles the question was seriously discussed how the public debt
could
be paid off, and it was even suggested that the State should
disavow its
responsibilities in connexion with the debt, and so wipe it out.
And this
in England in the second half of the 18th century!91 Nor were the
theo-rists
of the time differently minded. The system of public borrowing is
called by David Hume "a practice . . . ruinous beyond all
controversy;"92
Adam Smith writes of "the ruinous practice of funding," "the
ruinous
expedient of perpetual funding ... has gradually enfeebled every
State
which has adopted it" . . . "the progress of the enormous debts,
which at
present oppress and will in the long run probably ruin all the
great na-tions
of Europe."93 In these opinions, as always, Adam Smith is the
mirror of the economic conditions of his age, a period of early
capitalis-tic
development, and nothing distinguishes it from our own so well as
the fact that in the complete system of Adam Smith there is no
niche
available for the study of securities, or of the Stock Exchange
and its
business.
About the same time, however, a book appeared which dealt only
with credit and its blessings, with the Stock Exchange and its
signifi-cance;
a book which may be justly termed the "Song of Songs" of Pub-lic
Debts and share-dealing; a book which looked to the Future, as the
Wealth of Nations looked to the Past. I refer to the Traité du
credit et de
la circulation, published in 1771 from the pen of Joseph de Pinto.
Now
Pinto was a Portuguese Jew, hence my special reference to him in
this
connexion. In his pages may be found the very arguments which
have.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/71
been put forward in the 19th century in defence of public credit,
of
dealings in securities and of speculation in the public funds. If
Adam
Smith in his system be said to stand at the end ofthe period in
which the
Stock Exchange was in its infancy, Pinto may be regarded as
standing
at the beginning of the modern era with its theory of credit, in
which
stock and share speculation have become the centre of economic
activ-ity,
and the Stock Exchange the heart of the body economic.
Silently, but none the less surely, public opinion veered round in
favour of dealings in securities and of the recognition of the
Stock Ex-change
as a necessity. Public opinion grew as these grew, and step by
step, hostile legislation was removed, so that when the Napoleonic
wars
were over and peace reigned once more, the Stock Exchange began to
take on enormous dimensions.
We see, then, that there is some justification for speaking of a
new
period in the history of the Stock Exchange. What were the actual
changes? And to what extent were the Jews concerned in bringing
about
the new state of affairs?
There was not much modification in the mechanism of the Stock
Exchange; that was complete as early as 1688, when de la Vega
pub-lished
his book. Naturally, subsidiary kinds of business activities
cropped
up here and there, and of these, too, Jews were generally the
originators.
Thus I have discovered 94 that the business of insurance was
established
(in Germany) by W. Z. Wertheimer in Frankfort, and that of the
peculiar
form of ship chartering known as "Heuergeschäft" Jews were the
founders.
But the rise of subsidiary businesses was not the salient point in
the
development of Stock Exchange activities. It was rather the
extensive
and intensive growth of the volume of business.
The enormous increase in the number of securities which have
ap-peared
in the market since the beginning of the 19th century, and the
rapidity with which they came before the public, are facts too
well known
to need repetition. But with this increase came also an extension
of specu-lation.
Until about the middle of the 18th century, speculation in London
and Amsterdam may be compared to little ripples on the face of the
water. It was not till 1763, as a reliable informant tells us,
that the first
private loan was floated in Amsterdam. Previously what speculation
there was was limited to public bonds, "but during the last war a
vast
ocean of annuities flooded the market."95 Even so, there were only
forty-four
different kinds of securities on the Amsterdam Exchange about
the.72/Werner Sombart
middle of the century. Of these, twenty-five were bonds of
internal, and
six of German loans. When the century closed, the first category of
bonds numbered eighty, and the second thirty.96 Then came a sudden
upward movement, especially after the defeat of Napoleon. From the
first establishment of the Amsterdam Exchange until the year 1770,
a
total debt of 250,000,000 Gulden had been dealt in; whereas in
fourteen
years (1808--22) one London firm alone issued a greater sum --
22,000,000 pounds. All this is common knowledge; and the identity
of
that one London firm, which in a decade floated so vast a sum on
the
market, does not need further indication.
With the mention of this firm, and of its four branches, we have
touched on the connexion between the extensive growth of Stock
Ex-change
activities and the Jewish influence upon it. For the expansion of
the share market between 1800 and 1850 was also the expansion of
the
house of Rothschild and its appendages. The name Rothschild refers
to
more than the firm: it stands for the whole of Jewish influence on
the
Stock Exchange. By the aid of that influence the Rothschilds were
en-abled
to attain to their powerful position -- it may even be said to
their
unique position -- in the market for Government securities. It was
no
exaggeration to assert that in many a land the minister of finance
who
could not come to an agreement with this firm might as well close
the
doors of his exchequer. "There is only one power in Europe," was a
dictum well-known about the middle of the 19th century, "and that
is
Rothschild: a dozen other banks are his underlings, his soldiers
are all
honest merchants and workmen, and speculation is his sword" (A.
Weil).
Heine's wit, in passages that are surely too well-known to need
quoting,
has demonstrated the importance of the family better far than any
table
of figures.
I have not the least intention of writing here a history of the
Rothschilds, even in outline. The reader will find ample material
97 at his
disposal should he wish to acquaint himself with the fortunes of
this
remarkable family. All I shall do will be to point out one or two
charac-teristics
which the modern Stock Exchange owes to them, in order to
make clear that not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively,
the Stock
Exchange bears the impress of the Rothschilds (and therefore of the
Jew).
The first feature to be observed is that, since the appearance of
the
Rothschilds, the stock market has become international. This was
only
to be expected, considering the enormous extension of Stock
Exchange.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/73
activities, which necessitated the flow of vast sums from all
parts of the
inhabited world to the borrowing centres. To-day the
internationaliza-tion
of the stock market is an accepted fact; at the commencement of the
19th century it was regarded with nothing short of amazement. When
in
1808, during the Peninsular War, Nathan Rothschild undertook in
Lon-don
to attend to the pay of the English army in Spain, his action was
regarded as a stupendous achievement, and indeed, laid the
foundation
of all his influence. Until 1798 only the Frankfort firm had been
in
existence; in that year one of the sons of Mayer Amschel
established a
branch in London, another son settled in Paris in 1812, a third in
Vienna
in 1816, and a fourth in Naples in 1820. The conditions were thus
given
whereby a foreign loan might be treated as though it were an
internal
loan, and gradually the public became accustomed to investing their
capital in foreign securities, seeing that the interest could be
paid at
home in coins of the realm. Writers of the early 19th century
describe it
as a marvellous thing that "every holder of Government stock . . .
can
receive his dividends in various places at his convenience without
any
difficulty. The Rothschilds in Frankfort pay interest for many
Govern-ments;
the Paris house pays the dividends on the Austrian Métalliques,
the Neapolitan Rentes, the Anglo-Neapolitan Loan either in London,
Naples or Paris."98
The circle of possible investors was thus enlarged. But the
Rothschilds were also alive to the importance of obtaining every
avail-able
penny that could be borrowed, and for this purpose they skilfully
utilized the machinery of the Stock Exchange for floating loans.
As far as can be judged from contemporary records,99 the issue by
the Rothschilds of the Austrian bonds in 1820--1 was an
epoch-making
event, both in public borrowing and in Stock Exchange business. For
the first time all the ropes were pulled to create a demand for
the shares,
and speculations in Government stocks may be stated to have begun
on
this occasion, at least on the Continent.
"To create a demand" was henceforth the watchword of the Stock
Exchange. "To create a demand" was the object in view when, by
means
of systematic buying and selling, changes were brought about in
price;
and the Rothschilds devoted themselves to the business from the
first.100
In a sense, they carried on what the French called agiotage, and
this
was something quite new for a great banking firm to do. In reality
the
Rothschilds only adopted the methods of the Amsterdam Jews for
artifi-cially
influencing the market, but they applied them to a new purpose
--.74/Werner Sombart
the placing of fresh securities before the public.
The changed relation of the banker to the Stock Exchange on the
one hand, and to the public on the other, will become more apparent
when we have glanced at the new activities which loomed on the
horizon
at this period -- the age of the Rothschilds -- and began to play
an
independent role. I mean the business of bringing out loans.
The Creation of Securities
The business of bringing out loans is an attempt to obtain profit
by
means of the creation of securities. It is important because it
represents
a capitalistic force of exceedingly great power. Henceforth,
stocks and
shares come into being not because of the needs of those who
require
money and depend on credit, but quite independently, as a form of
capi-talistic
enterprise. Hitherto the possible investor was waited for until he
came; now he is sought out. The loan-floater becomes, as it were,
ag-gressive;
he gives the impetus to the borrowing movement. But this is
hardly ever noticeable. We see how it works, however, when small
States
require loans; we may imagine a kind of "commercial traveller in
loans."
"Now we have wealthy firms with large machinery, whose time and
staff are devoted to hunting about the world for Powers for whom to
bring out loans."101
Naturally, the loan-floater's relation to the Stock Exchange and
the
public changes. He must be aggressive and pushful, now that his
main
work is to get people to take up shares.
There is as yet no satisfactory history of the business of bringing
out loans. We do not know, therefore, when it first began; its
origins,
however, no doubt reach back into the 18th century, and probably
there
were three well marked stages in its growth.
In the first of these, either a bank or a wealthy individual (who,
in
the pre-Stock Exchange period himself made the loan) was entrusted
with the placing of the debt in return for a commission. Such was
the
method adopted in Austria throughout the whole of the 18th century:
"Loans of fairly large sums, especially those contracted abroad,
were
usually obtained through the intervention of a bank or a group of
finan-ciers.
The firm in question arranged, by means of public subscription,
for the supply of the amount needed; handed over the sum to the
bor-rower
or his agent; undertook' the payment of interest and portions of
the principal to the individual lenders -- out of their own funds
if need
be; all, of course, for a consideration."102.The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/75
But about the middle of the 18th century there were already
"deal-ers
in loans." In 1769 there were Italian and Dutch firms who would
willingly undertake the floating of loans.103 Adam Smith's
description
of this business makes the matter plainer still. "In England . . .
the
merchants are generally the people who advance money to Government.
But by advancing it they do not mean to diminish, but, on the
contrary,
to increase their mercantile capitals; and unless theyexpected to
sell
with some profit their share in the subscription for a new loan,
they
never would subscribe." In France, on the other hand, those
concerned
in the finances were people of private means, who advanced their
own
money.104
Where did the specialists in this business come from? Not from
among the bankers, who in the 18th century floated loans, but in
all
probability from among the dealers in stock and shares. Towards the
end of the 18th century the charmed circle of London bankers who
had
the monopoly of bringing out Government loans was broken through by
competition from the ranks of the stockholders. Here, too, it was
a Jew-ish
firm that took the initiative, and brought the emission of loans
into
connexion with the Stock Exchange. I refer to the "Rothschilds of
the
18th century," the men who predominated in 'Change Alley in those
days -- Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid. In 1792 they came forward
as the first members of the Stock Exchange 105 to compete with the
bank-ers
of London in the bringing out of the new loan, and from that date
until the death of the second brother, Abraham, which occurred in
1810,
this firm controlled the money market. Perhaps we may account them
as
the first "loan specialists," whom the Rothschilds succeeded. But
even
if there is some doubt about the Goldsmids' claim, there can be no
pos-sible
doubt about the Rothschilds', who were thus certainly the first in
the field.
But it is obvious that only a few wealthy firms could subsist by
the
business of issuing public loans. After all, the demand was
compara-tively
limited. But as soon as opportunities offered themselves for the
creation of securities for private needs, a very wide field of
activity was
ready for ploughing. All that was necessary was to create a big
demand
artificially, and this tendency gave birth to company-promoting and
mortgage business.
Company-promoting is carried on by firms "whose business it
pro-fessedly
is to make money by manufacturing stocks and shares whole-sale
and forcing them upon the public" (Crump). The strength of
the.76/Werner Sombart
motive power that thus began to actuate economic activities need
scarcely
be described. It was not to the interest of undertakers, some of
no small
importance, to create fresh capital by the issue of new stock or
by ex-tending
the old, without any reference at all to the question as to whether
there was a demand for the stock or not.
Who first started this form of business? It will not be difficult
to
show that even if the Jews did not actually establish it, they
certainly
helped forward its development.
The first ray of light on this matter, as far as we can make out,
is
once again the activity of the Rothschilds. The railway boom of the
1830's made it possible to carry on company-promoting on a large
scale.
The Rothschilds, as well as other Jewish houses (the d'Eichthals,
the
Foulds, etc.), were the first in the field, and brought this
branch of busi-ness
to a flourishing condition.
The extent of the participation may be gathered in some degree from
the length of the lines built, or the amount of capital
subscribed. But the
actual share of the individual firms cannot be estimated.
Nevertheless,
we know that the Rothschilds "built" the Northern Railway in
France,
the Northern Railway in Austria, the Austro-Italian Railway, and
many
more.
Further, judging from the views of contemporaries, it would appear
that the Rothschilds were really the first "Railway Kings." In
1843 the
Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung wrote as follows: "When in the last
few years speculation became rife in industrial undertakings, and
rail-ways
grew to be a necessity for the Continent, the Rothschilds took the
plunge and placed themselves at the head of the new movement." The
house of Rothschild set the fashion in railway building as it had
done
before in public loans. "Scarcely a company that was started in
Ger-many
but looked to the goodwill of Rothschild. Those in which he had
no say were not very successful, and little could be made out of
them."106
Statements such as these, in which friend and foe agree, are
significant
enough.
Ever since those days the activity of floating companies has become
a specialty of Jewish undertakers. In the first place, the very
biggest
men, such as Baron Hirsch or Dr. Strousberg, were Jews. But the
rank
and file, too, have many Jews among them. A glance at the figures
on
the next page concerning the promotion of companies in Germany in
the
two years 1871--3 suffices to show that an astoundingly large
number of
Jews participated in the work.107 But these figures do not tell
the whole.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/77
story. In the first place, they form only a selection of the
whole, and
refer (of set purpose) to the "shaky" companies, from which the
Jews
will probably have kept away; and secondly, in many cases, the Jews
were behind the scenes as controlling influences, and those in the
fore-ground
were merely puppets. Even so the figures will serve a useful
purpose.
The tendency is perhaps best seen where private banking is still
important, as it is in England. Here, as I am told on the best
authority, of
the 63 banks in the Bankers' Almanack for 1904, 33 were Jewish
firms,
or at least with a strong Jewish interest, and of these 33, 13
were first-class
concerns.
It is more difficult to determine the proportion of Jews in this
call-ing
in countries (e.g., Germany) where the private banker has been
dis-placed
by the joint-stock bank. But everything points to Jewish influ-ence
in the tendency of the joint-stock banks to act as company
promot-ers.
None of the decades of company-flotation, neither the fifties nor
the
seventies, nor still less the nineties, would have been
conceivable with-out
the co-operation of the speculative bank. The stupendous
undertak-ings
in railway construction owe their very existence to the banks,
which
advanced capital to limited companies of their own creation.
Private
firms, it is true, did no little in the same direction, but their
means did
not allow of rivalry with the great banks. In France, between 1842
and
1847, no less than 144 million francs were spent in railway
building; in
the following four years 130 millions, while from 1852 to 1854 the
sum
had reached 250 millions; in 1855 alone it was 500 millions, and in
1856 520 millions.108 It was the same in Germany. "The entire work
of
building our net of railways in this period (1848--70) . . . was
carried
through . . . with the assistance of banks."109
The reason for this is not far to seek. On the one hand, the
increase
of available capital, which was due to the rise of new joint-stock
banks,
paved the way for proportionately larger undertakings. On the other
hand, since the joint-stock company in trying to obtain greater
profits
strove, harder than a private firm to add to its activities, all
possible
opportunities that presented themselves were utilized to the
full.110
How did this special banking activity originate?111 I believe it
may
be traced to 1852, when the credits mobiliers 112 were first
established.
The history of the crédit mobilier is well known.113 What interests
us specially is that it owes its inception to two Portuguese Jews,
Isaac.78/Werner Sombart
and Emil Pereire, and that other Jews participated in it. The list
of sub-scribers
showed that the two Pereires together held 11,446 shares, and
Fould-Oppenheim 11,445, that among the other large shareholders
were
Mallet Freres, Benjamin Fould, Torlonia (of Rome), Solomon Heine
(of
Hamburg), Oppenheim (of Cologne) -- in other words, the chief
repre-sentatives
of European Jewry. The Rothschilds were not found in the
ist, for the crédit mobilier was directed against them.
Nature of Establishment Total Number Number
of Founders of Jews
Twenty-five firms of first-rate importance
that floated companies 25 16
Two of the biggest mining syndicates 13 5
Continental Railway Company
(capital 1½ million sterling) 6 4
Twelve land-purchase companies in Berlin 80 27
Building Society, "Unter den Linden" 8 4
Nine building banks 104 37
Nine Berlin breweries 54 27
Twenty North German machine
building companies 148 47
Ten North German gasworks 49 18
Twenty paper factories 89 22
Twelve North German chemical works 67 22
Twelve North German textile factories 65 27
The French crédit mobilier produced in the years that followed a
number of offshoots, legitimate and illegitimate, all of Jewish
blood. In
Austria there was the "Kaiserlich-Koenigliche privilegierte
oesterreichische Kreditanstalt," established in 1855 by S. M.
Rothschild.
In Germany the first institution modelled on the new principle was
the
Bank fur Handel und Industrie (Darmstadter Bank), founded in 1853,
on the initiative of the Oppenheims of Cologne.114 One of the
first direc-tors
of this bank was Hess, who had been a high official in the crédit
mobilier. The Berliner Discontogesellschaft was the second
institution
of the same kind. Its origin was Christian, but its transformation
into
what it is to-day is the work of David Hausemann. It was the same
with
the third German instance -- the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft,
which
was called into being by the Cologne firms already mentioned in
connexion with the Darmstadter Bank, and by the best known Berlin
bankers, such as Mendelssohn Co., S. Bleichroder, Robert
Warschauer.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/79
Co., Schickler Brothers, and others Finally, in the case of the
Deutsche
Bank (1870) the Jewish element again predominated.
The Commercialization of Industry
With the speculative banks capitalistic development reached its
zenith,
at any rate, for the time being. They pushed the process of the
commer-cialization
of economic life as far forward as it could go. Themselves
children of the Stock Exchange, the speculative banks brought Stock
Exchange activities (i.e., speculation) to their fullest bloom.115
Trade in
securities was extended to undreamt-of proportions. So much so,
that
the opinion has been expressed that, in Germany at any rate, the
specu-lative
joint-stock banks will replace the Stock Exchange.118 There may
be a grain of truth in this, provided the terms be properly
understood.
That the Stock Exchange may cease to be an open market and be
domi-nated
by la haute finance is possible; but as an economic organization it
is bound to gain, if anything, by modern developments, seeing that
its
sphere is continuously being widened.
That is what I mean by the commercialization of industry. The Stock
Exchange activities of the joint-stock banks are becoming more and
more the controlling force in every department of economic life.
Indeed,
all undertakings in the field of industry are now determined by
the power
of finance. Whether a new industrial concern shall be established
or an
old one enlarged, whether a "universal provider" shall receive an
in-crease
of capital in order to extend his business -- all this is now
de-cided
in the private offices of banks or bankers. In the same way the
distribution of commodities is becoming more and more a financial
prob-lem.
It is not too much to say that our chief industries are as much
financial as industrial concerns. The Stock Exchange determines the
price of most international manufactured articles and raw
materials,
and he who hopes to survive the competitive strain must be able to
command the Stock Exchange. In a word, it may be safely asserted
that
all economic activities nowadays are tending to become commercial
dealings.
The electrical industry is the best example. From its first
founda-tions
it represented a new type. Hitherto the great capitalistic
industries
regarded their work as finished when they had obtained and carried
out
their orders. A particular factory would appoint an agent in every
big
town, who in most cases represented other factories as well, and
whose
search for customers could not be marked by any very striking
initia-.80/Werner Sombart
tive. In the electrical industry all this was changed. Its
organizers were
the first to see that one of the primary duties of an industry was
to create
a market for itself. What did they do? They endeavoured to capture
the
customer. On the one hand, they attempted to control buyers. For
ex-ample,
by purchasing shares either in tram companies about to be turned
into electric tramways, or in entirely new undertakings, they
could ob-tain
a dominating influence over the body which gave orders for the
commodities they were manufacturing. In case of need, the
directors of
electrical undertakings would themselves call into being limited
compa-nies
for such activities as would create a demand for their goods. The
most successful electrical works have to-day become in an
increasing
degree similar to banks for floating companies.
Nor is this all. Another policy they adopted was to establish
branches
in all parts in order to seize upon as much of the market as they
could.
Whereas formerly reliance was placed on general agents, now the
work
of extending the connexion is delegated by each firm to a special
repre-sentative
of its own. What is the result? The customer is seen at closer
quarters; his needs are better understood and, therefore, better
supplied;
his wishes more easily met, and so forth.
It is well known that such was the system adopted by the Allgemeine
Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft and that Felix Deutsch was foremost in
its
extension. The older companies have but slowly followed suit.
Siemens
and Halske long thought themselves "too grand to run after
customers,"
until Berliner, one of their directors, accepted the new plan to
such good
effect, that his company soon regained the lost ground from its
rival.
This instance is typical, and we may say generally that the
commer-cialization
of industry was the gap in the hedge through which the Jews
could penetrate into the field of the production and
transportation of
commodities, as they had done earlier in commerce and finance.
By this we are not asserting that the history of the Jews as
industri-alists
commences here. Far from it. As soon as modern capitalism
dif-ferentiated
between the technical and commercial aspects of all eco-nomic
processes, so soon was the Jew found engaged in both. It is true
that commerce attracted him more, but already in the early
capitalistic
period Jews were among the first undertakers in one industry or
another.
Here they established the tobacco industry (Mecklenberg, Austria);
there, whisky distilling (Poland, Bohemia); in some countries they
were
leather manufacturers (France, Austria), in others silk
manufacturers
(Prussia, Italy and Austria); they made stockings in Hamburg;
looking-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/81
glasses in Fürth; starch in France; cotton in Moravia. And almost
ev-erywhere
they were pioneers in the tailoring trade. I could show by
ref-erence
to the materials I have collected that in the 18th and early 19th
centuries there were many other instances of Jews as capitalistic
indus-trialists.
117 But I hold that an account of this aspect of Jewish economic
history is useless, seeing that it contains nothing specifically
Jewish.
Jews were driven into an industry by mere chance, and in all
probability
it would have thriven without them equally well. Let us take an
instance
or two. In Poland and Austria the position of the Jews as the
stewards of
the nobility brought it about that they became whisky distillers.
In other
countries their enterprise in the tobacco industry was a direct
result of
their status as Court Jews, in connexion with which they very
often held
the tobacco monopoly. In the majority of instances their commercial
activities led to their stocking manufactured articles, and
eventually to
their making of them, as in the case of textiles. But the process
is a
common one, and non-Jews passed through it equally with Jews. There
was, however, an exception in the case of old clo' dealing. That
was an
essentially Jewish business, and led first to the sale of new
clothes, and
eventually to tailoring.
But when all is said, Jewish influence on industrial undertakings
was not very great until their commercialization came about; that
is,
until in almost every modern industry the work of directing and
organiz-ing
has become common to all, and a man may pass from one industry
to another without thereby diminishing his skill. The technical
side is
now in all cases a subdivision by itself. It is no uncommon thing
there-fore
to find that a man who started in the leather industry ends up as
an
ironmaster, after having been in turn (shall we say?) a
manufacturer of
alcoholic liquors and of sulphuric acid. The capitalistic
undertaker of
old bore a technical impress, the modern undertaker is quite
colourless.
Can you imagine Alfred Krupp manufacturing anything but guns,
Borsig
anything but machines, Werner von Siemens anything but electrical
ap-paratus?
Can you picture H. H. Myer at the head of any other concern
but the Nord-deutscher Lloyd? On the other hand, if Rathenau,
Deutsch,
Berliner, Arnold, Friedlander, Ballin changed positions to-morrow
they
would be no less successful than in their present capacities. And
what is
the reason? They are all men of commerce, and the particular
sphere of
their activity matters not in the least.
It has been put thus: the Christian makes his way up, starting as
technician; the Jew as commercial traveller or clerk..82/Werner
Sombart
The extent of Jewish participation in industrial undertakings
to-day
would be very useful to know, but there is little material to go
upon. We
shall have to be content with an approximate estimate, based on the
numbers of Jews who are directors of industrial concerns. The
method
is unsatisfactory -- naturally so. How is it possible to say with
cer-tainty
who is a Jew and who is not? How many people are aware, for
example, that Hagen of Cologne, who holds more directorships than
any other man in Germany, was originally called Levy? But apart
from
this, mere numbers are no criterion of the extent of influence.
Moreover,
in some companies business ability alone does not determine the
mem-bership
of the Board of Directors; in others there is an unwritten law to
exclude Jews from positions of trust. In any case, therefore, the
figures
that have been obtained relate only to a small portion of the
Jewish
influence.
MANAGING DIRECTORS
Industry Total Number Percentage
of Jews of Jews
Leather and rubber 19 6 31.5
Metal 52 13 25.0
Electrical 95 22 23.1
Brewing 71 11 15.7
Textiles 59 8 13.5
Chemicals 46 6 13.0
Mining 183 23 12.8
Machinery 90 11 12.2
Potash 36 4 11.1
Cement, timber, glass, 57 4 7.0
Total 808 108 13.3
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Industry Total Number Percentage
of Jews of Jews
Brewing 165 52 31.5
Metal 130 40 30.7
Cement, timber, glass, 137 41 29.9
Potash 156 46 29.4
Leather and rubber 42 12 28.6
Electrical 339 91 26.8
Mining 640 153 23.9
Chemicals 127 29 22.8.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/83
Machinery 215 48 21.4
Textiles 141 19 13.5
Total 2092 511 24.4
For all that I quote them; they have been compiled for me from the
last edition of the Handbook of German Joint-Stock Companies. In
the
case of the electrical industries, only those with a capital of 6
million
mark have been noted; in the chemical industries those with 5
millions;
machinery and textiles with 4 millions, and the remainder with 3
mil-lions.
What do these figures suggest? Is the Jewish influence in the
indus-tries
named great or small? I think it is very large, at any rate
quantita-tively.
Bear in mind that the social group which occupies almost a sev-enth
part of all directorships, and nearly a quarter of all the boards
of
directors, forms exactly only a hundredth part of the entire
population
of the German Empire.
It is evident from the survey in the previous chapters that Jewish
influ-ence
extended far beyond the commercial institutions which it called
into being. In other words, the Stock Exchange is not merely a
piece of
machinery in economic life, it is the embodiment of a certain
spirit.
Indeed, all the newest forms of industrial organization are the
products
of this spirit, and it is to this that I wish specially to call
the reader's
attention.
The outer structure of the economic life of our day has been built
up
largely by Jewish hands. But the principles underlying economic
life --
that which may be termed the modern economic spirit, or the
economic
point of view -- may also be traced to a Jewish origin.
Proofs for the statement will have to be sought in directions other
than those hitherto followed. Documentary evidence is obviously of
little
avail here. But what will certainly be a valuable guide is the
feeling that
prevailed in those circles which first became alive to the fact
that the
Jewish attitude of mind was something alien. Non-Jewish merchants
or
their spokesmen expressed opinions which, though one-sided and
often
harsh, are nevertheless of immense help, because they naively set
forth.84/Werner Sombart
the dislike of the Jewish spirit, reflecting it, as it were, as in
a mirror
(though often enough, to be sure, it was a convex mirror). The
people
who voiced the opinions to which we are about to refer looked on
the
Jews as their worst enemies, and therefore we must try to read
between
the lines, and deduce the truth from statements which were meant to
convey something very different. The task is made the more easy
be-cause
of the uniformity in the opinions formulated -- a uniformity due
by no means to thoughtless imitation, but rather to similarity of
condi-tions.
Their very similarity adds to their forcefulness as proofs.
In the first place, it must be noted that wherever Jews appeared as
business competitors, complaints were beard that Christian traders
suf-fered
in consequence: their livelihood, we are told, was endangered, the
Jews deprived them of their profits, their chances of existence
were less-ened
because their customers went to Jews, and so forth.
A few extracts from documents of the 17th and 18th centuries, the
period which concerns us most, will illustrate what has been
mentioned.
Let us turn first to Germany. In 1672 the Estates of Brandenburg
com-plain
that the Jews "take the bread out of the mouths of the other
inhab-itants."
1 Almost the same phrase is found in the petition of the mer-chants
of Danzig, of March 19th, 1717. 2 In 1712 and 1717 the good
citizens of the old town of Magdeburg object to the admission of
Jews
into their midst, "because the welfare of the city, and the
success of
traders, depends upon the fact that ... no Jewish dealing is
permitted
here."3
In 1740 Ettenheim made a communication to its Bishop, wherein it
was stated that "as is well-known, the Jews' low ways make only for
loss and undoing." The same idea is voiced in the proverb, "All in
that
city doth decay, where Jews are plentiful as hay."4 In the
preamble to the
Prussian Edict of 1750, mention is made that "the big merchants of
our
town complain . . . that the Jews who deal in the same commodities
as
they do, lessen their business considerably." It was the same in
the South
of Germany. In Nuremberg, for example, the Christian traders had
to sit
by and see their customers make purchases of Jews. In 1469 the Jews
were expelled from Nuremberg; a very large number of them settled
in
the neighbouring town of Fürth, and their customers from the
first-named
city, seeking the best advantage for themselves as buyers,
journeyed to
Fürth to do their shopping.[The first German railway was built
between
Nuremberg and Fürth (1835). Whether the Jewish influence mentioned
in the text had anything to do with it is difficult to say. But it
is a curious.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/85
fact. -- Trans.] No wonder that the City Fathers of Nuremberg
show-ered
ordinances on the town throughout the 17th and 18th centuries,
forbidding dealings with Jews from Fürth.5
That Jews all through the 18th century were refused admission to
the merchant-gilds, no less than to the craft-gilds, is too
well-known to
need further emphasis.6
Was it different in England? By no means. Says Josiah Child, "The
Jews are a subtil people . . . depriving the English merchant of
that
profit he would otherwise gain"; they carry on their business "to
the
prejudice of the English merchants."7 When in 1753 the Jews'
Natural-ization
Bill became law, the ill-will of the populace against the hated
race was so great that the Act had to be repealed the very next
year. One
great fear was that if the Jews became English citizens they would
"oust
the natives from their employment."8
From Marseilles to Nantes the same tones were heard in France.
The merchants of the latter city in 1752 bewailed their fate in
the fol-lowing
terms: "The prohibited trade carried on by these strangers . . .
has caused considerable loss to the merchants of this town, so
much so,
that if they are not favoured by the good-will of these gentry,
they are in
the predicament of being able neither to provide for their
families nor to
pay their taxes."9 Seven years earlier, in 1745, the Christian
traders of
Toulouse regretfully declared that "everybody runs to the Jewish
trad-ers."
10 "We beseech you to bar the onward march of this nation, which
otherwise will assuredly destroy the entire trade of Languedoc" --
such
was the request of the Montpelier Chamber of Commerce.11 Their
col-leagues
in Paris compared the Jews to wasps who make their way into
the hive only to kill the bees, rip open their bodies and extract
the honey
stored in their entrails.12
In Sweden,13 in Poland,14 the same cry resounded.15 In 1619 the
civic authorities of Posen complained, in an address to King
Sigismund,
that "difficulties and stumbling-blocks are put in the way of
merchants
and craftsmen by the competition of Jews."
But all this does not suffice. We want to know more than that the
Jews endangered the livelihood of the others. We want to find out
the
reason for this. Why were they able to become such keen
competitors of
the Christian traders? Only when this question has been answered
will
we understand the peculiar nature of Jewish business methods, "les
se-crets
du négoce," as Savary calls them.
Let us refer to contemporary opinion, to the men who were
suffi-.86/Werner Sombart
ciently in touch with everyday life to know the reason. Here again
the
answer is pretty well unanimous. And what is it? The Jews were more
successful because of their dishonest dealing. "Jews . . . have
one law
and custom whenever it pays them; it is called lying and
cheating," you
may read in the pages of Philander von Sittewald.16 Equally
compli-mentary
is the Comic Lexicon of Cheating, compiled by George Paul
Hönn,17 where under "Jews," the only interpolation in the whole
book is
made as follows: "Jews are cheats, collectively and individually.
. . ."
The article "Jews," in the General Treasury for Merchants, is of
the
same calibre,18 while an anonymous writer on manners and morals
de-clares
that the Jews of Berlin "make their living by robbing and
cheat-ing,
which, in their opinion, are no crimes."19
Similar views were current in France. "The Jews," says Savary,
"have the reputation of being good at business, but they are
supposed
not to be able to carry it on with strict honesty and
trustworthiness."20
Now what do these accusations amount to? Even if the term
"cheat-ing"
be given a very wide connotation, the commercial practices of many
Jews hardly came within its scope. When it was asserted that Jews
were
cheats, that was only an epithet to describe the fact that Jews in
their
commercial dealings did not always pay regard to the existing laws
or
customs of trade. Jewish merchants offended in neglecting certain
tradi-tions
of their Christian compeers, in (now and again) breaking the law,
but above all, in paying no heed to commercial etiquette. Look
closely
into the specific accusations hurled against Jewish traders,
examine their
innermost nature, and you shall find that the conflict between
Jewish
and Christian merchants was a struggle between two outlooks,
between
two radically differing -- nay, opposite -- views on economic life.
To understand this conflict in its entirety, it will be necessary
to
obtain some idea of the spirit that dominated economic activities,
activi-ties
in which from the 16th century onwards the Jews were obtaining a
surer footing from day to day. So much did they seem to be out of
harmony with that spirit that everywhere they were looked upon as a
disturbing element.
During the whole of the period which I have described as the "early
capitalistic age," and in which the Jews began to make their
influence
felt, the same fundamental notions generally prevailed in regard
to eco-nomic
life as characterized the Middle Ages -- feudal relationships,
manual labour, three estates of the realm, and so forth.
The centre of this whole was the individual man. Whether as
pro-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/87
ducer or as consumer, his interests determined the attitude of the
com-munity
as of its units, determined the law regulating economic activities
and the practices of commercial life. Every such law was personal
in its
intent; and all who contributed to the life of the nation had a
personal
outlook. Not that each person could do as he liked. On the
contrary, a
code of restrictions hedged about his activities in every
direction. But
the point is that the restrictions were born of the
individualistic spirit.
Commodities were produced and bought and sold in order that
consum-ers
might have their wants sufficiently satisfied. On the other hand,
pro-ducers
and traders were to receive fair wages and fair profits. What was
fair, and what sufficient for your need, tradition and custom
determined.
And so, producer and trader should receive as much as was de-manded
by the standard of comfort in their station in life. That was the
mediaeval view; it was also the view current in the early
capitalistic age,
even where business was carried on along more or less modern lines.
We find its expression in the industrial codes of the day, and its
justifi-cation
in the commercial literature.21
Hence, to make profit was looked upon by most people throughout
the period as improper, as "unchristian"; the old economic
teaching of
Thomas Aquinas was observed,22 at least officially. The religious
or
ethical rule was still supreme;23 there was as yet no sign of the
liberation
of economic life from its religious and ethical bonds. Every
action, no
matter in what sphere, was done with a view to the Highest
Tribunal --
the will of God. Need it be pointed out that the attitude of
Mammon was
as opposed to this as pole is to pole?
Producer and trader should receive sufficient for their need. One
outstanding result of this principle was strictly to circumscribe
each
man's activity in his locality. Competition was therefore quite
out of the
question. In his own sphere a man might work as he willed -- when,
how, where -- in accordance with tradition and custom. But to cast
a
look at his neighbour's sphere -- that he was forbidden to do.
Just as
the peasant received his holding -- so much field, with pasture and
woodland, as would keep him and his family, just as he never even
dreamt of adding to his possessions, so, too, the craftsman and
the mer-chant
were to rest content with their portions and never covet their
neighbour's. The peasant had his land, the town-dweller his
customers:
in either case they were the source whence sprang his livelihood;
in
either case they were of a size sufficient for the purpose. Hence,
the
trader had to be assured of his custom, and many were the
ordinances.88/Werner Sombart
which guarded him against competition. Besides, it was commercial
etiquette. You did not run after customers. You waited until they
came,
"and then" (in the words of De Foe's sermon), "with God's blessing
and
his own care, he may expect his share of trade with his
neighbours."24
The merchant who attended fairs did not do otherwise; "day and
night
he waits at his stall."25
To take away your neighbour's customers was contemptible,
un-christian,
and immoral.26 A rule for "Merchants who trade in commodi-ties"
was: "Turn no man's customers awayfrom him, either by word of
mouth or by letter, and do not to another what you would not have
another do to you."27 It was, however, more than a rule; it became
an
ordinance, and is met with over and over again. In Mayence its
wording
was as follows:28 "No one shall prevent another from buying, or by
offering a higher price make a commodity dearer, on pain of losing
his
purchase; no one shall interfere in another's business
undertaking, or
carry on his own on so large a scale as to ruin other traders." In
Saxony
it was much. the same.29 "No shopkeeper shall call away the
customers
from another's shop, nor shall he by signs or motions keep them
from
buying."
But to attract customers even without interfering with your
neighbour's business was regarded as unworthy. As late as the early
18th century in London itself it was not considered proper for a
shop-keeper
to dress his window tastefully, and so lure purchasers. De Foe,
no less than his later editors, did not mince words in expressing
his
contempt for such a course, of which, as he mentions apparently
with
some satisfaction, only a few bakers and toymen were guilty.30
To the things that were not permitted belonged also advertising
your
business and praising your wares. The gentle art of advertising
first
appeared in Holland sometime about the middle of the 17th century,
in
England towards its end, in France much later. The Ghentsche
Post-Tijdingen,
founded in 1667, contained the first business advertisement
in its issue of October 3rd of that year.31 At this time none of
the London
news-sheets published advertisements; even after the Great Fire
not one
business thought of advertising its new address. It was not until
1682,
when John Houghton established The Collection for the Improvement
of Husbandry and Trade, that the merchant community of London
be-came
accustomed to utilizing the Press as a medium for advertising.32
This had been preceded by the practice, in a small way, of
distributing
bills in the streets to passers-by..The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/89
Two generations later Postlethwayt 33 gave currency to the then
ex-isting
views. "Advertising in the newspapers, in regard to matters of
trade and business, is now grown a pretty universal practice all
over the
kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland; . . . and however mean
and
disgraceful it was looked upon a few years since, by people of
reputa-tion
in trade, to apply to the public by advertisements in the papers;
at
present (1751) it seems to be esteemed quite otherwise; persons of
great
credit in trade experiencing it to be the best, the easiest and
the cheapest
method of conveying whatever they have to offer to the knowledge of
the whole kingdom."
They were not quite so far advanced in France at that time. In his
Dictionary (1726) Savary 34 says nothing of the economic aspect of
the
term reclame. Not until six years later -- in 1732, when his
supplement
was published -- does he add: "A poster exhibited in public
thorough-fares
to make something generally known." And what does he instance?
The sale of ships; the time of sailing; the announcement by the
big trad-ing
companies of the arrival of goods from distant parts, but only in
cases where they are to be publicly sold; the establishment of new
facto-ries;
change of address. The business advertisement in its most
elemen-tary
form is lacking. It is lacking also in the newspapers of the period
until the second half of the 18th century. Surprising as it may
seem, the
first issue of the famous advertisement sheet, Les Petites
Affiches, which
appeared on May 13, 1751, contained no real business
advertisement."
In other words, the simple announcement "I sell such-and-such
wares at
such-and-such a place" did not become general in England until the
18th century, and in France not till much later. In Germany only
one or
two towns were to the fore in this respect. Berlin and Hamburg may
be
instanced, but even there the innovations are isolated, the only
excep-tion
being books, which were originally much advertised.
To praise your goods or to point out wherein your business was
superior to others was equally nefarious. But the last word in
commer-cial
impropriety was to announce that your prices were lower than those
of the man opposite. 'To undersell" was most ungentlemanly: "No
bless-ing
will come from harming your neighbour by underselling and cutting
prices."36
Bad as underselling itself was in the eyes of the people of those
days, it was beneath contempt to advertise it. "Since the death of
our
author," say the editors of the fifth edition (1745) of De Foe's
Complete
English Tradesman,37 "this underselling practice is grown to such
a.90/Werner Sombart
shameful height that particular persons publickly advertise that
they
undersell the rest of the trade." It may be asked, Why were the
editors so
concerned about the matter? The reason is manifest in a subsequent
passage, "We have had grocers advertising their underselling one
an-other
at a rate a fair trader cannot sell for and live." It is the old
cry:
fixed profits, a fixed livelihood, a fixed production and fixed
prices.
We possess a French instance which shows even more strikingly
how heinous this offence was thought to be, even in Paris. An
Ordi-nance
of 1761 38 proclaimed to all and sundry in the French capital that
to advertise that you are selling your goods at a price below the
custom-ary
one must be regarded as the last resource of a merchant in
difficul-ties,
and that such action deserved severe condemnation. The Ordinance
proceeded to forbid the traders of Paris and its suburbs "to run
after one
another trying to find customers, and above all, to distribute
hand-bills
calling attention to their wares."
Like the producers, the consumers also received attention. In a
cer-tain
sense the consumer received even more, for the naive conception
that all production was in the interests of consumption had not
yet dis-appeared.
Hence the stress laid on good wares, on the principle that
commodities should really be what they pretended; and innumerable
were the ordinances that were everywhere promulgated to this
intent,
more especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It was long before the purely capitalistic notion gained acceptance
that the value in exchange of any commodity was what influenced the
undertaker most. We may see how slow its progress was from the
con-flicting
opinions on the subject in England in the 18th century. Sir Josiah
Child appears to have been in the minority on this, as on most
other
questions, when he formulated the demand that every manufacturer
should
be allowed to judge for himself as to the kind of commodity, and
the
quality, that he brought into the market. It is curious enough
nowadays
to read Child's plea for the right of the manufacturer to make
shoddy
goods. "If ,we intend to have the trade of the world," he cries,39
"we
must imitate the Dutch, who make the worst as well as the best of
all
manufactures, that we may be in a capacity of serving all markets
and
all humours."
In a world of economic ideas such as these, the theory of "just
price"
was an organic element Price was not something in the formation of
which the individual had a say. Price was determined for him; it
was a
subject to religious and ethical principles as everything else in
economic.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/91
life. It was to be such as would make for the common good, as well
of
the consumer as of the producer. Different ages had their own
standard
for determining it; in Luther's day, for example, the cost of
production
was the deciding factor. But as commercial intercourse widened, the
doctrine of the just price was found to be more and more
impossible,
and the view that price must be determined by the factors in the
market 40
found general acceptance. But be that as it may, the point to
accentuate
is that price was based on ethical and not (as was held to be the
case
later) on natural principles. Then people said that the individual
must
not determine price at his own will; whereas later the view was
that he
could not so determine it.
What manner of world was that in which opinions such as these
predominated? If we had to describe it in a word, we should say
that it
was "slow." Stability was its bulwark and tradition its guide. The
indi-vidual
never lost himself in the noise and whirl of business activity. He
still had complete control of himself; he was not yet devoid of
that na-tive
dignity, which does not make itself cheap for the sake of profit.
Trade and commerce were everywhere carried on with a dash of
per-sonal
pride. And all this to a greater extent in the country than in the
large towns, where advancing capitalism made itself soonest felt.
"The
proud and haughty demeanour of the country merchant" is noted by a
keen observer of his time.41 We can almost see the type, in his
knee-breeches
and long coat, his head bewigged and his manner somewhat
stiff. Business with him was an even process; he got through it
without
much thought or worry, serving his circle of customers in the
traditional
way, knowing nothing of excitement, and never complaining that the
way was too short.
To-day one of the best signs of a flourishing trade is a universal
hurry and scurry, but towards the end of the 18th century that was
re-garded
as .a sure token of idleness. The man of business was deliber-ately
slow of stride. "In Paris people are in one continuous haste --
because there is nothing to do there; here (in Lyons, the centre
of the silk
industry, and a town of some commercial importance) our walk is
slow
because every one is busy." Such is the verdict of the observer,42
already
mentioned, in the year of grace 1788.
In this picture the Nonconformist, the Quaker, the Methodist, is a
fitting figure, even though we are accustomed to think of him as
one of
the first to be associated with capitalistic ideas. As his inner
life, so was
his outward bearing to be. "Walk with a sober pace, not tinkling
with.92/Werner Sombart
your feet," was a canon of the Puritan rule of life.43 "The
believer hath,
or at least ought to have, and, if he be like himself, will have,
a well-ordered
walk, and will be in his carriage stately and princely."44
This was the world the Jews stormed. At every step they offended
against economic principles and the economic order. That seems
clear
enough from the unanimous complaints of the Christian traders
every-where.
But were the Jews the only sinners in this respect? Was it fair to
single out "Jewish dealing" and to stigmatize it as inclined to be
dishon-est,
as contrary to law and practice, as characterized by lying and
de-ception?
There can be little doubt that the practices of Christian
manu-facturers
and traders were not always blameless in the matter of being
opposed to custom and regulation. Human nature being what it is,
this
was only to be expected. But apart from that, the age with which
we are
concerned could not boast of a very high standard of commercial
moral-ity.
Else why the necessity for the plethora of ordinances and
prohibi-tions
which touched economic activities at every point? Contemporary
evidence certainly leaves no doubt on the subject.
We have already mentioned the Cheating Lexicon which was pub-lished
at the beginning of the 18th century. It must have been widely
read, for in the space of a few years several editions were
issued. Turn
to its pages, and you will ask in amazement whether there was any
honesty left in the world. True, this impression is created by the
concen-tration
within a small space of very many instances and illustrations of
cheating and swindling. But even making allowance for this fact,
the
impression cannot be eradicated that there must have been a good
deal
of questionable conduct in those days. And if any doubt still
lurks on
this point other witnesses soon obliterate it. "You can find but
few wares
nowadays (1742) that have not been adulterated," is the plaint of
one
German writer.45 Numerous are the prohibitions of the evil;
imperial
edicts (such as that of 1497), police regulations (such as that of
Augsburg,
of 1548) and rules originating in merchant circles (such as that
of Lübeck,
of 1607) all deal with the practice. But falsification was by no
means
limited to the production of commodities; it was not unknown in
com-merce
too. Fraudulent bankruptcies must have occurred very frequently
in the 17th and 18th centuries, and must have formed a problem
difficult
of solution. Again and again there were complaints about their
uninter-rupted
reappearance.46 Indeed, the loose commercial morality of En-glish
merchants in the 17th century was proverbial.47 Cheating and
fal-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/93
sifying were said to be "the besetting sin of English tradesmen."
"Our
merchants," says a 17th-century writer,48 "by their infinite
over-asking
for commodities proclaim to the world that they would cheat all if
it
were in their power."
Such being the case, what reason was there for marking out the
Jews? And can we really speak of something specially
characteristic in
the conduct of Jews over against the established principles of the
time?
I believe we can. I believe that the specifically Jewish
characteristic
consisted in that it was not an individual here and there who
offended
against the prevailing economic order, but the whole body of Jews.
Jew-ish
commercial conduct reflected the accepted point of view among
Jewish
traders. Hence Jews were never conscious of doing wrong, of being
guilty of commercial immorality; their policy was in accordance
with a
system, whichfor them was the proper one. They were in the right;
it
was the other outlook that was wrong and stupid. We are not here
speaking
of capital delinquencies generally acknowledged to be wrong, and
gen-erally
condemned. For a 'distinction must be drawn between the
funda-mental
regulations of any legal institution (e.g., property), and those
which vary with the progress of society. Stealing will be looked
upon as
a capital offence as long as property exists; but there will be
much dif-ference
of opinion from age to age on the question of taking interest.
The first falls under the former category; the second under the
latter.
No doubt, in their peculiar commercial activity, Jews were guilty
of
both sorts of misdemeanours. In early times Jews committed wrongs
which were universally regarded as such. They were constantly
accused,
for example, of receiving and dealing in stolen property.49 But
Jews, as
a body, themselves condemned practices of this kind; and for that
mat-ter,
there were honest and dishonest Jews as there were honest and
dis-honest
Christians. If any Jews were addicted to systematic cheating,
they in so far set themselves up against the majority of Jews and
Chris-tians,
both of whom were agreed that such conduct was not in accord
with the accepted standards of right. We are not without records
that
illustrate this very forcibly. The history of the Jews in Hamburg
is an
instance. In the 17th century, the Portuguese Jews undertook to a
cer-tain
extent to be responsible to the authorities for the proper
commercial
conduct of the newly arrived German Jews. As soon as the Tedescos
came into the city, they had to promise their Portuguese brethren
not to
buy stolen property, nor otherwise to carry on shady business. On
one
occasion the Elders of the German Jews were summoned before
the.94/Werner Sombart
Mahamad [The governing body of the Portuguese Jewish congregation.
The term is still used among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in
Lon-don.
-- Trans.] and warned because several of them had broken their
pledge; on another occasion because they had bought stolen goods
from
soldiers.50
The point I am emphasizing must be remembered in considering the
accusations hurled against the Jews in the early capitalistic age,
accusa-tions
which, on the whole, were not unfounded. Universally accepted
offences, such as stealing or receiving stolen property, must not
be in-cluded
under this heading. Jews equally with Christians abhorred such
crimes. The practices, however, common to all Jews, which
overstepped
law and custom, but which Jews did not feel as being wrong, the
prac-tices
which may be looked upon as being the result of a specifically
Jewish outlook, these must come within our ken. And what do we find
on examining them?
We find that the Jew rises before us unmistakably as more of a
business-man than his neighbour; he follows business for its own
sake;
he recognizes, in the true capitalistic spirit, the supremacy of
gain over
all other aims.
I know of no better illustration than the Memoirs of Glückel von
Hamein, a mine of information, by the way, about Jewish life and
thought
in the early capitalistic age. Glückel, the wife of a merchant in
Ham-burg,
lived between 1645 and 1724, the period when the Jewish
commu-nities
of Hamburg and Altona shot up to a position of prosperity, and in
almost every respect we may regard this remarkable woman as a type
of
the Jew of that day. Her narrative grips the reader because of its
natural
simplicity and freshness. As I read these Memoirs, in which a
complete
personality is revealed to us in a life rich in experience, I was
again and
again reminded of the famous Frau Rat (Goethe's mother).
If I cite just this splendid book in order to show the
predominating
interest of money among Jews in those days, it is because I
believe that
this characteristic must have been general, seeing that even in so
gifted
a woman as Glückel it also stands out. In very truth, money is the
be-all
and end-all with her, as with all the other people of whom she has
any-thing
to say. Accounts of business enterprise occupy but a small space
in the book, but on no less than 609 occasions (in 313 pages) does
the
authoress speak of money, riches, gain and so forth. The
characters and
their doings are mentioned only in some connexion or other with
money.
Above all, we are told of good matches -- good from the financial
point.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/95
of view. To marry her children is in fact the chief object of
Glückel's
business activities. "He also saw my son, and they were almost on
the
point of coming to terms, but they could not close because of a
thousand
marks." Incidents of this kind abound in the book. Of her second
mar-riage
she says, "in the afternoon my husband wedded me with a valu-able
gold ring an ounce in weight." I cannot help regarding the peculiar
conception of marriage-making, which used to be current among Jews,
as symptomatic of the way they looked upon money, and especially
the
tendency among them of appraising even the most precious things in
life
from a purely business point of view. Children, for example, have
their
value. That was a matter of course among Jews in those days. "They
are
all my darling children, and may they all be forgiven, as well
those on
whom I had to spend a lot of money as those on whom I spent
nothing,"
writes Glückel. It was as marriageable persons that they had a
price,
which varied with the state of the market. Scholars, or the
children of
scholars, were much in demand. In one case we are told that a
father
speculated in his children. The fortunes of Solomon Maimon, as
related
by Graetz, are well known and frequently cited in this connexion.
"At
eleven years of age he had so complete a mastery of the Talmud
that he
... became much sought after as a possible husband. His needy
father, in
a speculating spirit, provided him with two brides at once,
without his
being able to see . . . either of them." Similar incidents are
abundant
enough to warrant the conclusion that they must have been typical.
But the objection may be urged that among Christians also money
was no less valued, only the fact was not admitted; people were
hypo-critical.
There is perhaps a certain. element of truth in this objection. In
that case I should say what was specifically Jewish was the
naivete with
which money was made the pivot of life; it was a matter of course;
no
attempt was made to hide it.
What light does contemporary opinion in the 17th and 18th
centu-ries
shed upon the characteristic to which we have called attention?
There appears to be universal agreement on the subject, which lends
support to our theory. The Jew in those days of undeveloped
capitalism
was regarded as the representative of an economic outlook, wherein
to
obtain profit was the ultimate goal of all commercial activity.
Not his
"usury" differentiated him from the Christian, not that he sought
gain,
not that he amassed wealth; only that he did all this openly, not
thinking
it wrong, and that he scrupulously and mercilessly looked after
his busi-ness
interests. But more awful things are related of Christian
"usurers".96/Werner Sombart
who "are worse than Jews." "The Jews wears his soul on his sleeve
and
is not ashamed, but these carry on their devil's trade with
hypocritical
Christian countenances."51
One or two more contemporary opinions must be quoted. "These
people have no other God but the unrighteous Mammon, and no other
aim than to get possession of Christian property . . . they...
look at
everything for their profit."52 Such is the verdict of the Rev.
John Mega-lopolis,
who wrote on March 18th, 1655. Another judgment is harsher
still.53 "No trust should be put in the promises made there (in
Brazil) by
the Jews, a race faithless and pusillanimous, enemies to all the
world
and especially to all Christians, caring not whose house burns so
long as
they may warm themselves at the coals, who would rather see a
hundred
thousand Christians perish than suffer the loss of a hundred
crowns."
The statement of Savary,54 who was amicably disposed towards the
Jews,
is also to the point. "A usurious merchant or one too keen, who
tries to
get a mean advantages and flays those who have dealings with him,
is
termed 'a real Jew.' People say 'he has fallen into the hands of
Jews'
when those with whom a man does business are hard, immovable and
stingy." It is true that a very Christian merchant first coined
the phrase
"Business is business," but Jews undoubtedly were the first to
mould
their policy in accordance with it.
In this connexion we ought to mention also that the proverbs of all
nations have always depicted the Jew as the gain-seeker, who had a
special love of money. "Even to the Jew our Lady Mary is holy"
(Hun-garian)
-- in reference to the Kremnitzer gold ducats. "Yellow is the
colour that suits the Jew best" (Russian). "Yellow is the dearest
colour
for the Jew" (German).
This profit-seeking, which the Jew held to be legitimate, will
ac-count
for his business principles and practices, of which complaints
were so frequently made. In the first place, he paid no attention
to the
strict delimitation of one calling or of one handicraft from
another, so
universally insisted on by law and custom. Again and again we hear
the
cry that Jews did not content themselves with one kind of
activity; they
did whatever they could, and so disturbed the order of things
which the
gild system wished to see maintained. Their aim was to seize upon
all
commerce and all production; they had an overpowering desire to
ex-pand
in every direction. "The Jews strive to destroy the English
mer-chants
by drawing all trade towards themselves," is a further complaint
of the Rev. John Megalopolis in 1655.' 55 'The Jews are a subtil
people.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/97
prying into all kinds of trade," said Sir Josiah Child.56 And
Glückel von
Hamein thus describes her father's business: "He dealt in precious
stones,
and in other things -- for every Jew is a Jack-of-all-trades."
Innumerable were the occasions when the German gilds complained
of this Jewish ubiquitousness in trade, which paid no heed to the
demar-cation
of all economic activities into strictly separate categories. In
1685,
the city authorities of Frankfort-on-the-Main were loud in their
cry that
Jews had a share in all kinds of business -- e.g., in linen and
silk retail-ing,
in cloth and book selling." In the other Frankfort (on the Oder)58
Jews were blamed for selling foreigp braid to the detriment of the
gold-lace
makers, and so forth.
Perhaps the reason for this tendency to universal trading may be
found in that a large number of miscellaneous articles, all
forfeited
pledges, brought together by mere chance, collected in the shops
of Jews,
and their sale would naturally enough interfere with the special
business
of all manner of dealers. The very existence of these second-hand
shops
-- the prototype of the stores in modern times -- was a menace to
the
prevailing order of commerce and industry. A vivid picture of such
a
collection of second-hand goods is given in an old Ratisbon song,
dating
from the 15th century,59 and the details could not but have become
more
well-marked as time went on.
No handicraft however mean,
But the Jew would damage it i' the extreme.
For if any one had need of raiment
To the Jew he'd hie with payment;
Whether 'twas silver or linen or tin,
Or aught his house was lacking in,
The Jew was ready to serve his need,
With pledges he held -- right many indeed.
For stolen goods and robbers' plunder
They and the Jew were seldom asunder.
*******
Mantle, hose or damsel's veil,
The Jew he had them all for sale.
To the craftsman, then, there came but few,
For all the world dealt with the Jew.
Here an interesting question presents itself. Is there any
connexion
between the breach of gild regulations and the stress laid on pure
busi-.98/Werner Sombart
ness ends on the part of the Jews, and their hostile attitude to
mercantil-ism?
Was it their aim to establish the principle that trade should be
untrammelled, regardless of the commercial theory which guided the
mercantilist States? It looks like it. "Jewish trade," was the
term applied
to the commerce of Frankfort in the 18th century, because it was
mostly
import trade, "which gives useful employment to but few German
hands
and flourishes only by reason of home consumption."60 And when in
the
early 19th century Germany was flooded with the cheap products of
England, which were sold for the most part at auctions, Jews were
held
to be the mainstay of this import trade. The Jew almost
monopolized the
auctions. "Since dealing in manufactured articles is to a great
extent in
the hands of Jews, the commerce of England is for the most part
with
them." The Jew had "his shop full of foreign hats, shoes,
stockings,
leather gloves, lead and copper ware, lacquer work, utensils,
ready-made
clothing of all sorts -- all brought over by English ships."61 It
was
the same story in France.62 Nor was this all. The Jews were guilty
of
another deadly sin in the mercantilist calendar: they imported raw
ma-terials.
63
We see, then, that the Jews, in following their business interests,
gave as little heed to the barriers between States as to those
between
industries. Still less did they have regard to the prevailing code
of eti-quette
in any industry. We have already seen how custom-chasing was
looked upon in the early capitalistic age. Here the Jews were
continual
offenders. Everywhere they sought out sellers or buyers, instead
of wait-ing
for them in their shops, as commercial custom prescribed. Of this
we have abundant proof.
A complaint was lodged by the furriers of Konigsberg 64 in 1703
against "the Jews Hirsch and Moses, who with their agents are
always
first in the field in buying raw material and selling the
ready-made furs,
whereby they (the supplicants) suffer much loss." In 1685 the
jewellers
and goldsmiths of Frankfort had a similar experience.65 They were
forced
to buy all the old gold and silver they needed from Jews, who, by
means
of their numerous "spies," snapped it away from under the very
noses of
the Christians. A few years previously the whole of the trading
body of
that town had protested against Jews "spying out the business of
Chris-tian
merchants." Earlier still, in 1647, the tailors of Frankfort
petitioned 66
that the Jews should be forbidden to engage in the sale of new
clothing.
"A source of bitter weeping it is, that the Jews may freely wander
up
and down the streets, laden with all manner of goods and cloth,
like so.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/99
many camels and asses, running to meet every newcomer to Frankfort,
be he of high or low degree, and offering to sell him what he
wants; and
so deprive us of our daily bread."67 Still earlier even than this,
in 1635,
was the petition of the silk merchants, who bemoaned the fact that
the
Jews "wait about in the city outside the bounds of the Jewish
quarter, in
inns and wherever opportunity offers; they run through many a
street,
both openly and in secret, to meet the soldiers and their
officers, when
these come to town. They have arranged with certain master-tailors
to
give them facilities for exhibiting their wares at their shops
when troops
march past."68
In 1672 a complaint is heard from Brandenburg.69 "Jews go about
as chapmen among the villages and in the towns and force their
wares
on people." A similar story comes from Frankfort-on-the-Oder,70
wherein
the details are fuller. Jews run after customers -- the travellers
to their
hotels, the nobility to their castles and the students to their
lodgings.
And in Nikolsburg, in Austria, we are told 71 that "the Jews have
drawn
to themselves all the trade, all the money, all the goods. They
wait out-side
the city, try to strike up an acquaintance with travellers while
they
are yet on the road, and endeavour to take away their custom from
Christian citizens."
How the Jews were ever on the look-out for new customers is
de-scribed
by a well-informed writer of the early 19th century.72 It was a
practice with them, he says, "to pay frequent visits to all and
sundry
places of public resort where, by reading the many news-sheets,
they
sought to obtain knowledge of possibilities for doing business,
and es-pecially
of noting what strangers were expected to arrive; and by listen-ing
to every conversation, to find out whose houses were in danger in
order to make bargains or contracts with them."
The streets in which the Jewish old clo' men lived were the scenes
of similar activities, the end in view always being the same. In
fact, the
dealers sometimes seized the passer-by by the arm and tried to
force him
to make purchases. This method of carrying on business is not
unknown
in our modern cities; it was known in the Paris of the 18th
century,
where it was associated with the fripiers, the old clo' dealers,
who, as
we are informed,74 were for the most part Jews. One description of
such
a scene is too good not to be quoted." "The touts of these
disorderly
shops call to you uncivilly enough; and when one of them has
invited
you, all the other shopkeepers on your road repeat the deafening
invita-tion.
The wife, the daughter, the servant, the dogs, all howl in your
ears..100/Werner Sombart
. . . Sometimes these fellows seize an honest man by the arm, or
by his
shoulder, and force him to enter in spite of himself; they make a
pastime
of this unseemly game. . . ."
We hear the same tale from a traveller who journeyed in Western
Germany about that time. "To walk in the streets of those places
where
there are many Jews has become a nuisance. You are badgered by them
every minute and at every turn. You are constantly being asked.
Can I
sell youanything? Won't you buy this, that or the other?"75
Or they turn into wandering traders in order to sweep in custom.
"The Jew thinks nothing of turning the seats in the porches into a
shop
counter, often extending them by means of planks; he places a form
or
table against the wall of any house he can get at, or even makes
the front
passage into a shop; or, he hires a cart which becomes his moving
shop,
and often enough he has the bad manners to pull up in front of a
shop
which sells the same wares as he."76
"Get hold of the customers" -- that was the end and aim. Is it not
the guiding principle of the big industries of to-day? Is not the
splendid
organization of a concern like the Allgemeine
Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft,
for example, directed to the same object?
The policy was first systemized when advertising was resorted to.
The "deafening invitation" which, as we have just noted, came from
the
small fripier, is now made by the million-voiced advertisements of
our
business life. If the Jews are to be considered the originators of
the
system of "getting hold of the customers," their claim to be the
fathers
of modern advertising is equally well established. I am, however,
unable
to adduce conclusive evidence for this. What is needed is a
careful study
of the files of the earliest newspapers, in order to discover the
names of
the people who advertised. As a matter of fact, the whole subject
of
advertising has as yet been dealt with but scantily. The only
branch
which has received adequate attention is the history of business
announce-ments.
Nevertheless, I am able to give one or two instances which show
the connexion of Jews with the practice of advertising.
The very earliest advertisement with which I am acquainted is to be
found in No. 63 of the Vossische Zeitung, of May 28, 1711, which
is to
this effect: "This is to inform all and sundry that a Dutch
(Jewish?)
merchant has arrived at Mr. Boltzen's in the Jews' Street, with
all kinds
of tea of the finest quality, to be sold cheap. Any one who may
care to
buy should come early, as the visitor will not stay for more than
eight
days.".The Jews and Modern Capitalism/101
The first known advertisement in the text of the paper dates from
1753, and hails from Holland. The advertiser was an eye-specialist
of
the name of Laazer.77 A very old advertisement in the United
States --
whether the oldest I cannot say -- appeared on August 17, 1761, in
the
New York Mercury, as follows 78 : -- "To be sold by Hayman Levy, in
Bayard Street, Camp Equipages of all sorts, best soldiers' English
shoes
. . . and everything that goes to make up the pomp and
circumstance of
glorious war."
Finally, the Jews are the founders of the modern Press, i.e., the
machinery for advertising, more especially of the cheap
newspapers.79
Polydore Millaud, who established the Petit Journal, was the
father of
the "half-penny Press."
But to obtain likely addresses, to intercept travellers on their
way,
to sing the praises of your wares -- that was only one side of the
game
of catching customers. It was supplemented by another, which
consisted
in so decking-out the goods for sale as to attract people. In this
art the
Jews were great adepts. Nay more, there is sufficient evidence
that they
were the first to stand up for the general principle, that it is
the right
(and the duty) of every trader to carry on his business in such a
way as
will obtain for him as much of the available custom as possible,
or by
creating new demands, will increase the circle of buyers.
Now in a community where quality was regulated, the only effec-tive
means of achieving this end was price-cutting. We shall therefore
not be surprised to find the Jews availing themselves of this
weapon,
and we shall see that it was just this that made them so disliked
among
Christian traders, whose economic outlook was all for maintaining
prices.
The Jew undersells; the Jew spoils prices; the Jew tries to
attract cus-tomers
by low prices -- that was the burden of the complaints heard in
the 17th and 18th centuries wherever Jews did business.
Our pages would be overloaded did we attempt to cite all the proofs
on this point. A few, therefore, will have to suffice.
First for England where, in 1753, the storm burst forth against the
Jews on the passing of the Naturalization Bill. One of the
principal fears
was that if they became recognized citizens, they would oust the
natives
from their means of livelihood by underselling them.80
Next for France. "The stuffs . . . which the Jews bring to the
fairs .
. . are worth more at the price at which they sell them than those
in the
traders' shops," is the reply 81 of the Intendant of Languedoc to
the plaints
of the merchants of Montpelier (May 31, 1740). The merchants
of.102/Werner Sombart
Nantes 82 were of opinion that the public, which dealt with Jews
under
the impression that they were making a good bargain, were generally
duped. At the same time, they admit that prices at Jewish shops are
lower than elsewhere. The same admission is made by the Paris
traders:
the Jews sell even more cheaply than the factories.83 Concerning a
Fürth
Jew, of the name of Abraham Ouhnan,84 the bronze-dealers of Paris
reported that "he sells the same bronzes below the price for which
they
are sold in this country." In Lyons the master silk-weavers passed
a
resolution (October 22, 1760) in which they ascribed the bad times
to
the influence of the Jews, who had cut prices, and thereby made
them-selves
masters of the silk industry in all the provinces.85
The Swedish Parliament in 1815 debated the question whether the
Jews should be allowed entire liberty of trade, and one of the
chief rea-sons
which prevailed against themotion was that Jews lowered prices.86
From Poland the same strains reach us. Jews tell Christian traders
that if they (the latter) sold their goods as cheaply as the Jews,
they too
would attract customers.87
It is no different in Germany. From Brandenburg (1672),88 from
Frankfort (17th century),89 from Madgeburg (1710)90 the old story
is
repeated. A Wallachian traveller in Germany 91 about the same time
re-ports
the ubiquity of this accusation. The General Prussian Edict of
1750 takes cognizance of it. "The merchants of our towns ...
complain
... that the Jewish traders who sell the same goods do them great
harm,
because they sell at a lower price." Right up to the 19th century
it is still
met with. In the Supplication of the Augsburg wholesale merchants
against the admission of the Jews 92 (1803) we may read that "the
Jews
understand how to derive advantages from the general depression of
trade. They obtain goods from people who need money badly at
shame-ful
prices, and then spoil the market by selling them at a cheaper
rate."
In many branches of industry Christian manufacturers and mer-chants
even to-day regard the cutting of prices by Jews as a serious
endangering of their trade. That this is an open secret and often
enough
discussed, is well known. I hope to touch upon the matter again in
due
course.
One more instance from the history of Finance, as showing that the
Jews had the reputation of making lower terms. When the Austrian
Government early in the 18th century determined on raising another
loan, as usual, in Holland, an order was issued (December 9, 1701)
to
Baron Pechmann, who was negotiating the matter, to make private
en-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/103
quiries whether, in view of the fact that the Hungarian Copper
Mines
were being pledged to guarantee the loan, a greater sum might not
be
raised. More especially was he to communicate with the Portuguese
Jews in Holland, since the other subjects of the United Provinces
asked
for an additional guarantee beside the general one.93 In a report
of the
Court Chancery of Vienna (May 12, 1762) the view is expressed that
"it
is advisable to come to terms with the Jews in reference to
contracts for
the army . . . seeing that they are prepared to quote lower prices
than
others."
Here, then, was a problem for all the wiseacres to put their heads
together and try to solve. They did, asking each other again and
again,
at their work and in their shops, on Sunday afternoons in their
walks
outside the city rampart, and in the evenings at the social pint
of beer:
How is it possible? How on earth is it done? How can the Jew carry
through his "dirty trick" of underselling? What was the reason for
it?
The answer differed in accordance with the capacity and the
preju-dice
of each enquirer. And so the numberless explanations on record
cannot be accepted without testing their value; unlike the
assertion that
Jews lowered prices, which, in view of its unanimity, there is no
reason
to doubt. In any case, for the present only those opinions will be
of
interest to us which give indication of a special way of carrying
on
business, or of a special commercial morality.
The commonest explanation is that of dishonesty, and the
conclu-sion
was arrived at in some such way as this. Seeing that the Jews have
the same expenses, seeing that the cost of production is also the
same, if
the price is below the current one, everything is not quite
above-board.
The Jews must have obtained possession of their wares by dishonest
means. They were doubtless stolen goods. The bad reputation of the
Jews generally must have given probability to this explanation,
and the
low prices must have lent support to the accusation levelled
against
them that they were receivers.
I have no intention of citing instances where this line of
argument is
taken, for in reality it is the least interesting of any. In many
cases, no
doubt, it was correct. But if that were the only reason
forthcoming to
account for low prices among Jewish traders, there would be no
need to
mention the matter at all, for then it would not have the
significance
which it actually possesses.
As a matter of fact, even the extremists among gild members could
not but cast about for other causes to account for the
underselling of.104/Werner Sombart
Jewish traders, and they found them close at hand, not in actual
breach
of the law, but in practices that were not all they should be. And
what
were these? That the Jews dealt in prohibited articles (contraband
of
war, etc.); in lapsed pledges; in goods that had been confiscated
(e.g.,
by customs officials); in goods that had been bought for a mere
song
from the owners, who were deep in debt and whose necessity,
therefore,
was great,94 or from those who needed money badly;95 in old goods,
bought for next to nothing at auctions; in bankrupt stock;96 in
goods the
quality of which was not up to the standard of the ordinances of
the
industrial code;97 or, finally, that the Jew cut prices with the
intention of
going into bankruptcy himself.98
To what extent instances such as these -- "the miserable methods
of the Jews" as they were termed by the traders of Metz 99 -- were
gen-eral
or only sporadic, it is difficult to say. Nor does it much matter
for
our purpose. As to their probability, it is hardly likely that
they were all
pure inventions. The important thing to note, however, is that
shady
practices such as those enumerated were laid to the Jews' door. And
even if only a minute proportion were in accordance with actual
fact,
that would be enough to make them symptomatic, and they would be
very useful as supporting the result obtained in other ways. I
shall re-turn
to this question later. Here we will continue the catalogue of
rea-sons
which were urged in explanation of the Jews' lower prices.
Side by side with those already mentioned was the accusation that
the commodities sold by the Jews were of an inferior quality. So
fre-quently
is this statement met with that its correctness can hardly be
doubted. An official report from Magdeburg, a petition from
Brandenburg, a complaint from Frankfort 100 -- all harp on this
same
string. And the Traders' Lexicon, to which I have already more than
once referred as a reliable authority, states that Jews sold
inferior goods
"which they know how to polish up, to colour anew, to show off at
their
best, to provide with a fresh cover, smell and taste that even the
greatest
connoisseur is often taken in."
This is repeated almost verbally in the Report of the merchants of
Nantes, with which we are by this time so well acquainted. The
goods of
the Jews are really dear, despite their cheapness. For they sell
things
that are out of fashion or that cannot be used any longer. Silk
stockings
they re-dye, pass them through a calender, and then sell them as
new.
But they cannot be worn more than once. The silk weavers of Lyons
tell
the same tale:101 the Jews have ruined the silk industry because,
in order.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/105
to be able to sell at low prices, they order goods of second-rate
quality
only. So, too, the Governor of Bohemia in 1705:102 "The Jews have
got
hold of all manual occupations and all commerce, but as for the
most
part they make only poor stuff, there is no chance for a
profitable export
trade to spring up." The opinion of Wegelin in the Swedish
Parliament
(1815), likewise referred to already, is only in accord with the
preced-ing.
"It is true," he said, "that the Jews alone engaged in
calico-printing,
but they have completely spoiled this branch of industry because of
their low quality goods -- the so called "Jews' calico."
This complaint, which started in the early capitalistic period, has
not yet ceased. The cry of the Christian manufacturers that the
Jews cut
prices has been followed by the corollary that, in order to
maintain low
prices at all costs, Jews lowered the quality of goods.
Summing up all the facts adduced, we shall perceive that the Jews
originated the principle of substitution.
What was called inferior quality in the wares of the Jews was not
in
reality so. It was not as if the articles were of the same sort as
those of
other traders, except that they were worse in quality. It was
rather that
they were new articles, intended for similar use as the old, but
made of
a cheaper material, or by new processes which lessened the cost of
pro-duction..
In other words, the principle of substitution was brought into
play, and Jews may thus be regarded as the pioneers in its
application.
The most frequent cases occurred in textile fabrics; but other
instances
are also on record -- for example, substitutes for coffee. In one
sense,
too, dyeing must be mentioned in this connexion. Jewish influence
aided
its growth. Originally, the inventors of artificial alizarine used
expen-sive
chemicals to mix with their red colouring matter; the Jews
intro-duced
cheaper materials, and thus gave an impetus to the dyeing
indus-try.
There is yet one other, though less frequent, accusation levelled
against the Jews. It was that the Jews could sell more cheaply than
Christians because they gave less weight or short measure.103 They
were
taunted with this in Avignon, where woollen articles were
mentioned,
and in the case of German Jews an actual illustration is given.
"The Jew
is on the look-out for the least advantage. If he measured 10 ells
there
were only 9%. The Christian (customer) is aware of this, but he
says to
himself, 'Jews' measure is short, ten ells are never quite ten,
but then the
Jew sells cheap.'"104
In all this the point for us to discover is whether, and if so to
what.106/Werner Sombart
extent, the different courses, which were alleged to have been
taken by
the Jewish traders in order to reduce prices, may be traced to some
general business principle characteristic of the Jews. To my mind,
the
whole case can be summed up by saying that the Jew to a certain
extent
held that in business the means justified the end. His
consideration for
the other traders and his respect for legal enactments and social
de-mands
were not very great, while on the other hand, the idea of value in
exchange in relation to goods, and the idea that all business
activity had
reference to wealth and to that only -- these became keen. What I
have
elsewhere described as the inherent tendency in capitalism to
obtain
profit, regardless of all else, is here seen in its early origin.
But we have not yet done with the inventory of methods adopted by
Jews to lower prices. We now turn to those which were of equal
funda-mental
importance with the others already mentioned, but which dif-fered
from them materially. While the first brought about only apparent
reductions, or actual reductions at other people's expense, these
pro-duced
lower prices really and absolutely. What were they? Innovations
which decreased the total cost of production in some way or other.
Ei-ther
the producer or the dealer was content with less for himself, or
the
actual expenses of production were reduced in that wages were
lowered
or the manufacturing and distributing processes made more
efficient.
That all these means of cheapening commodities were adopted by
Jews, and by them first, is amply evidenced by records in our
posses-sion.
First, the Jew could sell more cheaply because he was satisfied
with
less than the Christian trader. Unprejudiced observers remarked
this
fact on many occasions, and even the competitors of the Jews
admitted
its truth. Let us once again quote the Magdeburg official report.
The
Jews sell cheaply, "whereby the merchants must suffer loss. For
they
need more than the Jew, and, therefore, must carry on their
business in
accordance with their requirements."105 In another document it is
also
stated that "the Jew is satisfied with a smaller profit than the
Chris-tian."
106 And what did the Polish Jews tell the Christian Poles?107 That
if
they (the Poles) did not live so extravagantly, they would be able
to sell
their goods at the same prices as the Jews. A keen-eyed traveller
in
Germany towards the end of the 18th century came to the same
conclu-sion.
"The reason for the complaint (that Jews sell cheaply) is apparent:
it lies in the extravagant pride of the haughty shopkeeper, who in
his
dealings requires so much for mere show, that he cannot possibly
charge.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/107
low prices. The Jew, therefore, deserves the gratitude of the
public, to
whom he brings gain by his frugal habits, and forces the shopkeeper
with his large expenditure either to be more economical, or to go
to the
wall."108 The Report of the Vienna Court Chancery (May 12, 1762)
was
of the same opinion. The Jews can deliver at a lower rate than the
Chris-tians
"because they are more thrifty and live more cheaply." The tale
was repeated in a Hungarian document of January 9, 1756, wherein
the
proposed reduction by Joseph II of Jewish spirit-licences was
discussed.
It was there pointed out 109 that Jews were able to pay more for
their
licences because of their cheap and poor living.
No less explicit on the point is Sir Josiah Child for the England
of
his age. 'They are a penurious people, living miserably," he
says,110
"and therefore can, and do afford to trade for less profit than
the En-glish."
By the middle of the 18th century this belief was still current,
for
the cry went up that the Jews by reason of their extreme frugality
were
able to undersell the natives.111 The identical view prevailed in
France.
"It is my firm. belief," said the Intendant of Languedoc,112 in
reply to the
chronic complaints of the traders of Montpellier, "that Jewish
commerce...
does less harm to the merchants of Montpellier than their own lack
of
attention to the requirements of the public, and their rigid
determination
to make as large profits as they can."
But this is not all. There were people who asserted -- and they
must
have been gifted with no little insight -- that the Jews had
discovered
yet another trick, by means of which they succeeded in obtaining as
great, or even greater, profits than their Christian neighbours
despite
their comparatively low prices -- they increased their turnover.
As late
as the early part of the 19th century this was regarded as a
specifically
"Jewish practice"113 -- "small profits with a frequent turnover of
your
capital pay incomparably better than big profits and a slow
turnover."
This is no isolated opinion; it occurs very frequently indeed.114
Small profits, quick returns -- obviously this was a breaking away
from the preconceived idea of an economic organization of society,
where
one of the cardinal doctrines was to produce for subsistence only.
And
the Jews were the fathers of this new business-principle. Profit
was
considered as something fixed by tradition; hence-forward it was
deter-mined
by each individual trader. That was the great novelty, and again it
emanated from Jews. It was a Jewish practice to settle the rate of
profit
as each trader thought fit; it was a Jewish practice to decide
whether to
sell at a profit at all, or for a time to do business without
making profits.108/Werner Sombart
in order to earn more afterwards.115
Lastly, we have still to mention the taunt levelled against Jews,
that
they sought to reduce the cost of production, either by employing
the
cheapest labour, or by utilizing more economical methods.
With regard to the first, numerous plaints abound. The woollen
manufacturers of Avignon,118 the merchants of Montpellier,117 the
civic
authorities of Frankfort-on-the-Oder 118 and the Tailors' Craft of
the other
Frankfort are a few cases in point. But none of these disaffected
people
could realize that the Jews were the earliest undertakers in
industries
with capitalistic organizations, and, consequently, utilized new
forms of
production, just as they had utilized them in commerce.
And here we must not pass over another characteristic of Jewish
business methods, one, however, which is not mentioned in the
literature
of the early capitalistic period, probably because it was
developed at a
later date. I refer to the conscious endeavour of attracting new
custom-ers
by some device or other -- whether it was the placing of goods for
sale in a new juxtaposition, or a new system of payment, or a new
com-bination
of departments, or the organization of some new service. It
would be a most fascinating study to compile a list of all the
inventions
(exclusive, of course, of technical inventions) which trade and
com-merce
owe to the Jews. Let me refer to a few, about which we are
toler-ably
certain that they are of Jewish origin. I say nothing as to whether
Jews were merely the first to apply them, or whether they were
actually
created by Jews.
First in order I would mention the trade in old and damaged goods,
the trade in remnants and rubbish -- the Jews were able "here and
there
to maintain themselves and make a profit out of the commonest
articles,
which before had no value whatever, such as rags, rabbit-skins and
gall-nuts."119 In short, we may term the Jews the originators of
the waste-product
business. Thus, in the 18th century in Berlin, Jews were the
first feather-cleaners, the first vermin-killers and the inventors
of the so-called
"white beer."120
To what extent the general store owes its existence to the Jew it
is
impossible to say. Anyhow, the Jews, in that they held pledges,
were the
first in whose shops might be found a conglomeration of wares. And
is
it not one of the distinguishing marks of a modern store to have
for sale
articles of various kinds, intended for various uses? The result
is that
the owner of the store is but little concerned with what he sells,
so long
as he does sell. His aim is to do business, and this policy is in
accor-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/109
dance with the Jewish spirit. But apart from that, it is
well-known that
to-day stores in the United States 121 and in Germany 122 are for
the most
part in the hands of Jews.
An innovation of no little importance in the organization of retail
trading at the time of its introduction was the system of payment
by
instalments when goods to a large amount or very costly goods were
sold. In Germany, at any rate, it is possible to say with
tolerable cer-tainty,
that in this, too, Jews were pioneers. "There is a class of
shop-keeper
among Jews," we may read in an early 19th-century writer,
"in-dispensable
to the ordinary man, and of exceeding great benefit to trade.
They are the people who sell clothes or material for clothes to
the ordi-nary
customer, and receive payment for it in small instalments."123
Of Jewish origin also are a number of innovations in the catering
business. Thus, the first coffee-house in England (perhaps the
first in
the world) was opened in Oxford in 1650, or 1651, by a Jew of the
name
of Jacobs.124 It was not until 1652 that London obtained its first
coffee-house.
And to come to a later period, everybody knows that a new era
dawned in catering when Kempinsky [Kempinsky is the Lyons of
Ber-lin.
-- Trans.] introduced the standardization of consumption and of
prices as the guiding principles of the business.
In all these instances it is not so much the innovations themselves
that interest us, as the tendency to which they bear witness --
that a new
business ideal had come into existence: the adoption of new
tricks. Hence
my treatment of this subject in the present chapter, which deals
with the
Jewish spirit, Jewish commercial morality and the specifically
Jewish
economic outlook.
Reviewing the ground we have traversed, we see clearly the strong
contrast between the Jewish and the non-Jewish outlooks in the
early
capitalistic period. Tradition, the subsistence ideal, the
overpowering
influence of status -- these were the fundamentals of the latter.
And the
former -- wherein lay its novelty? How may it be characterized? I
be-lieve
one all-comprehensive word will serve our purpose, and that word
is "modern." The Jewish outlook was the "modern" outlook; the Jew
was actuated in his economic activities in the same way as the
modern
man. Look through the catalogue of "sins" laid at the door of the
Jews in
the 17th and 18th centuries, and you will find nothing in it that
the
trader of to-day does not regard as right and proper, nothing that
is not
taken as a matter of course in every business. Throughout the
centuries
the Jews championed the cause of individual liberty in economic
activi-.110/Werner Sombart
ties against the dominating views of the time. The individual was
not to
be hampered by regulations of any sort, neither as to the extent
of his
production nor as to the strict division between one calling and
another:
he was to be allowed to carve out a position for himself at will,
and be
able to defend it against all comers. He should have the right to
push
forward at the expense of others, if he were so able; and the
weapons in
the struggle were to be cleverness, astuteness, artfulness; in
economic
competition there should be no other consideration but that of
overstep-ping
the law; finally, all economic activities should be regulated by
the
individual alone in the way he thinks best to obtain the most
efficient
results. In other words, the idea of free-trade and of free
competition
was here to the fore; the idea of economic rationalism; in short,
the
modern economic outlook, in the shaping of which Jews have had a
great, if not a decisive influence. And why? It was they who
introduced
the new ideas into a world organized on a totally different basis.
Here a pertinent question suggests itself. How are we to explain
that even before the era of modern capitalism, Jews showed a
capacity
for adopting its principles? The question must be expanded into a
much
larger one. What was it that enabled the Jew to exercise so
decisive an
influence in the process that made modern economic life what it
is, an
influence such as we have observed in the foregoing enquiry?
Before us lies a great problem. We are to explain why the Jews
played
just the part they did in the economic life of the last two or
three centu-ries.
That this is a problem will be admitted with but few exceptions by
all. There are a few faddists who deny that the Jews occupied any
spe-cial
position in modern economic life, asserting as they do that there
are
no Jews. These will object. Then, too, there is that other small
category
of people who hold that the Jews were economically of such slight
im-port
that they were without any influence whatever on modern economic
life. But we shall pay little heed to either class in our
considerations,
which are for all those who think with me that the Jews had a
decisive
influence on the structure of modern economic life.
I have spoken of the aptitude of the Jews for modern capitalism. If
our researches are to be fruitful of results we shall have to make
two
things absolutely clear: (1) their aptitude -- for what? and (2)
their
aptitude -- how developed?
Their aptitude for what? For everything which in the first part of
the book we have seen them striving to achieve -- founding and
pro-moting
international trade, modern finance, the Stock Exchange and the
commercialization generally of all economic activities; supporting
un-restricted
intercourse and free competition, and infusing the modern spirit
into all economic life. Now in my superscription of this part of
our
subject all these activities are summed up in the word
"capitalism." In a
special chapter (the ninth) we shall show that all the single
facts that.112/Werner Sombart
have been mentioned hang together, and that they are kept together
by
means of capitalistic organization. The essentials of the latter,
at least in
their outline, will therefore also have to be dealt with, in order
to demon-strate
the special functions of the individual in the capitalistic system.
This method will give the death-blow to such vague conceptions,
usu-ally
met with in connexion with the Jewish problem, as "economic
ca-pacity,"
"aptitude for commerce and haggling" or other equally dilet-tante
phrases, which have already done too much mischief.
As for the second point, how, by what means, is it possible to
achieve
any result? If any one rescues a drowning man, it may be that it
was
because he happened to be standing at the water's edge, just where
a
boat was tied, or on a bridge, where a life-belt was ready to
hand. In a
word, his accidental presence in a particular spot made it
possible for
him to do the deed, by rowing out in the boat to the man in
danger, or by
throwing the life-belt to him. Or he may have done it because he
was the
only one among the crowd on the shore who had the courage to jump
into the water, swim out to the sinking man and bring him safely
to land.
In the first case we might term the circumstances "objective," in
the
second "subjective." The same distinction can be applied to the
Jews in
considering their aptitude for capitalism: it may be due to
objective or to
subjective circumstances.
My immediate business will be to deal with the first set of causes,
and for many reasons. To begin with, every explanation that is put
for-ward
must be closely scrutinized, in order to make sure that no
un-proved
hypothesis is its basis, and that what has to be proved is not a
dogma. Dangerous in most cases, it is particularly so in the
problem
before us, in which racial and religious prejudices may work
havoc, as,
indeed, they have done in the writings of the great majority of my
pre-cursors
on this question. I shall do my utmost to avoid their error in this
respect, and shall be at great pains to see to it that my
considerations are
above criticism. My aim is to discover the play of cause and
effect as it
really was, without any preconceived idea influencing my reasoning,
and I shall adduce my proofs in such a way, that they may be easily
followed by all -- by the assimilationist Jew no less than by the
Nation-alist;
by him who pins his faith to the influence of race as by the
warm-est
supporter of the doctrine of environment; by the anti-Semite as by
his opponent. Hence my starting-point will always have to be from
facts
admitted on all hands. That will preclude any appeal to "special
race
characteristics" or arguments of that ilk..The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/113
Any one who does not admit that the Jews have special gifts may
demand that the part played by this people in modern economic life
should be explained without any reference to national
peculiarities, but
rather from the external circumstances in which Jews were placed by
the accident of history. I shall endeavour to satisfy this demand
in the
tenth chapter.
Finally, if it becomes apparent that the contribution of the Jews
to
modern economic life cannot be entirely explained by the
conditions of
their historic situation, then will be the time for looking to
subjective
causes, and for considering the Jews' special characteristics.
This shall
be the purpose of the twelfth chapter.
Capitalism 1 is the name given to that economic organization
wherein
regularly two distinct social groups co-operate -- the owners of
the
means of production, who at the same time do the work of managing
and directing, and the great body of workers who possess nothing
but
their labour. The co-operation is such, that the representatives
of capital
are the subjective agents, that is, they decide as to the "how"
and the
"how much" in the process of production, and they undertake all
risks.
Now what are the mainsprings of the whole system? The first, and
perhaps the chiefest, is the pursuit of gain or profit. This being
the case,
there is a tendency for undertakings to grow bigger and bigger.
Arising
from that, all economic activities are strictly logical. Whereas
in the
pre-capitalistic period quieta non movere was the watchword and
Tra-dition
the guiding star, now it is constant movement. I characterize the
whole as "economic rationalism," and this I would term the second
mainspring of the capitalistic system.
Economic rationalism expresses itself in three ways. (1) There is a
plan, in accordance with which all things are ordered aright. And
the
plan covers activities in the distant future. (2) Efficiency is
the test ap-plied
in the choice of all the means of production. (3) Seeing that the
"cash nexus" regulates all economic activity, and that everywhere
and
always a surplus is sought for, exact calculations become
necessary in
every undertaking.
Everybody knows that a modern business is not merely, say, the
production of rails or cotton or electric motors, or the transport
of stones
or of people. Everybody knows that these are but parts in the
organiza-.114/Werner Sombart
tion of the whole. And the characteristics of the undertaker are
not that
he arranges for the carrying out of the processes named. They are
to be
found elsewhere, and for the present we may put it roughly that
they are
a constant buying and selling of the means of production, of
labour or of
commodities. To vary the phrase somewhat, the undertaker makes
con-tracts
concerning exchanges, wherein money is the measure of value.
When do we speak of having accomplished a successful piece of
business? Surely when the contract-making has ended well. But what
is
meant precisely by "well"? It certainly has no reference to the
quality or
to the quantity of the goods or services given or received; it
refers solely
and only to the return of the sum of money expended, and to a
surplus
over and above it (profit). It is the aim of the undertaker so to
manipu-late
the factors over which he has control as to bring about this
surplus.
Our next step must be to consider what functions the capitalistic
undertaker (the subjective economic factor) has in the sphere of
capital-ism,
seeing that our purpose is to show the capacity of the Jews in this
direction. We shall try to discover what special skill is
necessary in
order to be successful in the competitive struggle. In a word, we
shall
seek for the type.
To my mind, the best picture of the modern capitalistic undertaker
is that which paints him as the combination of two radically
different
natures in one person. Like Faust, he may say that two souls dwell
within his breast; unlike Faust's, however, the two souls do not
wish to
be separated, but rather, on the contrary, desire to work
harmoniously
together. What are these two natures? The one is the undertaker
(not in
the more limited sense of capitalistic undertaker, but quite
generally),
and the other is the trader.
By the undertaker I mean a man who has an object in view to which
he devotes his life, an object which requires the cooperation of
others
for its achievement, seeing that its realization is in the world
of men.
The undertaker must thus be differentiated from the artist or the
prophet.
Like them he has a mission; unlike them he feels that he must
bring it to
realization. He is a man, therefore, who peers into the distant
future,
whose every action is planned and done only in so far as it will
help the
great whole. As an instance of an undertaker in this
(non-capitalistic)
sense we may mention an African or a North Pole explorer. The
under-taker
becomes a capitalistic undertaker when he combines his original
activities with those of the trader.
And what is a trader? A man whose whole being is set upon
doing.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/115
profitable business; who appraises all activities and all
conditions with
a view to their money value, who turns everything into its gold
equiva-lent.
The world to such a man is one great market-place, with its supply
and demand, its conjunctures -- good and bad -- and its profits and
losses. The constant question on his lips is, "What does it cost?
What
can I make out of it?" His last question would in all probability
be,
"What is the price of the universe?" The circle of his thoughts is
cir-cumscribed
by one piece of business, to the successful issue of which he
devotes all his energies.
In the combination I have endeavoured to sketch, the undertaker is
the constant factor, the trader the variant one.
Constant the undertaker must be, for, having set his heart upon
some
far-distant goal, he is of necessity bound to follow some plan in
order to
reach it. Change in his policy is contrary to his nature.
Constancy is the
basis of his character. But the trader is changeable, for his
conduct
wavers with the conditions of the market. He must be able to vary
his
policy and his aim from one moment to another if the prevailing
con-juncture
so demands it. "Busy-ness" marks him out above all else.
This theory of the two souls in one body is intended to clarify our
conception of the capitalistic undertaker. But we must analyse the
con-ception
still further, this time into its actual component parts.
In the undertaker I perceive the following four types: --
(1) The Inventor -- not merely in the technical sense, but in that
of
the organizer introducing new forms which bring greater economies
into
production, or transport, or marketing.
(2) The Discoverer -- of new means of selling his commodities,
either intensively or extensively. If he finds a new sphere for
his activi-ties
-- let us say he sells bathing-drawers to Eskimos, or gramophones
to Negroes -- we have a case of extensive discovery; if he creates
new
demands in markets where he already has a footing, we may speak of
intensive discovery.
(3) The Conqueror. An undertaker of the right kind is always a
conqueror, with the determination and will-power to overcome all
the
difficulties that beset his path. He must also be able to risk
much, to
stake his all (that is to say, his fortune, his good name, even
his life), if
need be, to achieve great results for his undertaking. It may be
the adop-tion
of new methods in manufacture, the extension of his business though
his credit is unstable, and so on.
(4) The Organizer. Above all else the undertaker must be an
orga-.116/Werner Sombart
nizer; i.e., he must be able so to dispose of large numbers of
individuals
as to bring about the most successful result; must be able to fit
the
round man into the round hole and the square man into the square;
must
be able to give a man just the job for which he is best equipped,
so as to
obtain the maximum of efficiency. To do this satisfactorily demands
many gifts and much skill. For example, the organizer must be able
to
tell at a glance what a man can do best, and which man among many
will best suit his purpose. He must be able to let others do his
work --
i.e., to place in positions of trust such persons as will be able
to relieve
him of responsibility. Finally, he must be able to see to it that
the human
factors in the work of production are sufficient for the purpose,
both
quantitatively and qualitatively, and that their relationship to
each other
is harmonious. In short, the management of his business must be the
most efficient possible.
Now business organization means a good deal more than the skilful
choice of men and methods; it means taking into consideration also
geo-graphical,
ethnological and accidentalcircumstances of all sorts. Let me
illustrate my point. The Westinghouse Electric Company is one of
the
best organized concerns in the United States. When the Company
de-cided
to capture the English market it set up a branch in this country,
the
organization of which was modelled exactly on that of the parent
con-cern.
After a few years, what was the result? The financial break-up of
the English branch, chiefly because sufficient allowance had not
been
made for the difference in English conditions.
This leads us to the activities of the trader. A trader has no
definite
calling; he has only certain well-defined functions in the body
economic.
But they are of a very varied kind. For example: to provision
ships and
supply them with men and ammunition, to conquer wild lands in
distant
parts, to drive the natives from hearth and home and seize their
goods
and chattels, to load the ships with these latter and bring them
home in
order to sell them at public auctions to the highest bidder -- all
this is a
form of trading.
Or, it may be a different form -- as when a dealer obtains a pair
of
old trousers from a needy man of fashion, to whose house he comes
in
vain five times in succession, and then palms those same trousers
off on
a stupid yokel.
Or, again, it may take the form of arbitrage dealing on the Stock
Exchange.
Clearly there are differences in these instances, as there were
be-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/117
tween trading in modern and in mediaeval times. In the
pre-capitalistic
period, to trade meant to trade on a big scale, as the "royal
merchants"
did in the Italian and German cities, and the trader had to be an
under-taker
(in the general, and not merely in the capitalistic sense). "Each
(of
the citizens of Genoa) has a tower in his house; if civil war
breaks out,
the battlements of these towers are the scenes of conflict. They
are mas-ters
of the sea; they build them ships, called galleys, and roam for
plun-der
in the most distant parts, bringing the spoil back to Genoa. With
Pisa they live in continual enmity." "Royal merchants" these, if
you
like; but not traders in my sense.
I regard those as traders who set out with the intention of doing
good business; who combine within themselves two activities --
calcu-lation
and negotiation. In a word, the trader must be (1) a speculating
calculator, and (2) a business man, a negotiator.
As a speculating calculator, he must buy in the cheapest market and
sell in the dearest. Which means that he must obtain his labour
and his
raw material at as low a rate as possible, and not waste anything
in the
process of manufacture. And when the commodity is ready for sale,
he
must part with it to the man whose credit is sound, and so forth.
For all
this he must calculate, and he must speculate. By speculation in
this
sense I mean the drawing of several conclusions from particular
in-stances
-- let us call it the power of economic diagnosis, the complete
survey of the market, the evaluation of all its symptoms, the
recognition
of future possibilities and the choice of that course which will
have the
greatest utility in the long run.
To this end the dealer must have a hundred eyes, a hundred ears and
a hundred feelers in all directions. Here he may have to search
out a
needy nobleman, or a State bent on war, in order to offer them a
loan at
the psychological moment; there, to put his hand on a labour group
that
is willing to work a few pence below the prevailing rate of wages;
here
he may have to form a right estimate of the chances that a new
article is
likely to have with the public; there, to appraise the true effect
of a
political crisis on the Stock Exchange. In every case the trader
expresses
the result in terms of money. That is where the calculation comes
in. "A
wonderfullyshrewd calculator" is a term common in the United States
for an adept in this direction.
But a discerning eye for a profitable piece of business is not
suffi-cient:
the trader must also possess the capacity for doing business. In
this, his negotiating powers will come into play, and he will be
doing.118/Werner Sombart
something very much more akin to the work of an arbitrator between
two litigants. He will talk to his opponent, urge reasons and
counter-reasons
in order to induce him to embark on a certain course. To nego-tiate
is to fence with intellectual weapons.
Trading, then, means to negotiate concerning the buying and selling
of some commodity, be it a share, a loan, or a concern. Trading
must be
the term applied to the activity of the hawker at the back-door,
trying to
sell the cook a "fur" collar, or to that of the Jewish old do'
man, who
talks for an hour to the bucolic driver to persuade him to
purchase a pair
of trousers. But it must be equally applied to the activities of a
Nathan
Rothschild, who negotiated with the representative of the Prussian
Gov-ernment
for a loan of a million. The difference is not one of kind, but of
extent, for the essence of all trading is negotiation, which need
not nec-essarily
be by word of mouth. The shopkeeper who recommends his
goods to the public, be his method what you will, is in reality
negotiat-ing.
What is all advertisement but "dumb show" negotiation? The end in
view is always the same -- to convince the possible buyer of the
supe-riority
of a particular set of goods. The ideal of the seller is realized
when everybody purchases the article he has recommended.
To create interest, to win confidence, to stir up a desire to buy
--
such is the end and aim of the successful trader. How he achieves
it is of
little moment. Sufficient that he uses not outward force but inner
forces,
his customers coming to him of their own free will. He wins by
sugges-tion,
and one of the most effective is to arouse in the heart of the
buyer
the feeling that to buy at once will be most advantageous. "We
shall
have snow, boys, said the Finns, for they had Aander (a kind of
snow-shoe)
to sell," we read in the Magnus Barford Saga (1006 A.D.). This is
the prototype of all traders and the suggestion of the Finns the
prototype
of all advertising -- the weapon with which the trader fights. No
longer
does he dwell in fortified towers, as did his precursor in Genoa
in the
days of Benjamin of Tudela, nor does he wreck the houses of the
natives
with his guns if they refuse to "trade" with him, as did the early
East
India settlers in the 17th century..The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/119
Now that we know what a capitalist undertaker is our next question
must be. What were the outward circumstances that made it possible
for
the Jews to do so much in shaping the capitalistic system? To
formulate
an answer we shall have to review the position of the Jews of
Western
Europe and America from the end of the 15th century until the
present
time -- the period, that is, in which capitalism took form.
How can that position be best characterized?
The Governor of Jamaica in a letter he wrote (December 17, 1671)
to the Secretary of State was happy in his phraseology.1 "He was of
opinion," he said, "that His Majesty could not have more profitable
subjects than the Jews: they had great stocks and correspondence."
These two reasons, indeed, will account in large measure for the
head-way
made by Jews. But we must also bear in mind their peculiar status
among the peoples with whom they dwelt. They were looked upon as
strangers and were treated not as full, but as "semi-citizens."
I would therefore assign four causes for the success of the Jews:
(1)
their dispersion over a wide area, (2) their treatment as
strangers, (3)
their semi-citizenship, and (4) theirwealth.
Jewish Dispersion over a Wide Area
The fact of primary significance is that the Jews were scattered
all over
the world. Scattered they had been from the time of the first
Exile; they
were scattered anew after their expulsion from Spain and Portugal,
and
again when great masses of them left Poland. We have already
accom-panied
them on their wanderings during the last two or three centuries,
and have noted how they settled in Germany and France, in Italy
and in
England, in the Near East and in the Far West, in Holland, in
Austria, in
South Africa and in Eastern Asia.
One result of these wanderings was that off-shoots of one and the
same family took root in different centres of economic life and
estab-lished
great world-famed firms with numerous branches in all parts. Let
us instance a few cases.2
The Lopez family had its seat in Bordeaux, and branches in Spain,
England, Antwerp and Toulouse. The Mendes family, well-known
bank-ers,
also hailed from Bordeaux, and were to be found in Portugal,
France.120/Werner Sombart
and Flanders. The Gradis, relatives of the Mendes, were also
settled in
all directions. So, too, the Carceres in Hamburg, in England, in
Austria,
in the West Indies, in Barbados and in Surinam. Other famous
families
with world-wide branches were the Costas (Acostas, D'Acostas), the
Coneglianos, the Alhadibs, the Sassoons, the Pereires, the
Rothschilds.
We might continue the list ad infinitum; suffice it to say that
Jewish
business concerns that had a footing in at least two places on the
face of
the globe may be counted in hundreds and in thousands.
What all this means is obvious enough. What Christian business
houses obtained only after much effort, and even then only to a
much
less degree, the Jews had at the very beginning -- scattered
centres from
which to carry on international commerce and to utilize
international
credit; "great correspondence" in short, the first necessity for
all inter-national
organization.
Let us recall what I observed about the participation of the Jews
in
Spanish and Portuguese trade, in the trade of the Levant, and in
the
economic growth of America. It was of great consequence that the
great
majority of Jews settling in different parts hailed from Spain;
they were
thus agents in directing colonial trade, and to an even greater
extent the
flow of .silver, into the new channels represented by Holland,
England,
France and Germany.
Was it not significant that the Jews directed their footsteps just
to
these countries, all on the eve of a great economic revival, and
were thus
the means of allowing them to benefit by Jewish international
connexions?
It is well known that Jews turned away the flow of trade from the
lands
that expelled them to those that gave them a hospitable reception.
Was it not significant that they were predominant in Leghorn, which
in the 18th century was spoken of as "one of the great depots in
Europe
for the trade of the Mediterranean,"3 significant that they forged
a com-mercial
chain binding North and South America together, which as-sured
the North American Colonies of their economic existence,
signifi-cant
above all, that by their control of the Stock Exchanges in the
great
European centres they were the means of internationalizing public
credit?
It was their distribution over a wide area which enabled them to do
all this.
An admirable picture of the importance of the Jews from this point
of view was drawn by a clever observer who made a study of that
people
two hundred years ago. The picture has lost none of its freshness;
it may
be found in the Spectator of September 27, 1712 :4 --.The Jews and
Modern Capitalism/121
They are so disseminated through all the trading Parts of the
World,
that they are become the Instruments by which the most distant
Nations converse with one another and by which mankind are
knit together in a general correspondence. They are like the pegs
and nails in a great building, which though they are but little
val-ued
in themselves, are absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame
together.
How the Jews utilized for their own advantage the special
knowl-edge
that their scattered position gave them, how they regulated their
activities on the Stock Exchange, is related in all detail in a
Report of
the French Ambassador in The Hague, written in the year 1698. 5 Our
informant is of opinion that the dominance of the Jews on the
Amsterdam
Stock Exchange was due in a large degree to their being so
well-in-formed.
This piece of evidence is of such great value that I shall
trans-late
the whole of the passage: --
They carry on a correspondence on both these subjects (news and
commerce) with those they call their brotherhoods (congregues).
Of these, Venice is considered to be the most important (although
neither the richest nor the most populous) because it is the link,
by
way of the brotherhood of Salonica, between the East and the West
as well as the South. Salonica is the governing centre for their
nation in these two parts of the world and is responsible for them
to Venice, which together with Amsterdam, rules the northern
countries (including the merely tolerated community of London,
and the secret brotherhoods of France). The result of this
associa-tion
is that on the two topics of news and commerce they receive,
one might almost say, the best information of all that goes on in
the world, and on this they build up their system every week in
their assemblies, wisely choosing for this purpose the day after
Saturday, i.e., the Sunday, when the Christians of all
denomina-tions
are engaged in their religious exercises. These systems, which
contain the minutest details of news received during the week,
are, after having been carefully sifted by their rabbis and the
heads
of their congregations, handed over on the Sunday afternoon to
their Jewish stockbrokers and agents. These are men of great
clev-erness,
who after having arranged a preconcerted plan among them-selves,
go out separately to spread news which should prove the
most useful for their own ends; ready to start manipulations on the
morrow, the Monday morning, according to each individual's
dis-.122/Werner Sombart
position: either selling, buying, or exchanging shares. As they
al-ways
hold a large reserve of these commodities, they can always
judge of the most propitious moment, taking advantage of the rise
or fall of the securities, or even sometimes of both, in order to
carry out their plans.
Equally beneficial was their dispersion for winning the confidence
of the great. Indeed, the progress of the Jews to la haute finance
was
almost invariably as follows. In the first instance their
linguistic ability
enabled them to be of service to crowned heads as interpreters,
then they
were sent as intermediaries or special negotiators to foreign
courts. Soon
they were put in charge of their employer's fortunes, at the same
time
being honoured through his graciousness in allowing them to become
his creditors. From this point it was no long step to the control
of the
State finances, and in later years of the Stock Exchanges.
It is no far-fetched assumption that already in ancient times their
knowledge of languages and their acquaintance with foreign
civiliza-tions
must have made them welcome visitors at the courts of kings and
won for them royal confidence. Think of Joseph in Egypt; of the
Alabarch
Alexander (of whom Josephus tells), the intimate of King Agrippa
and
of the mother of the Emperor Claudius; think of the Jewish
Treasurer of
Queen Candace of Ethiopia, of whom we may read in the Acts of the
Apostles (viii. 27).
As for the Court Jews in the Middle Ages, we have definite
infor-mation
that they won their spurs in the capacity of interpreters or
nego-tiators.
We know it of the Jew Isaac, whom Charlemagne sent to the
court of the Caliph Haroun al Rashid; of Kalonymus, the Jewish
friend
and favourite of the Emperor Otto II; of the famous Chasdai Ibn
Shaprut
(915--70), who achieved honour and renown as the diplomatic
represen-tative
of the Caliph Abdul-Rahman III in his negotiations with the
Chris-tian
courts of Northern Spain.6 Similarly when the Christian princes of
the Iberian Peninsula required skilful negotiators they sought out
Jews.
Alphonso VI is a good example. Intent on playing off the petty
Moham-medan
rulers against each other, he chose Jewish agents, with their
lin-guistic
abilities and their insight into foreign ways, to send to the
courts
of Toledo, Seville and Granada. In the period which followed,
Jewish
emissaries are met with at all the Spanish courts, including those
Jews,
learned in ethnography, whom James II commissioned to travel into
Asia
in order to supply his spies with information and who tried to
discover
the mythical country of Prester John;7 including also the many
interpret-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/123
ers and confidential agents associated with the discovery of the
New
World.8
Considering the importance of the Spanish period in Jewish history
not only from the general, but also from the special economic
point of
view, these cases are worthy of note in that they clearly show the
reason
for the rise of Jews to influential positions. But they are not
limited to
the Spanish period; they abound in subsequent epochs also. Thus,
Jew-ish
diplomatists were employed by the States-General in their
intercourse
with the Powers; and names like Delmonte, Mesquita 9 and others are
well-known. Equally famous is the Seigneur Hebraeo, as Richelieu
called
the wealthy Ildefonso Lopez, whom the French statesman sent on a
se-cret
mission to Holland, and on his return bestowed upon him the tide of
"Conseiller d'Etat ordinaire."10
Finally, the dispersion of the Jews is noteworthy in another way.
Their dispersion internationally was, as we have seen, fruitful
enough
of results; but their being scattered in every part of some
particular
country had consequences no less potent. To take one instance --
the
Jews were army-purveyors (and their activities as such date from
the
days of antiquity, for do we not read that when Belisarius
besieged Naples,
the Jewish inhabitants offered to supply the town with
provisions?).11
One reason was surely that they were able to accumulate large
quanti-ties
of commodities much more easily than the Christians, thanks to
their connexions in the different centres. "The Jewish
undertaker," says
one 18th-century writer, "is free from these difficulties. All he
need do
is to stir up his brethren in the right place, and at a moment's
notice he
has all the assistance he requires at his disposal."12 In truth,
the Jew at
that time never carried on business "as an isolated individual,
but al-ways
as a member of the most extended trading company in the world."13
In the words of a petition of the merchants of Paris in the second
half of
the 18th century,14 "they are atoms of molten money which flow and
are
scattered, but which at the least incline reunite into one
principal stream."
The Jews as Aliens
During the last century or two Jews were almost everywhere
strangers
in the sense of being new-comers. They were never old-established
in
the places where their most successful activities were manifest;
nor did
they arrive in such centres from the vicinity, but rather from
distant
lands, differing in manners and customs, and often in climate too,
from
the countries of their settlements. To Holland, France and England
they.124/Werner Sombart
came from Spain and Portugal and then from Germany; they journeyed
to Hamburg and Frankfort from other German cities; later on they
dis-persed
all over Germany from Russian Poland.
The Jews, then, were everywhere colonists, and as such learned the
lesson of speedy adaptation to their new surroundings. In this
they were
ahead of the European nations, who did not become masters of this
art
until the settlements in America were founded.
New-comers must have an observant eye in order to find a niche for
themselves amid the new conditions; they must be very careful of
their
behaviour, so that they may earn their livelihood without let or
hin-drance.
While the natives are still in their warm beds the new-comers
stand without in the sharp morning air of dawn, and their energy
is all
the keener in consequence. They must concentrate their thoughts to
ob-tain
a foothold, and all their economic activities will be dictated by
this
desire. They must of necessity determine how best to regulate
their un-dertakings,
and what is the shortest cut to their goal -- what branches
of manufacture or commerce are likely to prove most profitable,
with
what persons business connexions should be established, and on what
principles business itself should be conducted. What is all this
but the
substitution of economic rationalism for time-honoured Tradition?
That
the Jews did this we have already observed; why they were forced
to do
it becomes apparent when we recall that everywhere they were
strang-ers
in the land, new-comers, immigrants.
But the Jews were strangers among the nations throughout many
centuries in yet another sense, which might be termed
psychological and
social. They were strangers because of the inward contrast between
them
and their hosts, because of their almost caste-like separation
from the
peoples in whose midst they dwelt. They, the Jews, looked upon
them-selves
as a peculiar people: and as a peculiar people the nations
re-garded
them. Hence, there was developed in the Jews that conduct and
that mental attitude which is bound to show itself in dealings
with "strang-ers,"
especially in an age in which the conception of world-citizenship
was as yet nonexistent. For in all periods of history innocent of
humani-tarian
considerations the mere fact that a "stranger" was being dealt
with was sufficient to ease the conscience and loosen the bonds of
moral
duty. In intercourse with strangers people were never quite so
particu-lar.
Now the Jews were always brought into contact with strangers, with
"others," especially in their economic activities, seeing that
everywhere
they were a small minority. And whereas the "others" dealt with
a.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/125
stranger, say, once in ten times or even in a hundred, it was just
the
reverse with the Jews, whose intercourse with strangers was nine
out of
the ten or ninety-nine out of the hundred times. What was the
conse-quence?
The Jew had recourse to the "ethics for strangers" (if I may use
this term without being misunderstood) far more frequently than the
non-Jew; for the one it was the rule, whilst for the other it was
only the
exception. Jewish business methods thus came to be based on it.
Closely interwoven with their status as strangers was the special
legal position which they occupied everywhere. But this has an
impor-tance
of its own, and we shall therefore assign an independent section to
it.
Jews as Semi-Citizens
At first glance the legal position of the Jews would appear to
have had
an immense influence on their economic activities in that it
limited the
callings to which they might devote themselves, and generally
closed the
avenues to a livelihood. But I believe that the effect of these
restrictions
has been over-estimated. I would even go so far as to say that
they were
of no moment whatever for the economic growth of Jewry. At least,
I am
not aware that any of the traces left by Jews on the development
of the
modern economic system were due to the restraining regulations.
That
these could not have left a very deep impress is obvious, seeing
that
during the period which is of most interest to us the laws
affecting Jews
differed greatly according to locality. For all that we note a
remarkable
similarity in Jewish influence throughout the whole range of the
capital-istic
social order.
How varied the laws in restraint of Jews were is not always
suffi-ciently
realized. To begin with, there were broad differences between
those of one country and of another. Thus, while the Jews in
Holland
and England were in a position of almost complete equality with
their
Christian neighbours so far as their economic life was concerned,
they
laboured under great disabilities in other lands. But even in
these last
their treatment was not uniform, for in certain towns and
districts they
enjoyed entire economic freedom, as, for example, in the papal
posses-sions
in France.15 Moreover, even the disabilities varied in number and
in kind in each country, and sometimes in different parts of the
same
country. In most instances they appeared to be quite arbitrary;
nowhere
was there any underlying principle visible. In one place Jews
might not
be hawkers, and in another they were not allowed to be
shopkeepers..126/Werner Sombart
Here they received permission to be craftsmen; there this right
was de-nied
them. Here they might deal in wool, there they might not. Here they
might sell leather, there it was forbidden them. Here the sale of
alcoholic
liquors was farmed out to them, there such an idea seemed
preposter-ous.
Here they were encouraged to start factories, there they were
strictly
enjoined to desist from all participation in capitalistic
undertakings. Such
examples might be continued indefinitely.
Perhaps the best is furnished by Prussia's treatment of her Jews in
the 18th century. Here in one and the same country the restrictive
legis-lation
for one locality was totally opposed to that of another. The
re-vised
General Privileges of 1750 (Article 2) forbade Jews the exercise
of handicrafts in many places; yet a royal order of May 21, 1790,
per-mitted
the Jews in Breslau "to exercise all manner of mechanical arts,"
and went on to say that "it would be a source of much pleasure to
Us if
Christian craftsmen of their own free will took Jewish boys as
appren-tices
and eventually received them into their gilds." A similar enactment
was made in the General Reglement for the Jews of South-East
Prussia,
dated April 17, 1797 (Article 10).
Again, while the Jews of Berlin were forbidden (by Articles 13 and
15 of the General Privileges of 1750) to sell meat, beer and
brandy to
non-Jews, all the native-born Jews of Silesia had complete freedom
of
trade in this respect (in accordance with an Order of February 13,
1769).
The list of commodities in which they were allowed or forbidden to
trade seems to have been drawn up with an arbitrariness that passes
comprehension. Thus, the General Privileges of 1750 allowed the
Jews
to deal in foreign or home leather prepared though undyed, but not
in
raw or dyed leather; in raw calf and sheep skins, but not in raw
cow or
horse hides; in all manner of manufactured woollen and cotton
wares,
but not in raw wool or woollen threads.
The picture becomes still more bewildering when we take into
con-sideration
the varying legal status of the different classes of Jews. The
Jewish community of Breslau, for instance, was (until the Order of
May
21, 1790, changed things) composed of four groups: (1) those with
"gen-eral
privileges," (2) those with "privileges," (3) those who were only
tolerated, and (4) temporary residents.
The first class included those Jews who were on an equal footing
with Christians so far as trade and commerce were concerned, and
whose
rights in this respect were hereditary. In the second were
comprised
such Jews as had "special (limited) privileges" given them,
wherein they.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/127
were allowed to trade in certain kinds of goods specifically
mentioned.
But their rights did not pass to their children, though the
children re-ceived
preference when privileges of this kind were being granted. The
third class was composed of Jews who had the right of living in
Breslau,
but whose economic activities were even more limited than those in
the
second class. As for the fourth, it contained the Jews who
received per-mission
to dwell in the town for a temporary period only.
But even of such rights as they had they were never sure. In 1769,
for example, the Silesian Jews who lived in country districts were
al-lowed
to receive in farm the sale of beer, brandy and meat; in 1780 the
permission was withdrawn; in 1787 it was renewed.
Yet in all this it must not be forgotten that regulations in
restraint of
industry and commerce during the last two or three centuries were
for
the most part a dead letter; as a matter of fact, capitalistic
interests
found ways and means of getting round them. The simplest method was
to overstep the law, a course to which as time went on the
bureaucratic
State shut its eyes. But there were lawful means too of
circumventing
inconvenient paragraphs: concessions, privileges, patents, and the
whole
collection of documents granting exceptional treatment which
princes
were always willing to issue if only an additional source of
income ac-crued
therefrom. The Jews were not slow in obtaining such privileges.
The proviso mentioned in the Prussian Edicts of 1737 and 1750 --
that
all restraints referring to Jews might be removed by a special
royal
order -- was tacitly held to apply in all cases. Some way out must
have
been possible, else how could the Jews have engaged in those trades
(e.g., leather, tobacco) which the law forbade them?
At one point, however, industrial regulations made themselves felt
as very real checks to the progress of the Jew, and that was
wherever
economic activities were organized on a corporate basis. The gilds
were
closed to them; they were kept back by the crucifix which hung in
each
gild-hall, and round which members assembled. Accordingly, if they
wished to engage in any industry or trade monopolized by a gild,
they
were forced to do so as "outsiders," interlopers and free traders.
But a still greater obstacle in their path were the laws regulating
their position in public life. In all countries there was a
remarkable uni-formity
in these; everywhere the Jew was shut out from public offices,
central or local, from the Bar, from Parliament, from the Army,
from
the Universities. This applied to the States of Western Europe --
France,
Holland, England -- and also to America. But there is no need to
con-.128/Werner Sombart
sider with any degree of fullness the legal status of the Jews in
the pre-emancipation
era, seeing that it is fairly generally known. Only this we
would mention here -- that their condition of semi-citizenship
contin-ued
in most countries right into the 19th century. The United States
was
the first land in which they obtained civil equality; the
principle was
there promulgated in 1783. In France the famous Emancipation Law
dates from 27th September 1791; in Holland the Batavian National
Assembly made the Jews full citizens in 1796. But in England it
was not
until 1859 that they were granted complete emancipation, while in
the
German States it took ten years longer. On 3rd July 1869 the North
German Confederation finally set the seal on their civil equality;
Aus-tria
had already done so in 1867, and Italy followed suit in 1870.
Equally well-known is it that in many cases the emancipation laws
have become dead letters. Open any Liberal paper in Germany (to
take
a good instance) and day by day you will find complaints that Jews
are
never given commissions in the Army, that they are excluded from
ap-pointments
to the Bench, and so on.
This set-back which the Jews received in public life was of great
use to industry and commerce in that the Jew concentrated all his
ability
and energy on them. The most gifted minds from other social groups
devoted themselves to the service of the State; among the Jews, in
so far
as they did not spend themselves in the Beth Hamidrash [the
Communal
House of Study], such spirits were forced into business. Now the
more
economic life aimed at profit-making and the more the moneyed
inter-ests
acquired influence, the more were the Jews driven to win for
them-selves
by means of commerce and industry what was denied them by the
law -- respect and power in the State. It becomes apparent why
gold (as
we have seen) was appraised so highly among Jews.
But if exclusion from public life was of benefit to the economic
position of the Jews in one direction, giving them a pull over
their Chris-tian
neighbours, it was equally beneficial in another. It freed the Jews
from political partisanship. Their attitude towards the State, and
the
particular Government of the day, was wholly unprejudiced. Thanks
to
this, their capacity to become the standard-bearers of the
international
capitalistic system was superior to that of other people. For they
sup-plied
the different States with money, and national conflicts were among
the chief sources from which Jews derived their profit. Moreover,
the
political colourlessness of their position made it possible for
them to
serve successive dynasties or governments in countries which, like
France,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/129
were subjected to many political changes. The history of the
Rothschilds
illustrates the point. Thus the Jews, through their inferior civil
position,
were enabled to facilitate the growth of the indifference of
capitalism to
all interests but those of gain. Again, therefore, they promoted
and
strengthened the capitalistic spirit.
The Wealth of the Jews
Among the objective conditions which made possible the economic
mis-sion
of the Jews during the last three or four centuries must be
reckoned
that at all times and in all places where their role in economic
life was no
mean one, they disposed of large sums of money. But this assertion
says
nothing about the wealth of the whole body of Jews, so that it is
idle to
urge the objection that at all periods there were poor Jews, and
very
many of them. Any one who has ever set foot in a Jewish
congregation
on the Eastern borders of Germany, or is acquainted with the Jewish
quarter of New York, knows that well enough. But what I maintain
-- a
more limited proposition -- is that much wealth and great fortunes
were
to be found, and still are to be found, among Jews ever since the
17th
century. Put in a slightly different way, there were always many
wealthy
Jews, and certainly the Jews on an average were richer than the
Chris-tians
round them. It is beside the mark to say that the richest man in
Germany or the three richest in America are not Jews.
A good many of the exiles from the Pyrenean Peninsula must have
been very wealthy indeed. We are informed that their flight
brought with
it an "exodo de capitaes," a flow of capital from the country.
However,
in many instances they sold their property, receiving foreign
bills in
exchange.16 The richest among the fugitives probably made for
Holland.
At any rate it is recorded that the first settlers in that country
-- Manuel
Lopez Homen, Maria Nunez, Miguel Lopez and others -- had great
possessions.17 Whether other wealthy Spaniards followed in the 17th
century, or whether those already resident added to their
fortunes, it is
not easy to discover. But certain it is that the Jews of Holland
in the 17th
and 18th centuries were famed for their riches. True, there are no
statis-tics
to illustrate this, but an abundance of other weighty evidence
exists.
Travellers could not sufficiently admire the splendour and the
luxury of
the houses of these refugees who dwelt in what were really
palaces. And
if you turn to a collection of engravings of that period, do you
not very
soon discover that the most magnificent mansions in, say, Amsterdam
or The Hague were built by Jews or inhabited by them -- those
of.130/Werner Sombart
Baron Delmonte, of the noble Lord de Pinto, of the Lord d'Acoste
and
others? (At the close of the 17th century de Pinto's fortune was
esti-mated
at 8,000,000 florins.) Of the princely luxury at a Jewish wedding
in Amsterdam, where one of her daughters married, Gliickel von
Hamein
draws a vivid picture in her Memoirs.18
It was the same in other lands. For 17th and 18th century France we
have the generalization of Savary, who knew most things. "We say,"
these are his very words, "we say that a tradesman is 'as rich as
a Jew'
when he has the reputation of having amassed a large fortune."19
As for England, actual figures are extant concerning the wealth of
the rich Sephardim soon after their arrival. A crowd of rich Jews
fol-lowed
in the train of Catharine of Braganza, Charles II's bride, so that
while in 1661 there were only 35 Jewish families in London, two
years
later no less than 57 new-comers were added to the list. In 1663,
as
appears from the books of Alderman Blackwell, the following was the
half-yearly turnover of the wealthy Jewish merchants:20 Jacob
Aboab,
£13,085; Samuel de Vega, £18,309; Duarte de Sylva, £41,441;
Fran-cisco
da Sylva, £14,646; Fernando Mendes da Costa, £30,490; Isaac
Dazevedo, £13,605; George and Domingo Francia, £35,759; and Gomez
Rodrigues, £13,124.
The centres of Jewish life in Germany in the 17th and 18th
centuries
were, as we have already observed, Hamburg and
Frankfort-on-the-Main.
For both cities it is possible to compute the wealth of the
resident
Jews by the aid of figures.
In Hamburg, too, it was Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were the
first settlers. In 1649, 40 of their families participated in the
foundation
of the Hamburg Bank, which shows that they must have been fairly
comfortably off. Very soon complaints were made of the increasing
wealth
and influence of the Jews. In 1649 they were blamed for their
ostenta-tious
funerals and for riding in carriages to take the air; in 1650 for
building houses like palaces. In the same year sumptuary laws
forbade
them too great a show of magnificence.21 Up to the end of the 17th
century the Sephardic Jews appear to have possessed all the wealth;
about that time, however, their Ashkenazi brethren also came
quickly to
the fore. Glückel von Hamein states that many German-Jewish
families
which in her youth were in comparative poverty later rose to a
state of
affluence. And Glückel's observations are borne out by figures
dating
from the first quarter of the 18th century.22 In 1729 the Jewish
commu-nity
in Altona was composed of 279 subscribing members, of whom.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/131
145 were wealthy, possessing between them 5,434,300 mark
[£271,715],
that is, an average of more than 37,000 mark [£1850] per head. The
Hamburg community had 160 subscribing members, 16 of whom to-gether
were worth 501,500 mark [£25,075]. These figures appear to be
below the actual state of things, if we compare them with the
particulars
concerning each individual. In 1725 the following wealthy Jews were
resident in Hamburg, Altona and Wandsbeck: Joel Solomon, 210,000
mark; his son-in-law, 50,000; Elias Oppenheimer, 300,000; Moses
Goldschmidt, 60,000; Alex Papenheim, 60,000; Elias Salomon,
200,000;
Philip Elias, 50,000; Samuel Schiesser, 60,000; Berend Heyman,
75,000;
Samson Nathan, 100,000; Moses Hamm, 75,000; Sam Abraham's
widow, 60,000; Alexander Isaac, 60,000; Meyer Berend, 400,000;
Salomon Berens, 1,600,000; Isaac Hertz, 150,000; Mangelus Heymann,
200,000; Nathan Bendix, 100,000; Philip Mangelus, 100,000; Jacob
Philip, 50,000; Abraham Oppenheimer's widow, 60,000; Zacharias
Daniel's widow and widowed daughter, 150,000; Simon del Banco,
150,000; Marx Casten, 200,000; Abraham Lazarus, 150,000; Carsten
Marx, 60,000; Berend Salomon, 600,000 rthlr.; Meyer Berens,
400,000;
Abraham von Halle, 150,000; Abraham Nathan, 150,000.
In view of this list it can scarcely be doubted that there were
many
rich Jews in Hamburg.
Frankfort presents the same picture; if anything the colours are
even
brighter. The wealth of the Jews begins to accumulate at the end
of the
16th century, and from then onwards it increases steadily. In 1593
there
were 4 Jews and 54 Christians (making 7.4 per cent.) in Frankfort
who
paid taxes on a fortune of over 15,000 florins; in 1607 thennumber
had
reached 16 (compared with 90 Christians, i.e., 17.7 per cent.).28
In 1618
the poorest Jew paid taxes on 100 florins, the poorest Christian
on 50.
Again, 300 Jewish families paid as garrison and fortification
taxes no
less than 100,900 florins in the years 1634 to 1650. 24
The number of taxpayers in the Frankfort Jewish community rose
to 753 by the end of the 18th century, and together they possessed
at
least 6,000,000 florins. More than half of this was in the hands
of the
twelve wealthiest families:25 Speyer, 604,000 florins;
Reiss-Ellissen,
299,916; Haas,Kann, Stem, 256,500; Schuster, Getz, Amschel,
253,075;
Goldschmidt, 235,000; May, 211,000; Oppenheimer, 171,500;
Wertheimer, 138,600; Florsheim, 166,666; Rindskopf, 115,600;
Rothschild, 109,375; Sichel, 107,000.
And in Berlin the Jews in the early 18th century were not by
any.132/Werner Sombart
means poor beggars. Of the 120 Jewish families resident in the
Prussian
capital in 1737 only 10 owned less than 1000 thalers, the rest all
had
2000 to 20,000 thaler, and over.26
That the Jews were among the richest people in the land is thus
attested, and this state of affairs has continued through the last
two or
three hundred years right down to our own day, except that to-day
it is
perhaps more general and more widespread. And its consequence? It
can scarcely be overestimated for those countries which offered a
ref-uge
to the wanderers. The nations that profited by the Jews' sojourn
with them were well equipped to help forward the development of
capi-talism.
Hence it should be specially noticed that the wanderings of the
Jews had the effect of shifting the centre where the precious
metals had
accumulated. Obviously it could not but influence the trend of
economic
life that Spain and Portugal were emptied of then: gold and
England and
Holland enriched.
Nor is it difficult to prove that Jewish money called into
existence
all the large undertakings of the 17th century and financed them.
Just as
the expedition of Columbus wouldhave been impossible had the rich
Jews left Spain a generation earlier, so the great India Companies
might
never have been founded and the great banks which were established
in
the 17th century might not so quickly have attained their
stability had it
not been that the wealth of the Spanish exiles came to the aid of
En-gland,
Holland and Hamburg; in other words, had the Jews been ex-pelled
from Spain a century later than was actually the case.
This in fact was why Jewish wealth was so influential. It enabled
capitalistic undertakings to be started, or at least facilitated
the process.
To establish banks, warehouses, stock and share-broking -- all
this was
easier for the Jew than for the others because his pockets were
better
lined. That, too, was why he became banker to crowned heads. And
finally, because he had money he was able to lend it. This
activity paved
the way for capitalism to a greater degree than anything else did.
For
modern capitalism is the child of money-lending.
Money-lending contains the root idea of capitalism; from
money-lending
it received many of its distinguishing features. In money-lend-ing
all conception of quality vanishes and only the quantitative aspect
matters. In money-lending the contract becomes the principal
element
of business; the agreement about the quid pro quo, the promise for
the
future, the notion of delivery are its component parts. In
money-lending
there is no thought of producing only for one's needs.In
money-lending.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/133
there is nothing corporeal (i.e., technical), the whole is a
purely intellec-tual
act. In money-lending economic activity as such has no meaning; it
is no longer a question of exercising body or mind; it is all a
question of
success. Success, therefore, is the only thing that has a meaning.
In
money-lending the possibility is for the first time illustrated
that you can
earn without sweating; that you may get others to work for you
without
recourse to force.
In fine, the characteristics of money-lending are the
characteristics
of all modern capitalistic economic organizations.
But historically, too, modern capitalism owes its being to
money-lending.
This was the case wherever it was necessary to lay out money
for initial expenses, or where a business was started as a limited
com-pany.
For essentially a limited company is in principle nothing but a
matter of money-lending with the prospect of immediate profit.
The money-lending activities of the Jews were thus an objective
factor in enabling the Jews to create, to expand and to assist the
capital-istic
spirit. But our last remarks have already touched upon a further
problem, going beyond objective considerations. Is there not
already a
specific psychological element in the work of the money-lender? But
more than this. It may be asked, Can the objective circumstances
alone
entirely explain the economic role of the Jews? Are there not
perhaps
special Jewish characteristics which must be taken into account in
our
chain of reasoning? Before proceeding to this chapter, however, we
must
turn to an influence of extreme importance in this connexion -- to
the
Jewish religion.
Introductory Note
Three reasons have actuated me in devoting a special chapter to the
consideration of the religion of the Jewish people and the
demonstration
of its enormous influence on Jewish economic activities. First,
the Jew-ish
religion ca be fully appreciated in all its bearings from the
economic
standpoint only when it is studied in detail and by itself;
secondly, it
calls for a special method of treatment; and thirdly, it occupies
a posi-tion
midway between the objective and the subjective factors of Jewish
development. For, in so far as any religion is the expression of
some.134/Werner Sombart
particular spiritual outlook, it has a "subjective" aspect; in so
far as the
individual is born into it, it has an objective aspect.
The Importance of Religion for the Jewish People
That the religion of a people, or of a group within a people, can
have
far-reaching influences on its economic life will not be disputed.
Only
recently Max Weber demonstrated the connexion between Puritanism
and Capitalism. In fact. Max Weber's researches are responsible for
this book. For any one who followed them could not but ask himself
whether all that Weber ascribes to Puritanism might not with equal
jus-tice
be referred to Judaism, and probably in a greater degree; nay, it
might well be suggested that that which is called Puritanism is in
reality
Judaism. This relationship will be discussed in due course.
Now, if Puritanism has had an economic influence, how much more
so has Judaism, seeing that among no other civilized people has
religion
so impregnated all national life. For the Jews religion was not an
affair
of Sundays and Holy Days; it touched everyday life even in its
minutest
action, it regulated all human activities. At every step the Jew
asked
himself. Will this tend to the glory of God or will it profane His
name?
Jewish law defines not merely the relation between man and God,
for-mulates
not merely a metaphysical conception; it lays down rules of
conduct for all possible relationships, whether between man and
man or
between man and nature. Jewish law, in fact, is as much part of the
religious system as are Jewish ethics. The Law is from God, and
moral
law and divine ordinances are inseparable in Judaism.1 Hence in
reality
there are no special ethics of Judaism. Jewish ethics are the
underlying
principles of the Jewish religion.2
No other people has been so careful as the Jews in providing for
the
teaching of religion to even the humblest. As Josephus so well put
it:
Ask the first Jew you meet concerning his "laws" and he will be
able to
tell you them better than his own name. The reason for this may be
found in the systematic religious instruction given to every
Jewish child,
as well as in the fact that divine service partly consists of the
reading
and explanation of passages from Holy Writ. In the course of the
year
the Torah is read through from beginning to end. Moreover, it is
one of
the primary duties of the Jew to study the Torah. "Thou shalt
speak of
them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the
way
and when thou liest down and when thou risest up" (Deut. vi. 5).3
No other people, too, has walked in God's ways so
conscientiously.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/135
as the Jews; none has striven to carry out its religious behests
so thor-oughly.
It has indeed been asserted that the Jews are the least religious
of peoples. I shall not stay to weigh the justice of this remark.
But cer-tain
it is that they are the most "God-fearing" people that ever were on
the face of the earth. They lived always in trembling awe, in awe
of
God's wrath. "My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee, and I am afraid
of
Thy judgments," said the Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 120), and the words
may
be taken as applicable to the Jews in every age. "Happy is the man
that
feareth alway" (Prov. xxviii. 14). "The pious never put away their
fear"
(Tanchuma Chukkath, 24 ).4 One can understand it when one thinks of
the Jewish God -- fearful, awful, curse-uttering Jehovah. Never in
all
the world's literature, either before or since, has humanity been
threat-ened
with so much evil as Jehovah promises (in the famous 28th chapter
of Deuteronomy) to those who will not keep His commandments.
But this mighty influence (the fear of God) did not stand alone.
Others combined with it, and together they had the tendency of
almost
forcing the Jews to obey the behests of their religion most
scrupulously.
The first of these influences was their national fate. When the
Jewish
State was destroyed the Pharisees and Scribes -- i.e., those who
cher-ished
the traditions of Ezra and strove to make obedience to the Law the
end and aim of life -- the Pharisees and Scribes came to the head
of
affairs and naturally directed the course of events into channels
which
they favoured. Without a State, without their sanctuary, the Jews,
under
the leadership of the Pharisees, flocked around the Law (that
"portable
Fatherland," as Heine calls it), and became a religious
brotherhood,
guided by a band of pious Scribes, pretty much as the disciples of
Loyola
might gather around them the scattered remnants of a modern State.
The Pharisees now led the way. Their most distinguished Rabbis
looked
upon themselves as the successors of the ancient Synhedrium, and
were
indeed so regarded, becoming the supreme authority in spiritual and
temporal affairs for all the Jews in the world.5 The power of the
Rabbis
originated in this fashion, and the vicissitudes of the Jews in
the Middle
Ages only helped to strengthen it. So oppressive did it eventually
be-come
that the Jews themselves at times complained of the burden. For
the more the Jews were shut off, or shut themselves off, from the
people
among whom they dwelt, the more the authority of the Rabbis
increased,
and the more easily could the Jews be forced to be faithful to the
Law.
But the fulfilment of the Law, which was urged upon them by the
Rab-bis,
must have been a necessity for the Jews for inner reasons: it
satis-.136/Werner Sombart
fied their heart's desire, it appeared the most precious gift that
life had
to offer. And why? Because amid all the persecution and suffering
which
was meted out to the Jews on all sides, that alone enabled them to
retain
their dignity, without which life would have been valueless. For a
very
long period religious teaching was enshrined in the Talmud, and
hence
Jews through many centuries lived in it, for it and through it.
The Tal-mud
was the most precious possession of the Jew; it was the breath of
his nostrils, it was his very soul. The Talmud became a family
history
for generation after generation, with which each was familiar. "The
thinker lived in its thought, the poet in its pure idealism. The
outer world,
the world of nature and of man, the powerful ones of the earth and
the
events of the times, were for the Jew during a thousand years
accidents,
phantoms; his only reality was the Talmud."6 The Talmud has been
well
compared (and the comparison to my mind applies equally to all
reli-gious
literature) to an outer shell with which the Jews of the Diaspora
covered themselves; it protected them against all influences from
with-out
and kept alive their strength within.7
We see, then, what forces were at work to make the Jews right down
to modern times a more God-fearing people than any other, to make
them religious to their inmost core, or, if the word "religious"
be ob-jected
to, to keep alive among high and low a general and strict
observa-tion
of the precepts of their religion. And for our purpose, we must
regard this characteristic as applicable to all sorts and
conditions of
Jews, the Marannos of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries included.
We
must look upon these too as orthodox Jews. Says the foremost
authority
on that period of Jewish history,8 "The great majority of the
Marannos
were Jews to a much larger extent than is commonly supposed. They
submitted to force of circumstance and were Christians only
outwardly.
As a matter of fact they lived the Jewish life and observed the
tenets of
the Jewish religion. . . . This admirable constancy will be
appreciated to
the full only when the wealth of material in the Archives of
Alcalia de
Henares, Simancas and other places has been sorted and utilized."
But among professing Jews the wealthiest were often enough
excel-lent
Talmudic scholars. Was not a knowledge of the Talmud a highway
to honour, riches and favour among Jews? The most learned
Talmudists
were also the cleverest financiers, medical men, jewellers,
merchants.
We are told, for example, of some of the Spanish Ministers of
Finance,
bankers and court physicians that they devoted to the study of the
Holy
Writ not only the Sabbath day but also two nights of each week.
In.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/137
modern times old Amschel Rothschild, who died in 1855, did the
same.
He lived strictly according to Jewish law and ate no morsel at a
stranger's
table, even though it were the Emperor's. One who knew the Baron
well
says of him that "he was looked upon as the most pious Jew in all
Frankfort. Never have I seen a man so afflict himself -- beating
his
breast, and crying to Heaven -- as Baron Rothschild did in the
syna-gogue
on the Day of Atonement. The continual praying weakens him so
that he falls into a faint. Odorous plants from his garden are
held to his
nose to revive him."9 [Sombart in the German text quotes this as an
occurrence on the Sabbath. It is obvious that the description
refers to
the Day of Atonement. -- Trans.] His nephew William Charles, who
died in 1901 and who was the last of the Frankfort Rothschilds,
ob-served
all the religious prescriptions in their minutest detail. The pious
Jew is forbidden to touch any object which under certain
circumstances
has become unclean by having been already touched by some one else.
And so a servant always walked in front of this Rothschild and
wiped
the door-handles. Moreover, he never touched paper money that had
been in use before; the notes had to be fresh from the press.
If this was how a Rothschild lived, it is not surprising to come
across
Jewish commercial travellers who do not touch meat six months in
the
year because they are not absolutely certain that the method of
slaugh-tering
has been in accordance with Jewish law.
However, if you want to study orthodox Judaism you must go to
Eastern Europe, where it is still without disintegrating elements
-- you
must go there personally or read the books about it. In Western
Europe
the orthodox Jews are a small minority. But when we speak of the
influ-ence
of the Jewish religion it is the religion that held sway until a
gen-eration
ago that we mean, the religion that led the Jews to so many
victories.
The Sources of the Jewish Religion
Mohammed called the Jews "the people of the Book." He was right.
There is no other people that lived so thoroughly according to a
book.
Their religion in all its stages was generally incorporated in a
book, and
these books may be looked upon as the sources of the Jewish
religion.
The following is a list of such books, each originating at a
particular
time and supplementing some other.
1. The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, until the destruction of the
Second Temple. It was read in Hebrew in Palestine and in
Greek.138/Werner Sombart
(Septuagint) in the Diaspora.
2. The Talmud (more especially the Babylonian Talmud), from the
2nd to the 6th century of the Common Era, the principal depository
of
Jewish religious teaching.
3. The Code of Maimonides, compiled in the 12th century.
4. The Code (called the Turim) of Jacob ben Asher (1248--1340).
5. The Code of Joseph Caro -- the Shulchan Aruch (16th century).
These "sources" from which the Jewish religion drew its life appear
in a different light according as they are regarded by scientific
research
or with the eyes of the believing Jew. In the first case they are
seen as
they really are; in the second, they are idealized.
What are they in reality? The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, is
the
foundation upon which the entire structure of Judaism was built
up. It
was written by many hands at different periods, thus forming, as
it were,
a piece of literary mosaic.10 The most important portion of the
whole is
the Torah, i.e., the Pentateuch. It received its present shape by
the com-mingling
of two complete works some time in the period after Ezra. The
one was the old and the new (the Deuteronomic) Law Book (650 B.C.)
and the other, Ezra's Law Book (440 B.C.).[I.e. Deut. v. 45--xxvi,
69
(about 650 B.C.) and Exod. xii. 25--31, xxxv to Lev. xv; Numb.
i--x; xv--
xix; xxvii--xxxvi. (about 445 B.C.).] And its special character
the Torah
owes to Ezra and Nehemiah, who introduced a strict legal system.
With
Ezra and the school of Soferim (scribes) that he founded, Judaism
in the
form which it has to-day originated; from that period to the
present it
has remained unchanged.
Beside the Torah we must mention the so-called Wisdom Literature
-- the Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus and the Proverbs.
This
section of Jewish literature is wholly postexilic; only in that
period could
it have arisen, assuming as it did the existence of the Law, and
the pre-vailing
belief that for obeying the Law God gave Life, for transgressing
it Death. The Wisdom Literature, unlike the Prophetic Books, was
con-cerned
with practical life. Some of the books contain the crystallized
wisdom of many generations and are of a comparatively early date.
The
Book of Proverbs, for example, the most useful for our purpose,
dates
from the year 180 B.C.11
Two streams flow from the Bible. The one, chiefly by way of the
Septuagint, ran partly into Hellenistic philosophy and partly into
Pauline
Christianity. That does not concern us further.
The other, chiefly by way of the Hebrew Bible current in
Palestine,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/139
ran into Jewish "Law," and the course of this we shall have to
follow.
The specifically Jewish development of the Holy Writ already be-gan
as early as Ezra's day; it was due to the first schools of Soferim
(scribes), and the later schools of Hillel and Shammai only
extended
and continued the work. The actual "development" consisted of
expla-nations
and amplifications of the Holy Writ, arrived at as the result of
disputation, the method in vogue in the Hellenistic World. The
develop-ment
was really a tightening of the legal formalism, with the view of
protecting Judaism against the inroads of Hellenistic Philosophy.
Here,
as always, the Jewish religion was the expression of a reaction
against
disintegrating forces. The Deuteronomic Law was the reaction
against
Baal worship; the Priestly Code against Babylonian influences; the
later
Codes of Maimonides and Rabbenu Asher and Caro against Spanish
culture; and the teaching of the Tannaim [Tannai -- teacher] in the
century preceding and that commencing the Common Era against the
enervating doctrines of Hellenism.12
The old oral tradition of the "Wise" was codified about the year
200
A.D. by R. Judah Hanassi (the Prince), usually called Rabbi. His
work is
the Mishna. Following on the Mishna are further explanations and
ad-ditions
which were collected and given a fixed form in the 6th century
(500-550 A.D.) by the Sdboraim [Saborai -- those who give
opinions].
Those portions which had reference to the Mishna alone were termed
the Gemara, the authors of which were the Amoraim [Amorai --
speaker], Mishna and Gemara together form the Talmud, of which
there
are two versions, the Palestinian and the Babylonian. The latter
is the
more important.13
The Talmud, as edited by the Saboraim, has become the chief
de-pository
of Jewish religious teaching, and its universal authority re-sulted
from the Mohammedan conquests. To begin with, it became the
legal and constitutional foundation for Jewish communal life in
Babylon,
at the head of which stood the "Prince of the Captivity" and the
Presi-dents
of the two Talmudic colleges, the Gaonim [Gaon -- Excellency].
As Islam spread further and further afield the Jewish communities
in the
lands that it conquered came into closer relation with the Gaonate
in
Babylon; they asked advice on religious, ethical and common law
ques-tions
and loyally accepted the decisions, all of which were based on the
Talmud. Indeed, Babylonian Jewry came to be regarded as the new
cen-tre
of Jewish life.
As soon as the Gemara was written down, and so received
perma-.140/Werner Sombart
nent form, the development of Judaism ceased. Nevertheless we must
mention the three codes which in the post-Talmudic period embodied
all
the substance of the religion, first, because they presented it in
a some-what
different garb, and secondly, because in their regulation of the
religious life they could not but pay some heed to changed
conditions.
All the three codes are recognized by Jews as authoritative side
by side
with the Talmud, and the last, the Shulchan Aruch, is looked upon
to-day
by the orthodox Jew as containing the official version of religious
duties. What is of interest to us in the case of all the codes is
that they
petrified Jewish religious life still more. Of Maimonides even
Graetz
asserts as much. "A great deal of what in the Talmud is still
mutable, he
changed into unmodifiable law. ... By his codification he robbed
Juda-ism
of the power of developing. . . . Without considering the age in
which the Talmudic regulations arose, he makes them binding for all
ages and circumstances." R. Jacob ben Asher went beyond Maimonides,
and Joseph Caro beyond Jacob ben Asher, reaching the utmost limit.
His work tends to ultra-particularism and is full of
hair-splitting casu-istry.
The religious life of the Jews "was rounded off and unified by the
Shulchan Aruch, but at the cost of inwardness and unfettered
thought.
Caro gave Judaism the fixed form which it has retained down to the
present day."14
This, then, is the main stream of Jewish religious life; these the
sources from which Judaism drew its ideas and ideals. There were,
of
course, tributary streams, as, for instance, that of the
Apocalyptic lit-erature
of the pre-Christian era, which stood for a heavenly, a universal,
an individualistic Judaism;15 or that of the Kabbala, which busied
itself
with symbols and arithmetical figures. But these had small share
in the
general development of Jewish life, and may be neglected so far as
their
effect on historic Judaism is concerned. Nor were they ever
recognized
by "official" Judaism as sources of the Jewish religion.
So much for the realistic conception of these sources. But what of
that current in orthodox Jewish circles? In many respects the
belief of
the pious Jew touching the origin of the Jewish system is of much
more
consequence than its real origin. We must therefore try and
acquaint
ourselveswith that belief.
The traditional view, which every orthodox Jew still holds, is that
the Jewish system has a twofold birth: partly through Revelation
and
partly in the inspiration of the "Wise." Revelation refers to the
written
and the oral tradition. The former is contained in the holy books
of the.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/141
Bible -- the Canon as it was fixed by the members of the Great
Syna-gogue.
It has three parts 16 : -- the Torah or Pentateuch, the Prophetical
Books and the "Writings" (the remaining books). The Torah was given
to Moses on Sinai and he "gradually instructed the people in it
during
their forty years' wandering in the wilderness. ... It was not
until the end
of his life that he finished the written Torah, the five books of
Moses,
and delivered them unto Israel, and we are in duty bound to
consider
every letter, every word of the written Torah as the Revelation of
God."17
The remaining books were also the outcome of divine revelation,
or, at
any rate, were inspired by God. The attitude towards the
Prophetical
literature and the Hagiographa, however, is somewhat freer than
that
towards the Torah.
The Oral Tradition, or the Oral Torah, is the explanation of the
written one. This, too, was revealed to Moses on Sinai, but for
urgent
reasons was not allowed to be written down at once. That took
place at
a much later date -- only after the destruction of the second
Temple --
and was embodied in Mishna and Gemara, which thus contain the only
correct explanation of the Torah, seeing that they were divinely
revealed.
In the Talmud are included also rabbinic ordinances and the
Haggada,
i.e., the interpretation of those portions of Holy Writ other than
the legal
enactments. The interpretation of the latter was called the
Halacha, and
Halacha and Haggada supplemented each other. Beside these were
placed the collection of decisions, i.e., the three codes already
referred
to.
What was the significance of all this literature for the religious
life
of the Jews? What was it that the Jew believed, what were the
com-mands
he obeyed?
In the first place it must be premised that so far as I am aware
there
is no system of dogmas in Judaism.18 Wherever compilation of such a
system has been attempted it was invariably the work of non-Jews.19
The nature of the Jewish religion and more especially the
construction
of the Talmud, which is characterized by its lack of order, is
inconsis-tent
with the formulation of any dogmatic system. Nevertheless certain
principles may be discovered in Judaism, and its spirit will be
found
expressed in Jewish practices. Indeed, it will not be difficult to
enumer-ate
these principles, since they have remained the same from the very
beginning. What has been termed the "spirit of Ezekiel" has been
para-mount
in Judaism from Ezra's day to ours. It was only developed more
and more, only taken to its logical conclusions. And so to
discover what.142/Werner Sombart
this "spirit" is we need only refer to the sources of the religion
-- the
Bible, the Talmud and the later Rabbinic literature.
It is a harder task to determine to what extent this or that
doctrine
still finds acceptance. Does, for example, the Talmudic adage,
"Kill
even the best of the Gentiles," still hold good? Do the other
terrible
aphorisms ferreted out in Jewish religious literature by
Pfefferkom,
Eisenmenger, Rohling, Dr. Justus and the rest of that fraternity,
still find
credence, or are they, as the Rabbis of to-day indignantly
protest, en-tirely
obsolete? It is obvious, of course, that the single doctrines were
differently expressed in different ages, and if the whole
literature, but
more especially the Talmud, is referred to on particular points,
opposite
views, the "pros" and the "cons," will be found. In other words,
it is
possible to "prove" absolutely anything from the Talmud, and hence
the
thrust and counter-thrust between the anti-Semites and their
Jewish and
non-Jewish opponents from time immemorial; hence the fact that what
the one proved to be black by reference to the Talmud the others
proved
to be white on the same authority. There is nothing surprising in
this
when it is remembered that to a great extent the Talmud is nothing
else
than a collection of controversies of the different Rabbinical
scholars.
To discover the religious ordinances which regulated actual life we
must make a distinction which, to my mind, is very real -- the
distinc-tion
between the man who by personal study strives to find out the law
for himself, and the one who accepts it on the authority of
another. In
the case of the first, the thing that matters is that some opinion
or other
is found expressed. It is of no consequence that its very opposite
may
also be there. For the pious Jew who obtains edification by the
study of
his literature the one view was enough. It may have been the spur
to a
particular course of action; or it may have provided him with an
addi-tional
reason for persisting in a course upon which he had already
en-tered.
The sanction of the book was sufficient in either event, most of
all
if it was the Bible or, better still, the Torah. Since all was of
divine
origin, one passage was as binding as another. This held good
whether
applied to the Bible, to the Talmud or to the later Rabbinic
writings.
The matter assumes a different aspect if the individual does not,
or
cannot, study the sources himself but relies on the direction of
his spiri-tual
adviser or on books recommended by him. Such a one is confronted
with only one opinion, arrived at by the proper interpretation of
contra-dictory
texts. Obviously these views must have varied from time to time,
in accordance with the Rabbinic traditions in each epoch. Hence,
to find.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/143
the laws that in any period were binding we much search for its
Rab-binic
traditions -- no great task since the publication of the Rabbinic
law-books. From the llth to the 14th century we have the Yad
Hachawka
["Strong Hand"] of Maimonides, from the 14th to the 16th the Tur
of R.
Jacob ben Asher, and after the 16th the Shulchan Aruch of Caro.
Each
of these gives the accepted teachings of the age, each is the
decisive
authority. For the last three hundred years the Shulchan Aruch has
thus
laid down the law wherever there were differences of opinion. As
the
text-book I have already quoted says, "First and foremost the
Shulchan
Aruch of R. Joseph Caro, together with the notes of R. Moses
Isserlein
and the other glosses, is recognized by all Israel as the Code on
which
we model our ritual observances." The Law is also summed up in the
613 precepts which Maimonides derived from the Torah and when even
to-day are still in force. "According to the tradition of our
Teachers (of
blessed memory) God gave Israel by the hand of Moses 613 precepts,
248 positive and 365 negative. All these are binding to all
eternity; only
those which have reference to the Jewish State and agricultural
life in
Palestine and to the Temple service in Jerusalem are excepted, as
they
cannot be carried out by the Jews of the Diaspora. We can obey 369
precepts, 126 positive and 243 negative; and in addition the seven
Rab-binic
commands."20
The lives of Orthodox Jews were governed by these manuals during
the last century and still are so to-day, in so far as the
guidance of the
Rabbinic law was followed and opinions based on a personal study of
the sources were not formed. From the manuals we have mentioned,
therefore, we must gather the ordinances which were decisive for
each
individual instance in religious life. Hence Reformed Judaism is
of no
concern to us, and books trimmed to suit modern ideas, such as the
great
majority of the latest expositions of the "Ethics of Judaism," are
abso-lutely
useless for our purpose -- which is to show the connexion be-tween
capitalism and genuine Jewish teaching, and its significance in
modern economic life.
The Fundamental Ideas of the Jewish Religion
Let me avow it right away: I think that the Jewish religion has
the same
leading ideas as Capitalism. I see the same spirit in the one as
in the
other.
In trying to understand the Jewish religion -- which, by the way,
must not be confused with the religion of Israel (the two are in a
sense.144/Werner Sombart
opposites) -- we must never forget that a Safer was its author, a
rigidly
minded scribe, whose work was completed by a band of scribes after
him. Not a prophet, mark you; not a seer, nor a visionary nor a
mighty
king; a Safer it was. Nor must we forget how it came into being:
not as
an irresistible force, not as the expression of the deepest needs
of con-trite
souls, not as the embodiment of the feelings of divinely inspired
votaries. No; it came into being on a deliberate plan, by clever
deduc-tions,
and diplomatic policy which was based on the cry "Its religion
must be preserved for the people." The same calm consideration, the
same attention to the ultimate goal were responsible in the
centuries that
followed for the addition of line to line and precept to precept.
That
which did not fit in with the scheme of the Soferim from before
the days
of Ezra and that which grew up afterwards, fell away.
The traces of the peculiar circumstances which gave it birth are
still
visible in the Jewish religion. In all its reasoning it appeals to
us as a
creation of the intellect, a thing of thought and purpose
projected into
the world of organisms, mechanically and artfully wrought,
destined to
destroy and to conquer Nature's realm and to reign itself in her
stead.
Just so does Capitalism appear on the scene; like the Jewish
religion, an
alien element in the midst of the natural, created world; like it,
too,
something schemed and planned in the midst of teeming life. This
sheaf
of salient features is bound together in one word: Rationalism.
Ratio-nalism
is the characteristic trait of Judaism as of Capitalism;
Rational-ism
or Intellectualism -- both deadly foes alike to irresponsible
mysti-cism
and to that creative power which draws its artistic inspiration
from
the passion world of the senses.
The Jewish religion knows no mysteries, and is perhaps the only
religion on the face of the globe that does not know them. It
knows not
the ecstatic condition wherein the worshipper feels himself at one
with
the Godhead, the condition which all other religions extol as the
highest
and holiest. Think of the Soma libation among the Hindoos, think of
entranced Indra himself, of the Homa sacrifice of the Persians, of
Dionysus, the Oracle of Greece and of the Sibylline books, to which
even the staid Romans went for advice, only because they were
written
by women who in a state of frenzy prophesied the future.
Down to the latest days of the Roman Empire the characteristic of
religious life which remained the same in all aspects of
heathenism con-tinued
to manifest itself -- the characteristic which spread far and wide
and infected large masses of people, of working yourself up by
sheer.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/145
force to a pitch of bodily or mental excitement, often becoming
baccha-nalian
madness, and then regarding this as the deity's doing and as part
of his service. It was a generally accepted belief that certain
sudden
impulses or bursts of passion or resolutions were roused in the
soul of a
man by some god or other; and conduct of which a man was ashamed or
which he regretted, was usually ascribed to the influence of a
god.21 "It
was the god who drove me to it" -- so, in Plautus's comedy, the
young
man who had seduced a maiden excused himself to his father.
The same thing must have been experienced by Mohammed in his
morbid condition when his fits of ecstasy were upon him, and there
is a
good deal of mysticism in Islam. At least Mohammedanism has its
howl-ing
dervishes.
And in Christianity, too, so far as it was not Judaism, room was
found for emotional feeling -- witness the doctrine of the
Trinity, the
sweet cult of Mariolatry, the use of incense, the communion. But
Juda-ism
looks with proud disdain on these fantastic, mystical elements,
con-demning
them all. When the faithful of other religions hold converse
with God in blissful convulsions, in the Jewish synagogue, called
a Shool
[i.e., School] not without significance, the Torah is publicly
read. So
Ezra ordained, and so it is done most punctiliously. "Ever since
the
destruction of the State, study became the soul of Judaism, and
religious
observances without knowledge of the ordinances which enjoined them
was considered as being of little worth. The central feature of
public
service on Sabbaths and Holy Days was the lesson read from the Law
and the Prophets, the translation of the passages by the
Targumists [In-terpreters]
and the homiletic explanation of them by the Haggadists
[Preachers]."
Radix stultitiae, cui frigida sabbata cordi
Sed cor frigidus relligione sua
Septima quaeque dies turpi damnato vetemo
Tanquam lassati mollis imago dei.
[The Sabbath -- monstrous folly! -- fills the need
Of hearts still icier than their icy creed,
Each seventh day in shameful sloth they nod,
And ape the languor of their weary God.]
Such was the Roman view.22
Judaism then looked askance at mysteries. With no different eye did
it regard the holy enthusiasm for the divine in the world of
feeling. Astarte,.146/Werner Sombart
Daphne, Isis and Osiris, Aphrodite, Fricka and the Holy Virgin --
it
would have none of them. It banished all pictorial art from its
cult. "And
the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the
sound
of words but ye saw no form" (Deut. iv. 12). "Cursed be the man
that
maketh a graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the
work of the hands of the craftsman. . . ." (Deut. xxvii. 15). The
com-mand,
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" finds accep-tance
to-day, and the pious Jew has no statues made, nor does he set
them up in his house.23
The kinship between Judaism and Capitalism is further illustrated
by the legally regulated relationship -- I had almost said the
business-like
connexion, except that the term has a disagreeable connotation --
between God and Israel. The whole religious system is in reality
nothing
but a contract between Jehovah and His chosen people, a contract
with
all its consequences and all its duties. God promises something
and gives
something, and the righteous must give Him something in return.
In-deed,
there was no community of interest between God and man which
could not be expressed in these terms -- that man performs some
duty
enjoined by the Torah and receives from God a quid pro quo.
Accord-ingly,
no man should approach God in prayer without bringing with him
something of his own or of his ancestors' by way of return i for
what
he is about to ask.24
The contract usually sets forth that man is rewarded for duties
per-formed
and punished for duties neglected; the rewards and punishments
being received partly in this and partly in the next world. Two
conse-quences
must of necessity follow: first, a constant weighing up of the
loss and gain which any action needs must bring, and secondly, a
com-plicated
system of bookkeeping, as it were, for each individual person.
The whole of this conception is excellently well illustrated by the
words of Rabbi [164--200 A.D.]: "Which is the right course for a
man to
choose? That which he feels to be honourable to himself and which
also
brings him honour from mankind. Be heedful of a light precept as
of a
grave one, for you do not know what reward a precept brings. Reckon
the loss incurred by the fulfilment of a precept against the
reward se-cured
by its observance, and the gain gotten by a transgression against
the loss it involves. Reflect on three things and you will not
come within
the power of sin. Know what is above thee -- a seeing eye, and a
hear-ing
ear, and all your deeds written in a book."25 So that whether one
is
accounted "righteous" or "wicked" depends on the balance of
commands.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/147
performed against commands neglected. Obviously this necessitates
the
keeping of accounts, and each man therefore has his own, in which
his
words and his deeds, even the words spoken in jest, are all
carefully
registered. According to one authority (Ruth Rabba, 33a) the
prophet
Elijah keeps these accounts; according to another (Esther Rabba,
86a)
the duty is assigned to angels.
Every man has thus an account in heaven: Israel a particularly
large
one (Sifra, 446). And one of the ways of preparing for death is to
have
your "account" ready (Kohelet Rabba, Tic). Sometimes "extracts"
from
the accounts are forthcoming (by request). When the angels brought
an
accusation against Ishmael, God asked, "What is his position at
present?
Is he a righteous man or a wicked?" (i.e., do the commands
performed
outweigh those neglected?). And the angels replied, "He is a
righteous
man." When Mar Ukba died, he asked for a statement of his account
(of
the money he had given to charity). It totalled 7000 zuzim. As he
was
afraid that this would not suffice for his salvation he gave away
half of
his fortune in order to be on the safe side (Kethuboth, 25; Baba
Bathra,
7). The final decision as to the righteousness or wickedness of
any man
is made after his death. The account is then closed, and the grand
total
drawn up. The result is inserted in a document (Shetar) which is
handed
to each individual after it has been read out.26
It is not difficult to perceive that the keeping of these accounts
was
no easy matter. In Biblical times, so long as rewards and
punishments
were meted out in the life on earth, the task was no great one.
But in the
period that followed, when rewards and punishments were granted
partly
in this life and partly in life everlasting, the question grew to
be trouble-some,
and in the Rabbinic theology an intricate and artistic system of
bookkeeping was evolved. This distinguished between the capital sum
or the principal, and the fruits or the interest, the former being
reserved
for the future world, the latter for this. And in order that the
reward
which is laid up in heaven for the righteous may not be
diminished, God
does not lessen the stock when He grants him ordinary earthly
benefits.
Only when he receives extraordinary, i.e., miraculous, benefits on
earth
does the righteous man suffer a diminution of his heavenly reward.
Moreover, the righteous is punished for his sins at once on earth,
as the
wicked is rewarded for his good deeds, so that the one may have
only
rewards in heaven and the other only chastisements.27
Another conception is bound up with this of divine bookkeeping
and is closely akin to a second fundamental trait of capitalism --
the.148/Werner Sombart
conception of profit. Sin or goodness is regarded as something
apart
from the sinner. Every sin, according to Rabbinic theology, is
consid-ered
singly and by itself. "Punishment is according to the object and
not
the subject of the sin."28 The quantity of the broken commandments
alone counts. No consideration whatever is had for the personality
of
the sinner or his ethical state, just as a sum of money is
separated from
persons, just as it is capable of being added to another abstract
sum of
money. The ceaseless striving of the righteous after well-being in
this
and the next world must needs therefore take the form of a constant
endeavour to increase his rewards. Now, as he is never able to
tell whether
at a particular state of his conscience he is worthy of God's
goodness or
whether in his "account" the rewards or the punishments are more
nu-merous,
it must be his aim to add reward after reward to his account by
constantly doing good deeds to the end of his days. The limited
concep-tion
of all personal values thus finds no admission into the world of
his
religious ideas and its place is taken by the endlessness of a
pure quan-titative
ideal.
Parallel with this tendency there runs through Jewish moral
theol-ogy
another which regards the getting of money as a means to an end.
The conception is frequently found in books of religious
edification, the
authors of which realizing but seldom that in their warnings
against the
acquisition of too much wealth they are glorifying this very
practice.
Usually the treatment of the subject is under the heading
"covetous-ness,"
forbidden by the tenth commandment. "A true Israelite," remarks
one of the most popular of modern "helps to faith,"29 "avoids
covetous-ness.
He looks upon all his possessions only as a means of doing what is
pleasing in the sight of God. For is not the entire purpose of his
life to
use all his possessions, all enjoyment as the means to this end?
Indeed it
is a duty ... to obtain possessions and to increase one's
enjoyments, not
as an end in themselves but as a means to do God's will on earth."
But if it is urged that this is no conclusive proof of the
connexion
between the religious idea and the principle of getting gain, a
glance at
the peculiar ordering of divine service will soon be convincing.
At one
stage in the service there is a veritable public auction. The
honorary
offices connected with the reading of the law are given to the
highest
bidder. Before the scrolls are taken from the Ark, the beadle
walks round
the central platform (the Almemor) and cries out:
"Who will buy Hazoa vehachnosa? (i.e., the act of taking the
scrolls
from the Ark and of replacing them). Who will buy Hagboha? (the
act.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/149
of raising the scroll in the sight of the people). Who will buy
Gelilah?"
(the act of rolling up the scroll when the reading is finished).
These
honours are knocked down to the highest bidder, and the money
given to
the synagogue poor-box. It need hardly be said that to-day this
practice
has long been eliminated from synagogue worship. In days of long
ago
it was quite general.30 Again, the words of some of the Talmudic
doc-tors,
who at times dispute over the most difficult economic questions
with all the skill of experienced merchants, cannot but have a
curious
connotation, and must needs lead to the conclusion that they
preached
the getting of gain. It would be fascinating to collect those
passages of
the Talmud wherein the modern practice of making profit is
recom-mended
by this or that Rabbi, in many cases themselves great traders. I
will quote an instance or two. "R. Isaac also taught that a man
should
always have his money in circulation." It was R. Isaac, too, who
gave
this piece of good advice. A man should divide his fortune into
three
parts, investing one in landed property, one in moveable goods, and
holding the third as ready cash (Baba Mezia, 42a). "Rav once said
to
his son. Come let me instruct thee in worldly matters. Sell your
goods
even while the dust is yet upon your feet." (What is this but a
recom-mendation
to have a quick turnover?) "First open your purse and then
unloose the sack of wheat. . . . Have you got dates in the box?
Hasten at
once to the brewer" (Pesachim, 113a).
What is the meaning of this parallelism between the Jewish religion
and capitalism? Is it a mere chance? A stupid joke perpetrated by
Fate?
Is the one the effect of the other, or are both traceable to the
same causes?
Questions such as these naturally suggest themselves to us, and I
hope
to answer them as we proceed. Here it will suffice to have called
atten-tion
to them. Our next step will be the comparatively simpler one of
showing how individual customs, conceptions, opinions and
regulations
of the Jewish religion influenced the economic conduct of Jews, of
show-ing
whether they facilitated the extension of capitalism by the Jews,
and, if so, to what degree. We shall limit ourselves in this to
primary
psychological motives, avoiding all speculative difficulties. Our
first
problem will be to discover the goal set up by the Jewish religion
and its
influence on economic life, and the next section is devoted to
it.150/Werner Sombart
The Idea of Rewards and Punishments
The idea of contract, which is part and parcel of the underlying
prin-ciples
of Judaism, must perforce have the corollary that whoever carries
out the contract receives reward, whoever breaks it receives
punish-ment.
In other words, the legal and ethical assumption that the good
prosper and the evil suffer punishment was in all ages a concept
of the
Jewish religion. All that changed was the interpretation of
prosperity
and punishment.
The oldest form of Judaism knows nothing of another world. So,
weal and woe can come only in this world. If God desires to punish
or to
reward, He must do so during man's lifetime. The righteous
therefore is
prosperous here, and the wicked here suffer punishment. Obey my
pre-cepts,
says the Lord, "so that thou mayest live long and prosper in the
land which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee." Hence the
bitter cry
of Job, "Wherefore do the wicked live, becomeold, yea, wax mighty
in
power? . . . But my way He hath fenced up, that I cannot pass ...
He hath
broken me down on every side ... He hath also kindled His wrath
against
me" [Job xxi. 7; xix. 8, 10, 11]. "Why hath all this evil come
upon me,
seeing that I walked in His path continually?"
A little after Ezra's time the idea of another world (Olam Habo)
finds currency in Judaism, the idea, too, of the immortality of
the soul
and of the resurrection of the body. These beliefs were of foreign
origin,
coming probably from Persia. But like all other alien elements in
Juda-ism
they, too, were given an ethical meaning, in accordance with the
genius of the religion. The doctrine grew up that only the
righteous and
the pious would rise up after death. The belief in eternity was
thus made
by the Soferim to fit in with the old teaching of rewards and
punish-ments,
in order to heighten the feeling of moral responsibility, i.e., of
the
fear of the judgment of God."
The idea of prosperity on earth is now extended. It is no longer
the
only reward of a good life, for a reward in the world to come is
added to
it. Still, God's blessing in this world is no small part of the
total reward.
Moreover, the very fact that a man is prosperous here was proof
posi-tive
that his life was pleasing to God, and that therefore he might
expect
reward in the next world also. Then, too, the idea of a blind fate
is no
longer troublesome. What appeared as such is now regarded as God's
punishment on earth to the righteous for his transgressions, so
that his
heavenly recompense may suffer no diminution.
The "doctrine of possession" (if the term may be allowed in
connexion.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/151
with the Jewish religion) received some such shape as this, more
espe-cially
through the Wisdom Literature. The great aim of life is to obey
God's commandments. Earthly happiness apart from God has no
exist-ence.
Hence it is folly to seek to obtain earthly possessions for their
own
sake. But to obtain them in order to use them for divine ends, so
that
they become at one and the same time the outward symbols and
guaran-tees
of God's pleasure, as signs of His blessing -- such a course is
wise.
Now earthly possessions in this view of them include a
well-appointed
house and material well-being -- in a word, wealth.
Look through Jewish literature, more especially through the Holy
Writ and the Talmud, and you will find, it is true, a few passages
wherein
poverty is lauded as something higher and nobler than riches. But
on the
other hand you will come across hundreds of passages in which
riches
are called the blessing of the Lord, and only their misuse or
their dan-gers
warned against. Here and there, too, we may read that riches alone
do not necessarily bring happiness, other things are essential in
addition
(such as health, for example), that there are "goods" (in the
broadest use
of the word) more valuable or as valuable as riches. But in all
this
nothing is said against riches; and never is it stated that they
are an
abomination to the Lord.
I once gave expression to this view in a public lecture, and it was
severely criticized on all sides. Just this point more than any
other was
controverted -- the statement that riches are in the Jewish
religion ac-counted
as a valuable good. Many of my critics, among them several
distinguished Jewish rabbis, went to the trouble of compiling
lists of
passages from the Bible and Talmud which confuted my opinion. I
ad-mit
that there are many places in the Bible and the Talmud which regard
wealth as a danger to the righteous, and in which poverty is
extolled.
There are some half-dozen of them in the Bible; the Talmud has
rather
more. But the important thing is that each of these passages may be
capped by ten others, which breathe a totally different spirit. In
such
cases numbers surely count.
I put the question to myself in this way. Let us imagine old
Amschel
Rothschild on a Friday evening, after having "earned" a million on
the
Stock Exchange, turning to his Bible for edification. What will he
find
there touching his earnings and their effect on the refinement of
his soul,
an effect which the pious old Jew most certainly desired on the
eve of
the Sabbath? Will the million bum his conscience? Or will he not be
able to say, and rightly say, "God's blessing rested upon me this
week. I.152/Werner Sombart
thank Thee, Lord, for having graciously granted the light of Thy
coun-tenance
to Thy servant. In order to find favour in Thy sight I shall give
much to charity, and keep Thy commandments even more strictly than
hitherto"? Such would be his words if he knew his Bible, and he did
know it.
For his eye would rest complacently on many a passage in the Holy
Writ. In his beloved Torah he would be able to read again and
again of
the blessing of God. "And He will love thee and bless thee and
multiply
thee. He will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of
thy ground,
thy corn and thy wine and thine oil ... thou shalt be blessed
above all
peoples" (Deut. vii. 13-15). And how moved he would be when he
reached
the words, "For the Lord, thy God, will bless thee, as He promised
thee:
and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow"
(Deut.
xv. 6). Then suppose he turns to the Psalms, what would he find
there?
O fear the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that
fear Him (Psa. xxxiv. 10).
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.... Wealth and riches are
in his house (Psa. xc. 1--3).
Our garners are full, affording all manner of store, our sheep
bring
forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields (Psa. cxliv. 13).
He would rejoice with Job when on concluding the story of his
trials
he found that his latter end was more blessed than his beginning,
and
that "he had 14,000 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 yoke of oxen and 1000
she-asses" and the rest. (Happily our friend Amschel knew nothing
of
modern Biblical criticism, and was not aware therefore that this
par-ticular
portion of Job is a later interpolation in the story.)
The prophets also promised Israel earthly rewards if it kept to
God's
way and walked therein. If Amschel turned to the 60th chapter of
Isaiah
he would find the prophecy that one day the Gentiles should bring
their
gold and silver to Israel.
But perhaps Amschel's favourite book would be Proverbs,32 "which
expresses in a most pregnant form the ideas of life current in
Israel" (as
a rabbi wrote to me who quoted this book in proof of my error,
Prov.
xxii. 1, 2; xxiii. 4; xxviii. 20, 21; xxx. 8). Here he would be
warned that
riches alone do not bring happiness (xxii. 1, 2), that God must
not be
denied amid great wealth (xxx. 8), that "he that maketh haste to
be rich
shall not be unpunished" (xxviii. 20). (Perhaps he will say to
himself
that he does not "hasten" to be rich.) The only verse that may
disquieten.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/153
him is when he reads "Weary not thyself to be rich; cease from
thine
own wisdom" (xxiii. 4). But only for a moment, for his mind will be
eased when he observes the connexion with the preceding passage.
Pos-sibly
these six little words may not after all trouble him much when he
remembers the numerous passages in this very book which commend
riches. So numerous indeed that it may be said they give the tone
to the
whole of Proverbs.33 A few only shall be quoted: --
Length of days are in her right hand; in her left are riches and
honour (iii. 16).
Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and
righteous-ness"
(viii. 18).
The rich man's wealth is his strong city (x. 15).
Their riches are a crown unto the wise (xiv. 24).
The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and
honour and life (xxii. 4).
The Wisdom Literature included Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of
Solomon. The first 34 certainly does not breathe a uniform spirit;
the
many accretions of later times make it full of contradictions. Yet
even
here the pious Jew found never a passage which taught him to
despise
wealth. On the contrary, wealth is highly valued.
Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and
hath given him power to eat thereof . . . this is the gift of God
(v.
19).
A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh glad the life: and
money answereth all things (x. 19).
The Wisdom of Solomon likewise praises riches. No less does the
Book of Jesus, the son of Sirach, that fund of wise saws, which old
Amschel must have conned with delight. If any Rabbi had told him
that
Ben Sirach's books regard the wealthy man almost as a sinner and
wealth
as the source of evil, instancing chapters x--xiii in proof,
Amschel would
have replied, "My dear Rabbi, you are mistaken. Those passages are
a
warning against the dangers of wealth. But a rich man who avoids
the
dangers is thereby the more righteous. 'Blessed is the rich that
is found
without blemish ... his goods shall be established and the
congregation
shall declare his alms' (xxxi. 8, 11). And why, my dear Rabbi" (so
Amschel might continue), "do you not mention the passages which
speak.154/Werner Sombart
of the man who has amassed millions, passages like the following?
Better is he that laboureth and aboundeth in all things, than he
that boasteth himself and wanteth bread (x. 27).
The poor man is honoured for his skill, and the rich man is
honoured for his riches (x. 30).
Prosperity and adversity, life and death, poverty and riches come
of the Lord' (xi. 14).
Gold and silver make the foot stand sure (xl. 25). Riches and
strength lift up the heart (xl. 26). Better it is to die than to
beg (xl.
28).
"Should I be ashamed of my millions, my dear Rabbi" (Amschel
would conclude the imaginary conversation), "should I not rather
look
upon them as God's blessing? Recall what the wise Jesus ben Sirach
said of great King Solomon (xlvii. 18): "By the name of the Lord
God,
which is called the Lord God of Israel, thou didst gather gold as
tin, and
didst multiply silver as lead.' I also will go, Rabbi, and in the
name of
the Lord God will gather gold as tin and silver as lead."
In the Talmud the passages that express the same point of view are
frequent enough. Riches are a blessing if only their owner walk in
God's
ways, and poverty is a curse. Hardly ever are riches despised. Let
us
quote a few Talmudic sayings on the subject.
Seven characteristics are there which are "comely to the righteous
and comely to the world." One of them is riches (Aboth. vi. 8).
In prayer a man should turn to Him who owns wealth and
posses-sions.
... In reality both come not from business, but according to
merit" (Kidushin, lxxxiiia).
R. Eleazer said, "The righteous love their money more than their
bodies" (Sota, xiia).
Rabba honoured the wealthy, so did R. Akiba (Erubin, lxxxvia).
In time of scarcity a man learns to value wealth best (Aboth de
Rabbi Nathan).
Doctrines concerning wealth such as these could not but encourage
a worldly view of life. This the Jewish view was, despite the
belief in
another world. There were indeed attempts at ascetic movements in
Ju-daism
(e.g., in the 9th century the Karaites combined to live the life of
monks; [Sombart is mistaken in this. The characteristic of the
Karaites
was that they accepted and lived by the letter of the Torah. --
Trans.].The Jews and Modern Capitalism/155
in the 11th century Bachja ibn Pakuda preached asceticism in
Spain),
but none of them ever took root. Judaism even in times of great
afflic-tion
was always optimistic. In this the Jews differ from the Christians,
whose religion has tried to rob them all it could of earthly joys.
As often
as riches are lauded in the Old Testament they are damned in the
New,
wherein poverty is praised. The whole outlook of the Essenes,
turning
its back upon the world and the flesh, was incorporated in the
Gospels.
One can easily recall passage after passage to this effect. (Cf.
Matt. vi.
24; x. 9, 10; xix. 23, 24.) "It is easier for a camel to go
through a
needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of
God." This
is the keynote of Christianity on the point, and the difference
between it
and Judaism is clear enough. There is no single parallel to the
saying of
Jesus in the whole of the Old Testament, and probably also none in
the
entire body of Rabbinic literature.
There is no need to expatiate on the different attitude of the good
Jew and the good Christian towards economic activities. The
Christian
is forced by all manner of mental gymnastics to interpret away the
Essene
conception of riches from his Scriptures. And what anxious moments
must the rich Christian live through as he thinks of heaven locked
against
him! Compare with him the position of the rich Jew, who, as we have
seen, "in the name of the Lord God" gathers gold as tin and silver
as
lead.
It is well known that the religion of the Christians stood in the
way
of their economic activities. It is equally well known that the
Jews were
never faced with this hindrance. The more pious a Jew was and the
more
acquainted with his religious literature, the more he was spurred
by the
teachings of that literature to extend his economic activities. A
beautiful
illustration of the way religion and business were fused in the
mind of
pious Jews may be found in the delightful Memoirs of Glückel von
Hamein, to which we have already referred. "Praise be to God, who
gives and takes, the faithful God, who always made good our
losses,"
she says. And again, "My husband sent me a long, comforting letter,
urging me to calm my soul, for God, whose name be blessed, would
restore to us what we had lost. And so it was."
The Rationalization of Life
Since Judaism rests upon a contract between God and His people,
i.e.,
upon a two-sided legal agreement, each party must have definite
re-sponsibilities.
What were those of the Jews?.156/Werner Sombart
Again and again was the answer to this question given by God
through His servant Moses. Again and again the Israelite was
informed
that two great duties were his. He was to be holy and to obey
God's law.
(Cf. Exod. xix. 6; Deut. iv. 56.) God did not require sacrifices
of him;
He demanded obedience (Jer. vii. 22, 23).
Now it is generally known that in the course of events the Jews
came to regard righteousness as a minute fulfilment of the Law. The
inward holiness that may have existed in early days soon vanished
be-fore
formalism and legalism. Holiness and observation of the Law be-came
interchangeable terms. It is generally known, too, that this
legal-ism
was a device of the Rabbis to protect the Jews against the
influences
first, of Hellenism, then of Christianity, and finally, when the
Second
Temple was destroyed, to maintain by its means the national
conscious-ness.
The struggle with Hellenism resulted in Pharisaism; the struggle
with Pauline Christianity whichaimed at replacing the Law by faith,
transformed the religion of the Pharisees into that of the Talmud,
and
the old policy of the Scribes "to encompass the whole of life with
regu-lation"
made greater progress than ever. In their political isolation the
Jewish communities submitted entirely to the new hierarchy. They
de-sired
to see the end attained and so accepted the means. The school and
the Law outlasted the Temple and the State, and Pharisaic Rabbinism
had unlimited sway. Righteousness henceforth meant living in
strict ac-cordance
with the Law. Piety, under the influence of the legally minded
Scribes, was given a legal connotation. Religion became the common
law. In the Mishna all this finds admirable expression. The
commands
of the Pentateuch and the commands deduced from these are all
divine
ordinances which must be obeyed without questioning. More and more
stress is laid on externals, and between important and
insignificant com-mands
there is less and less differentiation.35
So it remained for two thousand years; so it is to-day. Strict
ortho-doxy
still holds fast to this formalism and the principles of Judaism
know no change. The Torah is as binding to-day in its every word as
when it was given to Moses on Sinai.36 Its laws and ordinances
must be
observed by the faithful, whether they be light or grave, whether
they
appear to have rhyme or reason or no. And they must be strictly
ob-served,
and only because God gave them. This implicit obedience makes
the righteous, makes the saint. "Saintly or holy in the Torah
sense is he
who is able to fulfil the revealed will of God without any
struggle and
with the same joy as carrying out his own will. This holiness,
this com-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/157
plete fusion of the will of man with the divine will, is a lofty
goal attain-able
in its entirety by a few only. Hence the law of holiness refers in
the
first instance to the striving towards this goal. The striving all
can do; it
demands a constant self-watchfulness and self-education, an endless
struggle against what is low and vulgar, what is sensual and
bestial.
And obedience to the behests of the Torah is the surest ladder on
which
to climb to higher and higher degrees of holiness."37
These words show clearly enough how holiness and legalism are
connected; they show that the highest aim of Israel still is to be
a king-dom
of priests and a holy nation; and that the path to that end is a
strict
obedience to God's commandments. Once this becomes apparent, we
can imagine the importance the Jewish religion has for the whole
of life.
In the long run, external legalism does not remain external; it
exercises
a constant influence on the inner life, which obtains its peculiar
charac-ter
from the observance of the law.
The psychological process which led to the shaping of Judaism
ap-pears
to me to be this. At first God's behests were those that mattered,
regardless of their contents. But slowly the contents must needs
make
themselves manifest to the observer, and a clearly defined ideal
of Life
evolved itself from the word of God. To follow this ideal, to be
righ-teous,
to be holy was the heart's desire of each believer.
Before continuing, let us strive to obtain some notion of what the
pious Jew meant, and means, by holiness in the material sense.
Let us recall what was said in the last section about the
"worldli-ness"
of the Jewish religion. In accordance with this it can scarcely be
holy to deny the natural instincts or to crush them, as other
religions
teach -- e.g.. Buddhism or Primitive Christianity. Other-worldly
as-ceticism
was always antagonistic to Judaism. "The soul which has been
given thee -- preserve it, never kill it" -- that is the Talmudic
maxim on
which to build up the conduct of life and which found currency at
all
times.38
The negation of life cannot therefore be holiness. Nor can the
exer-cise
of man's passions and appetites be holiness. For if it were, it
could
not be put as an ideal before the righteous; it would then be
accessible to
everybody. There remains therefore only one other possibility --
to live
your life of set purpose in accordance with some ideal plan based
on
supernatural rules, and either utilizing the desires within you or
crush-ing
them. In fine, holiness is the rationalization of life. You decide
to
replace the natural existence with its desires and inclinations by
the.158/Werner Sombart
moral life. To be holy is to become refined, and to realize this
is to
overcome all your natural tendencies by means of moral obedience.39
A rugged Dualism -- the terrible Dualism which is part and parcel
of our constitution -- characterizes the Jewish conception of
ethical
worth. Nature is not unholy, neither is she holy. She is not yet
holy. She
may become holy through us. All the seeds of sin are in her; the
serpent
still lurks in the grass as he did long ago in the Garden of Eden.
"God
certainly created the evil inclination, but he also created the
Torah, the
moral law, an an antidote to it."40 The whole of human life is one
great
warfare against the inimical forces of Nature: that is the guiding
prin-ciple
of Jewish moral theology, and it is in accordance with it that the
system of rules and regulations was instituted by which life might
be
rationalized, de-naturalized, refined and hallowed without the
necessity
of renouncing or stifling it. In this we see the marked difference
between
the Christian (Essene) and the Jewish (Pharisaic) ideas of
morality. The
former leads quite logically away from the world into the silent
hermit-age
and the monastery (if not to death); the latter binds its faithful
ad-herent
with a thousand chains to the individual and social life.
Chris-tianity
makes its devotee into a monk, Judaism into a rationalist; the
first ends in asceticism outside the world; the second in
asceticism within
it (taking asceticism to mean the subjugation of what is natural
in man).
We shall gain a clearer insight of what Jewish Ethics (and
therefore
also the Jewish religion) stands for if we examine its regulations
one by
one.
The effect of Law is twofold. Its very existence has an influence;
so
have its contents.
That there is a law at all, that it is a duty to obey it, impels
one to
think about one's actions and to accomplish them in harmony with
the
dictates of reason. In front of every desire a warning finger-post
is set;
every natural impulse is nullified by the thousand and one
milestones
and danger-signals in the shape of directions to the pious. Now,
since
obedience to a multifariousness of rules (the well-known commands
compiled by Maimonides numbered 365 -- of which 243 are still
cur-rent
-- and his prohibitions 248) is well-nigh impossible without a
pretty
good knowledge of what they are, the system includes the command to
study the Holy Writ, and especially the Torah. This very study
itself is
made a means of rendering life holy. "If the evil inclination
seizes hold
of you, march him off to the House of Study," counsels the Talmud.
The view that all the enactments were for the purpose of
ennobling.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/159
the life of the faithful was accepted at all times, and is still
held to-day
by many orthodox Jews.
God wished to refine Israel, therefore He increased the number of
the commandments (Makkoth, 23b).
The commandments were given by God to ennoble man kind
(Vajikra Rabba, 13).41
It would have been better for a man never to have been born, but
once he is in the world let him continually examine his actions
(Erubin, 13b).
Every night a man should critically examine his deeds of the day
(Magen Abraham on Orach Chajim, 239, § 7).42
"Observe" and "remember" were ordained in a single utterance."43
Deum respice et cura 44 is still the motto of the Jew. If he meets
a
king or sees a dwarf or a Negro, passes a ruined building or takes
his
medicine or his bath, notes the coming storm or hears its roaring
thun-der,
rises in the morning and puts on his clothes or eats his food,
enters
his house or leaves it, greets a friend or meets a foe -- for
every emer-gency
there is an ordinance which must be obeyed.
Now what of the contents of the ordinances? All of them aim at the
subjugation of the merely animal instincts in man, at the bridling
of his
desires and inclinations and at the replacing of impulses by
thoughtful
action; in short, at the "ethical tempering of man."
You must think nothing, speak nothing, do nothing without first
considering what the law about it is, and then apply it to the
great pur-pose
of sanctification. You must therefore do nothing merely for its own
sake, spontaneously, or from natural instinct. You must not enjoy
Na-ture
for the sheer pleasure of it.
You may do so only if you think thereby of the wisdom and the
goodness of God. In the spring when the trees put on their blossom
the
pious Jew says, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, . . . who hast
made
Thy world lacking in nought, but hast provided therein goodly
creatures
and trees wherewith to give delight to the children of men." At
the sight
of the rainbow he brings to mind the Covenant with God. On high
moun-tains,
in vast deserts, beside mighty rivers -- in a word, wherever his
heart is deeply moved by Nature's wonders -- he expresses his
feelings
in the benediction, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, .. . who
hast
made the Creation."
You must not enjoy art for its own sake. Works of plastic art
should.160/Werner Sombart
be avoided, for they may easily lead to a breach of the second
com-mandment.
But even the poet's art is not looked upon with favour, ex-cept
it refer to God. All reading is good, provided it has some
practical
end in view. "It is best to read the books of the Torah or such as
refer to
them. If we desire to read for recreation, let us choose books
that are
able to teach us something useful. Among the books written for
amuse-ment
and to while away the time there are some that may awake sinful
wishes within us. The reading of these books is forbidden."45
You must not indulge in harmless pleasures. "The seat of the
scorn-ful
[Psa. i. I], -- the theatres and circuses of the heathen are
meant."
Song, dance and wine, save when they are connected with religious
cer-emonial,
are taboo. "Rabbi Dosa ben Hyrkanus used to say. Morning
sleep and midday wine and childish talk and attending the houses
where
the ignorant foregather put a man out of the world."46 "He that
loveth
pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall
not be
rich" (Prov. xxi. 17).
If this be so, those qualities which may lead a man to "unseemly"
conduct are useless or even harmful. Such are enthusiasm (for
while a
man is in this state he may do something useless),47 kindness of
heart
(you must exercise kindness only because the idea of benevolence
actu-ates
you; you must never let pity carry you away, so that the nobility
and dignity of the ideal law may always be before you);48 a sensual
temperament ("the source of passion -- and of sin -- is in
sensual-ity"),
49 ingenuousness, in short anything that marks the natural (and
therefore unholy) man.
The cardinal virtues of the pious are, on the other hand,
self-control
and circumspection, a love of order and of work, moderation and
abstemiousness, chastity and sobriety.
Self-control and circumspection especially and in regard to your
words is a constant theme of the moralists. "In the multitude of
words
there wanteth not transgression: but he that refraineth his lips
doth wisely"
(Prov. x. 19).50
No less insistent was the later tradition. "Raba held that whoso
carries on an unnecessary conversation transgresses a command"
(Joma,
19b). "Our sanctification," says a modern book for popular
edification,
"depends to a large extent on the control of our tongues, on the
power of
holding our peace. The gift of speech . . . was given to man for
holy
purposes. Hence all unnecessary talk is forbidden by our wise
men."51
But self-control and circumspection generally are urged on the
pi-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/161
ous Jew.
Who is the strongest of the strong? He who controls his passions
(Aboth de R. Nathan, xxiii. 1).
The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness: but every
one that is hasty hasteth only to want (Prov. xxi. 5).
He that hasteth with his feet sinneth (Prov. xix. 2).
And as for industry and thrift, innumerable are the exhortations to
that end.
The Jew must wake the day, not the day the Jew -- so taught the
Rabbis, as a homily on Psalm lvii. 9. 52
It is just the strongest instincts of man that must be curbed,
directed
into right channels, deprived of their natural force and made to
serve
useful ends. In short, they must be rationalized.
Take the instinct which desires to satisfy hunger. It is forbidden
to
appease the appetite merely because it happens to be there; it
should be
appeased only for the body's sake. And when the good man sits down
to
eat, let him do so according to the precepts of his Maker. Hence
the
large number of rules concerning food; hence the command to be
seri-ous
at meals -- to begin and to close with prayer; hence the advice to
be
moderate and the appeal to banish the pleasure of feeding. "It is
only
through God's goodness that you are enabled to use His creatures as
food, and therefore if your entire eating and drinking is not to
be beastly,
it must be hallowed; it must be looked upon as the getting of
strength for
His service."53 "The Jew should make the satisfaction of his
appetite for
food a sacrament; should regard his table as an altar and the food
thereon
as sacrifice, which he enjoys only in order to obtain more
strength for
the fulfilment of his duties."54 (Jewish cooking, by the way, is
excellent.)
Finally -- and this of course matters most -- just like hunger,
Love
also must be rationalized, that is to say, its natural expression
must be
held in check. Nowhere more than in the erotic sphere does the hard
dualism show itself so well. The world, and certainly the
civilized na-tions,
owes this conception of the sexual to the Jews (through the agency
of Christianity, which was infected with the idea). All earlier
religions
saw something divine in the expression of sex, and regarded sexual
in-tercourse
as of the nature of a heavenly revelation. All of them were
acquainted with Phallus-worship in a grosser or finer form. None of
them condemned what is sensuous, or looked upon women as a source
of sin. But the Jews from Ezra's day to this held, and hold, the
opposite.162/Werner Sombart
view.
To sanctify himself, to make himself worthy of his converse with
God, Moses "drew not nigh unto his wife." And Job mentions as being
in his favour that he made a covenant with his eyes not to look
upon a
maid. The whole Wisdom Literature abounds in warnings against
women,
[Sombart instances Prov. v. 3--4. But does not the passage clearly
refer
to bad women? -- Trans.] and the same spirit dominates the Talmud.
"Better to die than to be guilty of unchastity" (Sanhedrim, 75a).
Indeed,
the three capital crimes for which even death does not atone are
murder,
idol-worship and adultery. "Hast thou business with women? See to
it
that thou art not with them alone" (Kiddushin, 82a). This dread
runs
through all the codes. The Eben Ha-ezer condemns to death by
stoning
any one who has had guilty intercourse with a woman related to him
within the prohibited degrees. The very clothes or the little
finger of a
woman of such close consanguinity must not be looked at "to get
plea-sure
from it." It is forbidden a man to allow himself to be waited on by
a woman, or to embrace his aunt or his grown-up sister.
Teachers of to-day are no less explicit. "Guard yourself against
any
contact with impurity," says one of the most popular of them.
"Look at
nothing, hear nothing, read nothing, think of nothing which may in
any
wise occupy your thoughts unchastely or make you familiar with what
is not clean. Do not walk in the street behind a woman; if you
cannot
help yourself, look not at her with desire. [Cf. Robert Louis
Stevenson:
'To remember the faces of women without desire, ... is not this to
know
both wisdom and virtue?" -- Trans.] Do not let your eye rest
longingly
on a woman's hair, nor your ears on her voice; do not take
pleasure in
her form; yea, a woman's very clothes should not be looked at if
you
know who has worn them. In all things go out of the way of
Opportu-nity.
. . . The two sexes should not jest together. Even in make-believe
little pressures of the hand, winking of the eyes, embracing and
kissing
are sinful."55
Warnings such as these were not neglected, as may be seen from the
autobiographies of pious Jews, some of which may now be read in
mod-ern
languages.56
But the point of it all must not be overlooked. Other religions
also
show signs of being terrified at women. Ever since the notion
became
prevalent that woman brought sin into the world there have always
been
morbid souls who spent their lives exciting themselves with all
manner
of lascivious imaginings but avoiding woman as though she were
the.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/163
devil incarnate. In other religions the man fled to the hermit's
cave in the
wilderness or to a monastery. In either case, his religion forced
"chas-tity"
upon him, with all the horrid resultants well known to students of
monastic life. Not so Judaism. Judaism does not forbid sexual
inter-course;
it rationalizes it. Not that it does not regard sexual intercourse
as sinful. Sinful it must always be, but its sinfulness may to
some extent
be removed by sanctification. Hence Judaismadvocates early
marriages
and regulates the relationship between husband and wife as
something
"ever in the great Taskmaster's eye."
"A man should not be without a wife, nor a woman without a
hus-band;
but both shall see to it that God's spirit is in their union."
That is
the motto, and in accordance with it the Talmud and the later
codes have
multiplied rules and regulations for the guidance of married
couples. In
the 11th century (to mention but a few) R. Eleazar ben Nathan
compiled
a special code on the subject, the Eben Ha-ezer, and in the 13th
century
R. Nachman wrote a famous work on the sanctification of marriage.57
The laws of the Eben Ha-ezer were incorporated in the Shulchan
Aruch
and together with the glosses upon them receive recognition
to-day. The
main ideas throughout are those we have already considered: hallow
thy
body's strength in accordance with God's will; be careful of thy
man-hood;
be God's servant at all times.58
Such was the Jewish view of marriage, which has continued for
more than two thousand years. It is well illustrated by that
touching
story in the Book of Tobit, which may form a fitting conclusion to
our
considerations under this head.
And after that they were both shut in together, Tobias rose out of
the bed, and said, Sister, arise, and let us pray that God would
have pity on us.
Then began Tobias to say. Blessed art Thou, O God of our fathers,
and blessed is Thy holy and glorious name for ever; let the
heav-ens
bless Thee, and all Thy creatures.
Thou madest Adam, and gavest him Eve his wife for an helper
and stay: of them came mankind: Thou hast said, It is not good
that man should be alone; let us make unto him an aid like unto
himself.
And now, O Lord, I take not this my sister for lust, but uprightly
therefore mercifully ordain that we may become aged together.
And she said with him. Amen.
So they slept both that night. -- Tobit vii. 4-9..164/Werner
Sombart
It may be asked. Why have I treated this aspect of Jewish life at
such great length? My answer is simple. I really believe that the
ratio-nalization
of life, and especially of the sexual life, which the Jewish
religion effects cannot be too highly estimated for its influence
on eco-nomic
activities. If religion is at all to be accounted a factor in
Jewish
economic life, then certainly the rationalization of conduct is
its best
expression,
To begin with, a number of good qualities or virtues which are
in-dispensable
to any economic order owe their existence to rationalization
-- e.g., industry, neatness, thrift. But the whole of life, if
lived in accor-dance
with the ordinances of the "Wise," ministers to the needs of
wealth-getting.
Sobriety, moderation and piety are surely qualities which stand
the business man in good stead. In short, the whole ideal of
conduct
preached in Holy Writ and in Rabbinic literature has something of
the
morality of the small shopkeeper about it -- to be content with one
wife, to pay your debts punctually, to go to church or synagogue on
Sunday or Saturday (as the case may be) and to look down with
immea-surable
scorn on the sinful world around.
But Jewish moral teaching did not spend itself in the mere
produc-tion
of this type of the small respectable shopkeeper. It may even be
questioned whether the type is altogether its work. At any rate,
it is not
of much consequence for economic development. Middle-class
respect-ability
as a matter of fact owes its origin to the narrow outlook of the
petty trading class. Hence it can have but little to do with
capitalism,
except in so far as the qualities which that class possessed were
the
foundation on which capitalism could be built up. But capitalism
did
not grow out of the qualities, and therefore we must search in
other
directions for the causes which made the Jews pioneers of
capitalism.
The fast that suggests itself is the cultivation of family life
among
Jews, calling forth as it did energies so necessary to economic
growth.
The cultivation and refinement of family life was undoubtedly the
work
of the Jewish Rabbis, assisted, it must be added, by the
vicissitudes of
the Jewish people. In Judaism woman was fast held in that high
esteem
which is the prime postulate for the existence of a sound family
life and
all that it means for man's conduct. The Rabbis by thenlaws and
regu-lations
affecting marriages, the marital relationship and the education
of children and the rest, did all that was humanly possible in the
way of
outward limitation and influence to establish family life in all
its purity..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/165
That marriage is considered more sacred among pious Jews than among
people of other denominations is demonstrated by the statistics of
ille-gitimate
births. These are considerably fewer among Jews than among
Christians.59
ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS PER THOUSAND
Year Country General Jews
1904 Prussia 2.51 0.66
1905 Wiirtemberg 2.83 0.16
1907 Hesse 2.18 0.13
1908 Bavaria 4.25 0.56
1901 Russia 1.29 0.14
If the figures for Russia be looked into a little more carefully
it will
be seen that illegitimate births among Jews vary very much from
those
among non-Jews. At the same time it must not be forgotten that
there is
a slight lowering of the standard in sexual morality among Jews.
Thus,
the following table shows the percentage of illegitimate births in
Russia.
ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS PER HUNDRED IN RUSSIA
Year Greek Orthodox Catholics Protestants Jews
1868 2.96 3.45 3.49 0.19
1878 3.13 3.29 3.85 0.25
1898 2.66 3.53 3.86 0.37
1901 2.49 3.57 3.76 0.46
Such then was one result of the family life current among Jews and
introduced by them. The man contributed to it the best that was in
him,
and in return he drew from it invigorating strength, courage, and
an
inducement to maintain and to expand his position in life. Family
life of
this kind generated centres for masculine energy large enough to
set in
motion such a mighty economic system as capitalism. For this system
calls for great energy, and we can scarcely imagine it being
produced
except through the agency of psychological influences which appeal
not
only to the social instincts but also to the family ideal.
It may perhaps be necessary to look below the psychological
influ-ences
to the physical ones. How curiously moulded must the constitu-tion
of the Jew have become through the rationalization of his married
life! We see this phenomenon -- that a people with strong sexual
incli-nations
(Tacitus speaks of it as proiectissima ad libidinem gens)
is.166/Werner Sombart
forced by its religion to hold them in complete restraint.
Extra-marital
connexions are absolutely forbidden; every one must content himself
with one wife, but even with her intercourse is restricted.
The result of all this is obvious. Enormous funds of energy were
prevented from finding an outlet in one direction and they turned
to
others. Knowing as we do the condition of the Jews throughout the
Com-mon
Era, we shall not be wrong in assuming that economic activities
were their chief channel. But we may go further. It is possible to
prove
that, quite generally, restrained sexual desires and the chase of
profits
go hand in hand. For the present we have had but little scientific
inves-tigation
of this fact, so important for all modern sociological problems.60
That a lordly way of life is usually accompanied by lavishness of
money
and of love, whereas such qualities as niggardliness, avarice and
a set-ting
of much store by money are the ubiquitous partners of a stunted
sexual life -- these are everyday experiences, and though it would
be
presumptuous to attempt to solve this most interesting problem
with the
aid of observations which must perforce be limited, yet for the
purpose
of my argument they ought not to be omitted, at least as an
hypothesis.
We see then that a good deal of capitalistic capacity which the
Jews
possessed was due in large measure to the sexual restraint put upon
them by their religious teachers. The effect of the
rationalization of the
whole of life on the physical and intellectual powers of the Jew
must
still be gone into by scientists;61 at present we have only
beginnings of
such studies. I refer to the influence of the very wise
regulations of
sexual intercourse, of eating and drinking and so on.
(Incidentally it is
worthy of note that Jewish law has long restricted the marriage of
the
unfit.)
One other point in conclusion. The rationalization of life
accus-tomed
the Jew to a mode of living contrary to (or side by side with)
Nature and therefore also to an economic system like the
capitalistic,
which is likewise contrary to (or side by side with) Nature. What
in
reality is the idea of making profit, what is economic
rationalism, but
the application to economic activities of the rules by which the
Jewish
religion shaped Jewish life? Before capitalism could develop the
natural
man had to be changed out of all recognition, and a
rationalistically
minded mechanism introduced in his stead. There had to be a
transvalu-ation
of all economic values. And what was the result? The homo
capitalisticus, who is closely related to the homo Judceus, both
belong-ing
to the same species, homines rationalistic! artificiales..The Jews
and Modern Capitalism/167
And so the rationalization of Jewish life by the Jewish religion,
if it
did not actually produce the Jewish capacity for capitalism,
certainly
increased and heightened it.
Israel and the Nations
One of the causes to which the Jew owed his economic progress was,
as
the reader will remember, the fact that Israel was for generations
a
stranger and an alien. If we seek to account for this aloofness we
shall
find its roots in the ordinances of the Jewish religion, shall
find that this
religion always maintained and broadened the line of separation. As
Leroy-Beaulieu, who has studied this aspect of Jewish history with
great
success, has so well said, "La loi leur donnait l'ésprit de clan."
The very
fact that they had their Law forced the Jews to live apart from
the Gen-tiles.
For if they desired to observe the Law they needs must keep to
themselves. The Jews created the Ghetto, which from the non-Jewish
point of view was a concession and a privilege and not the result
of
enmity.
But the Jews wished to live separated from the rest because they
felt
themselves superior to the common people round them. They were the
Chosen Race, a People of Priests. The Rabbis did all that was
required
to fan the flame of pride -- from Ezra, who forbade intermarriage
as a
profanation of Jewish purity, down to this very day, when the
pious Jew
says every morning, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the
Universe,
who has not made me a Gentile (stranger)."
And so they lived separate and apart all through the centuries of
the
Diaspora, despite the Diaspora and (thanks to the bands which the
Law
laid upon them) because of the Diaspora -- separate and apart, and
therefore a group by themselves, or, if you will, a group by
themselves
and therefore separate and apart.
A group by themselves -- they were that already at the time of the
Babylonian Exile, which in reality established the
internationalism of
the Jew. Many of them, especially the wealthier ones, remained
behind
in Babylon of their own free will, but they retained their Judaism
and
professed it zealously. They kept up a lively intercourse with
their brethren
who had returned home, took a sympathetic interest in their
fortunes,
rendered them assistance and sent them new settlers from time to
time.62
The bonds of union were in no wise relaxed in the Hellenistic
Diaspora. "They kept closely together in the cities and throughout
the
world. No matter where they pitched their tents, their connexion
with.168/Werner Sombart
Zion was upheld. In the heart of the wilderness they had a native
land
where they were at home ... By means of the Diaspora they entered
into
the world. In the Hellenistic cities they adopted the Greek tongue
and
Greek manners even if only as the outer garb of their Jewishness"
(Wellhausen).
So it continued throughout the centuries of their exile. If
0anything
the bond became strengthened. "Scis quanta concordia" -- "You know
how they hang together!" cries Cicero.63 So it was; so it still
is. "All the
Jewries in the Empire and beyond," we read of the rebellion of the
year
130 A.D., "were stirred and more or less openly supported the
insurgents
on the banks of the Jordan."64 Is it any different to-day when a
Jew is
expelled from some Russian town or other?
A group by themselves and therefore separate and apart -- this is
true from earliest antiquity. All nations were struck by their
hatred of
others, of which they were for the fast time accused by Hekateus of
Abdera (300 B.C.) . Many other ancient writers repeat the
indictment,65
almost always in the same words. Perhaps the best known passage is
in
Tacitus:
"Apud eos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu. Sed adversus
omnes alias hostile odium. Separati epulis discreti cubilibus,
proiectissima ad libidinem gens, alienarum concubitu abstinent"
(Historia, V, i. 5). [Amongst themselves they are doggedly
faithful and
quick to pity, but all strangers they hate as enemies. They
neither eat nor
intermarry with strangers; they are a people of strong passions,
yet they
withhold themselves from other men's wives.]
Jewish apologetics never attempted to combat these views:66 there
must therefore have been some foundation for them.
It is true that the Jews kept together so closely and shut
themselves
off very often on account of the unfriendly treatment they
received at the
hands of their hosts. But it was not so originally. The Jews
wanted to
live secluded from their neighbours because of their religion.
That this
was so appears from their attitude in those lands where they were
well
treated. Witness one or two instances in the ancient world, of
which I
have just given illustrations [Tacitus, etc.]. Witness the same
tendency
in the Middle Ages. Take Arabia in the first century. The Jews
there at
the period named lived according to the religion which the Tanaim
and
Amor aim had formulated -- keeping the dietary laws and festivals,
the
great White Fast and the Sabbath. "Although they could not complain
of anything in this hospitable country they yet longed for the
return to.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/169
the Holy Land and awaited the advent of the Messiah every day. . .
.
They were in direct communication with the Jews of Palestine."67 Or
take Moorish Spain. While the Christians who lived among the
Mo-hammedans
forgot their mother tongue (Gothic Latin), no longer under-stood
their sacred books, and were rather ashamed of their Christianity,
the Spanish Jews were more and more devoted to their national
lan-guage,
their Holy Writ and their ancient religion.68 This attitude was
clearly reflected in the Jewish poetry and philosophy of the
period, the
greatest perhaps that mediaeval Jewry can boast. In the midst of an
Arabic-Spanish world in which they lived and enjoyed the respect of
their fellow-citizens, they were strictly "national," that is
religious; they
drew poetic inspiration from the Messianic hopes and were filled
with
an unconquerable longing for Zion.69 One need only mention the
great
Jehuda Halevy, whose Odes to Zion are the highest expression of the
genius of neo-Hebrew poetry.
Like a cloud sailing in the blue of the sky above, Judaism winds
its
way through history, refreshed by the memories of its hoary and
holy
past as by a soft breeze. To this very day the pious Jew blesses
his
children with the words, "The Lord make thee as Ephraim and
Manasseh."
What was the effect on economic life of this seclusion and
separa-tion
of the Jewish social organism? Directly the Jews stepped outside
the Ghetto gates their intercourse was with strangers. We have
already
dealt with the point elsewhere; my reason for calling attention to
it again
is to show that this attitude was a direct consequence of the
teaching of
Judaism, that in treating the people among whom they lived as
"others,"
the Jews were but obeying a divine behest. Here, too, their
conduct was
hallowed, and it received a sanction from the peculiar system of
laws
relating to "strangers."
The most important and most frequently discussed legal ordinance
in this system was that affecting the taking of interest. In the
old Jewish
theocracy,70 as in every society in early civilization, loans
without inter-est
were the regular means of rendering assistance by a man to his
neighbour. But it may be observed that even in the earliest
collection of
laws interest was allowed to be taken from "strangers."
The Jewish code was no exception. The best example of this may be
found in Deuteronomy xxiii. 20. Other passages in the Torah that
have
reference to interest are Exodus xxii. 25 and Leviticus xxv. 37.
They all
form the theme of a lively discussion which has been carried on
from the.170/Werner Sombart
days of the Tanaim down to the present. The chief instance and at
the
same time the crux of the matter is in the Talmud, in Baha Mew,
70b,
and my own feeling is that for the most part it is an attempt to
discount
the very clear statement of the Torah by all manner of
sophistries. For
what does the verse in Deuteronomy say? "Unto a foreigner thou
mayest
lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shall not lend upon
usury."
The only doubt is in the wording of the original, which may mean
with
equal grammatical exactitude, "thou mayest lendupon usury" or "thou
shalt lend upon usury." (It need hardly be added that "usury" with
the
translators was nothing more or less than our "interest.")
In either case, the pious Jew was allowed to take interest from
non-Jews
-- that is the significant thing as far as we are concerned. Right
through the Middle Ages he was not oppressed by the burden of the
anti-usury prohibition which weighed upon the Christian. The Jewish
law on the subject was never to my knowledge questioned by the
Rab-bis.
71 On the other hand, there were periods when the "mayest" in the
Deuteronomic passage was read as "shalt," periods when the Jew was
urged to become a money-lender.
The authors who have dealt with this subject in modern times
ap-pear
to have overlooked the fact that the Deuteronomic command has
been received as one of the laws that regulate the life of the
Jew, and that
Tradition sanctions money-lending to a stranger on payment of
interest
Of the 613 commandments, this is the 198th and may be found
likewise
in the Shulchan Aruch. Modem Rabbis 72 to whom the perfectly clear
ordinance in Deuteronomy is somewhat inconvenient (one cannot quite
understand why), attempt to explain it away by asserting that
"strang-ers"
in the passage is intended not for all non-Jews but only for
heathens
or idol-worshippers. If this be so, let it not be forgotten that
there never
was any very distinct conception as to who was, and who was not, an
idol-worshipper. Besides, the pious Jew who has committed the 198th
command to memory is not likely to draw the fine distinction urged
by
the learned Rabbis. Sufficient for him that the man to whom he lent
money was no Jew, no "brother," no neighbour, but a Gentile.
Now think of the position in which the pious Jew and the pious
Christian respectively found themselves in the period in which
money-lending
first became a need in Europe, and which eventually gave birth
to capitalism. The good Christian who had been addicted to usury
was
full of remorse as he lay a-dying, ready at the eleventh hour to
cast from
him the ill-gotten gains which scorched his soul. And the good
Jew? la.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/171
the evening of his days he gazed upon his well-filled caskets and
coffers,
overflowing with sequins of which he had relieved the miserable
Chris-tians
or Mohammedans. It was a sight which warmed his heart, for
every penny was almost like a sacrifice which he had brought to his
Heavenly Father.
Apart from this particular question, the stranger was accorded
spe-cial
consideration in the Jewish legal code. Duties towards him were
never as binding as towards your "neighbour," your fellow-Jew. Only
ignorance or a desire to distort facts will assert the contrary.
True, the
conception of law and morality as it affected the "stranger"
varied from
age to age. But there was no change in the fundamental idea that
you
owed less consideration to the stranger than to one of your own
people.
That has remained the same from the day when the Torah first became
current to our own. That is the impression that is conveyed by an
un-prejudiced
study of the law concerning strangers in the Holy Writ, the
Talmud, the Codes and the Responsa literature. There certainly are
pas-sages
in the Torah which breathe equality between the home-born and
the stranger (Exod. xii. 49, xxiii. 9; Lev. xix. 33, 34, xxv.
44-6; Deufc
x. 18, 19). But in a question of fudacha (legal enactment) such as
this
is, the oral tradition cannot be neglected. Secondly, the passages
in-stanced
above all refer to the Ger, the non-Jew who had settled in
Pales-tine,
seeing that the Jews knew the heart of a Ger, "for ye were Gerim in
the land of Egypt." [In the sentence about interest the word used
is
Nacharl, some one from another nation.] As time went on it was but
natural that there should be an increase of the cases in Jewish
law in
which the non-Jew was at a disadvantage as compared with the Jew.
So
much so that in the latest code they occupy a good deal of space.73
What was the importance in economic life of the laws concerning
strangers? It was twofold. First, intercourse with strangers was
bereft
of all considerations, and commercial morality (if I may put it
so) be-came
elastic. I admit that there was no absolute necessity for this to
come about, but all the conditions were given for it to do so, and
it must
have been an everyday occurrence in certain circles. "If a non-Jew
makes
an error in a statement of account, the Jew may use it to his own
advan-tage;
it is not incumbent upon him to point it out" So we may read in the
Tur, and though Joseph Caro did not include this in his law-book,
it
crept in later as a gloss from the pen of Isserlein. Is it not
obvious that
the good Jew must needs draw the conclusion that he was not bound
to
be so particular in his intercourse with non-Jews? With Jews he
will.172/Werner Sombart
scrupulously see to it that he has just weights and a just
measure;74 but
as for his dealings with non-Jews, his conscience will be at ease
even
though he may obtain an unfair advantage. It is not to be denied
that in
some cases honesty towards non-Jews was inculcated.75 But to think
that this should have been necessary! Besides, this is the actual
wording
of the law: "It is permissible to take advantage of a non-Jew, for
it is
written. Thou shalt not take advantage of thy brother." (The
context
refers not to overreaching, but only to the asking of higher
prices from a
non-Jew.)
This conception must have been firmly rooted in those districts
(e.g.,
in Eastern Europe) where the study of the Talmud and the casuistry
it
engendered were universal. The effect it had on the commerce of the
Jew has been described by Graetz, surely no prejudiced witness. "To
twist a phrase out of its meaning, to use all the tricks of the
clever
advocate, to play upon words, and to condemn what they did not know
. . . such were the characteristics of the Polish Jew. . . Honesty
and right-thinking
he lost as completely as simplicity and truthfulness. He made
himself master of all the gymnastics of the Schools and applied
them to
obtain advantage over any one less cunning than himself. He took a
delight in cheating and overreaching, which gave him a sort of joy
of
victory. But his own people he could not treat in this way: they
were as
knowing as he. It was the non-Jew who, to his loss, felt the
consequences
of the Talmudically trained mind of the Polish Jew."76
In the second place, the differential treatment of non-Jews in
Jewish
commercial law resulted in the complete transformation of the idea
of
commerce and industry generally in the direction of more freedom.
If
we have called the Jews the Fathers of Free Trade, and therefore
the
pioneers of capitalism, let us note here that they were prepared
for this
role by the free-trading spirit of the commercial and industrial
law, which
received an enormous impetus towards a policy of laissez-faire by
its
attitude towards strangers. Clearly, intercourse with strangers
could not
but loosen the bonds of personal duties and replace them by
economic
freedom. Let us glance at this in greater detail.
The theory of price in the Talmud and the Codes, in so far as it
affected trade between Jew and Jew, is exactly parallel to the
scholastic
doctrine of justum pretium which was prevalent in Europe throughout
the Middle Ages. But as between Jew and non-Jew, there was no just
price. Price was formed as it is to-day, by "the higgling of the
market."77
Be that as it may, the important thing to observe is that already
in.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/173
the Talmud, and still more distinctly in the Shulchan Aruch,
concep-tions
of the freedom of industry and enterprise, so entirely alien to the
Christian law of Mediaeval Europe, are met with. It is a subject
deserv-ing
of close study and should be taken up by a specialist. For my
part, I
can do no more here than refer to a few instances. But few though
they
be, they seem to me to be conclusive evidence on the point in
question.
My first reference is to a passage in the Talmud which fully
recognizes
free competition among sellers.
Mishna. -- R. Judah was of opinion that a shopkeeper should not
distribute nuts among children, because by so doing he gets them
into the habit of coming to him. But the Rabbis allow it.
More-over,
it is not lawful to spoil prices. But the Rabbis say, "Blessed
be his memory."
Gemara. -- The question at once arises, what was the reason for
the attitude of the Rabbis in the first case? The answer is that
the
shopkeeper may say to his competitor, "I give the children nuts,
you can give them plums." And what is the reason of the Rabbis
in the second case? The Mishna forbids price alteration, and yet
they say, "Blessed be his memory." The answer is, they bless his
memory because he reduces prices (Baba Mew, 60a and b).
In the Codes the reasons have been omitted, and the dry statement
of law only is found. "A shopkeeper is allowed to make presents of
nuts
and other things to the children who come to purchase in his shop,
in
order to win their custom. Moreover, he may sell at a price below
the
current one, and the competing tradesmen can do nothing" (Choshen
Mishpat, 225, §18).
Similarly, in the laws regulating the conduct of traders who bring
their goods to the market town, the following may be read: "Should
the
strangers sell more cheaply than the native dealers, or should
their goods
be of a better quality, the natives may not prevent them, for the
Jewish
public derives benefit therefrom" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §7).
Once more. "If a Jew is prepared to lend money to a non-Jew at a
lower rate of interest than some one else, the latter can do
nothing against
it" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §5).
Finally, Jewish law favours industrial laissez-faire. So we find in
the Shulchan Aruch: "If any one commenced a handicraft in his
street
and none of his neighbours protested, and then one of the other
residents
in the street wishes to carry on the same calling, the first may
not com-.174/Werner Sombart
plain that the new-comer is taking the bread out of his mouth, and
try to
prevent him" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §5).
Clearly, then, free trade and industrial freedom were in accordance
with Jewish law, and therefore in accordance with God's will. What
a
mighty motive power in economic life!
Judaism and Puritanism
I have already mentioned that Max Weber's study of the importance
of
Puritanism for the capitalistic system was the impetus that sent
me to
consider the importance of the Jew, especially as I felt that the
dominat-ing
ideas of Puritanism which were so powerful in capitalism were more
perfectly developed in Judaism, and were also of course of much
earlier
date.
A complete comparison of the two "isms" is not within my province
here. But I believe that if it were made, it would be seen that
there is an
almost unique identity of view between Judaism and Puritanism, at
least,
on those points which we have investigated. In both will be found
the
preponderance of religious interests, the idea of divine rewards
and pun-ishments,
asceticism within the world, the close relationship between
religion and business, the arithmetical conception of sin, and,
above all,
the rationalization of life.
Let me refer to an instance or two. Take the attitude of Judaism
and
Puritanism to the problem of sex. In one of the best hotels of
Philadel-phia
I found a notice in my room to this effect: "Visitors who may have
to transact business with ladies are respectfully requested to
leave the
door of their room open while the lady is with them." What is this
but
the old dictum of the Talmud (Kiddushin, 82a), "Hast thou business
with women? See to it that thou art not with them alone"?
Again, is not the English Sunday the Jewish Sabbath?
I would also recall the words of Heine,78 who had a clear insight
into most things. "Are not," he asks in his Confessions, "Are not
the
Protestant Scots Hebrews, with their Biblical names, their
Jerusalem,
pharisaistic cant? And is not their religion a Judaism which
allows you
to eat pork?"
Puritanism is Judaism.
Whether the first was influenced by the second, and if so, how, are
most difficult questions to answer. It is well known, of course,
that in
the Reformation period there was close intercourse between Jews and
certain Christian sects, that the study of Hebrew and the Hebrew
Scrip-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/175
tures became fashionable, and that the Jews in England in the 17th
cen-tury
were held in very high esteem by the Puritans. Leading men in
England like Oliver Cromwell built up their religious views on the
Old
Testament, and Cromwell himself dreamed of a reconciliation between
the Old and the New Testaments, and of a confederation between the
Chosen People of God and the Puritan English. A Puritan preacher of
the day, Nathaniel Holmes by name, wished for nothing better than,
in
accordance with the letter of the prophetic message, to become a
servant
of God's people and to serve them on bended knee. Public life
became
Hebraic in tone no less than the sermons in churches. And if only
speeches
in Parliament had been in Hebrew, you might have believed yourself
in
Palestine. The "Levellers," who called themselves "Jews" (in
oppositionto
their opponents whom they termed "Amalekites"), advocated the
adop-tion
of the Torah as the norm of English legislation. Cromwell's
officers
suggested to him to appoint seventy members of his Privy Council
ac-cording
to the number of the members of the Synhedrin. To the Parlia-ment
of 1653 General Thomas Harrison, the Anabaptist, was returned,
and he and his party clamoured for the introduction of the Mosaic
legis-lation
into England. In 1649 it was moved in the House of Commons
that the Lord's Day should be observed on Saturday instead of on
Sun-day.
On the banners of the victorious Puritans was inscribed "The Lion
of Judah."79 It is significant that not only the Bible, but the
Rabbinical
literature as well, was extensively read in large circles of the
clergy and
laity.
Altogether, then, there appears to be sufficient evidence for the
de-duction
of Puritan doctrines from Jewish sources. The specialists must
decide. Here I have been able to do no more than give a hint or
two. And
in conclusion I would draw attention to a little humorous
publication,
which appeared in the year 1608 and the contents of which would
seem
to demonstrate the close connexion between Judaism and Calvinism
(which is only Puritanism). It is called, Der Calvinische
Judenspiegel
(the Calvinistic Jewish Mirror), and on page 33 a comparison is
drawn
between the two religions in the following droll fashion. [The old
Ger-man
is delightful.] "If I am to say on my honour why I am become a
Calvinist, I shall have to confess that the one and only reason
which
persuaded me was that among all the religions I could find none
which
agreed so much with Judaism, and its view of life and faith. (Here
fol-low
a number of parallel statements, partly serious and partly
satirical).
8. The Jews hate the name of Mary and tolerate her only when she
is.176/Werner Sombart
made of gold and silver, or when her image is impressed on coins.
So do
we. We too like Mary farthings and crowns, to which we pay all due
respect, for they are useful in business. 9. The Jews everywhere
are at
pains to cheat the people. So are we. For that very reason we left
our
country to wander in other lands where we are not known in our true
colours, so that by our deceit and cunning ... we might lead
astray the
ignorant yokels, cheat them and bring them to us...."
The Problem
The decision to deal in a work of a scientific character with the
problem
suggested by the title of the present chapter has not been arrived
at
without a great effort. For it has of late become the fashion to
seize upon
anything even but faintly savouring of the psychology of nations
as the
plaything for the lighter moods of dilettanti, whilst descriptions
of the
Jewish genius have been hailed as the newest form of political
sport by
coarser spirits, whose rude instincts cannot but give offence to
all those
who, in our gross age, have managed to preserve a modicum of good
taste and impartiality. Unjustifiable juggling with categories in
race psy-chology
has already led to the conclusion that it is impossible to arrive
at any scientific results in this field of study. Read the books
of P. Hertz,
Jean Finot and others 1 and you will lay them down with the
feeling that
it is useless to attempt to find common psychological
characteristics
among any conglomeration of humans; that French esprit is a myth --
in fact that there are no Frenchmen, just as there are no Jews.
But cross
the street, and lo and behold, you are face to face with a
specific type;
read a book or stand before a picture and almost unconsciously you
say.
How very German, how thoroughly French!
Is this only the imagining of our fancy?2
Nay more. If we think for a moment of human history we must
needs construct for ourselves the hypothesis of a sort of
"collective soul."
When, for example, we talk of the Jewish religion we are bound to
con-nect
it with the Jewish people whose genius gave it birth. Or, when we
say the Jews had an influence on modern economic development, it
fol-lows
surely that there must have been something essentially Jewish that
brought it about. Otherwise we might as well assert that it would
have
made no difference to the economic history of Western Europe if
Eski-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/177
mos had taken the place of Jews, or perhaps even gorillas would
have
done equally well!
This reductio ad absurdum shows plainly enough that there must
be some specifically Jewish characteristic. But let us consider
the mat-ter
from a slightly different point of view. Let us glance at the
objective
circumstances in the Jewish aptitude for modern capitalism. There
was
first, as we have seen, the dispersion of the Jews over a wide
area. Now
without recourse to subjective forces the Diaspora can be as
little ex-plained
as the effects of the Diaspora. And one thing is evident. The
dispersion of a people in itself does not necessarily have either
eco-nomic
or cultural results; nay, very often dispersion may lead to fusion
and ultimate disappearance.
It has been claimed -- and with truth -- that it was the dispersion
of the Jews which fitted them to become intermediaries. Granted,
but
did it also tend to make of them negotiators and private advisers
of
princes, callings which have from time immemorial been the
stcpping-stones
of the interpreter to higher posts? Were the capacities essential
to
these new offices not inherent in the Jews themselves?
We have admitted that the dispersion of the Jews was responsible
for no little of their success in international commerce and
credit. But is
not the postulate to this success the fact that the Jews
everywhere kept
together? What would have happened if, like so many other scattered
races, they had not maintained their bonds of union?
Lastly, let us not forget that the Jews came among just those
peoples
who happened to be mature enough to receive capitalism. But even
so, if
Jewish influence was strong (and it is so still) in Holland, in
England, in
Germany, in Austria-Hungary -- stronger far than their influence on
the Spaniards, Italians, Greeks or Arabs -- it was in a large
measure
due to the contrasts between them and their hosts. For it would
seem
that the more slow-witted, the more thick-skulled, the more
ignorant of
business a people is, the more effective is Jewish influence on
their eco-nomic
life. And can this be satisfactorily accounted for except through
special Jewish peculiarities?
No matter what was the origin of their innate dissimilarity from
their hosts, the salient point is that this strangeness should
have ob-tained
lasting influence in economic life. Once more it is impossible to
fathom this without the assumption of inherent Jewish
characteristics.
That a people or a tribe is hated and persecuted does not furnish
suffi-cient
reason for spurring them on to redoubled efforts in their
activities..178/Werner Sombart
On the contrary, in most cases this contempt and ill-treatment but
serve
to destroy morals and initiative. Only where man is possessed of
excep-tional
qualities do these become, under the stress of circumstances, the
source of regenerated energy.
Again, look at their semi-citizenship. Does not the identical
argu-ment
hold good here also? It is so obvious as to become almost a truism.
Nowhere did the Jews enjoy the same advantages as their
fellow-citi-zens,
and yet everywhere they achieved economically much more than
the rest of the population. There can be but one explanation for
this --
the specifically Jewish characteristics.
On the other hand, the legal position of the Jews varied in
different
countries and at different times. In some States they were allowed
to
engage in certain occupations; in others these same occupations
were
forbidden them; in others again, such as England, they were on a
per-fectly
equal footing with the rest of the people in this respect. And yet
they devoted themselves almost everywhere to particular callings.
In
England and America they began their commercial mission by
becom-ing
bullion-merchants or storekeepers. And can this be accounted for in
any other way than by once more pointing to their peculiar
characteris-tics?
As for the wealth of the Jews, that alone will hardly suffice to
ex-plain
their great achievements in the sphere of economic activities. A
man who possesses vast sums must have a number of intellectual
quali-ties
in addition, if his money is to be usefully employed in the
capitalis-tic
sense. That surely requires no proof.
Jewish characteristics must therefore exist. It remains only to
dis-cover
what they are.
Our first thought of the Jews as a unit will naturally be
associated
with their religion. But before we proceed another step I should
like to
premise that on the one hand I shall limit the group lumped
together
under the Jewish religion, and on the other hand, I shall enlarge
it. I shall
limit it by only considering the Jews since their expulsion from
Spain
and Portugal, that is, from the end of the Middle Ages. I shall
enlarge it
by including within the circle of my observations the descendants
of
Jews, even if they themselves have left the faith.
Moreover, I should like to touch upon the arguments urged against
the existence of Jewish peculiarities.
(1) It has been remarked that the Jews of Western Europe and
America have to a large extent assimilated with the peoples among
whom.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/179
they dwell. This need not be denied, even if specifically Jewish
charac-teristics
were as clear as daylight. Is it not possible for social groups to
intermingle? A man may be a German, have all the characteristics
of a
German, and yet be an individual in the group "international
proletariat!"
Or take another instance. Are not the German Swiss at one and the
same
time Swiss and German?
(2) The Jews in the Diaspora, it is maintained, are not a "nation"
or
a "people" in the commonly accepted meaning of the term,3 since
they
are not a political, cultural or linguistic community. The reply
to this
objection is that there are many other qualifications besides
those men-tioned
(e.g., a common origin) which must be considered. But speaking
generally, it is as well not to press a definition too closely.
(3) The differences between the Jews themselves have been made
much of. It has been said that there is no homogeneity among Jews,
that
one section is bitterly opposed to the other. The Western Jews are
differ-ent
from the Eastern Jews, the Sephardim from the Ashkenazim, the
Orthodox from the Liberals, the everyday Jew from the Sabbath Jew
(to
use a phrase of Marx). This also there is no need to deny. But it
does not
by any means preclude the possibility of common Jewish
characteris-tics.
Is it so difficult to conceive of wheels within wheels? Cannot a
large group contain lesser groups side by side? Think of the many
groups
to which an Englishman may belong. He may be a Catholic or a
Protes-tant,
a farmer or a professor, a northerner or a southerner and Heaven
only knows what else besides. But he remains an Englishman all the
same. So with the Jew. He may belong to one circle within the
whole,
may possess certain characteristics that mark all individuals in
that circle,
but he retains the specifically Jewish characteristics
nevertheless.
Finally, I must make it plain that I have no intention of
outlining all
Jewish characteristics. I propose to deal with those only that
have refer-ence
to economic life. I shall not content myself with the old-fashioned
expressions, such as the Jewish "commercialism," the "bartering
spirit"
and the like. I say nothing of the practice of some to include the
desire
for profit as a characteristic of a social group. The desire for
profit is
human -- all too human. In fact, I must reject all previous
analyses of
the Jewish soul (in so far as they touch economic life), and for
the fol-lowing
reasons. First, what the Jew was well-fitted for was never clearly
enough designated. "For trade" is much too vague a term to be of
the
slightest use. I have therefore tried to show, in a special
chapter, the
circle of economic activities for which Jews are specifically
fitted. Sec-.180/Werner Sombart
ondly, mere description is not explanation. If I want to prove
that a man
has all the capabilities necessary to make him an admirable
speculator
on the Stock Exchange, it will not be enough if I say that he will
make a
fine jobber. It is like saying indigence is due to poverty. Yet
that is how
Jewish economic talents have been treated. Our method will be
differ-ent.
We shall try to discover certain properties of the soul which are
congenial to the exercise of economic functions in a capitalistic
organ-ism.
And now, having cleared the way, I shall proceed to demonstrate
what the real Jewish peculiarities are.
An Attempt at a Solution
It is surprising to find that despite the enormity of the problem
there is
yet a great degree of unanimity in the different views about the
Jews. In
literature no less than in actual life, unprejudiced observers
agree on
one or other point of importance. Read Jellinek or Fromer,
Chamberlain
or Marx, Heine or Goethe, Leroy-Beaulieu or Picciotto -- read the
pi-ous
or the non-conforming Jew, the anti-Semitic or the philo-Semitic
non-Jew -- and you get the impression that all of them are
conscious of
the same peculiarities. This is comforting to one who is about to
de-scribe
the Jewish genius once more. At any rate, he will say nothing that
other people might not have said, even though his standpoint be
slightly
different. In my own case I shall attempt to show the connexion
between
the characteristics and the natural gifts of the Jews and the
capitalistic
economic system. I shall first try to sketch a detailed picture of
Jewish
qualities and then proceed to bring them into relation with
capitalism.
Unlike most other writers on the subject I will begin by noting a
Jewish quality which, though mentioned often enough, never received
the recognition which its importance merited. I refer to the
extreme in-tellectuality
of the Jew. Intellectual interests and intellectual skill are
more strongly developed in him than physical (manual) powers. Of
the
Jew it may certainly be said, "l'intelligence prime le corps."
Everyday
experience proves it again and again, and many a fact might be
cited in
its support. No other people has valued the learned man, the
scholar, so
highly as the Jews. "The wise man takes precedence of the king,
and a
bastard who is a scholar of a high-priest who is an ignoramus." So
the
Talmud has it. Any one who is acquainted with Jewish students knows
well enough that this over-rating of mere knowledge is not yet a
thing of
the past. And if you could not become "wise," at least it was your
duty.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/181
to be educated. At all times instruction was compulsory in Israel.
In
truth, to learn was a religious duty; and in Eastern Europe the
syna-gogue
is still called the Shool (Schule, School). Study and worship went
hand in hand; nay, study was worship and ignorance was a deadly
sin. A
man who could not read was a boor in this world and damned in the
next. In the popular sayings of the Ghetto, nothing had so much
scorn
poured upon it as foolishness. "Better injustice than folly," and
"Ein
Narr ist ein Gezar" (A fool is a misfortune) are both well known.4
The most valuable individual is the intellectual individual;
human-ity
at its best is intellectuality at its highest. Listen to what a
sensible
Jew has to say when he pictures the ideal man, the superman if you
like,
of the future. He takes it all as a matter of course; those who
are differ-ently
constituted must surely tremble at the prospect. "In the place of
the blind instincts . . . civilized man will possess intellect
conscious of
purpose. It should be every one's unswerving ideal to crush the
instincts
and replace them by will-power, and to substitute reflection for
mere
impulse. The individual only becomes a man in the fullest sense of
the
word when his natural predisposition is under the control of his
reason-ing
powers. And when the process of emancipation from the instincts is
complete we have the perfect genius with his absolute inner freedom
from the domination of natural laws. Civilization should have but
one
aim -- to liberate man from all that is mystic, from the vague
impul-siveness
of all instinctive action, and to cultivate the purely rational
side
of his being."5 Only think. Genius, the very essence of
instinctive ex-pression,
conceived as the highest form of the rational and the
intellec-tual!
One consequence of this high evaluation of the intellect was the
esteem in which callings were held according as they demanded more
"headwork" or more "handwork." The former were almost in all ages
placed higher than the latter. It is true that there may have
been, and still
may be, Jewish communities in which hard bodily labour is done
every
day, but this hardly applies to the Jews of Western Europe. Even in
Talmud times Jews preferred those callings which necessitated a
lesser
expenditure of physical energy. As Rabbi said, "The world needs
both
the seller of spices and the tanner, but happy be who is a seller
of spices."
Or again, "R. Men: used to say, A man should have his son taught a
clean and easy handicraft" (Kiddushin, 82b).
The Jews were quite alive to their predominant quality and always
recognized that there was a great gulf between their
intellectuality and.182/Werner Sombart
the brute force of their neighbours. One or two sayings popular
among
Polish Jews express the contrast with no little humour. "God help
a man
against Gentile hands and Jewish heads." "Heaven protect us against
Jewish mooch (brains) and Gentile koach (physical force)." Mooch v.
Koach -- that is the Jewish problem in a nutshell. It ought to be
the
motto of this book.
The predominance of intellectual interests could not but lead in a
people so gifted as the Jews to intellectual skill. "Say what you
like
about a Jew, you cannot say he is a fool." "A gallant Greek, a
stupid
Jew, an honest Gipsy -- all are unthinkable" is a popular saying
among
Roumanians. And a Spanish proverb has it, "A hare that is slow and
a
Jew who is a fool: both are equally probable."6 Who that has had
deal-ings
with Jews but will not confirm that on an average they possess a
greater degree of understanding, that they are more intelligent
than other
people? I might even call it astuteness or sagacity, as was
remarked by
one of the keenest observers of Jews 7 a century or more ago, who
char-acterized
them as "intellectual and endowed with great genius for things
of the present age," though, he added, "to a less degree than in
the past."
"The Jewish mind is an instrument of precision; it has the
exactness
of a pair of scales": most people will agree with this judgment of
Leroy-Beaulieu.
And when H. S. Chamberlain speaks of the under-develop-ment
of Jewish "understanding" he must surely be using the term in a
special sense. He cannot possibly mean by it quick thought, precise
analysis, exact dissection, speedy combination, the power of
seeing the
point at once, of suggesting analogies, distinguishing between
synony-mous
things, of drawing final conclusions. The Jew is able to do all
this,
and Jellinek, who rightly lays stress 8 on this side of the Jewish
charac-ter,
points out that Hebrew is particularly rich in expressions for
activi-ties
demanding qualities of the mind. It has no fewer than eleven words
for seeking or researching, thirty-four for distinguishing or
separating,
and fifteen for combining.
There is no doubt that these mental gifts make the Jews prominent
as chess-players, as mathematicians 9 and in all calculating work.
These
activities postulate a strong capacity for abstract thought and
also a
special kind of imagination, which Wundt has so happily christened
the
combinatory. Their skill as physicians (ability at diagnosis)10
may also
be traced to their calculating, dissecting and combining minds,
which
"like lightning, illuminate dark places in a flash."
It is not unknown that often enough Jewish mental ability
degener-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/183
ates into hair-splitting. (When the mill has no corn to grind it
grinds
itself.) But this does not matter so much as another fact. The
intellectu-ality
of the Jew is so strong that it tends to develop at the expense of
other mental qualities, and the mind is apt to become one-sided.
Let us
take a few instances. The Jew lacks the quality of instinctive
under-standing;
he responds less to feeling than to intellect. We can scarcely
think of a Jewish mystic like Jacob Bohme, and the contrast becomes
still more striking when we remember the sort of mysticism found
in the
Kabbala. In the same way all romance is alien to this particular
view of
life; the Jew cannot well sympathize with losing oneself in the
world, in
mankind or in nature. It is the difference between frenzied
enthusiasm
and sober, matter-of-fact thought.
Akin to this characteristic is that of a certain lack of
impression-ability,
a certain lack of receptive and creative genius. When I was in
Breslau a Jewish student from the far East of Siberia came to me
one
day "to study Karl Marx." It took him nearly three weeks to reach
Breslau, and on the very day after his arrival he called on me and
bor-rowed
one of Marx's works. A few days later he came again, discussed
with me what he had read, brought back the book and borrowed
an-other.
This continued for a few months. Then he returned to his native
village. The young man had received absolutely no impressions from
his new surroundings; he had made no acquaintances, never taken a
walk, hardly knew in fact where it was that he was staying. The
life of
Breslau passed him by completely. No doubt it was the same before
he
came to Breslau, and will be the same throughout the future. He
will
walk through the world without seeing it. But he had made himself
ac-quainted
with Marx. Is this a typical case? I think so. You may meet
with it every day. Are we not continually struck by the Jew's love
for the
inconcrete, his tendency away from the sensuous, his constant
abiding
in a world of abstractions? And is it only accidental that there
are far
fewer Jewish painters than literary men or professors? Even in the
case
of Jewish artists is there not something intellectual about their
work?
Never was word more truly spoken than when Friedrich Naumann
com-pared
Max Liebermann [the famous Jewish painter] with Spinoza, say-ing,
"He paints with his brain."
The Jew certainly sees remarkably clearly, but he does not see
much.
He does not think of his environment as something alive, and that
is why
he has lost the true conception of life, of its oneness, of its
being an
organism, a natural growth. In short, he has lost the true
conception of.184/Werner Sombart
the personal side of life. General experience must surely support
this
view; but if other proofs are demanded they will be found in the
pecu-liarities
of Jewish law, which, as we have already seen, abolished per-sonal
relationships and replaced them by impersonal, abstract connexions
or activities or aims.
As a matter of fact, one may find among Jews an extraordinary
knowledge of men. They are able with their keen intellects to
probe, as
it were, into every pore, and to see the inside of a man as only
Rontgen
rays would show him. They muster all his qualities and abilities,
they
note his excellences and his weaknesses; they detect at once for
what he
is best fitted. But seldom do they see the whole man, and thus
they often
make the mistake of ascribing actions to him which are an
abomination
to his inmost soul. Moreover, they seldom appraise a man according
to
his personality, but rather according to some perceptible
characteristic
and achievement.
Hence their lack of sympathy for every status where the nexus is a
personal one. The Jews' whole being is opposed to all that is
usually
understood by chivalry, to all sentimentality, knight-errantry,
feudal-ism,
patriarchalism. Nor does he comprehend a social order based on
relationships such as these. "Estates of the realm" and craft
organiza-tions
are a loathing to him. Politically he is an individualist. A
constitu-tional
State in which all human intercourse is regulated by clearly
de-fined
legal principles suits him well.[Is not this the general modern
ten-dency?
Cf. Sir H. Maine's dictum: The progress of Society is from
status to contract. -- Trans.] He is the born representative of a
"lib-eral"
view of life in which there are no living men and women of flesh
and blood with distinct personalities, but only citizens with
rights and
duties. And these do not differ in different nations, but form
part of
mankind, which is but the sum-total of an immense number of
amor-phous
units. Just as so many Jews do not see themselves -- do they not
deny their obvious characteristics and assert that there is no
difference
between them and Englishmen or Germans or Frenchmen? -- so they
do not see other people as living beings but only as subjects,
citizens, or
some other such abstract conception. It comes to this, that they
behold
the world not with their "soul" but with their intellect. The
result is that
they are easily led to believe that whatever can be neatly set
down on
paper and ordered aright by the aid of the intellect must of
necessity be
capable of proper settlement in actual life. How many Jews still
hold
that the Jewish Question is only a political one, and are
convinced that a.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/185
liberal regime is all that is required to remove the differences
between
the Jew and his neighbour. It is nothing short of astounding to
read the
opinion of so soundly learned a man as the author of one of the
newest
books on the Jewish Question that the whole of the anti-Semitic
move-ment
during the last thirty years was the result of the works of Marr
and
Duhring. "The thousand victims of the pogroms and the million
sturdy
workers who emigrated from their homes are but a striking
illustration
of the power of -- Eugen Duhring" (!).11 Is not this opposing ink
and
blood, understanding and instinct, an abstraction and a reality?
The conception of the universe in the mind of such an intellectual
people must perforce have been that of a structure well-ordered in
ac-cordance
with reason. By the aid of reason, therefore, they sought to
understand the world; they were rationalists, both in theory and
in prac-tice.
Now as soon as a strong consciousness of the ego attaches itself to
the predominating intellectuality in the thinking being, he will
tend to
group the world round that ego. In other words, he will look at
the world
from the point of view of end, or goal, or purpose. His outlook
will be
Ideological, or that of practical rationalism. No peculiarity is
so fully
developed in the Jew as this, and there is complete unanimity of
opinion
on the subject. Most other observers start out with the teleology
of the
Jew; I for my part regard it as the result of his extreme
intellectuality, in
which I believe all the other Jewish peculiarities are rooted. In
saying
this, however, I do not in the least wish to minimize the very
great 'im-portance
of this Jewish characteristic.
Take any expression of the Jewish genius and you will be certain to
find in it this teleological tendency, which has sometimes been
called
extreme subjectivity. Whether or no the Indo-Germanic races are
objec-tive
and the Semitic subjective,12 certain it is that the Jews are the
most
subjective of peoples. The Jew never loses himself in the outer
world,
never sinks in the depth of the cosmos, never soars in the endless
realms
of thought, but, as Jellinek well puts it, dives below the surface
to seek
for pearls. He brings everything into relation with his ego. He is
for ever
asking why, what for, what will it bring? Cui bono? His greatest
inter-est
is always in the result of a thing, not in the thing itself. It is
un-Jewish
to regard any activity, be it what you will, as an end in itself;
un-Jewish
to live your life without having any purpose, to leave all to
chance;
un-Jewish to get harmless pleasure out of Nature. The Jew has
taken all
that is in Nature and made of it "the loose pages of a text-book
of ethics.186/Werner Sombart
which shall advance the higher moral life." The Jewish religion,
as we
have already seen, is teleological in its aim; in each of its
regulations it
has the ethical norm in view. The entire universe, in the Jew's
eyes, is
something that was made in accordance with a plan. This is one of
the
differences between Judaism and heathenism, as Heine saw long ago.
"They (the heathens) all have an endless, eternal 'past,' which is
in the
world and develops with it by the laws of necessity; but the God
of the
Jews was outside the world, which He created as an act of
free-will."
No term is more familiar to the ear of the Jew than Tachlis, which
means purpose, aim, end or goal. If you are to do anything it must
have
a tachlis; life itself, whether as a whole or in its single
activities, must
have some tachlis, and so must the universe. Those who assert that
the
meaning of Life, of the World, is not tachlis but tragedy, the Jew
will
reckon as foolish visionaries.
How deeply the teleological view of things is embedded in the
na-ture
of the Jew may be seen in the case of those of them who, like the
Chassidim, pay no attention to the needs of practical life because
"there
is no purpose in them." There is no purpose in making a living,
and so
they let their wives and children starve, and devote themselves to
the
study of their sacred books. But we may see it also in all those
Jews
who, with a soul-weariness within them and a faint smile on their
coun-tenances,
understanding and forgiving everything, stand and gaze at life
from their own heights, far above this world. I have in my mind
such
choice spirits among the literary men of our day as George
Hirschfeld,
Arthur Schnitzler and George Hermann. The great charm of their work
lies in this world-aloofness with which they look down on our
hustle and
bustle, in the quiet melancholy pervading all their poetry, in
their senti-ment.
Their very lack of will-power is only strength of will in a kind of
negative form. Through all their ballads sounds the same soft
plaint of
grief: how purposeless and therefore how sad is the world! Nature
her-self
is tinged with this sorrow; autumn always lurks in ambush though
wood and meadow be bright with gay spring blossoms; the wind plays
among the fallen leaves and the sun's golden glory, be it never so
beau-tiful,
must go down at last. Subjectivity and the conception that all
things
must have an aim (and the two are the same) rob the poetry of
Jewish
writers of naiveté, freshness and directness, because Jewish poets
are
unable simply to enjoy the phenomena of this world, whether it be
hu-man
fate or Nature's vagaries; they must needs cogitate upon it and
turn
it about and about. Nowhere is the air scented with the primrose
and the.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/187
violet, nowhere gleams the spray of the rivulet in the wood. But
to make
up for lack of these they possess the wonderful aroma of old wine
and
the magic charm of a pair of beautiful eyes gazing sadly into the
dis-tance.
When this attitude of mind that seeks for a purpose in all things
is
united with a strong will, with a large fund of energy (as is
generally the
case with the Jew), it ceases to be merely a point of view; it
becomes a
policy. The man sets himself a goal and makes for it, allowing
nothing
whatever to turn him aside from his course; he is determined, if
you like,
stiff-necked. Heine in characterizing his people called it
stubbornness,
and Goethe said that the essence of the Jewish character was
energy and
the pursuit of direct ends.
My next point is mobility, but I am not quite sure whether this can
be ascribed to all Jews or only to the Ashkenazi (German) Jews.
Writers
who have sung the praises of the Sephardim (Spanish Jews) always
lay
stress on a certain dignified air which they have, a certain
supercilious-ness
of bearing.13 Their German brethren, on the other hand, have
al-ways
been described as lively, active and somewhat excitable.14 Even
to-day you may meet with many Spanish Jews, especially in the
Orient,
who strike you as being dignified, thoughtful and self-restrained,
who
do not in the least appear to have that mobility, moral or
physical, which
is so often noticeable in European Jews. But mobility of mind --
quick
perception and mental versatility -- all Jews possess.
These four elements, intellectuality, teleology, energy and
mobility,
are the corner-stones of Jewish character, so complicated in its
nature. I
believe that all the qualities of the Jew may be easily traced to
one or
more of these elements. Take two which are of special import in
eco-nomic
life -- extreme activity and adaptability.
The Jew is active, or if you will, industrious. In the words of
Goethe,
"No Jew, not even the most insignificant, but is busy towards the
achieve-ment
of some worldly, temporary or momentary aim." This activity of-ten
enough degenerates into restlessness. He must for ever be up and
doing, for ever managing something and carrying it to fruition. He
is
always on the move, and does not care much if he makes himself a
nuisance to those who would rest if they could. All musical and
social
"affairs" in our large towns are run by Jews. The Jew is the born
trum-peter
of progress and of its manifold blessings. And why? Because of
his practical-mindedness andhis mobility combined with his
intellectu-ality.
The last more especially, because it never strikes deep root.
All.188/Werner Sombart
intellectuality is in the long run shallowness; never does it
allow of probing
to the very roots of a matter, never of reaching down to the
depths of the
soul, or of the universe. Hence intellectuality makes it easy to
go from
one extreme to the other. That is why you find among Jews fanatical
orthodoxy and unenlightened doubt side by side; they both spring
from
one source.
But to this shallow intellectuality the Jew owes perhaps the most
valuable of his characteristics -- his adaptability -- which is
unique in
history. The Jews were always a stiff-necked people, and their
adapt-ability
no less than their capacity to maintain their national traits are
both due to the one cause. Their adaptability enabled them to
submit for
the time being, if circumstances so demanded, to the laws of
necessity,
only to hark back to their wonted ways when better days came. From
of
old the Jewish character was at one and the same time resistant and
submissive, and though these traits may appear contradictory they
only
seem so. As Leroy-Beaulieu well said, "The Jew is at once the most
stubborn and the most pliant of men, the most self-willed and the
most
malleable."
The leaders and the "wise" men of the Jewish people were in all
ages fully alive to the importance, nay the necessity, of this
flexibility
and elasticity, if Israel was to continue, and they were therefore
never
tired of insisting upon it. Jewish literature abounds in
instances. "Be as
pliant as the reed which the wind blows in this direction and in
that, for
the Torah can be observed only by him that is of a contrite
spirit. Why is
the Torah likened unto water? To tell you that just as water never
flows
up to the heights but rather runs down to the depths, so too the
Torah
does not abide with the haughty but only with the lowly."15 Or
again,
"When the fox is in authority bow down before him."16 Once more,
"Bend before the wave and it passes over you; oppose it, and it
will
sweep you away."17 Finally, a supplication from the Prayer Book
runs
as follows: "May my soul be as the dust to every one."
It was in this spirit that the Rabbis counselled their flocks to
pretend
to accept the dominant faiths in those countries where their
existence
depended on the renunciation of their own. The advice was followed
to
a large extent, and in the words of Fromer, "The Jewish race, by
simu-lating
death from time to time, was able to live on and on."
There are very few, if any, make-believe Christians or Moslems
to-day.
Nevertheless, the remarkable power of the Jew to adapt himself to
his environment has more scope than ever. The Jew of Western
Europe.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/189
and America to-day no longer wishes to maintain his religion and
his
national character intact; on the contrary, he wishes, in so far
as the
nationalist spirit has not yet awakened in him, to lose his
characteristics
and to assimilate with the people in whose midst his lot happens
to be
cast. And lo, this too he can successfully achieve.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of the way in which Jewish traits
manifest themselves is the fact that the Jew in England becomes
like an
Englishman, in France like a Frenchman, and so forth. And if he
does
not really become like an Englishman or a Frenchman, he appears to
be
like one. That a Felix Mendelssohn should write German music, that
a
Jacques Offenbach French and a Sousa Yankee-doodle; that Lord
Beaconsfield should set up as an Englishman, Gambetta as a
French-man,
Lassalle as a German; in short, that Jewish talent should so often
have nothing Jewish about it, but be in accord with its
environment, has
curiously enough again and again been urged as evidence that there
are
no specifically Jewish characteristics, whereas in truth it proves
the very
opposite in a striking fashion. It proves that the Jews have the
gift of
adaptability in an eminently high degree. The Jew might go from one
planet to another, but his strangeness amid the new surroundings
would
not continue for long. He quickly feels his way and adapts himself
with
ease. He is German where he wants to be German, and Italian if that
suits him better. He does everything and dabbles in everything,
and with
success. He can be a pure Magyar in Hungary, he can belong to the
Irredenta in Italy, and be an anti-Semite in France (Drumont!). He
is an
adept in seizing upon anything which is still germinating, and
bringing
it with all speed to its full bloom.18 All this his adaptability
enables him
to do.
I have already said that this peculiar capacity for adaptation is
rooted
in the four elements of the Jewish character. But perhaps the
rationalism
of the Jew is responsible for it to a greater degree than the
other three.
Because of his rationalism he is able to look at everything from
without.
If the Jew is anything, it is not because he must but because he
deter-mines
to be so. Any convictions he may have do not spring from his
inmost soul; they are formulated by his intellect. His standpoint
is not
on solid earth but an imaginary castle in the air. He is not
organically
original but mechanically rational. He lacks depth of feeling and
strength
of instinct. That is why he is what he is, but he can also be
different.
That Lord Beaconsfield was a Conservative was due to some accident
or other, or some political conjuncture; but Stein and Bismarck
and.190/Werner Sombart
Carlyle were Conservatives because they could not help it; it was
in
their blood. Had Marx or Lassalle been born in another age, or in
an-other
environment, they might quite easily have become Conservatives
instead of Radicals. As a matter of fact, Lassalle was already
coquet-ting
with the idea of becoming a reactionary, and no doubt he would
have played the part of a Prussian Junker as brilliantly as that
of social-ist
agitator.
The driving power in Jewish adaptability is of course the idea of a
purpose, or a goal, as the end of all things. Once the Jew has
made up
his mind what line he will follow, the rest is comparatively easy,
and his
mobility only makes his success more sure.
How mobile the Jew can be is positively astounding. He is able to
give himself the personal appearance he most desires. As in days
of old
through simulating death he was able to defend himself, so now by
colour
adaptation or other forms of mimicry. The best illustrations may be
drawn from the United States, where the Jew of the second or third
generation is with difficulty distinguished from the non-Jew. You
can
tell the German after no matter how many generations; so with the
Irish,
the Swede, the Slav. But the Jew, in so far as his racial physical
features
allow of it, has been successful in imitating the Yankee type,
especially
in regard to outward marks such as clothing, bearing and the
peculiar
method of hairdressing.
Easier still, on account of his mental and moral mobility, is it
for the
Jew to make the intellectual atmosphere of his environment his
own. His
mental mobility enables him quickly to seize upon the "tone" of any
circle, quickly to notice what it is that matters, quickly to feel
his way
into things. And his moral mobility? That helps him to remove
trouble-some
hindrances, either ethical or aesthetical, from his path. And he
can
do this with all the more facility because he has only to a small
degree
what may be termed personal dignity. It means little to him to be
untrue
to himself, if it is a question of attaining the wished-for goal.
Is this picture faithful of life? The obvious adaptability of the
Jew
to the changing conditions of the struggle for existence is surely
proof
enough. But there is further proof in some of the special gifts
which
Jews possess. I refer to their undoubted talent for journalism,
for the
Bar, for the stage, and all of it is traceable to their
adaptability.
Adolf Jellinek, in the book we have referred to more than once, has
drawn a clever little sketch showing the connexion between the two.
"The journalist," he says, "must be quick, mobile, lively,
enthusiastic,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/191
able to analyze quickly and as quickly to put two and two
together; must
be able to enter in medias res, to have the gist of any question
of the day
or the central fact of a debate in his mind's eye; must be able to
deal
with his subject in clear and well-marked outlines, to describe it
epi-grammatically,
antithetically, sententiously, in short arresting sentences,
to breathe life into it by means of a certain amount of pathos, to
give it
colour by means of esprit, to make it spicy by means of
seasoning." Are
not all these Jewish traits?
The actor's calling, no less than the barrister's, depends for
success
on his ability to place himself quickly in a strange world of
ideas, to take
a right view of men and conditions without much difficulty, to
form a
correct estimate of them and to use them for his own end. The
Jew's gift
of subjectivity stands him here in good stead, for by its aid he
can easily
put himself in the position of another, take thought for him and
defend
him. To be sure, jurisprudence is the bulk of the contents of
Jewish
literature!
Jewish Characteristics as Applied to Capitalism
Now comes the question, how and in what way did the Jewish
charac-teristics
enable Jews to become financiers and speculators, indeed, to
engage as successfully in economic activities within the framework
of
the capitalistic system as to be mathematicians, statisticians,
physicians,
journalists, actors and advocates? To what extent, that is, does a
special
talent for capitalistic enterprise spring from the elements in the
Jewish
character?
Speaking generally, we may say in this connexion what we have
already remarked about capitalism and the Jewish religion, that
the fun-damental
ideas of capitalism and those of the Jewish character show a
singular similarity. Hence we have the triple parallelism between
Jewish
character, the Jewish religion and capitalism. What was it we
found as
the all-controlling trait of the Jewish people? Was it not extreme
intel-lectuality?
And is not intellectuality the quality which differentiates the
capitalistic system from all others? Organizing ability springs
from in-tellectuality,
and in the capitalistic system we find the separation be-tween
head and hands, between the work of directing and that of
manu-facturing.
"For the greatest work to be completely done, you need of
hands a thousand, of mind but only one." That sums up the
capitalistic
state of things.
The purest form of capitalism is that wherein abstract ideas
are.192/Werner Sombart
most clearly expressed. That they are part and parcel of the Jewish
character we have already seen; there is no occasion to labour the
close
kinship in this respect between capitalism and the Jew. Again, the
qual-ity
of abstraction in capitalism manifests itself in the substitution
of all
qualitative differences by merely quantitative ones (value in
exchange).
Before capitalism came, exchange was a many-sided, multicoloured
and
technical process; now it is just one specialized act -- that of
the dealer:
before there were many relationships between buyer and seller;
there is
only one now -- the commercial. The tendency of capitalism has been
to do away with different manners, customs, pretty local and
national
contrasts, and to set up in their stead the dead level of the
cosmopolitan
town. In short, there has been a tendency towards uniformity, and
in this
capitalism and Liberalism have much in common. Liberalism we have
already shown to be a near relative of Judaism, and so we have the
kindred trio of Capitalism, Liberalism, and Judaism.
How is the inner resemblance between the first and the last best
manifested? Is it not through the agency of money, by means of
which
capitalism succeeds so well in its policy of bringing about a drab
unifor-mity?
Money is the common denominator, in terms of which all values
are expressed; at the same time it is the be-all and end-all of
economic
activity in a capitalistic system. Hence one of the conspicuous
things in
such a system is success. Is it otherwise with the Jew? Does he
not also
make the increase of capital his chief aim? And not only because
the
abstractness of capital is congenial to the soul of the Jew, but
also be-cause
the 'great regard in which (in the capitalistic system) money is
held strikes another sympathetic note in the Jewish character --
its tele-ology.
Gold becomes the great means, and its value arises fromthe fact
that you can utilize it for many ends. It needs but little skill
to show that
a nature intent on working towards some goal should feel itself
drawn to
something which has value only because it is a means to an end.
More-over,
the teleology of the Jew brings it about that he prizes success.
(Another point of similarity, therefore, with capitalism.) Because
he rates
success so highly he sacrifices to-day for to-morrow, and his
mobility
only helps him to do it all the better. Here again we may observe a
likeness to capitalism. Capitalism is constantly on the look-out
for some-thing
new, for some way of expanding, for abstaining to-day for the
sake of to-morrow. Think of our whole system of credit. Does not
this
characteristic show itself there clearly enough? Now remember also
that
the Jews were very much at home in the organization of credit --
in.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/193
which values or services which may, or can, become effective some
time
in the future are made available to-day. Human thought can plainly
picture future experiences and future needs, and credit offers the
oppor-tunity
through present economic activities of producing future values.
That credit is extensively found in modern life scarcely requires
point-ing
out. The reason too is obvious: it offers golden chances. True, we
must give up the joys that spring from "completely throwing
ourselves
into the present."19 But what of that? The Jewish character and
capital-ism
have one more point in common -- practical rationalism, by which
I mean the shaping of all activities in accordance with reason.
To make the whole parallelism even more plain, let me illustrate it
by concrete instances. The Jew is well fitted for the part of
undertaker
because of his strength of will and his habit of making for some
goal or
other. His intellectual mobility is accountable for his readiness
to dis-cover
new methods of production and new possibilities of marketing.
He is an adept at forming new organizations, and in these his
peculiar
capacity for finding out what a man is best fitted for stands him
in good
stead. And since in the world of capitalism there is nothing
organic or
natural but only what is mechanical or artificial, the Jew's lack
of un-derstanding
of the former is of no consequence. Even undertaking on a
large scale is itself artificial and mechanical; you may extend a
concern
or contract it; you may change it according to circumstances. That
is
why Jews are so successful as organizers of large capitalistic
undertak-ings.
Again, the Jew can easily grasp impersonal relationships. We have
already noted that he has the feeling of personal dependence only
in a
slight measure. Hence, he does not care for your hoary
"patriarchalism,"
and pays little attention to the dash of sentimentality which is
still some-times
found in labour contracts. In all relations between sellers and
buy-ers,
and between employers and employed, he reduces everything to the
legal and purely business basis. In the struggle of the workers to
obtain
collective agreements between themselves and the masters, which
shall
regulate the conditions of their labour, the Jew is almost
invariably on
the side of the first.
But if the Jew is well fitted to be an undertaker, still more is
he cut
out for the part of the trader. His qualities in this respect are
almost
innumerable.
The trader lives in figures, and in figures the Jew has always
been in
his element. His love of the abstract has made calculation easy
for him;
it is his strong point. Now a calculating talent combined with a
capacity.194/Werner Sombart
for working always with some aim in view has already won half the
battle for the trader. He is enabled to weigh aright the chances,
the pos-sibilities
and the advantages of any given situation, to eliminate every-thing
that is useless, and to appraise the whole in terms of figures.
Give
this sober calculator a strong dose of imagination and you have the
perfect speculator before you. To take stock of any given state of
things
with lightning speed, to see a thousand eventualities, to seize
upon the
most valuable and to act in accordance with that -- such, as we
have
already pointed out, is the aim of the dealer. For all this the
Jew hasthe
necessary gifts of mind. I should like expressly to emphasize the
close
kinship between the activities of the clever speculator and those
of the
clever physician who can successfully diagnose a disease. The Jew,
be-cause
of his qualities, is eminently fitted for both.
A good dealer must be a good negotiator. What cleverer negotiators
are there than the Jews, whose ability in this direction has long
been
recognized and utilized? To adapt yourself to the needs of a
market, to
meet any specified form of demand, is the one prime essential for
the
dealer. That the Jew with his adaptability can do this as well as
any
other is obvious. The second is the power of suggestion, and in
this also
the Jew is well qualified by his ability to think himself into the
situation
of another.
Wherever we look the conclusion forces itself upon us that the
com-bination
of no other set of qualities is so well fitted, as are those of the
Jew, for realizing the best capitalistic results. There is no need
for me to
take the parallelism further; the intelligent reader can easily do
so for
himself. I would only direct his attention to one point more
before leav-ing
the subject -- the parallel between the feverish restlessness of
Stock
Exchange business, always intent on upsetting the tendency towards
an
equilibrium, and the restless nature of the Jew.
In another place I have sought to characterize the ideal undertaker
in three words -- he must be wide-awake, clever and resourceful.
Wide-awake:
that is to say, quick of comprehension, sure in judgment, must
think twice before speaking once, and be able to seize upon the
right
moment.
Clever: that is to say, he must possess a knowledge of the world,
must be certain of himself in his judgment and in his treatment of
men,
certain in his judgment on a given conjuncture; and above all,
acquainted
with the weaknesses and mistakes of those around him.
Resourceful: that is to say, full of ideas. The capitalistic
undertaker.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/195
must have three additional qualities: he must be active, sober and
thor-ough.
By sober, I mean free from passion, from sentiment, from
unprac-tical
idealism. By thorough, I mean reliable, conscientious, orderly,
neat
and frugal.
I believe this rough sketch will, in broad outline, stand for the
capi-talistic
undertaker no less than for the Jew.
Prefatory Note
Strictly speaking the task I had set myself has now been
completed. I
have tried to show the importance of the Jews in modern economic
life
in all its aspects, and the connexion between Capitalism and
"Jewishness."
In other words, I have endeavoured to point out why it was that
the Jews
have been able to play, and still continue to play, so significant
a part in
economic life; endeavoured to show that their great achievements
were
due partly to objective circumstances, and partly to their
inherent char-acteristics.
But here new questions crop up in plenty, and I must not pass them
by unanswered, if I desire my most valued readers may not lay
aside my
book with a feeling of dissatisfaction. It is obvious that any one
who has
accompanied me to the point where I maintain that specifically
Jewish
characteristics exist, and that they will account for the great
influence
of the Jews in the body economic, must be bound to ask. What is the
true nature of these characteristics? How have they come about?
What
will their ultimate effect be?
The answers to these questions may vary considerably. The Jewish
characteristics we have noted may be nothing else but, as it were,
a
function without a corresponding organism; may be only surface
phe-nomena,
skin-deep, without any root at all in the human beings that give
expression to them; may be but as a feather on a coat -- easily
blown
away; something which vanishes with the disappearance of the
person..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/197
Or they may become hardened into a habit and be deep-seated, but
yet not sufficiently powerful to be hereditary. Contrariwise, they
may be
so marked as to pass from one generation to another. In this case,
the
question presents itself, when did they arise? Were these
characteristics
always in the Jew, were they in his blood, or have they only been
ac-quired
in the course of his history -- either in what is termed ancient
times, or later? Again, all hereditary qualities may last for
ever, or be
only a temporary nature -- may be, that is, permanent or only
transient.
Seeing that we are dealing with a social group, it will be
necessary here,
too, to answer the question. Is the group a racial entity? In a
word, are
the Jews a subdivision of mankind, differing by blood-kinship from
other
people? Finally, in a problem of this sort we must deal with the
possibil-ity
that the peculiar characteristics of the group may be due to
admix-tures
with other groups, or to selection within the group itself.
The problem is many-sided: of that there can be little doubt. And
the worst of it is that modern science can give no certain replies
to the
questions propounded. Attempts have of course been made, but they
are
not without prejudice, and any one even only superficially
acquainted
with the subject will be faced by more problems and puzzles than by
solutions.
The most pressing need of the moment, so it seems to me -- one
which alone will be able to withdraw the Jewish Problem from the
semi-darkness
in which it is enshrouded -- is to obtain a clear conception of
the questions at issue, and to bring some order into the abundant
mate-rial
at hand. It is almost as though at the point where the general
Jewish
Question intersects the race problem, a thousand devils had been
let
loose to confuse the mind of men. As one authority 1 recently
urged with
regard to the doctrines of heredity: what is most needed is an
exact
precision concerning elementals. The same is the case to an
enormous
extent with the question of whether the Jews are a race or not, and
perhaps an outsider may contribute something to this end, just
because
he stands apart from the specialists. This thought emboldens me to
at-tempt
to give a resume of all that is current to-day regarding Jews as a
race -- of all that is certain,and of the thousand and one
theories, to say
nothing of the numerous false hypotheses..198/Werner Sombart
The Anthropology of the Jews
Touching the origin of the Jews and their anthropology and
ethnology,
opinions at the present day are pretty well agreed as to the
essential
facts. It is generally assumed 2 that Israel, like Judah, arose
from the
admixture of different Oriental peoples. When, in the 15th century
B.C.,
the Hebrews, then a Bedouin tribe, wished to settle in Palestine
they
found there an old population long since established -- Canaanites,
who were probably hegemonic, Hittites, Perizites, Hivites and
Jebusites
(Judg. iii. 5). Recent research has come to the conclusion,
opposed to
the older view, that the Israelitish clans largely intermarried
with these
peoples.
Later, when a portion of the population went into the Babylonian
Exile, the admixture of races continued in Palestine. And as for
the
exiles (whose history in this connexion is of vital importance),
we learn
much from the latest cuneiform inscriptions concerning their
attitude
toward intermarriage. The inscriptions show, "without doubt," that
there
was a gradual fusion between the Jews and the Babylonians. The
immi-grants
called their children by Babylonian names, and the Babylonians
theirs by Persian, Hebrew and Aramaic names.3
Nothing like so clear are the views as to the relationship to each
other of the peoples and clans of which the Jews were composed;
still
less as to how they can be distinguished from other similar
groups; and
least of all how they are to be called. A very heated controversy
has
recently raged about the term "Semites," with the result that in
anthro-pological
circles the word is no longer used. The Semite controversy,
like that on the Aryans, only shows how vicious it is to allow
linguistic
concepts to interfere in the anthropological divisions of mankind.
It is
generally accepted that the Semites are all those peoples whose
speech
is Semitic, but that anthropologically they belong to different
and differ-ing
groups.4
My own view is that the controversy as to the exact demarcation of
the civilized Oriental peoples is a little futile. Nor does our
ignorance on
this point much matter. One thing however is certain -- that all
of them,
the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians and
the
Jews, by virtue of their origin and earliest history, belong to
one class,
which may perhaps be termed "Desert" or "Desert-edge" Peoples. The
assumption that a fair, blue-eyed tribe from the North
intermingled with
these is now almost unanimously regarded as a fable. The theory of
the
ubiquity of the Germans" will have to be but coldly entertained as
long.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/199
as no more convincing proofs are forthcoming than the reddish hair
of
Saul, or the dolichocephalic skull of the mummy of Rameses II.
What, then, was the anthropological history of the group of peoples
in which the Jews originated? A common answer as regards the Jews
was that they continued to mix with their non-Jewish neighbours in
the
Diaspora as they had done before. Renan, Loeb, Neubauer and others
believe that the modern Jews are in large measure the descendants
of
heathen proselytes in the Hellenistic Age, or of marriages between
Jews
and non-Jews in the early centuries of the Common Era. The
existence
of fair Jews (to the extent of 13 per cent), especially in Eastern
Europe,
lent probability to this opinion. But to-day, so far as I can make
out, the
entirely opposite view generally prevails -- that from the days of
Ezra
to these the Jews have kept strictly apart. For more than two
thousand
years they have been untouched by other peoples; they have remained
ethnically pure. That drops of alien blood came into the Jewish
body
corporate through the long centuries of their dispersion no one
will deny.
But so small have these outside elements been that they have not
influ-enced
to any appreciable degree the ethnical purity of the Jewish people.
It seems pretty clear now that in the past the number of proselytes
admitted into Judaism was considerably overestimated. There is no
doubt
that in the Hellenistic and early Christian periods Judaism won
adher-ents
among the heathen peoples. (The subsequent centuries were of no
consequence at all, with the exception of one case only.) Both the
Ro-man
and the Jewish Law made provision for such converts.. But we
may assume with certainty that all of them were the so-called
"Pros-elytes
of the Gate" -- that is, they worshipped God in accordance with
Jewish teaching, but they were not circumcised, nor were they
allowed
to marry Jewesses. Nearly all of them eventually drifted into
Christian-ity.
As a matter of fact, in the time of Pius circumcision was again
allowed to the Jews, but the rite was expressly forbidden to be
per-formed
on proselytes. In this way conversion to Judaism was made a
punishable offence. This in all probability was not the intention
of the
framers of the prohibition, but its effect was soon recognized,
and it was
extended.6 For Severus "forbade conversion to Judaism on pain of
grave
penalties."
But even if we allow foreign admixtures among the Jews in the
early Christian Age, it could never have amounted to very much when
we think of the millions of Jews who presumably existed at the
time, and
anyhow the stranger elements came from peoples closely akin to
the.200/Werner Sombart
Jews.
As for the centuries that followed the entry of the Jews into
Euro-pean
history, we may take it that proselytizing ceased almost entirely.
Throughout the Middle Ages therefore the Jews received but little
of
non-Jewish blood. The remarkable conversion of the Chozars in the
8th
century cannot be regarded as an exception to this statement, for
their
realm was never very extensive. In the 10th century it was limited
to a
very small area in the western part of the Crimea, and in the 11th
the
tiny Jewish State disappeared altogether. Only a small remnant of
the
Chozars live in Kieff as Karaites. Hence, even if the whole of the
Chozars
professed Judaism, the ethnical purity of the Jews could have been
af-fected
but little. As a matter of fact, however, it is very doubtful
whether
any others than the ruling family, or the upper classes, became
Jews.7
Mixed marriages thus remain as the only possible source whence
Jewish blood might be made impure. Certainly marriages between Jews
and non-Jews must have occurred in some periods of Jewish history.
Mixed marriages were probably numerous -- a not extravagant
as-sumption
-- in those epochs in which the band of Jewish solidarity was
somewhat loosened -- say, the last pre-Christian century, or the
12th
and 13th in Spain. Even so, such relaxations never lasted for any
con-siderable
time; Jewish orthodoxy soon regained the upper hand, to the
exclusion of non-Jews. What the Pharisees achieved in the
first-named
period resulted in the second from the Maimonides schism, and this
had
such reactionary consequences that marriages with Christian and
Mo-hammedan
women were annulled.8
But there are indications that such marriages were to be found.
They
were expressly forbidden at the early Spanish Councils. For
instance,
the 16th Canon of the Council of Elovia (304) provides that "the
daugh-ters
of Catholics shall not be given in marriage to heretics, except
they
return to the Church. The same applies to Jews and schismatics."
The
64th Canon of the Third Council of Toledo (589) forbids Jews to
have
Christian women either as wives or mistresses; and if any children
spring
from such unions they must be baptized. Once more, the 63rd Canon
of
the Fourth Council of Toledo (633) makes it incumbent upon Jews who
have Christian wives to accept Christianity if they wish to
continue to
live with them.9 It seems hardly likely, however, that marriages
against
which these canons were issued were very numerous. And anyhow, as
the children of such marriages were lost to Judaism, Jewish racial
pu-rity
could not have suffered much by them..The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/201
Similarly, it is improbable that there was any admixture of Jews
with the Northern peoples. There was an opinion current that the
Jews
in Germany up to the time of the Crusades lived among their
Christian
neighbours, and had free intercourse with them in every direction.
But
this view is hardly credible, and Brann, one of the best
authorities on
German Jewish history, has declared the assumption of even the
least
degree of assimilation at this period to be "an airy fancy, which
must
vanish into nothingness when the inner life of the Jews of those
days is
understood."10
There remain the fair Jews. They have been regarded as a proof of
Jewish admixture with the fair races of the North. But no scholar
of
repute looks upon these as the outcome of legitimate unions between
Jews and their Slav neighbours. On the other hand, one hypothesis
11 has
found credence -- that the fair Jews are the children of
illegitimate
unions between Jews and Russians, either in the ordinary way or
forc-ibly
on the occasion of pogroms. But the weakness of this assumption is
obvious. Even if it did explain the existence of fair Jews in
Russia, it
would be of no use at all for accounting for fair Jews in Germany,
in
Southern lands, in North Africa and in Palestine.
There is really no necessity to look for an explanation of the fair
Jews in the admixture of races. All dark peoples produce a number
of
variants, and this is a case in point.12
We come back then to the fact that for some twenty centuries the
Jews have kept themselves ethnically pure. One proof of this is
found in
the similarity of the anthropological characteristics of the Jews
all over
the globe, and, moreover, in that the similarity has been
remarkably
constant through the centuries. "Differences in treatment or
environ-ment
have not been able to blur a common type, and the Jews more than
any other race stand as a proof that the influence of heredity is
much
more powerful than that of environment" (E. Auerbach).
The anthropological homogeneity of the Jewish stock at the present
time has been established by numerous anatomical experiments and
measurements.13 The only doubtful question is whether the ancient
con-trast
between Ashkenazim [German Jews] and Sephardim [Spanish Jews]
extends to their anthropology. There are two conflicting opinions
on the
subject,14 but I believe the basis of either is not sufficiently
conclusive to
justify an independent judgment. It must be added, though, that
per-sonal
observation would seem to warrant the belief that there was some
anthropological difference between the two. Look at your spare,
elegant.202/Werner Sombart
Spanish Jew, with his small hands and feet and his thin, hooked
nose,
and then at his German brother, stout and bow-legged, with his
broad,
fleshy Hittite nose. Do they not appear as two distinct types to
the ordi-nary
observer? There is as yet no scientific ground to explain the
differ-ence.
Another controversial argument is whether the Jews of to-day are a
separate entity, distinct from their neighbours physiologically
and patho-logically.
There can be no doubt that from this point of view Jews do
exhibit certain peculiarities in many respects -- early puberty,
little li-ability
to cancer, especially cancer of the womb, strong disposition for
diabetes, insanity, and so forth. There are people, however, who
cannot
look upon these things as physiological and pathological Jewish
traits,
but explain them as resultants of the social position of the Jews,
of their
religious practices, and so on.15 Here also the ground has not
been suf-ficiently
prepared to warrant a definite statement.
It is different with the physiognomy of the Jew. Physiognomy, as is
well known, is the outcome of two causes -- of certain facial
forms and
of their particular expression. You cannot weigh or measure
either, and
therefore this is a matter that must be left entirely to common
observa-tion.
Now, just as the colour-blind distinguish no colours, so those who
cannot see differences in men's faces know nothing of physiognomy.
When, therefore, some writers 16 say that in the case of
three-quarters of
cultivated and wealthy Jews they cannot with certainty tell that
they are
Jews merely from their faces, then there is nothing to urge in
reply. But
a keen observer will most decidedly be able to tell. Jewish
physiognomy
is still a reality, and few will deny it. Undoubtedly there are
individuals
among Jews who do not look one whit Jewish. But there are also very
many individuals among Gentiles who look very Jewish. I should not
like to go so far as some do,17 and say that the Hapsburgs because
of
their heavy lips, or the Louis of France because of their hooked
noses,
were Jewish-looking. But among Oriental peoples (including possibly
the Japanese) we do come across Jewish types. This in no wise
detracts
from the anthropological unity of the Jews. If it proves anything,
it only
points to a common origin of the Jews and the Oriental peoples. (It
might be mentioned, by the way, that the lost Ten Tribes have been
located in Japan -- a somewhat fantastic conjecture, but having
some-thing
in its favour in the striking similarity of the Japanese and Jewish
types.) To consider the Jewish physiognomy as an expression of
deca-dence,
or to account for it, as Ripley does, as a result of Ghetto life,
is.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/203
not very conclusive in face of the undeniable Jewish types
depicted on
the monuments of ancient Egypt and Babylonia. Look at the picture
of
Jewish captives in the epoch of Shishak (973 B.C.), or of the
Jewish
ambassadors at the court of Salmanasar 18 (884 B.C.), and you will
be
convinced that from those days to our own, a period of nearly three
thousand years, few changes have marked the Jewish type of
counte-nance.
This is but another proof of the proposition that the Jewish stock
is an anthropological entity, and that its characteristics have
been con-stant
through the ages in a most extraordinary fashion.
The Jewish "Race"
In view of all this, may we speak of a Jewish race? The answer
would
depend on the connotation of the word "race." But to define it is
not
easy, for there are probably as many definitions as there are
writers on
it.19 It is, of course, open to any one to say. Such and such
things I look
upon as the mark of race, and if I apply my standard the Jews are
or are
not a race, as the case may be. But a procedure of this kind is
more of
the nature of a game. What is needed is a scientific definition.
But how?
Many methods have been tried -- anthropological differences, skull
measurements, biological experiments and their application -- but
all
with no absolute result. It would, however, be a fallacy to
conclude that
because hitherto no satisfactory classification of the human
species has
been achieved, therefore no anthropological differences really
exist. An
Eskimo is different from a Negro, and the South Italian from the
Nor-wegian.
We do not require anthropology to tell us that.
So with the Jews. It may be difficult to class them, but
anthropo-logical
peculiarities of their own they surely have. When therefore one
distinguished scholar 20 writes: "I recognize only a Jewish
religious com-munity;
of a Jewish race I know nothing," we must regard it as a hasty
expression uttered in the heat of the moment. The objection to it
is that
we can easily place a "Jewish national community" with a common
history beside the "Jewish religious community."
So with anthropological characteristics which mark off the Jew from
the non-Jew. I am firmly of opinion that the Jews, no matter where
they
may be found, are an anthropological group differing from, let us
say,
the Swede or the negro. "A religious community" will not suffice.
After all, is it not a controversy about words? Some will have it
that
there is no Jewish race. Well and good. But they admit Jewish
anthropo-logical
peculiarities. It is a thousand pities that there is no
satisfactory.204/Werner Sombart
term by which to describe them. "A people" will not serve, for the
defi-nitions
of "people" are no less numerous than those of "race." But what
does the name matter? The thing certainly is there, and I should
have no
hesitation in speaking of the Jewish race, or, if you will, of the
Jewish
"race."
Let me conclude this section with one or two wise words written by
Arthur Ruppin,21 that excellent authority on the Jew, words that
appear
to me to be among the best that have been uttered on the subject:
"The
term 'race' should not be stretched too far. If we include in it
such
groups as developed their special anthropological characteristics
in pre-historic
times, and have since kept themselves without admixture with
other groups, then in reality there are no 'races' among
white-skinned
peoples, seeing that all of them have intermingled over and over
again.
As for the Jews, whether they had common racial features in
prehistoric
times and have preserved them through the centuries, is a detail
of no
great significance. What does matter is this -- that it is certain
that
those who professed the Jewish religion formed a well-defined group
distinct from their surroundings, even as late as the end of the
18th
century, after many generations of strict avoidance of marriage
with
non-Jews. The community which has descended from this group may be
called, for lack of a better name, a race, more particularly, 'the
Jewish
race.'"
How the Jewish Genius Remained Constant
The question of greatest interest in these anthropological
considerations
is to discover whether any connexion exists between the somatic
char-acteristics
of the Jew and his intellectual qualities. We want to make
sure whether the latter are in his blood, so to say, i.e., whether
they are
racial or no. To discover this it will be necessary to see whether
the
characteristics we have observed in modern Jews were to be found
among
Jews in ancient times also; whether they reach back to their
earliest
history, or whether they appeared at a later date, and if so, when.
The result will be that we shall observe that Jewish intellectual
quali-ties
have remained constant, that certain characteristics, certain
pecu-liar
features of the Jewish soul may be traced as far back as the
forma-tion
of the Jewish ethnical group. We cannot prove all this directly,
because we have no reliable accounts of the Jewish popular
character
dating from early times. What we do possess are brief and scanty
ex-pressions
of opinions, valuable, however, as far as they go. It is of
great.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/205
interest, for example, to note that the Pentateuch (in four places
--
Exod. xxxii. 9, xxxiv. 9; Deut. ix. 13 and 27) asserts of the Jews
what
Tacitus said of them later -- that they are a stiff-necked people.
No less
interesting is Cicero's statement that they hang together most
frater-nally,
or Marcus Aurelius's that they are a restless people, to whom he
cries, "O ye Marcomanni, O ye Quadi, O ye Sarmatae, at length have
I
found a race more restless than you!"; or finally Juan de la
Huarte's that
their intellect is keen and well fitted for worldly things.
The first point to note is: --
(1) The attitude of the Jews to the peoples among whom they dwelt
all through the Diaspora. In the last century or so we have seen
this to be
one of aloofness. Before capitalism came and set them free, Jews
were
looked upon as "strangers," as "semi-citizens." They were hated and
persecuted in all lands, but everywhere they knew how to preserve
and
maintain themselves.
How was it in antiquity? How later? The same spectacle confronts
us, ever since the Jews came into contact with other peoples.
Every-where
there was opposition, persecution and ill-treatment. To begin with
the Egyptians: "They abhorred the children of Israel" (Exod. i.
12).
Paul of Tarsus went so far as to say that the Jews "were contrary
to all
men" (1 Thess. ii. 15). In the Hellenistic period, in Imperial
Rome --
the same story of hate and plunder and death. Philo and Josephus
both
record dreadful Jewish pogroms in Alexandria in the first century
of our
era. "Hatred of the Jew and ill-treatment of him are as old as the
Diaspora
itself" (Mommsen).
Under the Caesars their lot was no different: "I am just sick of
these
filthy, noisy Jews," said Marcus Aurelius. Then, in the time of
Theodoric,
massacres and wholesale plundering were the order of the day, as
later
in the 7th century under the Longobards. And the East was like the
West; the 6th century in Babylon was as dark as the 7th in Northern
Italy. Even in the Pyrenean Peninsula, where they enjoyed much that
was good, the end was bitter: Christian and Moslem both laid hands
upon them.
These instances might be multiplied. They are all expressions of
hatred of the Jew in Christian and non-Christian environments
alike.
Can the phenomenon be explained without the assumption of the
exist-ence
of Jewish characteristics, which remained constant no matter where
the Jew was placed? The answer must surely be in the affirmative.
The
hatred of the Jew could not have been the result of a passing mood
on.206/Werner Sombart
the part of all these peoples.
Then again, everywhere and at all times the Jews were
semi-citi-zens.
Sometimes indeed they were not in this category because the law
placed them there. On the contrary. There were many cases in
antiquity
where Jews were assigned privileged positions, by virtue of which
they
were excused certain duties of the citizen (e.g., military
service), or had
exceptional advantages in regard to legal enactments. Nevertheless
they
took no full share in the life of the State in which they were
domiciled.
The Greek inhabitants of Caesarea, a city on Jewish soil and built
under
Jewish rule, denied citizen rights to the Jews, and Burnus, Nero's
minis-ter,
upheld their decision.22 There was little change in this respect
during
the Middle Ages.
How are we to account for this generally prevailing treatment?
Dif-fering
States adopted a similar policy towards the Jew: does it not seem
clear that it was due to some special characteristic of his? If
you like,
say it was the strict adherence to the letter of the Jewish
religion. But
something it must have been.
And yet, despite all oppression, the Jew was not crushed. He knew
how to maintain himself from the oldest times onward. Perhaps it
was
because of the curious mixture of stubbornness and elasticity
which we
have noted in Jews of modern days. They might be crushed never so
relentlessly, but like a Jack-in-the-box they were soon up again.
How
they withstood the onslaught of the Roman Emperors, who used all
the
weapons at their command to stamp them out! Despite their efforts,
there was again in the 3rd century a Patriarch at Jerusalem
recognized
by the government, with a jurisdiction of his own. In antiquity,
in the
Middle Ages, in this our own time, the peoples have summed up their
judgment of the Jew in the one word -- stubborn: "ostinato come un
ebreo."
The peculiar mixture of determination and elasticity is most
won-derfully
exhibited by the Jews in their bearing towards governments,
where their religion was concerned. To it they owed most of their
en-emies;
because of it they suffered hardships untold. Yet they would not
give up their beloved faith. And when pressure was severe, many
Jews
pretended to have forsworn their religion only to be able to carry
out its
precepts in secret. We know of this conduct in connexion with the
Marannos, but it is as old as the Diaspora itself. When you read
of the
thousands of crypto-Jewish heathens, crypto-Jewish Mohammedans,
crypto-Jewish Christians, you are astounded at this unique event
in hu-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/207
man history. The more so as it was the most religious Jews,
teachers and
leaders, who had recourse to the sham conversions in order to save
their
lives. Recall the case of R. Eleazar ben Parta, who was active
under
Hadrian as a pretended heathen;23 that of Ismael ibn Negrela, who,
as
R. Samuel, held discourses on the Talmud and answered questions of
religious practice, and as Vizier of the Mohammedan King Habus,
be-gan
his master's ordinances with the formula Chamdu-l-Illahi and ended
them with urging those to whom they were addressed to live
according
to the laws of Islam;24 that of the great Maimonides, who sought
to give
excellent reasons for his pretended conversion to Mohammedanism;25
that of Sabbatti Zevi, the false Messiah, who though he
acknowledged
Mahomet yet did not lose the respect of his followers; that of the
Nea-politan
Jew Basilus, who made a pretence of having his sons baptized in
order to be able to carry on the trade in slaves under their
name,26 since
this branch of commerce was forbidden the Jews; that of the
thousands
and thousands of Marannos who, after the expulsion of the Jews from
the Pyrenean Peninsula, appeared to all the world as Christians and
returned to the faith of their fathers at the very first
opportunity that
presented itself. What remarkable people must these have been who
combined such determination with such elasticity!
We have thus noted that many Jewish characteristics developed to
their fullest in the Diaspora. But
(2) Is the Diaspora itself explicable as a result of only outward
circumstances? Does it not itself rather bear witness to special
charac-teristics?
Or to put the question somewhat differently, would it have
been possible to scatter any other people over the face of the
earth as the
Jews were scattered?
The experience of exile the Jews tasted in quite early days. Most
people have heard of Tiglath-Pileser, who dragged a part of the
Jewish
population to Media and Assyria; of the later Babylonian Exile; of
Ptolemy Lagi, who forced very many Jews to settle in Egypt and
planted
a Jewish colony in Cyrene; of Antiochus the Great, who brought two
thousand Jewish families from Babylon and peopled with them the
cen-tre
of Asia Minor, Phrygia and Lydia. Mommsen calls the settlement of
Jews outside Palestine "an invention of Alexander or of his
generals."
In all these cases the temptation is strong to ascribe the
dispersion
of the Jews to outward circumstances, seeing that in most of the
cases
the Jews were carried away from their homes against their will.
There
appears to be nothing therefore in these dispersions that would
point to.208/Werner Sombart
inherent Jewish characteristics. Such a conclusion would be hasty.
Is
there not this possibility -- that if the Jews had not possessed
certain
qualities they might never have been transplanted? The enforced
settle-ments
must have had some purpose. Either they were beneficial to the
land from which the Jews were taken, or (what was more probable) to
the land or the town where they were settled. Either they were
feared in
their own country as firebrands of sedition, or they were
accounted such
valuable citizens for their wealth or their industry that they
were made
the nucleus of new settlements, or they were held to be so trusty
that
they were utilized by rulers to strengthen their hold on turbulent
centres
(as was done by Ptolemy Lagi in Cyrene).
But many Jews may have forsaken Palestine for what might be termed
economic reasons: there was not sufficient room for the
maintenance of
an increasing population. Considering the size and the
productiveness
of Palestine, emigration on these grounds must have been of
frequent
occurrence. But this points to a national characteristic -- viz.,
an in-creasing
population due, as is known, to physiological and psychologi-cal
causes alike. Furthermore, that economic pressure led to emigration
was traceable to another national peculiarity. In this respect the
Jews
have been compared to the Swiss. They, too, leave their homes
because
the country is unable efficiently to maintain them all. But they
only
emigrate because they have the energy and the determination to do
bet-ter
for themselves. The Hindoo does not emigrate. If the population
increases, he is content with his smaller portion of rice.
But to regard all Jewish dispersion as enforced is probably
one-sided.
We cannot possibly explain so general a phenomenon, which
moreover remains the same through the ages, without assuming a
vol-untary
migration. What precisely this was due to -- whether to a
migrative instinct, or to inability to remain on one piece of soil
for long
-- does not much matter. But some special characteristic will have
to be
associated with this people to account for their travelling so
easily from
land to land, no less than for their settlement in large cities, a
proclivity
shown by the Jews already in very early times. Herzfeld, who has
com-piled
probably the most complete list of Jewish settlements in the
Helle-nistic
Age, draws attention to the striking fact that of the settlements
52
are in towns, and of these 39 were wealthy commercial centres.27
It would appear from all this that Jewish characteristics were by
no
means developed in the Diaspora, or as the Jewish historians
assume, in
the Middle Ages, but that the Diaspora itself was the result of
these.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/209
characteristics. The characteristics were there first, at least in
embryo.
(3) So, too, with their religion. When it is asserted that the Jew
of
to-day is a product of his religion, that he has been made what he
is,
almost artificially, by means of a well thought-out policy of some
man
or group of men, and not organically, I am ready to admit the
statement.
My own presentation of this very subject in a previous chapter
attempted
to show what enormous influence the Jewish religion had, more
espe-cially
on the economic activity of the Jew. But I want to oppose the view
promulgated by H. S. Chamberlain with all my power. I want to make
it
clear that the religion of the Jew would have been impossible but
for the
special characteristics of the Jew. The fact that some man, or
group of
men, was able to give expression to such wonderful thoughts
necessar-ily
postulates that the individual or the group was specially gifted.
Again,
that the whole people should accept their teachings not merely by
way
of lip-service, but with deep and sincere inwardness -- can we
explain
this except by the supposition of special national
characteristics? To-day
we can no longer free ourselves from the opinion that every people
has, in the long run, the religion best suited for it, and that if
it adopts
another religion it keeps on changing it to suit it to its needs.
I believe, therefore, that we may deduce the special
characteristics
of the Jewish people from the special characteristics of the
Jewish reli-gion.
From this standpoint many traits of the Jewish character adduced
from Jewish legends may be placed very far back, certainly as
early as
the Babylonian Exile. That I shall proceed in this as the authors
of anti-Semitic
catechisms do, and infer from the somewhat questionable story
of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and their cheating of each other, a
tendency
on the part of the Jews for swindling, need not be feared. No one,
I hope,
will flunk so badly of me. Cheating is an element found in all
mytholo-gies.
We need only cast our eyes on Olympus or Valhalla to see the gods
cheating and swindling each other in the most shameless fashion.
No.
What I mean is that the fundamental characteristics of the Jewish
reli-gious
system which we have already examined -- Intellectuality,
Ratio-nalism,
Teleology -- are also the characteristics of the Jewish people,
and they must have been in existence (I would repeat, at least in
em-bryo)
even before the religion was developed.
(4) My next point is the remarkable similarity in the economic
ac-tivities
of the Jews throughout almost all the centuries of history. In
asserting that this is a proof that Jewish characteristics were
constant, I
am setting myself in opposition to the prevailing views. I differ
not only.210/Werner Sombart
from those who believe that the economic activities of the Jews
have
changed in the course of time, but also from those who agree with
me
that it was a constant factor in their development. From the
latter I
differ because we do no agree as to what those activities were.
What is the generally accepted view of Jewish economic history? I
believe it may be traced to Heine, and is something to this
effect. Origi-nally
the Jews were an agricultural people. Even in the Diaspora, it is
said, the Jews tilled the soil, avoiding all other pursuits. But
in the 6th
and 7th centuries of our era they were forced to sell their
holdings and
had, willy-nilly, to look out for other means of livelihood. What
did they
do? They devoted themselves to trade, and for something like five
cen-turies
continued in this calling. Again Fate pressed heavily upon them,
for the Crusades engendered much anti-Jewish feeling in commercial
circles, and the growing trading class in each country organized
them-selves
into gilds, and excluded the Jews from the markets, which they
retained as the exclusive preserves of members of their
corporations.
Once more the Jews had to cast about for new occupations. All
channels
were closed to them; the only possibility left was to become
money-lenders.
So they became money-lenders, and before long enjoyed privi-leges
as such because the usury laws meted out special treatment to
them.
Such is the almost semi-official view prevalent in Jewish circles,
certainly among assimilationists, but also among a goodly number of
Jewish nationalists.
There is another view to which some historians, Jewish and Gentile
(among the former Herzfeld), have given currency. It is that the
Jews
have always been a commercial people, from the age of King Solomon
onwards, throughout the Diaspora, down to our own times.
I regard both views as wrong, certainly as one-sided, and I hope to
give my reasons in a sketch of the economic history of the Jews
which I
shall furnish.
From the period of the Kings to the end of the national
indepen-dence
-- we may even say up to the codification of the Talmud -- the
Jewish people were a self-contained, self-sufficing economic unit.
Its
surplus commodities it sent to foreign lands, and its constituent
units
produced all they needed, or at best, supplemented their own work
by
simple bartering with their neighbours. We should describe the
whole
by saying that we had here single economic units satisfying their
own
wants, with which was connected a certain amount of hired labour;
there.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/211
was something of the nature I of the manorial system, and there
were
some handicrafts. Where these are found little trade is possible.
But
how about the numerous merchants in Palestine, of whom we read in
the
time of the Kings? How account for them? To speak of merchants in
the
ordinary interpretation of the term is to misunderstand the nature
of the
economic organization of the country .in Solomon's day. It was
nothing
but an extensive manorial system, something like that of
Charlemagne,
and obviously required the distribution of commodities. But this
was
not commerce. "The chief officers (they corresponded to the
villici) that
were over Solomon's work were 550. .. . And King Solomon made a
navy of ships in Ezion-geber. . . . And Hiram sent in the navy his
ser-vants,
shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of
Solomon. And they came to Ophir and they fetched from thence gold,
four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon" (1
Kings ix. 23, 26--28).
This and similar passages have been taken to denote a flourishing
international commercial intercourse, even a monopoly of trade. But
there is no need of this explanation at all. It is perfectly
simple when we
think of the royal household as a manor on a large scale, from
which the
servants, in company with those from another large manor, were sent
forth to distant lands in order to bring back commodities that
were needed
at the King's court. The economic independence of the royal
household
further appears in the story of the building of the Temple.
Solomon asks
Hiram to send him "a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver
and in
brass, and in iron and in purple, and in crimson and in blue, and
that can
skill to grave all manner of gravings, to be with the cunning men
that are
with me. . . . Send me also cedar-trees, fir-trees and
algum-trees, out of
Lebanon: for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in
Leba-non;
and behold my servants will be with thy servants. . . . And behold
I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty
thousand
measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley,
and
twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil" (2
Chron. ii. 7ff.). The same applies to a later passage in the same
book (2
Chron. viii. 4), "And Solomon built Tadmor in the wilderness and
all
the store cities which he built in Hamath." Store cities tell of
the manor
and its wealth in kind rather than of commerce.
The other passages on which the theory is based that an extensive
trade was carried on in later times hardly warrant this
deduction.28 True,
we learn that the Babylonian exiles were wealthy (Ezra i. 46;
Zech. vi..212/Werner Sombart
10, 11), but no indication is given of their callings. There is
not one iota
of evidence in the Bible for the contention of Graetz that they
had ob-tained
their riches in commerce. Perhaps the cuneiform inscriptions
brought from Nippur may support such an assumption. But to refer
the
prophecy of Ezekiel about the destruction of Tyre (Ezek. xxvi. 2)
to
jealousy of the Phoenicians, and then on that basis to establish
the sug-gestion
that even in the pre-Exilic period Palestine was largely a trading
country, appears to me to be somewhat bold.
That we cannot be too careful in reasoning of this kind is made
abundantly manifest by the interpretation put upon the famous
passage
in Proverbs (vii. 19, 20), where the wiles of the adulteress are
described.
"For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey; he hath
taken a bag of money with him: he will come back at the full moon."
Was the husband a merchant? Perhaps, but he may have been a farmer
who had left home to pay his rent to the bailiff in a distant
town, and at
the same time to buy a couple of oxen there.
There is no clear proof, therefore, for the existence of commerce
as
a specialized calling. On the other hand, there are passages which
sup-port
my view that the manorial system was prevalent even at a later
period. Take, for example, Nehemiah ii. 8, where the letter is
mentioned
in which Asaph, the keeper of the King's forest, is asked to give
timber
to make beams for the gate of the castle. The injunction in
Leviticus
(xix. 35, 36) about just weights and measures does not in itself
militate
against this theory.
But this does not mean that there were no traders. There must have
been, even in the period of the Kings, but they were only retail
dealers.
Do we not read of them in the Book of Kings (1 Kings xx. 34), where
the defeated Benbadad. King of Syria, offers Ahab to build streets
for
bazaars in Damascus as his father had done in Samaria? Or in
Nehemiah
(iii. 32), where we are told that the goldsmiths and the merchants
built
their shops in a particular quarter? How this last statement can
be con-strued
to mean that there must have been highly respected merchant
gilds (Bertholet) I cannot understand. You can almost see the
small shop-keepers
at the Sheep Gate.
That there was an international exchange of commodities, even in
the earliest times, cannot of course be denied. There must have
been
extensive trade and great merchants, who exchanged the surplus
pro-duce
of Palestine for the articles of luxury which they brought with
them.29 "Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy (Tyre's)
traffickers:.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/213
they traded for thy merchandise wheat of Minnith and pannag [a
kind of
confection] and honey and oil and balm" [Ezek. xxvii. 17]. But the
ex-traordinary
thing is that these great merchants were never Jews, but
always foreigners. The caravans that crossed the country were led
by
Midianites, Sabaeans, Dedanites, men of Keder, but not by Jews.30
Even
retail trade, when the Proverbs were written, was in the hands of
Canaanites. Ousted from trade in their own land, the Jews were
hardly
likely to have had any influence in the international trade of
those times.
The great international merchants were Phoenicians, Syrians or
Greeks.31
"Absolute proofs that Jewish emigration was chiefly for commercial
ends are wanting entirely."32 In view of all this I see no reason
for re-garding
the passage in Josephus, which describes the position of the
Jews in his days, as prejudiced and one-sided. It was in all
probability
true to fact. What does he say? "As for ourselves, therefore, we
neither
inhabit a maritime country, nor do we delight in merchandise"
(Contra
Apion, i. 12).
The centuries that followed brought little change in these
condi-tions.
In the Talmud those sayings predominate that would point to the
prevalence among Jews, at least in the East, of small independent
eco-nomic
units, each sufficient for its own needs. It would be a mistake to
speak of commercial activity. Granted we hear 33 that man accounted
blessed who is able to become a spice-seller, and need not do
laborious
work. But surely the retail trader is meant, and not the great
merchant.
In fact trade, and more particularly over-sea trade, found little
favour
with the Rabbis. Some even go so far as to damn all manner of
markets,
pinning their faith to that economic organization where there is
no need
for the exchange of commodities. "R. Achai ben Joshia used to say,
Unto whom may he be likened who buys fruit in the market? Unto a
little child whose mother has died, which, when taken to the
houses of
other mothers who feed their own babes, yet remains unsatisfied.
Whoso
buys bread in the market is like to a man who digs the grave in
which he
will be buried."34 Rab (175--247) constantly impressed upon his
second
son that "better was a small measure from the field than a large
one
from the vat" (i.e., warehouse).35 Or again, "The Rabbis taught:
four
kinds of grain bring no blessing -- the payment of a scribe, the
fee of an
interpreter, the earnings that flow from orphans' property and the
prof-its
derived from over-sea trade." Why the latter? "Because miracles do
not happen every day."36
So much for the East. What of the West? Here, too, the Jews
were.214/Werner Sombart
not great merchants. Throughout the Imperial period and the
succeed-ing
early Middle Ages the Jew, like the Syrian, if he were a "trader"
was
only a poor chapman, a mere grasshopper who got entangled between
the feet of the royal merchants of Rome, just like the small
Polish dealer
of the 17th and 18th centuries, who made himself a nuisance to the
merchants of that day. All that we can discover regarding Jewish
trade
in the early mediaeval period fits beautifully into the picture.
The Jews,
in short, were never merchants so long as commerce, and especially
inter-municipal and inter-national commerce, remained partly a
rob-bing
expedition and partly an adventure -- that is to say, until modern
times.
If this is so -- if the Jews never were a trading people from of
old
-- are those correct who hold that they were agriculturists?
Certainly,
in so far as their economic organization was the manorial one. But
that
is not all. The occupation to which Jews devoted themselves in
later
times and which, in the view of Jewish historians, was forced upon
them
against their will, was well-known and practised even in the
earliest
periods. I refer to money-lending, and I attach the greatest
importance
to the establishment of this fact. The economic history of the Jews
throughout the centuries makes it appear that money-lending always
played a very great, nay, an extraordinarily great, part in the
economic
life of the people. We meet with it in all phases of Jewish
history, in the
age of national independence as in the Diaspora. Indeed, a
community
of peasant proprietors is fine game for money-lenders. Always the
credi-tors
are Jews, anyhow after the Exodus. In Egypt it appears the Jews
were the debtors, and when they left, as the official report
narrates, they
carried away what had been lent to them. "And I will give this
people
favour in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall come to pass
when ye
go, ye shall not go empty" (Exod. iii. 21). "And the Lord gave the
people
favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have
what they
asked . . ." (Exod. xii. 36). Thereafter the position changed.
Israel be-came
the creditor and other peoples became its debtors. Thus the
prom-ise
made by God was fulfilled, the promise that may rightly be called
the
motto of Jewish economic history, the promise which indeed
expresses
the fortunes of the Jewish people in one sentence: "The Lord thy
God
will bless thee as He promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many
nations, but thou shaltnot borrow" (Deut. xv. 6).37
The oldest passage which points to a highly developed system of
borrowing in ancient Israel is that in Nehemiah (vi. 15): --.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/215
Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives
against
their brethren the Jews. For there were that said. We, our sons and
our daughters, are many: let us get corn, that we may eat and live.
Some also there were that said, We are mortgaging our fields, and
our vineyards and our houses: let us get corn because of the
dearth.
There were also that said. We have borrowed money for the king's
tribute upon our fields and our vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as
the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and lo,
we
bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and
some of our daughters are brought into bondage already: neither
is it in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and
our
vineyards. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these
words. Then I consulted with myself and contended with the nobles
and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of
his brother. . . . Restore, I pray you, to them even this day their
fields, their vineyards, their olive-yards and their houses, also
the
hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine and the oil,
that ye exact of them.
The picture here drawn is clear enough. The people were divided
into two sections, an upper wealthy class, which became rich by
money-lending,
and the great mass of agricultural labourers whom they ex-ploited.
This state of affairs must have continued, in despite of Nehemiah
and other reformers, throughout the whole history of the Jews in
Pales-tine
and Babylon. We need only refer to the Talmud for proof. In some
of the Tractates, after the study of the Torah nothing occupies so
much
space as money-lending. The world of ideas which the Rabbis had was
crammed full with money business. A decision of Rabina (488--556),
one of the last of the Amoraim (Baba Mezia, 70b), sounds almost
like
the creation of a money-lending monopoly for the Rabbis. Throughout
the three Tractates called Baba, there are numerous examples from
the
business of money-lending and from the rise and fall of interest,
and
numerous discussions about money and problems of money-lending.
The unprejudiced reader of the Talmud cannot but come to this
conclu-sion:
in the Talmudic world there must have been a good deal of
money-lending.
With the Diaspora the business only extended. How far money-lending
was regulated among the Jews in the Egyptian Diaspora, four or
five centuries before the Common Era, may be seen from the Oxford
Papyrus (MS. Aram. cl. P)38 : --.216/Werner Sombart
... Son of Jatma ... you gave me money ... 1000 segel of silver.
And
I am ready to pay by way of interest 2 hallur of silver / per month
for each segel until the day whereon I repay the money to you. The
interest / for your money is thus to amount to 2000 hallur every
month. And if in any month I pay you no / interest, then the amount
of interest shall be added to the principal and shall bear interest
itself. I undertake to pay you month by month / out of my salary
which I receive from the Treasury, and you will give me a receipt
(?) for the whole / sum and for the interest that I will pay you.
And
if I have not repaid the whole of your / money by the month of
Roth in the year . . . then your money shall be doubled (?) / and
also the interest I have yet to pay, and month by month I must be
made to pay the same / until the day I repay you the whole /
Wit-ness,
etc.
In the Hellenistic and Imperial periods rich Jews were found
sup-plying
crowned heads with money, and the poorer Jews lent to the lower
classes. The Romans were not unacquainted with Jewish business.39
It
was the same in the pre-Islamic period among the Arabs, to whom the
Jews lent money at interest, and who regarded this business as
being
natural to the Jew, as being in his blood.40
When the Jews first appeared on the scene in Western Europe it was
as money-lenders. We have already noted that they acted as
financiers
to the Merovingians, which means, of course, mainly as creditors.41
They went further in Spain; there, where they had complete freedom
of
movement, the common people were soon in their debt. Long before
there was a Jewish (i.e., money-lending) question in other States,
the
legislative authorities in Castile were dealing with the problem
of debts
owing to Jews, and dealing with it in such a way as to show that
it was
of no small practical importance.42 That money-lending became the
prin-cipal
calling of the Jews after the Crusades will be admitted on all
hands.
We come, then, to this conclusion, that from the earliest times
money-lending
was a prime factor in the economic history of the Jews.
The time has really arrived when the myth that the Jews were forced
to have recourse to money-lending in mediaeval Europe, chiefly
after
the Crusades, because they were debarred from any other means of
live-lihood,
should be finally disposed of. The history of Jewish money-lending
in the two thousand years before the Crusades ought surely to
set this fable at rest once and for all. The official version that
Jews could.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/217
not devote themselves to anything but money-lending, even if they
would,
is incorrect. The door was by no means always shut in their faces;
the
fact is they preferred to engage in money-lending. This has been
proved
by Professor Bücher for Frankfort-on-the-Main, and the same may be
done for other towns as well. The Jews had a natural tendency
towards
this particular business, and both in the Middle Ages and after
rulers
were at pains to induce Jews to enter into other callings, but in
vain.
Edward I made the attempt in England;43 it was also tried in the
18th
century in the Province of Posen,44 where the authorities sought
to di-rect
the Jews to change their means of livelihood by offering them
boun-ties
if they would. Despite this, and despite the possibility of being
able
to become handicraftsmen and peasants like all others, there were,
in
1797, in the southern towns of Prussia, 4164 Jewish craftsmen side
by
side with 11,000 to 12,000 Jewish traders. The significance of
these
figures is borne in upon us when we note that though the Jewish
popu-lation
formed 5 or 6 per cent. of the whole, the Christian traders
totalled
17,000 or 18,000.
It may be urged, however, that the practice of usury, even when it
is
carried on quite voluntarily, need not be accounted for by special
racial
attributes. Human inclinations of a general kind will amply
explain it.
Wherever in the midst of a people a group of moneyed men dwell side
by side with others who need cash, be it for consumption, be it for
production, it soon comes about, especially where the legal
conditions
governing money-lending are of a primitive kind, that the one
class be-comes
the debtors and the other the creditors.
True. Wherever rich and poor lived together, the latter borrowed
from the former, even when there was as yet no money in existence
-- in
which case the debts were in kind. In the earliest stages of
civilization,
when the two classes felt themselves members of the same
brotherhood,
the lending was without interest. Later, especially when some
intercourse
with strangers sprang up, the borrower paid the lender a certain
quan-tity
of corn or oil or (where a money economy had already established
itself) gold over and above the principal, and the custom of
giving inter-est
gradually became universal.
In this there is no difference between the ancient, the mediaeval
or
the modern world. All three were acquainted with money-lending and
"usury," which was never confined to the members of any one race or
religion. Think of the agrarian reforms in Greece and Rome, which
prove
conclusively that the economic conditions in these countries at
certain.218/Werner Sombart
times were exactly like those in Palestine in the days of
Nehemiah.[Cf.
A. E. Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth, p. 111 ff. -- Trans.] In the
ancient world the temples were the centres of the money-lending
busi-ness,
for in them were stored vast quantities of treasure. If at the
Jerusa-lem
Temple money-lending was carried on -- what is by no means
es-tablished:
the Talmudic tractate (Shekalim) which deals with Temple
taxes clearly forbids the utilization of what remained over from
certain
sacrifices for purposes of business -- I say if such were the
case, then
there was nothing extraordinary in this: all temples in antiquity
lent
money. The temples of Babylonia, we are informed,45 were like so
many
great business houses. The temples at Delphi, at Delos, at
Ephesus, at
Samos were no different.46 And in the Middle Ages the churches, the
monasteries, the houses of the various Knights and other religious
or-ders
took the place of the ancient temples in this respect. Despite the
prohibitions of the Church against usury, they were the centres of
a
brisk trade in money. Is it any different to-day? The German
peasant on
the marshes of the North Sea coast who has managed to make a little
money knows of nothing better to do with it than to lend it at
interest to
a needy neighbour.
To increase one's fortune by means of interest on loans is so easy
and pleasant, that everybody who is able makes the attempt. Every
pe-riod
wherein the demand for money is great gives opportunity enough
(the periods, that is, of the so-called credit crises -- regularly
followed,
by the way, in recent European history by Jewish persecutions).
Everybody, then, does it -- gladly does it. The desire to take
inter-est
on money is pretty generally prevalent. But is the ability to do
so?
This leads me to my next proof in support of the view that Jewish
char-acteristics
have remained constant --
(5) The capacity of the Jew for money-dealing.
It is well-known that in the Middle Ages many authorities, whether
individual rulers or corporations, almost begged the Jews to come
to
their city in order to carry on money-lending. All sorts of
privileges
were held out to them. The Bishop of Speyer is a case in point. He
thought it would give his city a certain cachet to count a number
of rich
Jews among its inhabitants. Some of the cities of Italy in the
15th and
16th centuries actually made agreements with the wealthiest Jewish
money-lenders that they should come and establish loanbanks and
pawn-shops.
47
Why should these requests have been made, and these privileges.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/219
offered? Why should just Jews and no others have been invited to
found
money-lending concerns? No doubt to some extent it was because good
Christian men were not willing to soil their souls by the
nefarious trade,
and Jews were called in to stand between them and damnation. But
was
this all? Does it not appear rather that the Jews had a special
capacity
for the business? They were the cleverest, the most gifted
money-lend-ers,
and that is why they were in demand. How else should we be able to
account for their success, which for centuries brought them so much
riches? Anybody can be a lender, but not everybody can be a
successful
lender. For that special capacities and attributes are necessary.
Turn to the pages of the Talmud and you will find that
money-lending
was no mere dilettante business with the Jews. They made an art
of it; they probably invented (certainly they utilized) the highly
orga-nized
machinery of lending.
The time has come, it seems to me, for a trained economist to deal
thoroughly with the economic side of the Talmud and of Rabbinic
litera-ture
generally. I hope this book may act as some spur to this end. All I
can do here is to point the way, so that some successor of mine
may find
it the more easily. I shall briefly note some of the passages
which appear
to me to bear witness to an extensive acquaintance with economic
prob-lems,
and more particularly those bearing on credit. When we recall the
period in which the Talmud came into being (200 B.C. to 500 A.D.)
and
compare what it contains in the field of economics with all the
economic
ideas and conceptions that the ancient and the mediaeval worlds
have
handed down to us, it seems nothing short of marvellous. Some of
the
Rabbis speak as though they had mastered Ricardo and Marx, or, to
say
the least, had been brokers on the Stock Exchange for several
years, or
counsel in many an important money-lending case. Let me cite an
in-stance
or two.
(a) A profound acquaintance with the nature of the precious metals.
"R. Chisda said. There are seven kinds of gold: ordinary gold,
best gold,
gold of Ophir (1 Kings x. 11), fine gold (1 Kings v. 18), drawn
gold,
heavy gold and Parvayin gold" (Joma, 45a).
(b) The idea that money is a common denominator in terms of which
commodities are exchanged is fully developed. The best proof of
this is
the legal decision that the act of purchasing becomes complete not
as
soon as the price has been paid, but when the commodity is
delivered.
The whole of the 4th section of Baba Mezia is illustrative of this
point.
(c) There is a clear conception of the difference between credit
for.220/Werner Sombart
production and for consumption. In the case of the first, interest
is per-mitted;
not so, from a Jew, in the case of the second. "If A rents a field
from B at a rental of 10 measures of wheat and then requests B to
lend
him 200 zuz for the improvement of the field, promising a total
payment
of 12 measures of wheat -- that is permissible. But may you offer
to
give more in renting a shop or hiring a ship? Rab Nachman
(235--320),
on the authority of Rabba bar Abuha, was of opinion that sometimes
it
was permissible to give more for a shop in order to be able to hang
pictures up in it, and for a ship too, in order to place a mast on
it. The
pictures in the shop will attract many people and so increase
profits,
and the mast on the ship will enhance the ship's value" (Baba
Mezia,
69b).
(d) Law and rules of practice point to an extraordinarily developed
system of credit agreements. After reading the 4th and 5th
sections of
Baba Mezia you feel as though you had just laid down the report of
an
Enquiry into Money-lending in Hesse twenty or thirty years ago,
where
a thousand and one gins and traps were introduced into
money-lending
compacts. The Prosbol, too (by means of which it was possible to
en-sure
the existence of a debt even over the year of release), is a sign
of a
highly organized system of lending (Section 10 of Sheviith).
(e) The treatment of deposits is handled in a way which shows
prac-tical
knowledge of the subject. "If any one deposits moneys with a
banker,
the latter may not make any use of them if they are in one bundle.
If,
however, they are loose, he may, and if they are lost he is held
respon-sible.
But if the moneys are deposited with a private individual, whether
they are in one bundle or loose, he may make no use of them
whatever;
and if they should be lost he is not bound to replace them. R.
Meir (100--
160) held that a shopkeeper was regarded as a private individual
in this
respect; but R. Judah (136--200) was of the contrary opinion, and
said
that the shopkeeper was like the banker. ..." (Baba Mezia, 43a).
(f) Finally I would mention the Jewish gift for figures. The
Talmud-ists
all had it, but it was to be found in earlier ages also. The exact
statistical lists in the Bible and the later literature must have
struck
every one. One French writer remarks on the topic: "The race
possessed
a singular capacity for calculation -- a genius, so to say, for
num-bers."
48
Apart from all these considerations, the very success of the Jews
in
their money-lending activities effectively demonstrates a special
capac-ity
for the business. And the success was manifested in.The Jews and
Modern Capitalism/221
(6) Jewish wealth.
That ever since the race began some Jews amassed huge fortunes
can be easily shown, nor can it be doubted that the average wealth
of all
Jews was fairly high. In all ages and in all lands Jewish riches
were
proverbial.
We may begin with King Solomon, whose wealth was renowned
even among wealthy Oriental potentates -- although he did not
acquire
it by successful trading (though you never can tell!). Later we
read that
some of the Jewish exiles in Babylon were in a short time able to
send
gold and silver to Jerusalem (Zech. vi. 10, 11). That Jews played
a great
part in the economic life of the Euphrates country during the
Exile ap-pears
from the commercial contracts dug up at Nippur.49 Those who
returned with Ezra brought great opulence with them (Ezra i.
6--11),
and in the subsequent period the wealth of the priests was
notorious.50
Noticeable are the large number of rich men, some of them very
rich,
among the Talmudic Rabbis. It would not be difficult to compile
quite a
respectable list of such of them as were renowned for their
wealth. Cer-tainly,
in any view, the rich Rabbis were in the majority.51
In the Hellenistic Diaspora likewise the impression cannot be
avoided
that the standard of wealth among Jews was pretty high. Wherever
Jews
and Greeks lived side by side, as in Caesarea,52 the former were
the
more opulent. There must have been a specially great number of
wealthy
Jews among those of Alexandria. Of very rich Alabarchs we are
actu-ally
told, and we have already mentioned the position of the Alexandrian
Jews as financiers of crowned heads.
It was not one whit otherwise in the early Middle Ages. We have it
on record that many Jews in those days were blessed with the good
things of the world in abundance. In Spain they offered money to
Reccared
if he would annul anti-Jewish legislation,"53 and in the early
period of
Mohammedan rule we learn that the Arabs envied them their wealth.54
Cordova, in the 9th century, had "several thousand (?) Jewish
families
who were well off."55 And more to the same effect.56
There is no need to labour the statement that in the later Middle
Ages the Jews were wealthy. It is a generally accepted fact.57 And
for
what is called the modern period I have myself adduced proofs
enough
in this book.
We shall be justified in the conclusion, therefore, that from King
Solomon to Bamey Bamato Jewish opulence runs through history like a
golden thread, without ever once snapping. Is this merely
accidental? If.222/Werner Sombart
not, what was it due to -- subjective or objective causes?
Objective factors, i.e., outward forces, have certainly been
hinted at
to explain Jewish wealth. In the first place, the Jews were early
taught to
look for their chief happiness in the possession of money; in the
second,
the insecurity of their position forced them to accumulate their
wealth in
easily movable forms -- in gold or ornaments, which they could take
about with them, which they could hide or carry off without much
diffi-culty.
These causes undoubtedly go a good way to account for the growth
of Jewish wealth, but they by no means suffice to explain it
completely.
We must not forget that the outward forces referred to above, in
order to
produce the result they did, could not but have influenced a
people pos-sessing
certain special gifts. But let that pass. Again, the facts
instanced
could only have been of any effect in the Diaspora. Let that also
pass.
The great weakness of this explanation is that it tells us merely
why the
Jews had any desire to become wealthy, and, incidentally, that
then"
wealth took a particular form. The desire in this case is of
little moment;
it does not make clear why it was realized. Hence we must look for
other
causes. Besides, the desire to become rich has been universal ever
since
Alberich robbed the Maidens of the Rhine-gold.
Another explanation has therefore been suggested for Jewish wealth.
The Jews, it has been rightly pointed out, for centuries occupied
a posi-tion
of inequality with their Christian neighbours, and therefore had
less
occasion to spend as much as the latter. The conception of social
status,
with varying standards of comfort for each, was unknown among them,
and therefore also the thousand and one artificial wants that were
asso-ciated
with the idea. "It is certain," remarks a writer who has dealt with
this aspect of the problem in a most delicate fashion,58 "that a
Jew,
compared with a Christian of the same income, was bound to become
the richer of the two, seeing that the Christian had very many
opportu-nities
of spending money which were denied to the Jew, for the simple
reason that the former belonged to the ruling class, and the
latter was
only tolerated. As for the rich Jew, his circumstances were
different
from those of the Christian, for he had no need to consider what
was
demanded in his social class. Thus, any luxuries he cared to enjoy
were
not necessarily in accordance with his status."
Doubtless this is one explanation of the wealth of the Jews, and
will
account also for the specifically Jewish economic standpoint,
which we
have noted above. To it were due such ideas as that of free
competition,
that your expenses should be limited by your income -- a
conception.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/223
utterly foreign to a feudal society -- and that saving, associated
with
Jews from earliest times, was good. Let me recall an old German
prov-erb:
--
Selten sind sieben Dinge:
Eine Nonne, die nicht singe,
Ein Madchen ohne Liebe,
Ein Jahnnarkt ohne Diebe,
Ein Geissbock ohne Bart,
Ein Jude der nicht spart,
Ein Kornhaus ohne Mause,
Und ein Kosak ohne Lause.
[Rare are seven things:
A nun who never sings,
A maid without a lover,
A fair without a robber,
A goat of beard bereft,
A Jew that knows no thrift,
A granary without mice,
And a Cossack without lice.]
To the saving habit of the Jews may be traced the tendency to
accu-mulate
capital. One sometimes hears it said that Jewish money remains
in a business longer than Christian money, and increases more
quickly
to boot. In olden times the Jew could not enter the charmed circle
of the
feudal landed gentry, and so his money was not spent in keeping up
the
appearances demanded by his status. If he saved, his money had
per-force
to be invested in commercial enterprise, unless, of course, he lent
it out directly at interest, as the Jews of Hamburg of the 17th
century
were in the habit of doing. Glückel von Hamem and her friends,
when-ever
they had any surplus, always lent it out on security. The money
fructified and increased.
All these considerations are valuable as far as they go. But they
do
not go far enough satisfactorily to explain the phenomenon of
Jewish
wealth. It is all very well pointing to objective forces in any
problem.
We must not forget, however, that those forces might not effect
the par-ticular
result they did if the men and women whom they influenced were
not constituted in a particular way. A people does not become
thrifty
because of the stress of outward circumstances alone. The merest
tyro
knows that. Besides, nowadays, when the Ghetto walls have long
since
fallen, and the Jew enjoys perfect equality when he may become a
landed.224/Werner Sombart
proprietor and regulate his life in accordance with the most rigid
re-quirements
-- nowadays, too, I say, Jews are thriftier than Christians.
Look at a few statistics. In Baden, in the years 1895 to 1903,
capital
increased in the case of Protestants from 100 to 128.3 per cent,
in the
case of Jews from 100 to 138.2 per cent. This is striking enough,
but it
becomes even moreso when we remember that during the same period
the incomes of Protestants grew from 100 to 146.6 per cent, those
of
Jews from 100 to 144.5 percent.
When all is said the possible causes hitherto mentioned would only
explain why already existing wealth was increased. Not one can
satis-factorily
answer the question, How was it in the first place obtained?
There is only one answer. Wealth is got by those who have a talent
for it.
From the wealth of the Jews, therefore, may be deduced special
Jewish
characteristics or attributes.
Is the Jewish Genius Natural or Artificial?
What is the result of all our considerations in the previous
section? That
in all probability the anthropological character of the Jews, no
less than
their intellectual attributes, has remained constant for thousands
of years.
What does this prove? Are we to conclude that the Jewish genius is
rooted in race? Those who have a dogmatic faith in race
unhesitatingly
say yes. We however, who are trying to proceed scientifically,
must say
no. Nothing as yet has been proved.
A brief reference to the methods of some of the believers in the
race-theory
59 will show how unreliable their conclusions are. They start out
with the assumption that the Jews are a race. Since every race must
have specific characteristics, Jews have theirs. In other words,
their
specific characteristics are rooted in their race. But for this
there is no
actual proof. If the truth must be told, we know nothing whatever
of the
connexion between somatic or anthropological features and
intellectual
capacities.
What the race-theorists have produced is a new sort of religion to
replace the old Jewish or Christian religion. What else is the
theory of
an Aryan, or German, "mission" in the world but a modern form of
the
"chosen people" belief? All well and good, but let no one be
deceived
into imagining that this is science. It is faith, and faith and
science had
best be kept apart.
As we have said, there is no certain connexion between somatic
attributes and intellectual capacities. The constancy of each may
be.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/225
purely accidental; it may arise anew in every generation or may be
car-ried
on by the aid of tradition. And among a people who were attached
to tradition as the Jews were, this assumption seems likely
enough. The
Jews were shut off from others, they possessed a strong love of
family,
their religious practices were scrupulously observed, the Talmud
was
energetically studied in every generation -- all these supplied,
as it were,
the machinery for carrying on certain peculiarities from one
generation
to another merely by education alone.
This is one view. Yet Jewish characteristics may spring from the
blood. Again, there are those who would trace them to environment.
The Jewish religion, Ghetto life, the dealing in money for so many
cen-turies
have all three been instanced to account for the specifically
Jew-ish
type of character. There may be something in this. Only possibly,
as
I have tried to show, these influences instead of being causes may
be
results.
I propose in the next chapter to analyse the Jewish genius, laying
special stress on the following points in the order given: (1) The
original
aptitudes of those races from which the Jews sprang as exhibited
in their
mode of life. (2) How the various elements mingled. (3) Which of
these
aptitudes survived under the influences of Jewish history.
Finally, if
these considerations should prove insufficient, we shall venture
the hy-pothesis:
(4) that certain characteristics grew up in the course of his-tory.
We shall see, however, that there will be no need to have recourse
to this hypothesis, since the Jewish genius can be adequately
explained
along the first three lines. If this be so, then one result will
have been
established: that the Jewish characteristics are rooted in the
blood of the
race, and are not in any wise due to educative processes.
If any one wished in a sentence to account for the importance of
the
Jews in the world's civilization, and more particularly in
economic life,
he could do so by saying that it was due to the transplanting of an
Oriental people among Northern races, and the culture union of the
two.
A similar assertion has been made regarding the civilizations of
the
classical world, of the Greek more especially, and also of that of
the
Italian Renaissance. It has been suggested that they resulted from
the
mixture of Northern peoples, who had wandered into a Southern
envi-ronment,
with the autochthonous inhabitants -- a brilliant
hypothesis,.226/Werner Sombart
not without an element of truth in it.
But the statement concerning the Jews is no hypothesis: it is an
established fact, capable of abundant proof. The capitalistic
civilization
of our age is the fruit of the union between the Jews, a Southern
people
pushing into the North, and the Northern tribes, indigenous there.
The
Jews contributed an extraordinary capacity for commerce, and the
North-ern
peoples, above all the Germans, an equally remarkable ability for
technical inventions.
It is clear, therefore, what we must have in view in our
consider-ations
of the Jewish genius and its enormous influence. Not whether the
Jews were Semites, or Hittites, or of some other stock, not
whether they
are "pure," or "mixed," is the important thing, but that they are
an
Oriental folk transplanted into an environment both climatically
and
ethnically strange, wherein their best powers come to fruition.
They are an Oriental people -- that is to say, one of those peoples
whose habitat was in that part of the globe lying between the Atlas
Mountains in the West, and the Persian Gulf in the East; one of
those
races baked by the sun in the dry, burning climate of the great
deserts of
North Africa, Arabia and Asia Minor, or of their border-lands; the
races
which brought their special characteristics to maturity amid their
pecu-liar
environment which had never altered since the Ice Age, a period of
some twelve or sixteen thousand years.
The whole of this region, from which the Jews also hailed, is an
extensive sandy desert, with here and there an oasis where man and
beast can dwell. In the larger of these watered valleys arose, as
is well
known, the earliest civilizations of the world -- in Egypt, in
Mesopotamia
and in Palestine. All three are comparatively small fertile
patches; all
are true oases in the desert, and theirs was an essentially oasis
civiliza-tion.
The cultivable area of Egypt was about as large as the Prussian
Province of Saxony is to-day [about 5,500,000 acres, according to
the
Statesman's Year Book]; Mesopotamia at its widest extent was only
about half the size of the Plain of Lombardy [about 4500 square
miles,
according to the same authority]; Palestine, the land of the whole
people
of Israel, was smaller still, being no larger than perhaps Baden
(about
5000 square miles]; while Judsea, the Southern Kingdom, and
therefore
the home of the Jews, was as extensive as the Duchies of Anhalt and
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha together [about 1600 square miles]. But these
oases, and Palestine more especially, were themselves broken by
deserts,
Judaea being particularly badly treated by Nature. Its southern
end ex-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/227
tended past Hebron and Beersheba, right into the modern sandy
waste.
All agriculture in these countries was the tillage of oases. What
does this mean? It means that the soil collected by almost
artificial means,
and that the great aim of the farmer was to gather the water
necessary
for the growth of vegetation. This was the case in Palestine,
where the
cultivation of the soil depended on the water-supply. Drought is
the
scourge that the farmer fears most. Every year he trembles lest
the arid
waste should stretch its arms and embrace his strip of land,
tended with
so much care and tribulation. Every moment he is in dread lest the
desert
send him its scorching winds, or its locust swarms. And above all,
he
fears the desert wastes because of the marauding bands who may fall
upon him, robbing, killing, pillaging as they cross the country,
some-times
even taking possession of his holding if the fancy seize them.
These
children of the desert, whom we now call Bedouins, and of whom the
oasis-dwellers were once themselves a part, were nomadic shepherds.
Their raids hastened the rise of strong cities with stout walls,
behind
which the inhabitants of the plain could take refuge. Sometimes the
desert crept right into them, and so at all times they were filled
with the
spirit of the sandy wastes.
Such a tribe of restless wandering Bedouins were the Hebrews, when
about the year 1200 B.C. they fell upon Canaan, plundering and
killing
as they went, and finally deciding to settle there, and rest from
all their
wanderings. Which meant, that if possible they would do nothing,
but
that the natives would work for them -- the aim of every conquering
people. Such was Jehovah's promise: "I will lead you unto the land
which I promised you, a land of great and goodly cities which thou
buildedst not, and houses full of all good things which thou
filledst not,
and cisterns hewn out which thou hewedst not, and vineyards and
olive-trees
which thou plantedst not, and thou shalt eat and be full" (Deut.
vi.
10, 11).
Once there, what did the Hebrews do in this promised land? What
sort of economic organization did they establish? We cannot, of
course,
speak as to the details,1 but one or two things we may imagine.
Prob-ably,
as we have seen, the powerful and mighty among them after hav-ing
conquered large tracts of land instituted a sort of feudal
society. Part
of the produce of the land they took for themselves, either by way
of rent
in kind, by farming it out to tax-collectors, or by means of the
credit
nexus. In any case, a large number of Hebrews lived in the towns,
re-ceiving
rent or interest from the subject population who worked on
the.228/Werner Sombart
soil, either as "colonists," or "free peasants," or whatever term
was
used in the Orient for this class. Some of the conquering tribes
may
have become impoverished and themselves sunk to the level of unfree
farmers, but they were hardly the influential ones. This position
was
held by those who inhabited the West Jordan lands, principally
Judah,
sections of Simeon and Levi and others. In those districts cattle
farming
only was possible: "Judah's teeth are white with milk." Other
tribes,
such as Reuben and Gad, remained east of the Jordan as semi-nomads,
rearing cattle, and half the tribe of Manasseh crossed the Jordan
to re-turn
thither. But all the tribes alike must have been impregnated with
the
nomadic spirit. Were this not the case, it would be exceedingly
difficult
to understand the rise and growth of the Jewish religious system.
It should not be forgotten that the Holy Scriptures of the Jews in
which their religion is embodied, especially the Pentateuch, is
the litera-ture
of a nomadic people. Their God, who triumphs over the false gods,
is a desert and pastoral divinity. The traditions of the nomad
state were
maintained by Ezra and Nehemiah in the conscious re-establishment
of
the Jehovah cult, in doing which they paid no heed to the
intervening
period of agriculture. The Priestly Code "takescare not to mention
the
settled life in Canaan. . . it strictly limits itself to the
wanderings in the
wilderness, and in all seriousness wants to be regarded as a
desert Code."2
Open the historical books or the majority of the Prophets, that
desert
choir, include the Psalms also, and you everywhere find metaphors
and
similes taken from shepherd life. Only occasionally do you meet
with
the peasant "sitting contentedly at the door of his house in the
shade of
the fig-tree." Jehovah is the good Shepherd (Psa. 23) who will
gather
the remnants of Israel "as a flock in the midst of their pasture"
(Micah
ii. 12). And what does the Sabbatical year mean but that you cease
being a peasant for the time being, and become an Israelite of the
old
sort? Israel never quite gave up its division into families and
clans; it
was always composed of tribes, like most shepherd peoples. There
seems
to be little doubt that even as late as the 5th century B.C. there
must have
been a strong dash of the nomads, certainly in the ruling classes,
but
probably also in the great mass of the people. Else how would it
have
been possible to saddle them for any length of time with a nomadic
religion?
It may be asked. Were not the nomad tendencies of those days
per-chance
a harking back to an earlier state? Did not perhaps the old
wan-dering
instincts, which in the previous centuries had been lulled to
sleep,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/229
awake again under the influences of the Exile? It is quite likely,
and
what is more, the vicissitudes of the Jewish people since the
Babylonian
Exile could not but arouse any slumbering desert and nomad feelings
within them. On this point I would lay especial stress. Hence,
even if we
were inclined to assume that the Children of Israel lived a
settled life for
five hundred years after the conquest of Canaan, it is perfectly
clear that
all the powers on earth seemed to have conspired together not to
allow
this state to become permanent. Scarcely had the plant taken root
(so far
as it could in so hot a country) than it was pulled up. The Jew's
inherent
"Nomadism" or "Saharaism" (if I may coin the words) was always kept
alive through selection or adaptation. Throughout the centuries,
there-fore,
Israel has remained a desert and nomadic people.
There is nothing new in this conclusion. But one does not establish
it without some scruple of conscience. Why? Because anti-Semitic
pam-phleteers
rudely pounce upon it and make capital out of it for their
abuse. That, of course, can be no reason for doubting its truth,
or ne-glecting
to take cognizance of it as an explanation of Jewish
character-istics.
What should be done to oppose the prejudiced scribblers is to
analyse the problem most carefully, and present an illuminating
view of
its importance. Up to the present little has been achieved in this
direc-tion;
what has been done has been childish and spitefully distorted. No
wonder that the idea that the Jew has always been a nomad has been
received with scorn and jest by some people. It would have been
much
more to the point if these same people had been able to prove that
it was
wrong. This has never yet been seriously attempted. The chain of
rea-soning
which runs: Agriculture was practised in Palestine in olden times;
the Jews lived in Palestine then; therefore the Jews were
agriculturists,
is on the face of it a little weak. And another point. The term
nomad is
not meant to imply obloquy or disgrace. At most, objection may be
taken to the robbing. But why should there be any dishonour
attached to
a brave Bedouin tribe which, under such a doughty leader as, say,
King
David, lived on plunder? Why should they appear less worthy, or
call
forth less sympathy, than an agricultural tribe of Negroes
somewhere in
the wilds of Africa? It is obvious, of course, that when I use the
term
"nomad" as applied to later Jewish history, I want it to bear not
its
secondary meaning, which it has acquired in the lapse of time, but
its
original connotation in all its pristine strength.
Having cleared the air a little, let us now attempt to prove that
our
conclusion is true. Throughout the centuries Israel has remained a
desert.230/Werner Sombart
and nomadic people, either by the process of selection or of
adaptation.
We have already mentioned the possible effect of the Exile in
call-ing
forth slumbering nomadic instincts. In reality, if the truth be
told, we
can form no clear conception of what the Exile meant, neither of
the
journey into it, nor of the return home. It only seems possible on
the
assumption that the Jews then were still nomads or semi-nomads. One
can scarcely conceive the conquest of an agricultural people;
whereas
the forcible 'transplanting of nomad tribes is not unknown to-day.3
Moreover, the assumption seems to be supported by the story of the
Captivity. "And he carried away all Jerusalem and all the princes
and
all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all
the
craftsmen and the smiths; none remained save the poorest sort of
the
people of the land." And after the second expedition of the
Babylonians,
"the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be
vine-dress-ers
and husbandmen" (2 Kings xxiv. 14 and xxv. 12). Jeremiah's ver-sion
of the story agrees with this (Jer. xxxix. 10).
Whoever the exiles may have been, it is pretty certain that the
ac-tual
agriculturists were not among them. These remained behind even
after the second batch of exiles had been carried away captive. The
passage in Jeremiah would seem to lend probability to my view that
the
soil was tilled by unfree villeins who, when their lords were led
to
Babylon, became independent husbandmen. It is not assuming too much
to regard these men as the descendants of the original inhabitants
whom
the Hebrews had conquered. From the age of the Captivity,
therefore,
the population of Judaea had a thinner stream of Jewish blood in
their
veins than the Babylonian exiles, who were more or less the Jewish
aristocracy, the cream of the people, as it were. This was indeed
the
view that obtained currency in later times. Even in Judaea itself
it was
admitted that the Babylonian Jews were of the very best stock, and
an
old Jewish saying helped to confirm the belief. "The Jews in the
Roman
Diaspora compared as to their descent with those in Judaea are
like the
mixed dough to the pure flour, but Judaea itself is only dough
compared
with Babylon."4 And R. Ezekiel (220--299) excuses that good man,
Ezra,
for having returned to Palestine by saying that he took the
families of
doubtful origin away with him, and so left those that remained
free from
the danger of mixing with them(!).5
We come then to this conclusion. The Exile was a kind of selective
process whereby the best elements of Jewry, never favourable to an
economy of settled life, were forced to revivethe inherent nomad
in-.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/231
stincts within them, and to gain their livelihood as townsmen,
i.e., trad-ers.
This does not mean that none of them became husbandmen. Far
from it. The Babylonian Talmud certainly makes it appear that some
devoted themselves to agriculture, but the conditions must have
been
those prevalent in Palestine, where an aristocracy of wealth lived
in the
towns on the work of (non-Jewish?) peasants. Such at any rate is
the
impression of the typical state of affairs. But there were
exceptions too.
Do we not read of many an ancient Rabbi who himself walked behind
the plough? What is of consequence, however, is that the prevailing
conditions in the Exile were by no means exceptional. On the
contrary,
they were normal. Even before the Exile many Jews had settled in
Egypt
and other lands in a kind of voluntary Diaspora. Those who left
Pales-tine
were no doubt the men in whom the old nomadic instincts were not
yet quite dead, and their self-imposed exile only called them
forth the
more. We never find these wandering Jews, be their origin Judaea or
Palestine, establishing agricultural colonies or independent
settlements
of any sort, as most other emigrants did. But what do we find? That
Jewish settlers scattered themselves in all corners of the
inhabited globe
among foreign nations, preferably in the large towns, where they
sought
their livelihood.6 We never hear of their return to their native
hearth
after having saved up sufficient money to keep them in affluence,
as the
Swiss, Hungarian or Italian emigrants do to-day. The only bonds
that
bound them with home were religious. If they ever do go back, it
is only
at the annual Passover pilgrimage, like real nomads that they are.
Little by little Palestine ceased to be the centre of Jewish life,
and
Jews became more and more scattered. Even as late as the
destruction
of the Second Temple (70 A.D.), the Jews in the Diaspora
outnumbered
those in Judaea. Perhaps there was some reason for this. That the
coun-try,
even when it was most densely populated, could maintain more than
a million, or a million and a half souls is scarcely likely.
(Today the
inhabitants number at most 650,000.) As for Judaea, it had no more
than 225,000 inhabitants, and Jerusalem no more than 25,000. 7
There
certainly was a larger number outside Palestine already at the
com-mencement
of the Common Era. In the Egypt of the Ptolemies it is said
that out of a total population of seven or eight millions, one
million were
Jews.8 Nor was Egypt unique in this respect. It would have been
diffi-cult
indeed to name one spot which, in the words of Strabo quoted by
Josephus, was not inhabited and dominated (!) by Jews. Philo gives
a
list of countries that had a Jewish population in his day, and
adds that.232/Werner Sombart
they were settled in numerous cities of Europe, Asia, Lybia, on
the main-land
and on islands, on the coast and inland. We hear the same thing
from a Sibylline Oracle, composed towards the end of the 2nd
century,9
while Jerome informs us that they were to be found "from sea to
sea,
from the British to the Atlantic Oceans, from the West to the
South,
from the North to the East, the world through."10 How densely
packed
they were in the Rome of the early Empire may be gathered from the
account of the visit of King Herod to the capital of the Caesars,
wherein
we are told that no less than 8000 Jews resident in Rome
accompanied
him to Augustus. Again, in the year 19 A.D., 4000 freedmen of
military
age who "professed the Egyptian and Jewish superstition" were
sen-tenced
to be deported to Sardinia."
But enough. No matter how many Jews were in the Diaspora in the
pre-Christian age, so much is certain, that when the Second Temple
fell,
Israel was already scattered over the face of the earth.12 Nor did
the ant-heap
become quiescent in the Middle Ages; for Jewish wanderings
con-tinued
apace. That, too, is certain.
What direction did the wanderings take? About the end of the 5th
century Babylon was emptied, at first slowly and then with speed,
the
Jews migrating to all points of the globe -- to Arabia, India and
Eu-rope.
Again in the 13th century streams of emigrants from England,
France and Germany journeyed partly to the Pyrenean Peninsula,
where
there was already a large number of Jews from Palestine and
Babylon,
and partly to the kingdoms of Eastern Europe, which were likewise
not
without their Jewish inhabitants, who had settled there as far
back as
the 8th century, having arrived from the Byzantine Empire via the
Black
Sea. Then, towards the end of the Middle Ages, Spain and Portugal
on
the one hand and Russia and Poland on the other were the two great
basins outside the Orient wherein the Jews had settled. From each
of
these the wandering commenced afresh; we have already seen what
course
it took. The Spanish Jews first, then, after the Cossack pogroms
in the
17th century, the Russian Jews began to disperse over the earth.
This
process of emigration from Russia and Poland was a steady one,
until
towards the end of the 19th century there was a volcanic eruption
and
hundreds of thousands sought a refuge in the New World.13
So this people was driven from place to place -- tribe of the
wan-dering
foot whose fate has been so touchingly expressed in the legend of
the Wandering Jew.14 The constant insecurity of their position
made it
impossible for them to think of settling down on the soil. As a
matter of.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/233
fact, however, they seldom had any inclination that way. All that
we
know of Jewish life in the Diaspora points to the conclusion that
only an
insignificant number of Jews devoted themselves to agriculture
even in
those lands where no difficulties were placed in their path.
Perhaps Po-land
in the 16th century is the best instance. There they appear to have
taken up farming. But even in Poland they showed a preference for
city
life. For every 500 Christian merchants in the Polish towns of the
period
there were to be found 3200 Jewish merchants.15
Yes, they became town-dwellers -- whether voluntarily or by stress
of circumstances is of no consequence -- and town-dwellers they
have
remained. More than half the Jews of the world to-day are to be
found in
cities with over 50,000 inhabitants. In Germany this applies to
about
43.6 per cent. of the Jews (1900), in Italy, Switzerland, Holland
and
Denmark to about four-fifths, and to all the Jews of England and
the
United States.
Now the modern city is nothing else but a great desert, as far
re-moved
from the warm earth as the desert is, and like it forcing its
inhab-itants
to become nomads. The old nomadic instincts have thus through
the centuries been called forth in the Jew by the process of
adapting
himself to his environment, while the principle of selection has
only
tended to strengthen those instincts. It is clear that in the
constant changes
to which the Jews were subjected, not those among them that had an
inclination to the comfortable, settled life of the farmer were
the ones
likely to survive, but rather those in whom the nomadic instincts
were
strong.
This hot-blooded, restless people that had wandered not forty, but
four thousand years in the wilderness came at last to its Canaan,
to its
promised land, where it should be able to repose from all its
travels --
it came to the Northern countries, meeting nations there who,
while the
Jews were hurrying from one oasis to another, had dwelt on their
soil
and smelt of the earth, who differed from the Jews as a horse of
the
Ardennes differs from a fiery Arab charger.
It will soon be of little moment whether the nations of Northern,
Central and Eastern Europe are called Aryans or by some other name.
The latest researches, it is true, would make it appear that most
of them
were indeed Aryans.16 But the name tells us nothing. What is of
impor-tance
is that they were all peoples from the cold North, and never able
to
acclimatize themselves in the warm lands of the South.17 To
consider
them as Aryans is misleading. For then we shall have to include
the dark.234/Werner Sombart
Indian too, and obviously the fair, blue-eyed Europeans have
little in
common with him, except perhaps their language. In other respects
they
have peculiarities all their own. What these are may easily be
seen by
looking at those peoples as they are to-day, and if we had to
characterize
them in one word which should be in contrast to desert it would be
forest. Forest and desert are indeed the two great opposites which
sum
up differences in countries and their inhabitants. Forests are of
the North
-- those Northern forests with the murmur of their brooks, where
the
mist clings fast to the tree-trunks and the toads have their
habitation "in
the dank moss and the wet stones," where in winter the faint
sunlight
glistens on the rime and in summer the song of birds is
everywhere. To
be sure, there were forests on Lebanon's height, as there are
forests to-day
in the South of Italy. But who that has set foot in a Southern
forest
will not at once perceive that it has small affinity with the
forests of the
North, will not at once realize that "even in Italy the forest
tells the heart
and the eye something very different from the Alpine forest, or
that on
the Baltic shore? The South Italian forest is full of harmonies,
perme-ated
with clear light and ineffable blue, pliant and yet vigorous in its
aiming skyward and in its bending before the moaning wind; it
seems a
sacred grove" (Hehn). But our Northern forests -- they have a charm
and a mystery about them at once intimate and fearful. Desert and
for-est,
sand and marsh -- those are the great opposites, depending in the
long run on differences in the moisture of the air, and so
creating dis-similar
environments for the activities of man. In the one case the Fata
Morgana is Nature's symbol, in the other the cloud of mist.
In olden times the characteristics of the Northern climes were even
more strongly marked than to-day. The Romans' picture of Germany
shows us a rude land, covered with bogs and dense forests, a land
of
leaden skies, with a misty and moist atmosphere, whose winters are
long and wildly stormy. For thousands of years peoples and races
(our
ancestors) dwelt in the damp woods, the bogs, the mists, the ice
and the
snow and the rain. They hewed down the woods, made the land
habit-able
and pitched then" tents where axe and plough had gained for them
a strip of the wilds. From the very fast they seemed to be rooted
in the
soil; from the very first it would seem that tillage was never
quite ab-sent.
But even if we try to imagine these Northern folk as "nomads,"
theirs is a very different kind of life from that of a Bedouin
tribe. We feel
that they are more tied to the hearth than even an agricultural
people in
an oasis-land. The Northerners are settlers even when they only
breed.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/235
cattle; the Bedouins are always nomads, even though they till the
soil.
This is so because man is brought into closer touch with Nature in
the North than in the hot countries. Man is part and parcel of
Nature
even if he only beats the woods as a huntsman, or as a shepherd
breaks
a path through the thickets for his flocks. I am inclined to say,
even at
the risk of being ridiculed as a modern mystic, that in the North
there
are between Nature and even the most prosaic of men tender bonds of
love and friendship, unknown to the Southerner. In the South, as
has
been rightly observed, man regards Nature only as an instrument in
the
work of civilization. Even when he is a tiller of the soil, he is
a stranger
to Nature. In the South there is no country life, no living in and
with
Nature, no attachment to bush and tree, heath and meadow, wild
crea-ture
and free bird.
Is it not clear that these varying and varied environments must
pro-duce
different results, must influence men in different ways? Would it
be too much to assume that the Jewish characteristics as we have
seen
them have been affected by, nay, have even received their peculiar
im-press
from the thousands of years of wandering in the wilderness? The
answer of course is yes, and if in the following pages I try to
prove it, I
must nevertheless admit that the present state of our knowledge of
biol-ogy
is inadequate to show how environment has bearing on the
anatomi-cal
and physiological character of man, and therefore also on his
psy-chical
disposition. The direction which our inquiries under this head
should take has been laid down by Juan Huarte de San Juan, that
wise
old 16th-century Spanish physician whom I have already mentioned,
in
his splendid book, Examen de ingenios, in which he makes a serious
attempt (the first of its kind) to give a biological and
psychological ex-planation
of Jewish characteristics by referring to the vicissitudes of the
Jewish people. The ideas of this profound thinker, who treated of
some
of the problems of human selection in a manner which for that
period
was certainly remarkable, appear to me to be worth saving from an
undeserved oblivion, and I shall here give them in outline.18
Huarte mentions four causes which contributed to make the Jews
what they are: (1) A hot climate. (2) An unfruitful soil. (3) The
peculiar
food of the people during their forty years' wandering in the
wilderness:
they subsisted on Manna; the water they drank was exceedingly pure,
and the air they breathed very rare. In such circumstances there
was a
tendency (as Aristotle had already pointed out) for children to be
born
who were keen of intellect (hombre de muy agudo ingenio). (4)
"When.236/Werner Sombart
the Children of Israel entered into possession of the Promised
Land they
were faced with so many difficulties, scarcity, hostile raids,
conquests
and tribulations of all sorts, that the misery of it had the
effect of adding
to their intellectual genius a fiery, dry and parched temperament.
. . .
Continual melancholy and a never-ending wretchedness together
resulted
in collecting the blood in the brain, the liver and the heart, and
a process
of blood consuming and burning ensued. . . . This produced much
burnt
black gall (melancolia por adustion). Of this almost all the Jews
still
have a great deal and it results ... in craft, cunning and spite
(solercia,
astucia, versacia, malicia)." The author then proceeds to answer
the
objection, that in the three thousand years since their feeding on
Manna
the Jews very probably lost the characteristics they then
acquired, by
saying that once certain tendencies enter into the system they
become
second nature and are passed on for many generations. He is ready
to
admit, however, that possibly the Jews are not quite as sagacious
as
they used to be.
Into the depths to which the Madrid physician descends I cannot
take the reader. We should not find anything but unproved theories
there.
We shall therefore remain above ground and content ourselves with
not-ing
the connexion between Jewish psychological qualities and the
vicis-situdes
of the Jewish people.
The intellectuality of the Jew, we saw, was his most striking
at-tribute,
the one which embraced many others. It can be very easily
ac-counted
for when we recall that from the very earliest period of their
history, when they tended their flocks beside the still waters,
the Jews
never had to perform hard manual labour. The curse that fell on
Adam
and Eve when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden, that man
should eat bread in the sweat of his face, did not at any time
bear heavily
on the Jew -- that is, if we take the words in their literal
meaning and
exclude mental worry and anxiety. Shepherd life calls for care,
combi-nation
and organization, and all subsequent vocations which the Jews
adopted (whether voluntarily or forcibly is of no consequence)
demanded
but little bodily work, though much mental effort. The family
history of
most of us leads through two or three generations to the plough or
the
anvil or the spinning-wheel. Not so with the Jews. For centuries
and
more they were for the most part never peasants or craftsmen, never
makers of anything, but only thinkers -- brain-workers. It was
there-fore
only to be expected that certain gifts and capacities should be
de-veloped
in them in the course of time. Given the Jewish mode of life,
an.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/237
exceptional intellectuality cannot but be deduced from it.
But more than this: the special Jewish intellectuality is of a kind
associated with sandy or stony deserts. The Jews are rational, are
fond
of abstraction. Once more we are reminded of the contrast between
desert
and forest, between North and South. The sharp outlines of the
land-scape
in hot, dry countries, their brilliant sunshine and their deep
shad-ows,
their clear, starlit nights and their stunted vegetation -- cannot
all
these be summed up in the one word abstraction? The opposite to
this is
surely what is concrete, as all things of the North are, where the
water
flows abundantly, where the landscape is as varied as it is rich,
where
Nature is prolific in wood and field, and the earth sends up its
fra-grance.
Is it accidental that astronomy and the art of reckoning first
arose in the hot lands where the nights are ever brilliant, and
was devel-oped
among peoples whose pastoral pursuits taught them to count? Can
we think of the Sumerians who invented the cuneiform script 19 as a
Northern people? Or, on the other hand, can we imagine the peasant
of
the misty North as he follows his plough, or the huntsman chasing
deer
in the forest, as either of them able to conceive the abstract
idea of
numbers?
So with rational thinking and searching after causes. That also
leads
us into the world of the South with its artificially produced,
never natu-ral
vegetation, with the eternal insecurity of Bedouin life as the
domi-nating
factor of existence. And contrariwise, tradition is associated with
the comfortable, secure and peaceful existence of the Northern
farmer
and with his misty and mysterious surroundings. That the
appreciation
of life and growth should be able to develop, or at least to
develop more
freely, among the luxuriant Nature of the North than among the dead
vegetation of the South is not at all unlikely. And as the desert,
so the
town, in depriving man of his piece of fruitful mother earth
destroys in
him the feeling of communion with all living things, breaks the
bond of
fellowship between him and animals and plants, and so deadens all
true
understanding of organic Nature. On the other hand, the city
sharpens
his intellectual capacities, enabling him to search, to spy-out,
to orga-nize,
to arrange. To be constantly on the alert is the nature of the
nomad;
to have to be constantly on the alert was what their fate forced
on the
Jews -- to be constantly alive to new possibilities, new goals,
new com-binations
of events; in a word, to order life with some end in view.
The Jew is adaptable and mobile. Adaptability and mobility are the
principal qualities the nomad must possess if he is to survive the
struggle.238/Werner Sombart
for existence. Your settled peasant could not make any use of these
virtues. "The law of desert life prescribes the greatest mobility
both of
person and of property. Camel and steed must be able to carry the
no-mad
and all his substance speedily from one halting-place to the next,
for his stock of provisions is not great and is soon exhausted,
and be-sides
he must be able to flee from the onslaughts of his foe with the
rapidity of a lightning flash. . . This mobility even in ordinary
circum-stances
necessitates a certain measure of organizing talent on the part of
the tribal leaders."20 (The soil tiller has no need of this.) "The
plough
and the ox seem lazy things enough when compared with the lance,
the
arrow and the horse of the nomad."21 So too the country when
compared
with the town. Turn to the history of the Jews, and observe how
from the
moment they crossed the Jordan until this very day towns have
engen-dered
in them a high degree of mobility.
Always then we have the contrast between the nomad and the dweller
by the hearth, the contrast to which may be ascribed, on the one
hand
determination to reach some goal, on the other, joy in work for
what it is
worth. In the case of the Jews their thousand years' wanderings
only
developed this nomad virtue in them. The promised land throughout
their journeyings was always before them; it was always something
to
be reached, something to be achieved, something to which they
looked
forward, like a traveller who has no delight in his wandering. The
more
hopeless the present became, the richer were the blessings which
the
future held out; everything that was was accounted as a bubble, all
reality as without content, all action as senseless; only the
result of ac-tion
-- success, the end in view -- had a value. In this chain of
tenden-cies
the stress laid on results was to a large extent responsible for
the
utilization of money for lending purposes, and, indeed, for the
whole of
the capitalistic nexus. The importance attached by the Jew to
results of
action may have been cause and effect at once of their
capitalistic un-dertakings.
Now, for the attainment of some given end, no less than for
mobil-ity,
a large measure of physical and intellectual energy is essential.
The
first ancestors of the Jews must have been possessed of a great
deal, and
the sojourn of the Jews amid Northern peoples only served to
increase it
still more. It is plainly manifest that the contact with the North
perfected
the inherent powers of the Jew. One need but compare his
achievements
here with those in Southern lands to see the truth of this
statement. The
process of selection, by weeding out the unfit, only made bodily
and.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/239
mental energy still more the possession of a people whose Southern
origin already inclined them to it.
As the spirits of the two types of peoples differed, so also their
respective expressions. Water, wood and fragrant earth have their
fairy
tales, their myths, their songs; so have desert and oasis.
Delightful as it
would be to follow this side-issue, we can here only call
attention to it
and perforce pass on to the consideration of the different
economic sys-tem
associated with each type of people.
The economic differences may be traced, at bottom, to the contrast
between the nomadic and the agricultural life, between Saharaism
and
"Sylvanism." From the wood which is cleared, from the marsh which
is
drained, from the soil which the ploughshare turns up arose that
eco-nomic
organization of society which was dominant in Europe before
Capitalism came -- the feudal, manorial system, resting on the
ideas
that production should be only for consumption, that every man
should
have his niche to work in, and that every society should have
differences
in status. The peasant's holding, strictly marked off as it was
from his
neighbour's, gave prominence to the idea of each man's limited
sphere
of activities, of "the estate to which it had pleased God to call
him";
there he was to remain and work in the traditional way.
From the endless wastes of sand, from the pastoral pursuits,
springs
the opposite way of life -- Capitalism. Economic activities here
are not
circumscribed for each man, but are those of the breeder (shepherd)
with his boundless outlook, where to-morrow may undo the work of
to-day,
but where also in a few years' time stock may increase tenfold.
Sheep and kine multiply quickly, but as quickly they may be
decimated
by hunger or disease. Hence, only in the shepherd's calling, never
in the
farmer's, could the idea of gain have taken root, and the
conception of
unlimited production have become a reality. Only in the shepherd's
call-ing
could the view have become dominant that in economic activities the
abstract quantity of commodities matters, not whether they are fit
or
sufficient for use. Only in the shepherd's calling was counting a
prime
necessity. Moreover, the rationalism which, as we have seen, is
insepa-rable
from nomadic life, here entered into play, and it is not too much
to
say that "Nomadism" is the progenitor of Capitalism. The relation
be-tween
Capitalism and Judaism thus becomes more clear.
Now desert and wandering, though they influenced the Jewish
char-acter
in no small degree, were not the only forces which moulded the
Jewish spirit. There were others, not as effective as the first,
but supple-.240/Werner Sombart
mentary to them.
The first was money, of which the Jews were the guardians. This
left its mark on their nature, but at the same time it was in
consonance
with it. For in money, the two factors that go to make up the
Jewish
spirit are united -- desert and wandering, Saharaism and Nomadism.
Money is as little concrete as the land from which the Jews sprang;
money is only a mass, a lump, like the flock; it is mobile; it is
seldom
rooted in fruitful soil like the flower or the tree. Their
constant concern
with money distracted the attention of the Jews from a
qualitative, natu-ral
view of life to a quantitative, abstract conception. The Jews
fath-omed
all the secrets that lay hid in money, and found out its magic
powers. They became lords of money, and, through it, lords of the
world
-- as I tried to describe in the first chapter of this book.
Did they go in search of money, or was it first forced upon them
and
did they then gradually accustom themselves to the stranger? Both
ex-planations,
it would seem, have much in their favour.
In the beginning it looks as though a great deal of money flowed
into their possession almost naturally -- or more correctly
stated, the
precious metals, which they afterwards turned into coin. I believe
it has
never yet been pointed out that large quantities of gold and
silver must
have accumulated in Palestine in the period of the Kings. We are
told of
David that he brought back from his raiding expeditions much of
both
metals, not to mention the tribute he received in gold and silver.
"And
Joram brought with him vessels of silver and vessels of gold and
vessels
of brass; these also did King David dedicate unto the Lord with the
silver and gold that he dedicated of all the nations which he
subdued" (2
Sam. viii. 10--11).
The stories we read of the use of gold and silver, both in the
making
of the Tabernacle and in the building of the Temple, border on the
fabu-lous,
and apparently it was no exaggeration to say that "the King made
silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones" (2 Chron. i. 15) --
cer-tainly
not when we remember the exact statistical information on the
subject. The voyages of King Solomon's ships to Ophir must have
opened
up a veritable California in those days. No wonder that the prophet
Isaiah lamented that "their land is full of silver and gold,
neither is there
any end of their treasures" (Isa. ii. 7).
What happened to all these quantities of the precious metals? The
Rabbis of the Talmud considered this question and came to the
conclu-sion
that it remained with Israel. "This is what R. Alexandrai
taught..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/241
Three things returned whence they came: Israel, Egypt's money (cf.
Exod. xii. 35 and 1 Kings xiv. 25) and the tablets of the Ark."22
But of
course a more convincing proof will hardly be adducible. Be that
as it
may, the important thing is that an enormous supply of the precious
metals had accumulated in Israel at an early stage in its history.
To this
was added the moneys obtained through the centuries in all parts
of the
world. Nor must we overlook the streams of treasure that were
directed
to Palestine, partly as Temple taxes and partly as the offerings
of pious
pilgrims. Cicero (pro Flacco, c. 28) deplored the large sums that
were
annually taken to Jerusalem from Italy and all the provinces. Both
chan-nels
must have given no small yield, as would appear from several
inter-esting
incidents. Mithridates, for instance, seized 800 talents of the
Temple taxes and deposited them in the island of Cos. Cicero
relates
that Flaccus captured while on its way to Jerusalem the money which
the Jews of four cities of Asia Minor (Apamea, Laodicea, Pergamum
and Adramyttium) had sent, and that the spoil from the first-named
city
alone amounted to a hundred pounds of gold. And then the pilgrims!
Their number must have been exceedingly large, though it was not
quite
2,700,000, as Josephus reports, and though there were not quite 380
synagogues in Jerusalem for the convenience of the visitors.
Certain it
is, however, that the pilgrim bands were like reservoirs from
which money
flowed in all directions, and many a man must have become wealthy
and therefore able to lend money at interest. Perhaps the priests
may be
instanced; we are told that they generally obtained large dowries
and
were not disinclined for a little money-lending business.23
The next question of importance is whether the Jews themselves
discovered the secret power of money, whether it was they who
insti-tuted
the mechanism of lending, or whether they learnt it from the
Babylonians. It seems pretty well established now that money
circu-lated
freely in Babylon prior to the arrival of the Jews, though we have
no details of any value as to the extent to which money-lending was
developed. Possibly the seeds of Jewish monetary activities may
have
been germinating with their cousins, the Babylonians. It does not
matter
much which of these kindred peoples first grew golden fruit. The
main
thing is that later events forced money-lending upon the Jews, and
so
made them specialists in it. For their constant wanderings
necessitated
their having their wealth in a form easily portable, and what more
adapt-able
for this than money and jewellery? Money was their sole compan-ion
when they were thrust naked into the street, and their sole
protector.242/Werner Sombart
when the hand of the oppressor was heavy upon them. So they learned
to love it, seeing that by its aid alone they could subdue the
mighty ones
of the earth. Money became the means whereby they -- and through
them all mankind -- might wield power without themselves being
strong.
With the fine threads of money-lending a people who were socially
of
little moment were able to bind the feudal giant, much as the
Lilliputians
did to Gulliver.
So much then for money as one factor in Jewish development. I
come now to another, which some regard as of even greater import. I
refer to the Ghetto.
The Ghetto undoubtedly influenced the social status of the Jews in
a
very peculiar way: it made of them despised pariahs. Even to-day
the
greater portion of Ghetto Jews belong socially to the lower
classes, and
are so considered by their brethren in faith. At one time in their
history
the contrast between the Ghetto Jew and his liberated brother found
tangible expression in the attitude of the Sephardim (Spanish
Jews) to-wards
the Ashkenazim (German Jews). The former looked down on the
latter with contempt, regarding them as importunate beggars who
were
a nuisance. This is the vein of bitter sarcasm in which a German
Jew
wrote to a Portuguese co-religionist about the middle of the 18th
cen-tury
(when the relation between the two sections was most strained)24 :
"I am aware. Sir, that the Portuguese Jews have nothing in common
with those of Germany except a religious rite, and that their
upbringing
and their manners utterly differentiate between them as far as
social life
is concerned. I am also aware that the affinity between the two is
a
tradition of very ancient date, and that Vercingentorix, the Gaul,
and
Arminius, the German, were nearer relatives to Herod's
father-in-law
than you are to the Son of Ephraim." Pinto, the Sephardi Jew,
expresses
himself in a similar tone in his well-known reply to the attacks
which
Voltaire made on the Jews as a whole.25 Pinto is anxious that the
Span-ish
Jews should not be put in the same boat as the German Jews; they
are two distinct nations. "A Jew of London," he says, "as little
resembles
a Jew of Constantinople as the latter does a Chinese Mandarin. A
Por-tuguese
Jew of Bordeaux and a German Jew of Metz have nothing in
common." "Mons. de Voltaire cannot ignore the delicate scruples of
the
Portuguese and Spanish Jews in not mixing with the Jews of other
na-tions,
either by marriage or otherwise." Pinto proceeds to say that if a
Sephardi Jew in Holland or England were to make a German Jewess his
wife, his relatives would disown him and he would not even be
given.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/243
burial in their cemetery.
This opposition very often found practical expression, more
espe-cially
on the part of the Sephardim, who in their own eyes were the
aristocracy of Jewry and who were afraid lest their social
position should
be endangered by the arrival of Jews from more easterly countries.
Thus,
in 1761 the Portuguese Jews (or Marannos) of Bordeaux were able to
get an order passed to the effect that within fourteen days all
alien Jews
were to leave the city. Pinto and Pereira were the prime movers in
the
matter, and they used every endeavour to rid themselves of the
"vaga-bonds"
-- their own co-religionists from Germany and France.26 In
Hamburg the Sephardim occupied a position of official superiority
over
the German Jews; the latter having to give undertakings to the
former
that no shady commercial practices would be carried on.
The reason for the dislike between the Sephardim and the
Ashkenazim, more especially of the former towards the latter, may
be
found in the different social positions occupied by each. But no
doubt
the feeling was strengthened by the distinctly marked aristocratic
con-sciousness
of the Sephardim, who held that they were of purer origin
than the Ashkenazim, that their blood was bluer, that their family
pride
had always been a spur to them as long as they lived in the
Pyrenean
Peninsula to do noble deeds, and had thus been a protection
against all
things base.27
We have here possibly touched on a chord which will help us to
apprize at its true worth the influence of the Ghetto for Jewish
life.
Perhaps the conception of noblesse obligeheld by the Spanish and
Por-tuguese
Jews -- their aim to make the highest virtues theirs -- may
explain why they had no Ghettos, and will not need to be regarded
as an
effect of Ghetto life. In other words, perhaps a section of the
Jews lived
the Ghetto life because they were by nature inclined that way. It
is diffi-cult
to say why some continued in the Ghetto while others soon freed
themselves. We have not sufficient information for the decision.
Nor
can we assert without hesitation (though much would seem to point
to
it) that the Sephardim represented the result of a process of
social selec-tion
among Jews. But it is not assuming too much to say that differences
in their vicissitudes are traceable to differences in their
natures. These
differences must not, however, be made too much of. Their
Jewishness
was little influenced by them. Jews they were all, whether
Sephardim or
Ashkenazim. But in the case of the latter. Ghetto life produced
certain
habits, certain mannerisms which always clung to the Ghetto Jew,
and.244/Werner Sombart
often affected his economic activities. In part they were the
habits of
low social grades generally, but in Jews, with their peculiar
tempera-ment,
they assumed curious features -- a tendency, for instance, to petty
cheating, obtrusiveness, lack of personal dignity, tactlessness
and so on.
These things must have played some part in the Jewish conquest of
the
feudal economic strongholds; in what way precisely we have already
had occasion to see.
But these mere externals must not be exaggerated. In social
inter-course
with Jews they may appear of some importance to this or that
person; but we doubt whether any great weight should be attached to
them in considering Jewish economic achievements. Without question
the Jews could not have won their dominant position in the world
by the
aid of these mannerisms alone.
Another aspect of Ghetto life is of more consequence. I refer to
its
influence in making the inherent Jewish characteristics more marked
and more one-sided. If, as we have already observed, these
characteris-tics
sprang from a want of settledness on the part of the Jew, it is
obvi-ous
that the Ghetto only intensified it. But it was already there,
already
innate in the Jew.
The Ghetto had the same effect in another direction by giving
promi-nence
to, and emphasizing the twin forces which were responsible for
the constancy in Jewish peculiarities -- religion and pure
breeding.
The religion of a people is, of course, the expression of its
soul: that
has been the view that we have taken in this book. But all the
same, an
exclusive formalistic religion like Judaism must in its turn
strongly in-fluence
its adherents, more especially in the direction of unifying their
life and giving it a common stamp. How this expressed itself we
have
also considered; I would here only remind the reader of its
rationalizing
tendencies.
And as with religion so with the physiological side of life, which
is
so closely akin to it. That also intensified the inbreeding of the
Jews,
which they had practised for hundreds of years.
I have just remarked that with the Jews inbreeding is closely akin
to
religion. One may go even further and say that it is a direct
consequence
of the central idea of the religion, the idea of election. This
has been
demonstrated recently in a series of studies, one of the best of
which
perhaps is by Alfred Nossig, who writes as follows:28 "A striking
bio-logical
result of the idea of election is the existence of the Jews, and
their power of reproduction, not yet abated. The Mosaic conception
of.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/245
'an everlasting people' would seem to be realizing itself."
Dietary and
marriage laws are safeguards for the continuance of the race.
"These
ethical treasurers of highest worth were of course shielded
against de-struction
through intermixture with less carefully reared races. The re-sult
of the prohibition of mixed marriages was that the factor which is
supreme in race culture -- heredity -- was maintained in its
pristine
strength, and the advantages that have been mentioned not merely
re-mained
constant but increased from generation to generation." "Inbreed-ing
has thus resulted in making Jewish inherited characteristics more
and more marked and intense, so that it becomes exceedingly
difficult to
oust them by intermixture. For it has been proved that the
intensity of
heredity, like all other organic functions, has become
strengthened by
constant practice."29
Religion and inbreeding were the two iron hoops that bound the
Jewish people and kept them as one body through the centuries.
Sup-pose
that the hoops were to become loose, what then? To answer this
very difficult question was not the task I set myself. For as long
as we
find the Jews exercising their particular influence on economic
life --
and they still do so -- we may take it that the hoops are yet
strong. I did
not in this book intend to go beyond considering that influence,
and
showing the genesis of the Jewish genius which made it possible --
that
influence which has been so fateful in economic life and for modern
culture as a whole..Notes and References
Abbreviations
Monatsschrift = Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des
Judentums.
J.Q.R. = Jewish Quarterly Review.
Z.D.S.J. == Zeitschrift für Demographic und Statistik der Juden.
R.E.J. = Revue des Etudes Juives.
Chapter 1
1. Jakob Fromer, Das Wesen des Judentums (1905), p. 144. No
author-ity
cited.
2. Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden [Z.D.S.J.]
iii.,
140, 145.
3. J. Thon, "Taufbewegung der Juden in Oesterreich," in Z.D.S.J.,
iv.,
6.
4. Theophile Malvezin, Histoire des Juifs {I Bordeaux (1875), p.
105.
5. E.g., Lucien Wolf, "Jessurun Family" in Jewish Quarterly Review
[J.Q.R.J.] i. (1889), 439.
6. E.g., B. C. Weiss, Histoire des réfugées protest., i. (1853),
pp. 164,
377, 379, 383; ii., 5.
7. Sigmund Mayer, Die ökonomische Entwicklung der Wiener Juden,
p. 7.
Chapter 2
1. To give the numbers of Jews who were scattered in different
lands is
impossible. Attempts to do this have indeed been made, but the
re-sults
were nothing more than conjectures. Perhaps the best of these is
I. Loeb, Le nombre des Juifs de Castile et d'Espagne au moyen
Age,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/247
in Revue des Études Juives, xiv. (1887), p. 161. Loeb bases a good
many of his calculations on the number of Jews resident in the
differ-ent
localities to-day. Nevertheless I shall give the results of his
re-searches.
He believes there were about 235,000 Jews in Spain and
Portugal in 1492. The number had remained pretty constant for some
two hundred years. Of the total, 160,000 lived in Castile
(Andalusia,
Granada, etc.) and 30,000 in Navarre. What happened to all these
Jews? Loeb maintains that 50,000 were baptized, 20,000 perished as
a result of the expulsion, and 165,000 emigrated as follows: 90,000
to Turkey, 2000 to Egypt and Tripoli, 10,000 to Algiers, 20,000 to
Morocco, 3000 to France, 9000 to Italy, 25,000 to Holland,
Ham-burg,
England and Scandinavia, 5000 to America, and 1000 to vari-ous
other countries.
Supplementary to these figures let me quote the report of the
well-in-formed
Venetian Ambassador, who says, "Si giudica in Castilia ed in
altre province di Spagna il terzo esser Marrani un terzo dico di
coloro
che sono cittadini e mercanti perchè il populo minuto è vero
cristiano,
e cosi la maggior parte delli grandi." Vicenzo Querini (1506) in
Alberi,
Rel. degli Amb., Series I, vol. L, p. 29.
2. For the fate of the Marannos in Portugal see M. Kayserling,
Geschichte
der Juden in Portugal (1876), pp. 84, 167. Further particulars may
be found in J. H. Gottheil's The Jews and the Spanish Inquisition,
in
J.Q.R., xv. (1903), p. 182; in Elkan Adier's Auto da Fè and Jew,
ib.,
xiii., xiv., xv. (recently issued in book form).
3. Cf. B. Sieveking, Genueser Firanzwesen, ii. (1899), p. 167, with
Schudt, Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten, i. (1714), p. 128.
4. Frankfort (Main) was the goal of the Jews expelled from the
other
South-German towns in the 15th and 16th centuries. But Holland
must also have contributed its quota, as would appear from the
close
commercial relations between Frankfort and Amsterdam in the 17th
and 18th centuries. According to P. Bothe, Beiträge zur
Wirtschafts-und
Socialgeschichte der Reichsstadt Frankfurt (1906), p. 70, the
number of Jews in Frankfort increased twenty-fold. In 1612 there
were about 2800; in 1709 the official census gives 3019, out of a
total population of 18,000. We are tolerably well informed as to
the
origin of the Jews in Frankfort, thanks to the assiduous industry
of A.
Dietz in his Stammbuch der Frankfurter Juden: Geschichtliche
Milteilungen über die Frankfurter jüdischen Familien von 1549--1849
(1907). For the period prior to 1500 see Karl Bücher,
Bevölkerung.248/Werner Sombart
von Frankfurt am Main (1886), pp. 526--601.
In Hamburg the Jews first settled (ostensibly as Catholics) in
1577 or
1583. They came from Flanders, Italy, Holland, Spain and Portugal,
and it was not until the 17th century that immigrants from the East
(Germany especially) began to arrive. According to Count Galeazzo
Gualdo Priorato there were some 40 or 50 German-Jewish houses in
Hamburg in 1663 side by side with the 120 of Portuguese Jews. See
Zeitschrift für Hamburgische Geschichte, iii., p. 140. For a
general
account of the Jews of Hamburg, see A. Feilehenfeld, Die älteste
Geschichte der deutschen Juden in Hamburg, in the Monatsschrift
für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, vol. 43 (1899); also
M. Grunwald, Portugiesengräber auf deutscher Erde (1902) and
Hamburgs deutsche Juden (1904).
From the end of the 17th century onward the Jews increased rapidly
in
Hamburg. About the middle of the 18th century we hear of a
"terrible
crowd of Jews," estimated (much too highly, of course) at between
twenty and thirty thousand. Cf. C. L. von Griesheim, Die Stadt
Ham-burg
(1760), p. 47.
5. Risbeck, Briefe eines reisenden Franzosen über Deutschland an
seinen Bruder in Paris (1780). Quoted in H. Scheubbe, Aus den
Tagen unserer Grossväter (1873), pp. 382 ff.
6. We have a wealth of information about the Jews in Bordeaux in
the
fine work of Malvezin (cf. Chapter 2), which is really invaluable.
Of
the Jews in Marseilles we are told much in Jonas Weyl's "Les juifs
protégés français aux échelles du Levant et en Barbarie," in Rev.
de
Études Juives, vol. xii. (1886). For the Jews of Rouen see
Gosselin,
"Documents inédites pour servir a l'histoire de la marine normande
et du commerce rouennais pendant les xvi et xvii siècles" (1876).
Pigeonneau, who quotes this book in his Histoire du commerce, ii,
p.
123, speaks of course of "the naturalized Spaniards and
Portuguese."
We ought to mention also Maignial, La Question juive en France en
1789 (1903), a book based on an extensive acquaintance with
sources,
written with skill and judgment. Not only does it present a good
ac-count
of the Jewish Question in France in 1789, but it also shows
how that problem developed.
In Paris there were not many Jews before the 19th century, though
some
of them were very influential. A good deal of information will be
found concerning the Jews of Paris in the 18th century in the books
of Leon Kahn, Les juifs à Paris depuis le vi siècle (1889); Les
juifs.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/249
sous Louis XV (1892), and Les juifs à Paris au xviii siècle (1894).
Good as these books are, they do not deal with every aspect of the
question.
Much valuable material dealing with the history of the Jews in
France
will be found scattered in the Revue des Études Juives [R.E.J.]
(from
1880 onwards).
7. The history of the Jews in Holland has been treated by H. J.
Koenen,
Geschiedenes der Joden in Nederland (1843), which has not been
surpassed. Also worth mentioning are the following: M. Henriques
Pimentel, Geschiedkundige Aanteekeningen betreffende de
Portugesche Israeliten in den Haag (1876); S. Back, Die
Entstehungsgeschichte der portugiesischen Gemeinde in Amsterdam
(1883); E. Italie, Geschiedenes der Israelitischen Gemeente te
Rotterdam (1907).
8. Ranke, Französische Geschichte, vol. iii., p. 350.
9. Schudt, Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten. i. (1714), p. 271; cf. also
p.
277.
10. In addition to the literature mentioned in note 6, see also
Carmoly in
the Revue Orientate (1841) i., 42, 168, 174, and Graetz, Geschichte
der Juden, vol. 9, pp. 292, 354, 490.
11. See L. Guiccardino, Totius Belgii Descriptio (1652), p. 129,
and cf.
Ehrenberg, Zeiltalter der Fugger, ii. (1896), p. 3.
12. Cf. Macaulay's [History] iv., p. 320, and Ehrenberg, op. cit.,
ii., p.
303.
13. The history of the Jews in England has been abundantly and
effi-ciently
dealt with. A mine of information (though it must be used
with care) will be found in Anglia Judaica, or the History and
Antiq-uities
of the Jews in England, by D'Blossiers Tovey (1738). Among
later works the pioneer was that of James Picciotto. Sketches of
Anglo-Jewish
History (1875), which is deficient in that it does not always
mention authorities. H. S. Q. Henriques in his Return of the Jews
to
England (1905) has written on this subject from the legal point of
view.
A complete account of the history of the Jews in England will be
found
in Albert M. Hyamson's admirable A History of the Jews in England
(1908). The author has skilfully utilized the material at his
disposal
in special articles and papers, and has presented a rounded off
study
of the whole subject. The J.Q..R. (first appeared in 1889) contains
much miscellaneous material. Also the publications of the
Anglo-.250/Werner Sombart
Jewish Historical Exhibition (1888).
For the Cromwellian period the following may be mentioned: Lucien
Wolf, The Middle Age of Anglo-Jewish History, 1290--1656, in the
Publications of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, No. 1.
Sig-nificant
for the position of the Jews in England at the end of the 15th
century is the fact that a Jew commenced legal proceedings quite
openly and was confident of winning his case. A century later there
were Jewish industrial undertakers in England, cf. Calendar of
State
Papers, 1581--90, p. 49 (quoted in L. Wolf's paper). There must
have been quite a number of Jews in England at the beginning of the
17th century. A publication of 1625, The Wandering Jew telling
for-tunes
to Englishmen (also quoted in Mr. Wolfs paper), says: "A store
of Jews we have in England; a few in Court; many i' the city; more
in
the country."
14. Anglia Judaica, p. 302, "as I have been well inform'd," writes
Tovey.
15. A good instance is that of J. F. Richter, who works out the
thesis for
Nuremberg. For the old Jewish community in Nuremberg, see
Allgemeine Judenzeitung, 1842, No. 24. Cf. also the Eighth Report
of the Historische Verein fur Mittelfranken, and M. Brann, "Eine
Sammlung Fürther Grabschriften," in Gedenkbuch zur Erinnerung
an David Kaufmann (1900).
16. A most interesting document in support is given by D. Kaufmann
in
his "Die Vertreibung der Marranen aus Venedig im Jahre 1550," in
the J.Q.R.. vol. 13 (1901), p. 520.
17. Hyamson's History of the Jews in England, p. 174.
18. M. Bloch, Les juifs et la prosperètè publique à trovers
l'histoire
(1899), p. 11. The Ordinance contains the following remarkable
words,
"Vous devez bien prendre garde que la jalousie du commerce portera
toujours les marchands à être d'avis de les chasser."
19. Malvezin, Les juifs à Bordeaux, p. 132.
20. Malvezin, p. 175.
21. S. Ullmann, Studien zur Geschichte des Juden in Belgien bis zum
18. Jahrhundert (1909), p. 34
22. Émile Ouverleaux, "Notes et documents sur les juifs de
Belgique,"
in R.E.J.; vol. 7, p. 262.
23. Thurloe, Collection of State Papers, iv, p. 333. Cf. also the
letter of
Whalley, p. 308.
24. J. Müller in his anti-Jewish book, Judaismus (1644). Cf. also
Reils,
"Beiträge zur älteren Geschichte der Juden in Hamburg," in the.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/251
Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, vol. 2, p.
412.
25. Ehrenberg, Grosse Vermögen, p. 146.
26. M. Grunwald, Hamburgs deutsche Juden bis zur Auflösung der
Dreigemeinden, 1811 (1904), p. 21.
27. Arnold Kiesselbach, Die wirtschafts- und rechtsgeschichtliche
Entwicklung der Seeversicherung in Hamburg (1901), p. 24.
Chapter 3
1. Hyamson, p. 178.
2. Anglia Judaica, p. 292.
3. Thanks to the work of R. Markgraf, Zur Geschichte der Juden auf
den Messen in Leipzig vom 1664--1839 (a doctoral dissertation,
1894),
from which the figures in the text have been taken. For the short
period 1675--99 Max Freudenthal, "Leipziger Messgäste" in
Monatsschrift, vol. 45 (1901), p. 460, is even better than
Markgraf,
for he draws from the actual Fair Books, where Markgraf depends
on the documents in the Leipzig archives, which are of later date.
Freudenthal shows that between 1671 and 1699, 18,182 Jews visited
the fairs, apart from those who had special permits. Markgraf,
how-ever,
for the same period has traced only 14,705. Freudenthal's study
appeared in book form in 1902 under the title of Die jüdischen
Besucher der Leipziger Messe.
4. Markgraf, p. 93; Freudenthal, p. 465. Cf. R. Punke, Die
Leipziger
Messen (1897), p. 41.
5. See, for example. No. 21 of the Judenreglements of the year
1710 in
C. L. von Griesheim, Die Stadt Hamburg, Anmerkungen und Zugaben
(1759), p. 95.
6. E. Baasch, "Hamburgs Seeschiffahrt und Warenhandel" in the
Zeitschrift des Ver. für Hamburg. Geschichte, vol. 9 (1894), pp.
316,
324. Cf. A. Feilchenfeld, "Anfang und Blutezeit der
Portugiesengemeinden," in Hambg. Ztschrift., vol. 10 (1899), p.
199.
7. Encyclopédie methodique. "Manufactures," i., 403--4.
8. Cf. H. J. Koenen, Geschiedenes der Joden in Nederland (1843), p.
176 ff. Also H. Sommershausen, "Die Geschichte der Niederlassung
der Juden in Holland und den holländischen Kolonien," in
Monatsschrift, vol. ii.
9. For jewellery and pearls, see for Hamburg Griesheim, op. cit.,
p. 119;
for North Germany I am indebted to Dr. Bernfeld, of Berlin, for
in-formation;
for Holland, see Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Nether-.252/Werner
Sombart
lands"; E. E. Danekamp, Die Amsterdamer Diamantindustrie, quoted
by N. W. Goldstein in his article in the Z.D.S.J. (vol. iii., p.
178) on
Die Juden in der Amsterdamer Diamantindustrie; for Italy, see D.
Kaufmann, "Die Vertreibung der Marranen aus Venedig," in the J.Q.R.
As for silks, the Jews were for centuries engaged in this
industry, which
they transplanted from Greece into Sicily and later to France and
Spain. Cf. Graetz v.2 , p. 244. In the 16th century they dominated
the
silk trade in Italy (cf. David Kaufmann, loc. cit.), and in the
18th
century in France. In 1760 the wardens of the Lyons Silkweavers'
Guild termed the Jewish nation "la maîresse du commerce de toutes
les provinces." See J. Godard, L'Ouvrier en Soie (1899), p. 224. In
1755 there were 14 and in 1759, 22 Jewish silk merchants in Paris.
See Kahn, Juifs des Paris sous Louis XV, p. 63. It was the same
tale
in Berlin.
10. How the Jews developed the wholesale textile trade in Vienna
may
be seen from the personal experiences of S. Mayer in his Die
ökonomische Entstehung der Wiener Juden, p. 8 ff.
An ordinance of the City Council of Nuremberg, bearing date
Decem-ber
28, 1780, calls silk, velvet and wool "Judenware." Cf. H. Barbeck,
Geschichte der Juden in Nürnberg und Fürth (1878), p. 71.
11. For the sugar trade with the Levant, see Lippmann, Geschichte
des
Zuckers (1890), p. 206; D. Kaufmann, loc. cit.; for sugar trade
with
America, see M. Grunwald, Portugiesengräber auf deutscher Erde
(1902), p. 6 ff.; A. Feilchenfeld, "Anfang und Blütezeit der
Portugiesengemeinde in Hamburg," in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für
Hamburg. Geschichte, vol. 10 (1899), p. 211. Cf. also Risbeck, op.
cit.
12. "Controlling the Cotton Trade." See art. "America, U.S. of," in
Jewish Encyclopedia (i. 495).
13. More especially for Hamburg, see Feilchenfeld, loc. cit.
14. Moses Lindo, the principal pioneer in the indigo trade,
arrived in
South Carolina in 1756 and invested £120,000 in indigo. Between
1756 and 1776 the production of indigo increased fivefold. Cf. B.
A.
Elgas, The Jews of South Carolina (1903), see also art. "South
Caro-lina,"
in Jewish Encyclopaedia.
15. Risbeck, op. cit., vol. ii., under Frankfort.
16. Quoted by Bloch, op. cit., p. 36.
17. See Richard Markgraf, op. cit., p. 93.
18. Cf. Hyamson, pp. 174, 178. Also the report sent by the rulers
of.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/253
Antwerp to the Bishop of Arras, quoted by Ullmann, op. cit., p. 35,
"they have brought much wealth with them, especially silver, jewels
and many ducats."
Chapter 4
1. When Don Isaac Abarbanel was writing his commentary on the Book
of Jeremiah (1504) he saw a document brought from India by
Portu-guese
spice merchants wherein it was reported that they had met many
Jews in that country. Quoted by M. Kayserling, Christopher
Colum-bus
(1894), p. 105. Cf. also Bloch, op. cit., p. 15.
2. As Manasseh ben Israel mentions in his "Humble Address" to
Cromwell. For this document, see Jewish Chronicle, November and
December, 1859. Cf. also de Barrios, Hist. universal Judayca, p. 4.
3. G. C. Klerk de Reus, Geschichtlicher Überblick der ...
niederländisch-ostindischen
Compagnie (1894), xix. For Coen, see p. xiv.
4. J. P. J. Du Bois, Vie des Gouverneurs généraux ... ornée de
leurs
portraits en vignettes au naturel (1763).
5. E.g., Francis Salvador. Cf. art. "Salvador," in Jewish Encycl.,
also
Hyamson, p. 264.
6. In 1569 wealthy Amsterdam Jews furnished the Barentz Expedition.
Cf. M. Grunwald, Hamburgs deutsche Juden (1904), p. 215.
7. See art. "South Africa," in the Jewish Encycl.
8. Dr. J. H. Hertz, The Jew in South Africa (1905).
9. Art. "Commerce" in Jewish Encycl.
10. The literature concerning Jews and America is pretty
extensive. I
can only mention the most important works here. To begin with,
there
is the Jewish Encyclopedia (an American publication), which has
some excellent articles relating to American conditions. Then I
must
mention the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of
America
(begun in 1895), a veritable mine of information on American Jewish
(also economic) history, more especially in the colonies in North
and
South America in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are some
valu-able
speeches in The 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews
in the U.S.A. (1905).
Further, see Markeus, The Hebrews in America; C. P. Daly, History
of
the Settlement of the Jews in North America (1893); M. C. Peters,
The Jews in America (1906). The first two books appear to be out of
print.
11. In connexion with the 400th anniversary of the discovery of
America,.254/Werner Sombart
a number of works have made their appearance showing to what
extent Jews participated in the actual discovery. The best of
these is
M. Kayserling, Christopher Columbus und der Anteil der Juden,
etc. (1894). Some others are: F. Rivas Puiqcerver, Los Judios y el
nuevo mundo (1891); L. Modona, Gil Ebrei e la scoperta dell'
America (1893). Cf. also art. "Discovery of America," in Jewish
Encycl., and address by Oscar Strauss in the 250th Anniversary,
etc., p. 69.
12. M. Kayserling, he. cit., p. 112; Juan Sanchez, of Saragossa,
the first
trader. Cf. also Kayserling's "The Colonization of America by the
Jews," in the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of
America, vol. 2, p. 73.
13. G. F. Knapp, "Ursprung der Sklaverei in den Colonien," in the
Archiv
für Soziale Politik, ii., p. 129.
14. Oscar Strauss, loc. cit., p. 71.
15. Ritter, "Über die geographische Verbreitung des Zuckerrohrs,"
in
the Berichten der Berliner Akademie (1839), quoted by Lippmann,
Geschichte des Zuckers (1890), p. 249.
16. According to Max J. Kohler, "Phases of Jewish Life in New York
before 1800," in the Transactions of the Jewish Hist Soc. of
America,
vol. ii., p. 94.
17. Art. "America," in Jewish Encycl. Cf. G. A. Kohut, "Les juifs
dans
les colonies hollandaises," in the R.E.J. (1895), vol. 31, p. 293.
18. H. Handelmann, Geschichte von Brasilien (1860), p. 412.
19. P. M. Netscher, Les Hollandais au Brésil (1853), p. 1. For the
wealthy Jewish family of Souza, cf. M. Kayserling, Geschichte der
Juden in Portugal (1867), p. 307; M. Grunwald, Portugiesengraber
(1902), p. 123.
20. M. J. Kohler, op. cit.
21. Art. "America," in Jewish Encycl.
22. Transactions of Jewish Hist. Society of America, ii. 95. Cf.
also
Netscher, p. 103.
23. Ibid.
24. There was no actual expulsion; in fact the treaty of peace of
1654
granted Jews an amnesty. But the fateful words were added, "Jews
and other non-Catholics shall receive the same treatment as in
Portu-gal."
That was sufficient. For the treaty, see Aitzema, Historia, etc.
(1626), quoted by Netscher [see note 191, p. 163.
25. H. Handelmann, loc. cit; pp. 412--13..The Jews and Modern
Capitalism/255
26. For Jews in Barbados, see John Camden Hatten, The Original
Lists,
etc. (1874), p. 449; Ligon, History of Barbados (1657), quoted by
Lippmann op. cit., p. 301; Reed, The History of Sugar and
Sugar-yielding
Plants (1866), p. 7; M'Culloch, Dictionary of Commerce,
ii., p. 1087. Cf. also C. P. Lucas, A Historical Geography of the
British Colonies, e.g. ii. (1905), 121, 274, 277.
27. For Jews in Jamaica, see M. Kayserling, "The Jews in Jamaica,"
etc., in the J.Q.R., vol. 12 (1900), 708 ff.; Hyamson, loc. cit.,
chap-ter
xxvi. Numerous extracts from contemporary records will be found
in Kohler's "Jewish Activity in American Colonial Commerce," in
Transactions of Jewish Hist. Society of America, vol. 10, p. 59.
Cf.
also the same writer's paper in the Transactions, vol. 2, p. 98.
28. The letter of the Governor to Secretary of State Lord
Arlington,
quoted by Kayserling in J.Q.R., vol. 12, p. 710.
29. Monumental inscriptions of the British West Indies, collected
by
Captain J. H. Lawrence Archer, quoted by Kohler, "Phases of Jewish
Life," op. cit., p. 98.
30. For Jews in Surinam the most important authority is the Essai
sur la
colonie de Surinam avec l'histoire de la Nation Juive Portugaise y
établie, etc., 2 vols., Paramaribo (1788). Koenen, in his
Geschiedenes
der Joden in Nederland (1843), p. 313, speaks of this work as "de
hoofdbron . . . voor de geschiedenes der Joden in die gewesten." I
have not been able to see a copy. Newer treatises on the subject
have
brought to light a good deal of fresh material. We may mention R.
Gottheil, "Contributions to the History of the Jews in Surinam," in
Transactions of Jewish Hist. Society of America, vol. 9, p. 129;
J. S.
Roos, "Additional Notes on the History of the Jews of Surinam,"
Transactions, vol. 13, p. 127; P. A. Hilfman, "Some Further Notes
on the History of the Jews in Surinam," Transactions, vol. 16, p.
7.
For the connexion between Surinam and Guiana see Samuel
Oppenheimer, "An Early Jewish Colony in Western Guiana, 1658--
1666, and its relation to the Jews in Surinam," in Transactions,
vol.
16, pp. 95--186. Cf. also Hyamson, ch. xxvi, and Lucas.
31. For Jews in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Santo Domingo, see
Lippmann, op. cit., p. 301; A. Cahen, "Les Juifs de la Martinique
au
xvii sc.," in R.E.J., vol 2; Cahen, "Les Juifs dans les Colonies
françaises au xviii sc.," in R.E.J., vols. 4 and 5; Handelmann,
Geschichte der Insel Hayti (1856).
32. Lucien Wolf in the Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 30, 1894, quoted
by.256/Werner Sombart
Kohler in Transactions, vol. 10, p. 60.
33. The 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the U.S.
(1905), p. 18.
34. The 250th Anniversary, etc.
35. John Moody, The Truth about the Trusts (1905), pp. 45, 96, etc.
36. Art. "California," in Jewish Encycl. (which is a particularly
good
one).
37. There are others who maintain that even before the Brazilian
refu-gees
arrived a number of wealthy Jewish traders from Amsterdam
settled in the colony of the Hudson. Cf. Albion Morris Dyer,
"Points
in the First Chapter of New York Jewish History," in Transactions
of
Jewish Hist. Soc. of America, vol. 3, p. 41.
38. The letter is quoted in full by Kohler, "Beginnings of New York
Jewish History," in Transactions, vol. 1, p. 47.
39. See Transactions, vol. 1, p. 41; vol. 2, p. 78; vol. 10, p.
63; Kohler,
"Jews in Newport," Transactions, vol. 6, p. 69. Kohler often quotes
Judge Daly, Settlement of the Jews in North America (1893).
40. Address by Governor Pardell, of California, in The 250th
Anniver-sary,
etc., p. 173.
41. See art. "Alabama," in Jewish Encycl.
42. See art. "Albany," in Jewish Encycl.
43. B. Felsenthal, "On the History of the Jews in Chicago," in
Transac-tions,
vol. 2, p. 21; H. Eliassof, 'The Jews of Chicago," in
Transac-tions,
vol. 2, p. 117.
44. Lewis N. Dembitz, "Jewish Beginnings in Kentucky," in
Transac-tions,
vol. 1, p. 99.
45. J. H. Hollander, "Some Unpublished Material relating to Dr.
Jacob
Lumbrozo of Maryland," in Transactions, vol. 1.
46. D. E. Heinemann, "Jewish Beginnings in Michigan before 1850,"
in
Transactions, vol. 13, p. 47.
47. D. Philipson, 'The Jewish Pioneers of the Ohio Valley," in
Transac-tions,
vol. 8, p. 43.
48. Henry Necarsulmer, "The Early Jewish Settlement at Lancaster,
Pa.," in Transactions, vol. 3, p. 27.
49. Henry Cohen, "The Jews in Texas," in Transactions, vol. 4, p.
9;
Henry Cohen, "Henry Castro, Pioneer and Colonist," in
Transac-tions,
vol. 5, p. 39. Cf. also H. Friedenwald, "Some Newspaper
Ad-vertisements
in the 18th Century," in Transactions, vol. 6.
50. "Einiges aus dem Leben der amerikanisch-jüdischen Familie.The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/257
Seligman aus Bayersdorf in Bayern," in Brüll's Monatsblättem
(1906), p. 141.
51. Leon Huhner, "The Jews of Georgia in Colonial Times," in
Trans-actions,
vol. 10, p. 65; Huhner, "The Jews of South Carolina from
the Earliest Settlement to the End of the American Revolution," in
Transactions, vol. 12, p. 39; Chas. C. Jones, "The Settlement of
the
Jews in Georgia," in Transactions, vol. 1, p. 12.
52. B. A. Elgas, The Jews of South Carolina (1903).
53. L. Huhner, "Asser Levy, a noted Jewish Burgher of New
Amsterdam,"
in Transactions, vol. 8, p. 13. Cf. also Huhner, "Whence came the
First Jewish Settlers of New York?" in Transactions, vol. 9, p. 75;
M. J. Kohler, "Civil Status of the Jews in Colonial New York," in
Transactions, vol. 6, p. 81.
54. For Jews who in the 18th century carried on business in their
own
tongue in New York cf. J. A. Doyle, The Colonies under the House
of Hanover (1907), p. 31.
55. Chas. C. Jones, "The Settlement of the Jews in Georgia," in
Trans-actions,
vol. 1, pp. 6, 9.
56. M. Jaffe, "Die Stadt Posen," in Schriften des Vereins für S.
P., vol.
119, ii. 151.
57. Simon Wolf, "The American Jew as Soldier and Patriot," in
Trans-actions,
vol. 3, p. 39.
58. According to Dr. Fischell's Chronological Notes of the History
of
the Jews in America.
Chapter 5
1. Perhaps our conclusion would have to be a different one if we
were to
recall the fact that the elements of the modern State were already
developed in the later decades of the Middle Ages, chiefly in Italy
and Spain, and that Jewish statesmen occupied influential positions
in both these countries. It is to be regretted that the history of
modern
States has never (so far as I am aware) been written from this
point
of view; I believe much that is profitable would result. Of course
there is little in common between the writers on the history of the
Jews in Spain and Portugal, say Lindo, de los Rios, Kayserling,
Mendes dos Remedies, and those who treat of the rise of the State
in
the Pyrenean Peninsula, say Ranke or Baumgarten.
2. Lucien Wolf, 'The First English Jewry," in Transactions of the
Jew-ish
Historical Society of England, vol. 2. Cf. Hyamson, pp.
171--3..258/Werner Sombart
3. Hyamson, p. 269; Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History
(1875),
p. 58.
4. "Und bedient sich Frankreich jederzeit ihrer Hülffe, bey
Krieges-Zeiten
seine Reuterey beritten zu machen." T. L. Lau, Einrichtung
der Intraden und Einkünfte der Souveräne, etc. (1719), p. 258.
5. Quoted by Liebe, Das Judentum (1903), p. 75.
6. Art. "Banking," in Jewish Encycl.
7. Mémoire of the Jews of Metz of the 24 March, 1733, given in
part by
Bloch, op. cit., p. 35.
8. Quoted by Bloch, op. cit., p. 23.
9. Extracts from the Lettres patentes, in Bloch, op. cit; p. 24.
10. For the Gradis, see T. Malvezin, op. cit., p. 241; Graetz, Die
Familie
Gradis," in Monatsschrift, vol. 24 (1875), 25 (1875).
11. M. Capefigue, Banquiers, fournisseurs, etc. (1856), pp. 68,
214,
etc.
12. Quoted in Revue de la Révolution françcaise (1892), 16, 1.
13. Historische Nachlese zu den Nachrichten der Stadt Leipzig,
edited
by M. Heinrich Engelbert Schwartze (1744), p. 122, quoted by
Alphonse Levy, Geschichte der Juden in Sachsen (1900), p. 58.
14. Bondy, Zur Geschichte der Juden in Böhmen, vol. i., p. 388.
15. I quote this from Liebe, Das Judentum (1903), pp. 43, 70, who
mentions the facts without giving his authorities.
16. König, Annalen der Juden in den preussischen Staaten, besonders
in der Mark Brandenburg (1790), pp. 93--4.
17. The document of 28 June, 1777, given by A. Levy, op. cit.,
p.74;
also S. Haenie, Geschichte der Juden im ehmaligen Fürstentum
Ansbach (1867), p. 70.
18. Geschichte Philanders von Sittewaldt das ist Straffs-Schriften
Hanss
Wilhelm Moscherosch von Wilstätt (1677), p. 779.
19. F. von Mensi, Die Finanzen Österreichs von 1701--1740 (1890),
p.
132. Samuel Oppenheimer, "Kaiserlicher Kriegsoberfaktor und Jud"
(as he was officially styled and as he called himself), saw to the
needs
of the armies in all the campaigns of Prince Eugene (p. 133).
20. Cf. for instance the petition of the Vienna Court Chancery of
May
12, 1762, given by Wolf, Geschichte der Juden in Wien (1894), p.
70; Komitätsarchiv Neutra Iratok, xii--3326 (according to
informa-tion
supplied by Mr. Jos. Reizman); Verproviantierung der Festungen
Raab, Ofen und Komorn durch Breslauer Juden (1716), see Wolf,
loc. cit., p. 61..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/259
21. H. Friedenwald, "Jews mentioned in the Journal of the
Continental
Congress," in Transactions of the Jewish Hist Soc. of America, vol.
i, pp. 65--89.
22. I have already mentioned the more important works on the
history
(not excepting the economic history) of the Jews in England,
France,
Holland and America (see notes 6, 7, 13 of Chapter1; note 10,
Chap-ter
2); here I would refer to those dealing with the same subject for
Germany and for Spain. There is no complete study of the history of
the Jews in Germany, and we are forced therefore to go to local
mono-graphs
and essays in learned periodicals. In any case the economic
history of the German Jews has been treated in a somewhat
step-motherly
way, and we find little that is useful in such works as L.
Geyer's Die Geschichte der Juden in Berlin, 1 vols. (1870-71).
Re-cently
Mr. Ludwig Davidsohn, a pupil of mine, went carefully through
the Berliner Staatsarchiv for the purpose of establishing the
economic
position of the Jews. The results of his labours have not yet been
printed, but I have been able to use some of them. A good deal may
be found in Grunwald's Portugiesengraber auf deutscher Erde and
his Hamburgs deutsche Juden bis zur Auflösing der Dreigemeinde
(1904). For a particular here and there one may turn (but care is
needed) to König, op. cit; as also to Die Juden in Osterreich, 2
vols.
(1842).
As for learned journals, they are not of much use for economic
history.
The chief of them is the Monatsschrift für Geschichte und
Wissenschaft des Judentums (begun 1851). Others are the Allgemeine
Zeitung des Judentums (begun 1837) and Brüll's
Populanvissenschaftliche Monatsblätter (begun 1888), both with
more or less propagandist ends in view. The Zeitschrift für
Demographie und Statistik des Judentums (begun 1905) deals with
questions of economic history only occasionally.
Sometimes one comes across papers in the general historic reviews
or in
local journals which shed a flood of light on Jewish economic
history.
But a complete list of these it would be impossible to give here.
The history of the Jews in Spain has been sufficiently dealt with.
But
unfortunately its economic aspect has been almost entirely
neglected.
I know of no more needful thing than an economic history of the
Jews
in the Pyrenean Peninsula, and I wish that some economic historian
would undertake to write it. It would most certainly illuminate the
general economic historyof Europe in a most surprising fashion.
For.260/Werner Sombart
the present, however, we must perforce consult general histories of
the Jews in Spain, and of these perhaps the best is M. Kayserling's
Geschichte der Juden in Spanien und Portugal, 2 vols. (1861-7).
The principal work in Spanish is D. José Amador de Los Rios,
Historia
social, politico y religiosa de los Judios de España y Portugal, 3
vols. (1875--8), but for our purpose it is of little use. A book
of a
different kind is E. H. Lindo's The History of the Jews of Spain
and
Portugal (1848). It contains extracts from the legal enactments
af-fecting
Jews and the decisions of the Cortes, and thus has a special
value of its own.
For Portugal the most important work is now by J. Mendes dos
Remedios,
Os Judeus em Portugal, vol. i. (1895) up to the expulsion.
It ought to be mentioned also that the volumes of Graetz,
Geschichte
der Juden, which treat of the Spanish period (7 and 8) are of great
use, because of the abundance of material which they contain. So
far
as my experience goes they have not been surpassed by any later
work.
With regard to monographic studies on the position of the Jews in
the
economic life of the Pyrenean Peninsula, I do not know of any. But
this may be due to my ignorance. Anyhow, the Jewish libraries of
Breslau and Berlin contain nothing under this head. The work of
Bento Carqueja, O capitalismo moderno e as suas origens em
Por-tugal
(1908), only just touches the problem so far as the Jews are
concerned.
23. H. J. Koenen, op. cit., p. 206.
24. Cf. art. "Banking" in Jewish Encycl.
25. For the position of the Jews in English finance during the
17th and
18th centuries we have many records. Cf. Picciotto, p. 58; Hyamson,
pp. 171, 217, 240, 264, etc.; Lucien Wolf, The Re-settlement of the
Jews in England (1888); the same author's "Crypto-Jews under the
Commonwealth," in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society
of England, vol. i. (1895); likewise his "The Jewry of the
Restora-tion
(1660--1664)," reprinted from The Jewish Chronicle (1902).
26. L. Wolf, The Jewry of the Restoration, p. 11.
27. G. Martin, La grande Industrie sous Louis XIV (1899), p. 351.
28. Victor de Swarte, Un banquier du Trésor royal au xviii siecle,
Samuel
Barnard -- sa vie -- sa correspondance, 1651--1739 (1893).
29. Kahn, Les juifs de Paris au xviii sc. (1894), p. 60.
30. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vol. 10, p. 40..The Jews and
Modern Capitalism/261
31. Wolf, Ferdinand II, Appendix 4, quoted by Graetz, vol. 10, p.
41.
32. The actual wording from Die Juden in Österreich, vol. 2
(1842), p.
41.
33. Die Juden in Österreich, vol. 2, p. 64; F. von Mensi, op.
cit., p. 132.
In the 18th century the most important creditors of the State were
(in
succession) Oppenheimer, Wertheimer, Sinzheimer; the last-named
had owing to him in 1739 no less than five million gulden. F. von
Mensi, p. 685. Cf. also David Kaufmann, Urkundliches aus dem
Leben Samson Wertheimers (1892). For the earlier period, see G.
Wolf, Ferdinand II und die Juden (1859).
34. F. von Mensi, p. 148.
35. G. Liebe, op. cit., p. 84.
36. Art. "Abensur Daniel," in Jewish Encycl.
37. A. Levy, "Notes sur l'histoire des Juifs en Saxe," in R.E.J.,
vol. 26
(1898), p. 259. For Berend (Behrend) Lehmann, alias Jisachar
Berman, see B. H. Auerbach, Geschichte der israelitischen Gemeinde
Halberstadt (1866), p. 43; for his son Lehmann Berend, see p. 85.
38. Auerbach, loc. cit., p. 82 (for Hanover); see also S. Haenle,
op. cit.,
pp. 64, 70, 89; for more cases of Hofjuden, see L. Müller, "Aus
fünf
Jahrhunderten," in the Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins fur
Schwaben und Neuburg, vol. 26 (1899), p. 142.
39. P. von Mensi, p. 409.
40. Memoiren der Glückel von Hameln [published in the original
Yid-dish
by D. Kaufmann (1896)], German translation (privately printed)
in 1910, p. 240.
41. M. Zimmermann, Josef Süss Oppenheimer, ein Finanzmann des 18
ten
Jahrhunderts (1874).
42. Address by Louis Marshall in The 250th Anniversary of the
Settle-ment
of the Jews in the U.S., p. 102.
43. H. Friedenwald, op. cit., p. 63.
44. W. Graham Sumner, The Financiers and the Finances of the
Ameri-can
Revolution, 2 vols. (1891).
Chapter 6
1. For a legal consideration of the question, see Brunner,
Endemanns
Handbuch, vol. 2, p. 147, and Goldschmidt, Universalgeschichte
des Handelsrechts (1891), p. 386. Cf. also Knies, Der Credit
(1876),
p. 190.
2. I give the "credit relationship" its most extended meaning in
the sense.262/Werner Sombart
that you create duties between persons by, the one giving an
eco-nomic
value to the other and the second promising a quid pro quo in
the future.
3. Cf. F. A. Biener, Wechselrechtliche Abhandlungen (1859), p. 145.
4. The view of Kuntze and others. See Goldschmidt, op. cit., p.
408.
5. Goldschmidt, loc. cit., p. 410, who puts the question in the
form of a
query, leaving the answer vague. See on the other hand A. Wahl,
Traité theor. et pratique des titres au porteur (1891), vol. 1, p.
15.
6. Cf. Kuntze, "Zur Geschichte der Staatspapiere auf den Inhaber,"
in
the Zeitschrift für das ges. Handelsrecht, vol. 5, p. 198; the same
writer's Inhaber Papiere (1857), pp. 58, 63; Goldschmidt, op. cit.,
pp. 448--9; Sieveking in Schmollers Jahrbuch (1902); and above all,
G. Schaps, Zur Geschichte des Wechselindossaments (1892), p. 86.
Cf. also Biener, op. cit., pp. 121, 137.
7. Goldschmidt, p. 452; Schaps, p. 92.
8. The text is given in D. Kaufmann's article in the J.Q.R., vol.
13
(1901), p. 320, "Die Vertreibung der Marranen aus Venedig im Jahre
1550."
19. Graetz, vol. 8, p. 354; vol. 9, p. 328.
10. So far as I am aware, this question has never yet been asked:
What
part did the Jews play in the Genoese fairs? It will be most
difficult to
give a satisfactory answer, because the Jews in Genoa were forced,
especially after the Edict of Expulsion in 1550, to keep secret
their
identity. Probably also they changed their names and made a
pre-tence
of accepting Christianity. Nevertheless, it would be worth while
to make the attempt Anyhow, we have here one instance where in the
post-mediaeval period a great financial and credit system was
devel-oped
without the clear proof of Jewish influence. It may be, of course,
that the proof has slipped my observation; in that case I should be
glad to have my attention drawn to it.
The best account of the Genoese fairs will be found in Ehrenberg's
Zeitalter der Fugger, vol. 2, p. 222, and Endemann, Studien in der
römisch-kanonischen Wirtschafts- und Rechtslehre, vol. 1 (1874),
p. 156. Endemann bases his conclusions chiefly on Scaccia and R, de
Turns, while Ehrenberg also relied on documents in the Fugger
ar-chives.
11. Possibly earlier, in the case of the Company of the Pairiers,
to whom
was transferred in the 12th century the mill in Toulouse, du
Basacle,
by means of securities (uchaux or saches). Cf. Edmund
Guillard,.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/263
Les opérations de Bourse (1875), p. 15.
12. Cf. K. Lehmann, Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des
Aktienrechts
(1895).
13. J. P. Rieard, Le Negoce d'Amsterdam (1723), pp. 397--400.
14. This is the conclusion arrived at by Andre E. Sayous, "Le
fractionnement du capital social de la Compagnie néerland des Indes
orientales," in Nouv. Rev. Historique du droit franç. et étrangers,
vol. 25 (1901), pp. 621, 625.
15. Cf. Endemann, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 457.
16. See instances -- 1422 in Palermo and 1606 in Bologna -- in
Goldschmidt, p. 322.
17. The most important collection of documents concerning the
history
of banking in Venice is still Elia Lattes' La libertà delle banche
e
Venezia dal secolo xiii al xvii secondo i documenti inediti del R.
Archivio del Frari ec. (1869). The subject has been dealt with by
Ferrara, "Gli antichi banchi di Venezia" in Nuova Antologia, vol.
xvi.; E. Nasse, "Das venetianische Bankwesen in 14, 15, und 16
Jahrhundert," in the Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie, vol. 34, pp.
329, 338. To show the share of the Jews in Venetian banking would
be a welcome piece of work. But it would be most difficult of
accom-plishment
because, so far as I can judge, the Jews in Venice already
in the 15th century were the most part New Christians, often
holding
high offices and having Christian names.
18. Macleod, Dictionary of Political Economy, art. "Bank of Venice"
(? authorities), quoted by A. Andreades, History of the Bank of
En-gland
(1909), p. 28.
19. "Gallicioli Memorie Venete," ii.. No. 874, in Graetz, vol. 6,
p. 284.
20. S. Luzzato, Dis. circa il state degli Hebrei in Venezia
(1638), ch. 1,
and pp. 9a, 29a. The figures need not be taken too seriously; they
are
only an estimate.
21. See, for instance, D. Manuel Calmeiro, Historia de la economia
politico en España, vol. 1, p. 411; vol. 2, p. 497.
22. See A. Andréades, History of the Bank of England (1909), p. 28.
That will certainly have to be the conclusion if importance is
at-tached
to the scheme (1658) of Samuel Lambe (printed in Sower's
Tracts, vol. vi). Andréades actually dates the first idea of the
Bank
from Lambe's scheme. There was a scheme previous to that --
Balthasar Gerbier's in 1651, and between that year and 1658
Cromwell
had allowed the Jews to settle in this country. For my own part
I.264/Werner Sombart
cannot admit "the superiority" of Lambe's scheme. But other writers
also lay stress on the very great share of the Jews in the
establishment
of the Bank of England.
23. For instances of public debt bonds, see Walter Däbritz, Die
Staatsschulden Sachsens in der Zeit von 1763 bis 1837, Doctoral
Dissertation (1906), pp. 14, 55; E. von Philippovich, Die Bank von
England (1885), p. 26; also, Ehrenberg, Fugger [note 10, Chapter
6], vol. 2, pp. 141, 299.
24. Ad. Beer, Das Staatsschuldenwesen und die Ordnung de
Staatshaushalts unter Maria Theresia (1894), p. 13.
25. Cf. F. von Mensi, op. cit., p. 34.
26. Witness a pamphlet little known generally (even Däbritz, op.
cit;
has overlooked it), to which I should like to call attention. It
has a
very long title: "Ephraim justifié. Mémoire historique et raisonné
sur
l'Etat passé, présent et futur des finances de Saxe. Avec le
parallele
de l'Oeconomie prussienne et de l'Oeconomie saxonne. Ouvrage utile
aux Créaneiers et Correspondans, aux Amis et aux Ennemis de la
Prusse et de la Saxe. Adressé par le Juif Ephraim de Berlin à son
Cousin Manassés d'Amsterdam. Eriangen. A l'enseigne de Tout est
dit.'" 1785.
27. Cf. (Luzac) Richesse de la Hollande, vol. 2 (1778), p. 200.
Also
vol. 1, p. 366. Luzac, besides his own personal experiences, must
have also used Fermin, Tableau de Surinam (1778).
28. Chief among them Kuntze, Die Lehre van den Inhaberpapieren
(1857), p. 48, which is still unsurpassed. We may mention besides,
Albert Wahl, Traité théorique et pratique des titres au porteur
français et étrangers, 2 vols. (1891).
The best history of mediaeval credit instruments is that of H.
Brunner,
Das französische Inhaberpapier (1879). Cf. also his "Zur Geschichte
des Inhaberpapiers in Deutschland," in the Zeitschrift für das
gesammte Handelsrecht, vols. 21 and 23. For Holland, see F. Hecht,
Geschichte der Inhaberpapier in den Niederlanden (1869), p. 4.
By the way, it is interesting to note that credit instruments have
been
said to be of Hellenic origin. Cf. Goldschmidt, "Inhaber- Order-
und
exekutorische Urkunden im Klassischen Altertum," in Zeitschrift für
Rechtsgeschichte Roms, vol. 10 (1889), p. 352.
But Goldschmidt's view is not generally accepted. Cf. Benedict
Prese,
Aus dem gräko-ägyptischen Rechtsleben (1909), p. 26. Another
criti-cism
of Goldsehmidt's theory may be found in H. Brunner,.The Jews and
Modern Capitalism/265
"Forschungen zur Geschichte des deutschen und französischen
Rechts," in his Gesammelte Aufsätze (1894), p. 604.
Brunner also deals with the same problem in his Französische
Inhaberpapier, pp. 28, 57.
Made casually by Kuntze, but rejected by Goldschmidt in the
Zeitschrift
für Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 10, p. 355.
Also rejected by Salvioli, I titoli al portatore nella storia del
diritto
italiano (1883).
29. Cf. L. Auerbach, Das judische Obligationenrecht, vol. 1
(1871), p.
270. Other passages from rabbinic literature are given in Hirsch B.
Fassel, Das mosaisch-rabbinische Zivilrecht, vol. 2, Part 3 (1854),
§ 1390; Frankel, Der gerichtliche Beweis nach mosaischem Recht
(1846), p. 386; Saalschutz, Mosaisches Recht, 2 vols. (1848), p.
862.
30. For the Mamre, cf. L. L'Estocq, Exercitatio de indole et jure
instru-ment!
Judceis usitati cui nomen "Mamre" est (1775), §vii; J. M. G.
Besekes, Thes. jur. Camb., Part II (1783), pp. 1169, 1176; P.
Bloch,
Der Mamran, der judisch-polnische Wechselbrief.
31. Ehrenberg, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 141.
32. Brunner, op. cit., p. 69.
33. Schaps, op. cit., p. 121.
34. Ibid.
35. Cf. F. Hecht, op. cit; p. 44.
36. Hecht, p. 96.
37. Dabritz, op. cit., p. 53.
38. Kuntze, op. cit., p. 85.
39. Straccha, Tract. de assicur. (1568).
40. A. Wahl, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 15, 84.
41. Hecht, op. cit., p. 37.
42. Cf. J. H. Bender, Der Verkehr mit Staatspapieren (2 ed.,
1830), p.
167.
43. "Ex diversis animi motibus in unum consentiunt, id est in unam
sententiam decurrunt" (Ulp., L. I. §3, D. de pact., 2, 14).
44. Cf. Goldschmidt, op. cit., p. 393.
45. I am indebted for what follows above all to L. Auerbach, op.
cit.,
vol. 1, pp. 163, 251, 513. This work (unfortunately uncompleted) is
written in a most suggestive fashion and deserves to be widely
known.
For it is one of the best accounts of Talmudic law in existence. Of
much less importance, yet useful nevertheless, are the works
of.266/Werner Sombart
Saalschutz, op. cit.; H. B. Fassel, op. cit.; J. J. M. Rabbinowicz,
Législation du Talmud, vol. 3 (1878); Frankel, op. cit. On the
basis
of Goldschmidt's translation of the Talmud, J. Kohler attempted a
"Darstellung des talmudischen Rechts" in Zeitschrift für
vergleichende
Rechtswissenschaft, vol. 20 (1908), pp. 161--264. Cf. the criticism
of V. Aptowitzer in the Monatsschrift (1908), pp. 37--56.
46. Otto Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland während des mittelalters
(1866), pp. 119, 242; Sachsenspiegel, III, 7, § 4.
47. Goldschmidt, op. cit., p. 111.
48. (Isaac de Pinto) Traité de la circulation du crédit (1771),
pp. 64,
67--68. Cf. also E. Guillard, op. cit., p. 534. See also Dabritz,
op.
cit., p. 18, for illustrations.
49. Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 244. We owe most of what we know
about the history of the Stock Exchanges to Ehrenberg.
50. Cf. Kaufmann, op. cit.
51. Van Hemert, Lectuur voor het ontbijt en de Theetafel, VII de .
Stuk, p.
118, quoted by Koenen, op. cit., p. 212.
52. H. Stephanus, Francofordiense Emporium sive Francofordienses
Nundinae (1574), p. 24.
53. Quoted by Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 248.
54. Memoirs, p. 297.
55. Given by M. Grunwald, op. cit., p. 21.
56. S. Haenle, op. cit; p. 173. Die Juden in Österreich, vol. 2
(1842), p.
41.
57. In a report of the Sous-Intendant, M. de Courson, dated 11
June,
1718, quoted by Malvezin, op. cit.
58. E. Meyer, "Die Literatur für und wider die Juden in Schweden in
Jahre 1815," in Monatsschrift, vol. 57 (1907), p. 522.
59. H. Sieveking, "Die Kapitalistische Entwickelung in den
italienischen
Städten des Mittelalters," in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Soziale-
und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. 7, p. 85.
60. Saravia della Calle, "Institutione de' Mercanti," in Compendia
utilissimo di quelle cose le quali a Nobili e Christiani mercanti
appartengono (1561), p. 42. Also, art. "Borsenwesen" in
Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenshaften.
61. H. Sieveking, Genueser Finanzwesen, vol. i. (1898), pp. 82,
175.
62. The most reliable sources for the history of Stock Exchange
dealing
in Amsterdam in the first decades of the 17th century are the
Plakate
of the States General, which prohibit this sort of business.
Reference.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/267
should also be made to the controversial pamphlets of the period on
this topic, more especially those written by the opponent of stock
and
share dealing, Nicolas Muys van Holy. See Laspeyres, Geschichte
der volkswirtschaftlichen Anschauungen (1863). Not to be omitted
is also de la Vega's book, about which more in due course. For the
subsequent period there is much valuable material in books on
Com-merce,
notably J. P. Ricard, Le négoce a'Amsterdam (1723), from
whom later writers quote. The works of Joseph de Pinto dating from
the second half of the 18th century [see note 48], are also very
useful.
Of recent books the following may be mentioned: G. C. Klerk de
Reus, op. cit., S. van Brakel, De Holland, Hand. Comp. der xvii.
eeuv (1908).
63. In the periodical De Koopman, vol. 2, pp. 429, 439, quoted by
Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 333.
64. Pinto, De la Circulation, op. cit., p. 84.
65. Kohler, op. cit.
66. Israel, op. cit.
67. Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 336, gives a fairly lengthy
extract
from this remarkable book.
68. Extrait d'un mémoire présenté en 1692, from the Archives of the
French Foreign Office, published in the Revue historique, vol. 44
(1895). I am indebted to my friend Andre E. Sayous, of Paris, for
having called my attention to this article.
69. "The Anatomy of Exchange Alley, or a System of Stock-jobbing"
(1719). Printed in J. Francis's Stock Exchange (1849), Appendix.
70. Art. "Brokers" in Jewish Encycl.
71. J. Piccotto, op. cit., p. 58.
72. Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, vol 2 (1755), p.
554.
73. Tovey, Anglia Judaica, p. 297.
74. As would appear from a complaint of the Christian merchants, of
the year 1685, mentioned by Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 248.
75. M. Grunwald, op. cit; p. 6.
76. Postlethwayt, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 95.
77. Joseph Jacobs, "Typical Character of Anglo-Jewish History," in
J.Q.R., vol. 10 (1898), p. 230.
78. Ranke, Französische Geschichte, vol. 4 3 , p. 399.
79. Melon, Essai pol. sur le commerce (1734), éd. Davie, p. 685.
80. See Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 142..268/Werner Sombart
81. (Du Hautchamp) Histoire du système des Finances sous la
minorité
de Louis XV, vol. 1 (1739), p. 184.
82. Oscar de Vallée, Les Manieurs d'argent (1858), p. 41.
83. P. A. Cochut, Law, son système et son époque (1853), p. 33.
84. E. Drumont, La France Juive (1904), vol. 1, p. 259.
85. All the figures are from Von den Gilde-Dienern Friedrich
Wilhelm
Arendt und Abraham Charles Rousset herausgegebenen
Verzeichnissen... der gegenwärtigen Aelter-Manner, etc. (1801).
86. In the Hamburger Münz- und Medaillenvergnügen (1753), p. 143,
No. 4, there is a coin struck in commemoration of the trade in
stocks
and shares.
87. Raumburger, in the preface to his Justitia selects Gent. Eur.
in
Cambiis, etc.
88. Kiesselbech, op. cit., p. 24.
89. The case is mentioned and discussed by von Gönner, Von
Staatsschulden, deren Tilgungsanstalten und vom Handel mit
Staatspapieren (1826), §30.
90. Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 533. Cf. also the very informing
article, "Monied
Interest," p. 284.
91. See articles "Monied Interest" and "Paper Credit" in
Postlethwayt,
vol. 2, pp. 284 and 404.
92. D. Hume, Essays, vol. (1793), p. 110.
93. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, ch. 3.
94. Von Gönner, op. cit., § 31.
95. Pinto, op. cit: pp. 310--11.
96. Ehrenberg, Fugger, vol. 2, p. 299.
97. I must content myself with mentioning the following three works
which appear to me to be the best: Das Haus Rothschild. Seine
Geschichte und seine Geschäfte, 1 Parts (1857); John Reeves, The
Rothschilds: the Financial Rulers of Nations (1887); R. Ehrenberg,
Grosse Vermögen, etc., vol. 1, "Die Fugger-Rothschild-Krupp" (2nd
ed., 1905).
98. J. H. Bender, Der Verkehr mit Staatspapieren (2nd ed., 1830),
p.
145.
99. E.g., von Gönner, op. cit., p. 60; Bender, p. 142.
100. Das Haus Rothschild, vol. 2, p. 216.
101. A. Crump, The Theory of Stock Exchange (1873). Reprinted 1903,
p. 100.
102. Von Mensi, op. cit.. p. 54..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/269
103. Ad. Beer, op. cit., p. 43.
104. J. H. Bender, op. cit., p. 5.
105. J. Francis, Stock Exchange, p. 161.
106. Das Haus Rothschild, vol. 2 (1857), p. 85.
107. The best books on this period in Germany are, despite their
preju-dice
and one-sidedness. Otto Glagau's Der Börsen- und
Gröndungsschwindel in Berlin (1876) and Der Börsen- und
Gründungsschwindel in Deutschland (1877). These books are
par-ticularly
useful for the short historical sketches of the different
com-panies,
giving the names of the founders and the first directors. Cf.
also the annual issues of Saling's Börsenpapieren, and Rudolf
Meyer,
Die Aktiengesellschaften, 1872--3 (which, however, deal only with
banks). The figures given in the text were supplied by Mr. Arthur
Loewenstein, at my request.
108. M. Wirth, Geschichte der Handelskrisen (3rd ed., 1883), p.
184.
109. Riesser, Entwicklungsgeschichte der deutschen Grossbanken
(1905), p. 48.
110. For a glorification of this policy see J. E. Kuntze, op.
cit., p. 23.
111. A. Beer, op. cit., p. 35.
112. C. Hegemann, De Entwickelung des franzosischen
Grossbankbetriebes (1908), p. 9.
113. Books of reference are given fully in J. Plenge, Gründung und
Geschichte des Crèdit mobilier (1903).
114. Model-Loeb, Die Grossen Berliner Effectenbanken (1895), p. 43
-- an excellent book, from which the information in the text is
taken
in so far as it is not my own personal knowledge.
115. Cf. R. Ehrenberg, Fondsspekulation (1883), and Adolf Weber,
Depositenbanken und Spekulationsbanken (1902).
116. See for instance A. Gomoll, Die Kapitalistische Mausefalle
(1908).
Despite its curious title the book deals seriously with Stock
Exchange
speculations and is one of the best pieces of work recently
published.
117. Mostly from local histories, too numerous to mention here.
Chapter 7
1. König, op. cit., p. 97.
2. "Zur Geschichte der Juden in Danzig," in Monatsschrift, vol. 6
(1857),
p. 243.
3. M. Güdemann, "Zur Geschichte der Juden in Magdeburg," in
Monatsschrift, vol. 14 (1865), p. 370..270/Werner Sombart
4. Quoted by Liebe, op. cit., pp. 91--2.
5. Regesten, in Hugo Barbeck's Geschichte der Juden in Nürnberg und
Fürth (1878), p. 68.
6. See, for instance, the conduct of the Berlin Retailers' Gild as
related
in Geiger's Geschichte der Juden in Berlin, vol. 2 (1871), pp. 24,
31.
7. Josiah Child, Discourse on Trade, 4th ed., p. 152. Child
reports the
prevailing opinion without saying one word by way of criticism. But
he does make it clear that the accusation levelled against the
Jews is
no crime at all.
8. See extracts from the polemical pamphlets of the period in
Hyamson,
p. 274.
9. Given in Leon Brunschvicg, "Les Juifs en Bretagne au 18 sc.," in
R.E.J.. vol. 33 (1876), pp. 88, 111.
10. "Les Juifs et les Communautés d'Arts et Métiers," in R.E.J.,
vol.
36, p. 75.
11. M. Maignial, La question juive en France en 1789 (1903),
contains
a great deal of material from which the prevailing feeling among
French merchants against the Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries
becomes apparent.
12. "L'admission de cette espèce d'hommes ne peut être que très
dangereuse. On peut les comparer à des guêpes qui ne s'introduisent
dans les ruches que pour tuer les abeilles, leur ouvrir le ventre
et en
tirer le miel qui est dans leurs entrailles: tels sont les juifs."
-- Requête
des marchands et négociants de Paris contre l'admission des Juifs
(1777), p. 14, quoted by Maignial, op. cit., p. 92.
13. The opinion of Wegelin is given by Ernst Meyer, op. cit., pp.
513,
522.
14. Czacki, Rosprava o Zydach, p. 82; cf. Graetz, vol. 9, p. 443.
Al-most
word for word the same cry is heard from Rumania, cf. Verax,
La Roumanie et les Juifs (1903).
15. Maignial, p. 92.
16. Philander von Sittewaldt, op. cit.
17. Georg Paul Honn, Betrugs-Lexicon, worinnen die moisten
Betrügereyen in allen Standen nebst denen darwider guten Theils
aienenden Mittein endeckt, Dritte Edition (1724).
18. Allgemeine Schatzkammer der Kaufmannschaft oder vollständiges
Lexikon aller Handlungen und Gewerbe, vol. 2 (1741) p. 1158.
19. Charakteristik von Berlin. Stimme ernes Kosmopoliten in der
Wüste.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/271
(1784), p. 203.
20. J. Savary (OEuvre posthume, continue . . . par Phil-Louis
Savary),
Dictionnaire universel de Commerce, vol. 2 (1726), p. 447.
21. Allgemeine Schatzkammer, vol. 1 (1741), p. 17.
22. Allgemeine Schatzkammer, vol. 3 (1742), p. 1325.
23. This is only the expression of the mediaeval view. It is
excellently
well discussed in R. Eberstadt, Französische Gewerberecht (1899),
p. 378.
24. D. Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman, 1st ed., 1726. I have
used the 2nd edition in 1 vol. (1727), and the 5th edition in 2
vols.
(1745), published after the author's death. The passage cited in
the
text is from the 1st ed., p. 82.
25. Allgemeine Schatzkammer, vol. 3, p. 148.
26. Ibid.. vol. 4, p. 677.
27. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 1325.
28. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 1326.
29. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1392 -- "Sachsischen Krämer-Ordnungen" Of
1672,
1682, and 1692, §18.
30. See the highly instructive Letter (No. 19 in the 2nd ed.,
correspond-ing
to No. 22 in the 5th) "Of fine shops and fine shews."
31. Jules de Bock, Le Journal à trovers les âges (1907), p. 30,
quoted
in F. Kellen, Studien über das Zeitungswesen (1907), p. 253.
32. Much useful information, especially as regards England, will be
found in Henry Sampson's History of Advertising from the Earliest
Times (1875), pp. 76, 83.
33. M. Postlethwayt, A Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce,
2 vols. (1741), 2nd ed. (1757), vol. 1, p. 22. Postlethwayt calls
his
work a translation of Savary's Lexicon, but in reality there are so
many additions in it that it may be regarded as original. It
should be
mentioned by the way that the work is an invaluable source of
infor-mation
concerning economic conditions in England in the 18th cen-tury.
34. Savary, Dict. du Commerce (1726), Suppl. 1732.
35. P. Datz, Histoire de la Publicité (1894), p. 161, contains a
facsimile
of the whole of the first issue of Les Petites Affiches.
36. Allgemeine Schatzkammer, vol. 4, p. 677.
37. D. Defoe, op. cit., vol. 5 2 , p. 163.
38. Cf. G. Martin, La grande Industrie sous Louis XV (1900), p.
247.
39. Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade, 4th ed., p.
159..272/Werner Sombart
040. Such teaching is met with as early as the later 16th century.
Saravia
della Calle, whom I regard as of supreme importance in the history
of
the theory of just price, goes so far as to deduce it from the
relation-ship
of supply and demand. His work, together with that of Venuti
and Fabiano, is printed in the Compendia utilissimo.
41. (Mercier) Tableau de Paris, vol. 11 (1788), p. 40.
42. "A Paris on court, on se presse parce qu'on y est oisif; ici
l'on
marche posément, parce que l'on y est occupé." Quoted by J. Godard,
L'Ouvrier en Sole, vol. 1 (1899), pp. 38--9.
43. Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser, written by himself. Selected
Biographies, vol. 2, p. 280; Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 324, quoted
by Buckle, History of Civilization, vol. 2, p. 377.
44. Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, quoted by Buckle,
loc. cit.
45. Allgemeine Schatzkammer, vol. 4 (1742), p. 666.
46. See, for instance, Mercier, Tableau de Paris, vol. 2, p. 71.
47. Samuel Lambe, in his scheme for a national bank [see note 22,
Chapter 6] speaks of the low commercial morality of English
mer-chants
as compared with the reliability of (say) the Dutch
48. Owen Felltham in his Observations (1652), quoted by Douglas
Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, vol. 2
(1892), p. 327.
49. This accusation was levelled against the Jews from the early
medi-aeval
period down almost to this very day. Cf. G. Caro, Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden, vol. 1 (1908), p. 222; Bloch, op.
cit., p. 12; article "Juden," in Allgemeine Schatzkammer; von
Justi,
Staatswirtschaft, vol. 1 (1758), p. 150. For Germany more
espe-cially,
see Liebe, Das Judenthum in der deutschen Vergangenheit
(1903).
50. According to a Minute Book of the Portuguese community in
Ham-burg
-- A. Feilchenfeld, "Die alteste Geschichte der deutschen Juden
in Hamburg," in Monatsschrift, vol. 43 (1899), p. 279.
51. Geyler von Kaiserberg's sermon on the 93rd "Narrengeschwarm,"
in S. Brandt's Narrenschiff (to be found in the collection called
Das
Kloster, vol. I, p. 722, published by J. Scheible). Cf. Oskar
Franke,
Der Jude in den deutschen Dichtungen des 15, 16, und 17
Jahrhunderts (1905), especially section 4.
52. Quoted by A. M. Dyer, op. cit; p. 44.
53. Will. Ussellinx, quoted by Jameson, in Transactions of the
Jewish.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/273
Historical Society of America, vol. 1, p. 42. For Usselinx, see E.
Laspeyres, Volkswirtschaftliche Ansichten der Niederlande (1863),
p. 59.
54. Savary, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 449.
55. See Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of America,
vol.
3, p. 44.
56. Josiah Child, Discourse on Trade, 4th ed., p. 152.
57. Cf. R. Ehrenberg, Grosse Vermogen, 2nd ed., p. 147.
58. Annalen der Juden, pp. 106--17.
59. Liebe, Das Judentum, p. 34.
60. Risbeck, op. cit. Cf. also Scheube, op. cit., p. 393.
61. Uber das Verhältniss der Juden zu den Christen in den deutschen
Handelsstadten (1818), pp. 171, 252, 270, 272.
62. See R.E.J., vol. 33, p. 111.
63. H. Bodemeyer, Die Juden. Bin Beitrag zur Hannoverschen
Rechtsgeschichte (1855), p. 68.
64. See Albert Wolf, "Etwas über jüdische Kunst und ältere judische
Künstler," in Mitteilungen zur jüdischen Volkskunde, edited by M.
Grunwald, vol. 1 (1905), p. 34.
65. See Ehrenberg, Grosse Vermögen, p. 147.
66. The documents are printed in Kracauer's "Beiträge zur
Geschichte
der Frankfurter Juden im 30 jährigen Kriege," in Zeitschrift für
die
Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, vol. 3 (1899), p. 147. Cf.
Schudt, op. cit: vol. 2, 164.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Annalen der Juden, op. cit., pp. 97, 106--17.
70. Ibid.
71. Versuch über die judischen Bewohner der österreichischen
Monarchie (1804), p. 83. Contains much valuable material.
72. L. Hoist, Judentum in alien dessen Teilen aus einem
staatswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte betrachtet (1821), pp. 293--4.
73. "Les fripiers de Paris qui sont à la plus part Juifs," Noel du
Fail,
Contes d'Eutrapel, xxiv, quoted by G. Fagniez, L'économie sociale
de la France sous Henry IV (1897), p. 217.
74. Mercier, Tableau de Paris, vol. 2, p. 253. In Breslau this
method of
attracting custom is not unknown, and is called
"Ärmelausreissgeschäfte."
75. Romani, Eines edien Wallachen landwirtschaftliche Reise
durch.274/Werner Sombart
verschiedene Landschaften Europas. Zweyter Theil (1776), p. 150.
Cf. Schudt, vol. 2, p. 164.
76. Über das Verhältniss, etc., p. 184.
77. Jules de Bock, op. cit; p. 30.
78. Max J. Kohler, op. cit.
79. Bloch, op. cit., p. 30.
80. Hyamson, Jews in England, p. 274.
81. S. Kahn, "Les Juife de Montpellier an 18 siècle," in R.E.J.
vol. 33
(1896), p. 290.
82. Leon Brunschvicg, op. cit; p. 111.
83. "Requête des marchands," etc., p. 234.
84. L. Kahn, Les Juifs de Paris au XVIII sc., p. 71.
85. Justin Godard, L'Ouvrier en Soie (1899), p. 224.
86. For Wegelin's view, see Meyer, op. cit., p. 522.
87. Cf. Czacki, op. cit.; Graetz, op. cit.; and Verax, op. cit.
88. Annalen, p. 97.
89. F. Bothe, Beiträge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozial-Geschichte der
Reichstadt Frankfurt (1906), p. 74.
90. Bericht der Kriegs- und Domanenkammer über den wirtschafflichen
Niedergang des Herzogtums Magdeburg (1710), quoted by Liebe,
Das Judentum, p. 91.
91. Romani, op. cit; p. 147.
92. In Geschichte der Juden in der Reichstadt Augsburg (1803), p.
42.
93. Von Mensi, op. cit., p. 367.
94. Allgemeine Schatzkamnier, vol. 2, p. 1158.
95. Will. Usselinx, quoted by Jameson, in Transactions of the
Jewish
Historical Society of America, vol. 1, p. 42. For Ussellinx, see E.
Laspeyres, Volkswirtschaftliche Ansichten der Niederlande (1863),
1. 59.
96. Mercier, op. cit.
97. R.E.J., vol. 33, p. 111, in Kahn, op. cit.
98. Lambe, op. cit.
99. Le cri du citoyen centre les juifs de Metz (18 sc.), quoted by
Maignial,
op. cit.
100. See Bothe, op. cit., p. 74.
101. Felltham, op. cit. "Cette nation ne fait fabriquer que des
étoffes
inférieures et de mauvaise qualité."
102. Quoted by Liebe, Das Judentum. p. 91,
103. N. Roubin, "La vie commerciale des juifs contadines en
Languedoc,".The Jews and Modern Capitalism/275
in R.E.J. vols. 34, 35, and 36.
104. Uber das Verhältniss, etc., p. 254.
105. Liebe, op. cit.
106. Juden, sind sie der Eandlung schädlich? (1803), p. 25.
107. Graetz, vol. 9, p. 445.
108. Romani, op. cit., p. 148.
109. I am indebted to Mr. Josef Reizman for kindly calling my
attention
to this passage.
110. Child, Discourse on Trade, p. 152.
111. Hyamson, p. 274.
112. R.E.J. vol. 33, p. 290.
113. L. Hoist, op. cit., p. 290.
114. See note 61, Chapter 7.
115. Hoist, op. cit.. p. 288.
116. R.E.J. vol. 36.
117. R.E.J. vol. 33, p. 289.
118. Annalen, p. 90.
119. From a Memorandum, dated January 9, 1786, of the Hungarian
Court Chancery; again I am indebted to Mr. Josef Reizman.
120. Königlichen Staatsarchiv (Mr. Ludwig Davidsohn informed me of
it).
121. "In the U.S.A. the most striking characteristic of Jewish
commerce
is found in the large number of department stores held by Jewish
firms." Art. "Commerce," in Jewish Encycl. (vol. 4, p. 192).
122. See the lists of firms in J. Hirsch, Das Warenhaus in
Westdeutschland (1910).
123. Juden, sind sie der Handlung schädlich?, p. 33.
124. Henry Sampson, A History of Advertising (1875), p. 68.
Chapter 9
1. For a fuller account of the subject of this chapter, see an
article of
mine, "Der Kapitalistische Untemehmer," in Archiv für soziale
Wissenschaft und Soziale Politik, vol. 29.
Chapter 10
1. M. Kayserling, op. cit., p. 708.
2. An account of the Jewish world-famed firms of his time is given
by
Manasseh ben Israel in his Humble Address to Cromwell. The story
of the single families may be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia,
which.276/Werner Sombart
is especially good for biographies.
3. "Lettres écrites de la Suisse, d'Italie," etc., in Encycl.
mèth. Manuf.,
vol. 1, p. 407. Cf. the opinion of Jovet, quoted by Schudt,
Jüdische
Merkwürdigkeiten, vol. 1, p. 228.
4. The Spectator, No. 495.
5. Revue Historique, vol. 44 (1890).
6. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 323.
7. These instances of Jewish diplomatists are generally known. The
num-ber
could easily be added to. Any one specially interested in this
question should refer to Graetz, where abundant material will be
found
(e.g., vol. 6, pp. 85, 224; vol. 8. ch. 9, etc.).
8. M. Kayserling, Christopher Columbus (1894), p. 106.
9. H. J. Koenen, op. cit; p. 206.
10. Edmund Bonaffé, Dictionnaire des amateurs français cm XVII
siècle
(1881), p. 191.
11. Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. 3, p. 577.
12. (v. Kortum) Über Judentum und Juden (1795), p. 165.
13. Ibid.. p. 90.
14. R.E.J., vol. 23 (1891), p. 90.
15. M. de Maulde, Les juifs dans les Etats français du Saint-Siège
(1886).
The legal position of the Jews generally is treated fully in the
current
Jewish histories, most of which are in reality nothing more than
the
history of the legal position of the Jews. Indeed, a goodly number
of
their authors imagine they are writing economic history when all
the
time it is just legal history they aredealing with. For records,
consult
the article "Juden" in Krünitz (vol. 31) and Sehudt, Jüdische
Merkwurdigkeiten (specially for Frankfort). For France, see
Halphen,
Recueil des lois, etc., concernant les Israëlites (1851); for
Prussia,
L. von Rönne and Heinrich Simon, Die früheren und gegenwärtigen
Verhaltnisse der Juden in den sämtlichen Landesteilen des
preussischen Staates (1843). All the laws quoted in the text I have
taken from this collection. A. Michaelis, Die Rechtsverhältnisse
der
Juden in Preussen seit dem Beginn des 19 Jahrhunderts: Gesetze,
Eriasse, Verordnungen, Entscheidungen (1910).
16. Cf. B. Bento Carqueja, op. cit., pp. 73, 82, 91.
17. Wagenaar, Beschrijving van Amsterdam, quoted by Koenen, op.
cit., p. 142. Further, for the wealth of the Dutch Jews (greatly
exag-gerated)
see Schudt, vol. 1 (1714), p. 277; vol. 4 (1717), p. 208. Cf.
M. Mission, Reise nach Italien (1713), p. 43. Of newer books,
M..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/277
Henriquez Pimentel, op. cit., p. 34.
18. Memoiren, p. 134.
19. Savary, Dict.. vol. 2 (1726), p. 448.
20. Lucien Wolf, The Jewry of the Restoration, 1660--1664, p. 11.
21. See H. Reils, "Beiträge zur ältesten Geschichte der Juden in
Ham-burg,"
in Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische Geschichte, vol.
2 (1847), pp. 357, 380, 405; and M. Grunwald, op. cit., pp. 16, 26,
35.
22. In M. Grunwald's Hamburgs deutsche Juden, pp. 20, 191.
23. F. Bothe, Die Enfwickelung der direkten Besteuerung der
Reichsstadt
Frankfurt (1906), p. 166, Tables 10 and 15.
24. Kraeauer, op. cit., p. 341.
25. Alexander Dietz, Stammbuch der Frankfurter Juden (1907), p.
408.
26. L. Geiger, Geschichte der Juden in Berlin (1871), vol. 1, p.
43.
Chapter 11
1. M. Lazarus, Ethik des Judentums (1904), pp. 67, 85, etc.[There
is an
English edition of this book issued by the Jewish Publication
Society
of America.]
2. Hermann Cohen, "Das Problem der jüdischen Sittenlehre. Eine
Kritik
(adverse) von Lazarus' Ethik des Judentums," in Monatsschrift, vol.
43, p. 385.
3. Orach Chajim, § 8.
4. Quoted by F. Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie (1880), p. 273.
5. J. Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte, p. 340.
6. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 411. Graetz also has an excellent
appreciation of
the Talmud (one-sided of course, and optimistic), and its
influence in
Judaism.
7. J. Fromer, Vom Ghetto zur modernen Kultur (1906), p. 247.
8. M. Kayserling, Columbus (1894), ch. vi.
9. Das Haus Rothschild, vol. 1 (1857), p. 186.
10. This is not the place to enter into an account of the results
of Bibli-cal
criticism. All I can do here is to mention a few books that may
serve as an introduction to the subject: Zittel, Die Entstehung der
Bibel (5th ed., 1891); for the history of the Pentateuch, Adalbert
Merx, Die Bücher Moses und Josua (1907), and Ed. Meyer, Die
Entstehung des Judentums (1896).
11. W. Frankenberg, "Die Sprüche, übersetzt und erläutert," in
Handkommentar wm Alten Testament, herausgegeben von D.
W..278/Werner Sombart
Nowack. On p. 16 there is a list of books for the Wisdom
Literature.
See also Henri Traband, La loi mosaïque, ses origines et son
développement (1903), p. 77.
12. Cf. M. Friedlander, Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik (1903).
13. Books about the Talmud form a small library in themselves. I
can
only mention one or two to serve as an introduction to the subject.
The best is H. L. Strack's Einleitung in den Talmud (4th ed.,
1908),
which also contains a pretty full bibliography. For Talmudic
Ethics,
see Salo Stein's Materialien zur Ethik des Talmud (1904). Talmudic
scholars, however, do not apprize this book very highly. A more
re-cent
book is by J. Fromer, who hasoccupied himself with Talmudic
and later Jewish literature. See his Die Organization des Judentums
(1908), which is intended to serve as an Introduction to a big
Ency-clopedic
Dictionary of the Talmud, which Fromer has planned. An-other
book which deals with the sources is E. Schürer, Geschichte
des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, in 3 vols. The
first
(2nd ed., 1890) in § 3 contains an extensive bibliography. In
addi-tion,
the standard Jewish histories, especially Graetz, deal with this
aspect of Jewish literature.
To comprehend the spirit of the Talmud it is necessary to read the
text
itself. There is a German translation (almost complete) by Lazarus
Goldschmidt. The Talmud has this characteristic: that although the
sections follow each other in some fixed order, yet not one of
them is
strictly limited as regards its subject matter. They all deal with
prac-tically
the whole field of Talmudic subjects. Hence by studying one
or more of the (63) Tractates, it is comparatively easy to obtain
a fair
notion of the contents of the whole, and certainly, to find one's
way
about in the great sea. Specially to be recommended is the Tractate
Baba Mezia and its two sister tractates [Baba Kama and Baba
Bafhra]. There is a good edition of Baba Mezia, with an
introduction
and a translation by Dr. Sammter (1876).
A special branch of Tahnudic literature is composed of the
so-called
"Minor Tractates," usually found in an appendix to the Talmud,
though
often published separately. These are Derech Erez Rabba (3rd
cen-tury),
Aboth, Aboth de R. Nathan, Derech Erez Zutta (9th century,
according to Zunz). Zunz calls them Ethical Hagadoth because of
their obvious intention of teaching practical wisdom. They have had
no small influence on the development of the Jewish people and are
therefore of great interest to us here. Next to the Bible, these
tractates.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/279
enjoyed a widespread popularity. They formed the principal reading
of the layman, unacquainted with the Talmud. They were (are) found
in Prayer Books and devotional literature. Some of them have been
issued in German translations. R. Nathan's System der Ethik und
Moral, translated by Kaim Pollock (1905). Derech Erez Zutta,
trans-lated
by A. Tawrogi (1885). Derech Erez Rabba, translated by M.
Goldberg (1888). We must also mention the Tosephta, which con-tains
the teaching not included in the Mishna. This also dates from
the period of the Tanaim and is arranged like the Mishna.
Finally, a word as to the Rabbinical commentaries or Midrashim,
which
are partly halachic [i.e., legal] and partly hagadic [i.e., moral
and
edifying]. The oldest of them, mostly halachic, are Mechilta (on
Exodus), Siphra (on Leviticus), and Siphre (on Numbers and
Deuteronomy).
The Targumim are the Aramaic translations of the O.T.
14. There is no good translation of the Shulchan Aruch. The only
avail-able
one is by Lowe (1837), which is incomplete and one-sided. On
the other hand, the Orach Chajim and the Jore Deah have been
pub-lished
in a German dress by Rabbi P. Lederer (1906 and 1900), but
not in a complete form.
As for works on the Shulchan Aruch, they are mostly of the nature
of
apologetic pamphlets. Anti-Semites have turned to the S. A. for
ma-terial
to attack Jews and Judaism; and Jewish scholars have naturally
replied. We may mention, for instance, A. Lewin, Der Judenspiegel
des Dr. Justus (1884), and D. Hoffmann, Der Schulchan Aruch und
die Rabbiner über das Verhältniss der Juden zu Andersgldäuigen
(1885). Thus there is no subjective treatment of the Shulchan
Aruch,
though it deserves as thorough a consideration as the Talmud. The
only strictly scientific book with which I am acquainted and which
should be mentioned in this connexion is S. Back's Die
religionsgeschichtliche Literatur der Juden in dem Zeitraume vom
15-18 Jahrhundert (1893), reprinted from Winter and Wiinsche, Die
jüldische Literatur seit Abschluss des Kanons, vol. 2. But Back's
book is not big and his treatment therefore can only be of the
nature
of a sketch.
15. Paul Volz, Jüdische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba (1903).
16. Furst, Untersuchungen über den Kanon des Alien Testaments nach
den Uberlieferungen in Talmud und Midrasch (1868).
17. L. Stem, Die Vorschriften der Thora, welche Israel in
der.280/Werner Sombart
Zerstreuung w beobachten hat. Ein Lehrbuch der Religion für Schule
und Famine (4th ed., 1904), p. 28. This book, which may be looked
upon as a type, gives the view current in strictly orthodox
circles.
18. Cf. Rabbi S. Mandl, Das Wesen des Judentums (1904), p. 14.
Mandl
relies on J. Gutmann, Uber Dogmenbildung und Judentum (1894).
Cf. also S. Schechter, "The Dogmas of Judaism," in J.Q.R., vol. 1
(1889), pp. 48, 115. As is well known, Moses Mendelssohn was the
first to express (in his Jerusalem) the idea that Judaism has no
dog-mas,
with some degree of insistence.
19. The best that I am acquainted with is Ferdinand Weber's System
der
altsynagogalen palastinensischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrash
und Talmud (1880).
20. Stem, op. cit., p. 5.
21. Döllinger, Heidentum und Judentum (1857), p. 634.
22. Rutilius Namatianus, "De reditu suo," in Reinach's Textes
d'auteurs
grecs et remains relatifs au judaisme, vol. 1 (1895), p. 358.
23. Stem, op. cit., p. 49; S. R. Hirsch, Versuche über Jissroëls
Pflichlen
in der Zerstreuung (4th ed., 1909), §711.
24. Cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 49. Weber has worked out this idea of
con-tract
in Judaism better than any other writer. The treatment in the text
owes much to him, as will be apparent. I have also utilized his
refer-ences.
In this particular instance, cf. Sifre, 12b, Wajjikra Rabba. c.
31.
25. Aboth, II, near the beginning.
26. Cf. Weber, op. cit., pp. 270, 272.
27. Ibid., p. 292.
28. R. Joseph Albo, Ikkarim, a book on the principles of Judaism,
dat-ing
from the 15th century. W. and L. Schlesinger have issued a Ger-man
translation [of the Hebrew] (1844). This particular problem is
dealt with in ch. 46.
29. S. R. Hirsch, op. cit., ch. 13, especially §§ 100 and 105.
30. J. F. Schroder, Talmudisch-rabbinisches Judentum (1851), p. 47.
31. Graetz, vol. 2, p. 203 and note 14; J. Bergmann, Jüdische
Apologetik
im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (1908), p. 120. For the spirit of
an-cient
Judaism, see Wellhausen, op. cit., ch. 15.
32. H. Deutsch, Die Sprüche Salomons nach der Auffassung in Talmud
und Midrasch (1885).
33. J. F. Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer (1851), p. 135.
34. Rabbi S. Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet. Nach der Auffassung
der.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/281
Weisen des Talmud und Midrasch (1884).
35. Cf. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 233; Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 250,
339; and
also the well-known works of Müller, Schürer, and Marti.
36. Mandl, op. cit., p. 14.
37. S. R. Hirsch, op. cit., § 448.
38. A number of similar extracts from Talmudic literature will be
found
in S. Schaffer, Das Recht und seine Stellung zur Moral nach
talmudischer Sitten- und Rechtslehre (1889), p. 28.
39. M. Lazarus, op. cit., p. 22. Lazarus has worked out the idea
that to
be holy means to overcome your passions, exceedingly well, though
he approaches very closely to Kant's system of Ethics.
40. Kiddushin, 30b, Baba Bathra, 16a.
41. Cf. Schaffer, op. cit., p. 54.
42. Cf. Fassel, Tugend- und Rechtslehre des Talmud (1848), p. 38.
43. Albo's Ikkarim [note 28], ch. 24, deals fully with this.
44. Cf. S. Back, op. cit.. Preface; also M. Lazarus, op. cit., p.
20.
45. Stern, op. cit., p. 126.
46. Aboth de R. Nathan, xxi. 5 [also Aboth, III, 14].
47. G. F. Oehler, Theologie des A.T. (3rd ed., 1891), p. 878.
48. Lazarus, op. cit., p. 40.
49. Aboth de R. Nathan, xvi. 6.
50. Cf. Eceles. 1, 8; Prov. x. 8; x. 10; x. 31; xiv. 23; xvii. 27,
28; xviii.
7, 21; xxi. 23; Ecclus. iv. 34 (29); v. 15 (13); ix. 25 (18); xix.
20, 22.
51. Stern, op. cit.. No. 127a.
52. Cf. also Prov. xii. 27; xiii. 11; xviii. 19; xxi. 20. For
further pas-sages
in praise of labour, cf. L. K. Amitai, La sociologie selon la
lègislation juive (1905), p. 90.
53. Hirsch, op. cit., § 448.
54. Ibid., § 463; and Stern, op. cit., p. 239.
55. Hirsch, op. cit., § 443, almost identically expressed by Stem,
op.
cit., Nos. 125, 126.
56. J. Fromer, op. cit., p. 25.
57. Iggeret ha-Kodesh, first published in 1556; translated into
Latin by
Gaffareli; cf. Graetz, vol. 7, p. 46.
58. Hirsch, op. cit., § 263. Cf. also § 264, § 267.
59. The figures are taken from Hugo Nathansohn, "Die unehelichen
Geburten bei den Juden," in Z.D.S.J., vol. 6, (1910), p. 102.
60. We may mention as one of the foremost authorities S. Freud.
See his
Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosehlehre (2nd series,
1909)..282/Werner Sombart
61. See Dr. Hoppe, "Die Kriminalitat der Juden und der Alkohol," in
Z.D.S.J., vol. 3 (1907), p. 38; H. L. Eisenstadt, "Die Renaissance
der jüdischen Sozialhygiene," in Archiv fur Rassen- und
Gesellschaftsbiologie, vol. 5 (1908), p. 714; L. Cheinisse, "Die
Rassenpathologie und der Alkoholismus bei den Juden," in Z.D.S.J.,
vol. 6 (1910), p. 1. It can be proved with great certainty that the
Jew's freedom from the evil effects of alcohol (as also from
syphilis)
is due to his religion.
62. Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 119.
63. Cicero, Pro Flacco, ch. 28.
64. Mommsen, Römische Geschichfe, vol. 5, p. 545.
65. The passages may be found in Felix Stahelin, Der Antisemitismus
des Altertums (1905). Cf. Reinach, op. cit.
66. J. Bergmann, op. cit., p. 157.
67. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 73.
68. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 321.
69. Graetz, vol. 6, pp. 140, 161.
70. A comprehensive account of laws on interest in the old Jewish
legal
system will be found in J. Heici, Das alttestamentliche Zinsverbot
(Biblische Studien, herausgegeben von O. Bardenhewer, vol. 12, No.
4, 1907).
71. Cf. a collection of "Responsa" by Hoffmann, in Schmollers
Forschungen, vol. 152.
72. Cf. Fassel, op. cit., p. 193; E. Grunebaum, Die Sittenlehre
der Juden
andern Bekenntnissen gegenuber (2nd ed., 1878), p. 414; the same
writer's "Der Fremde nach rabbinischen Begriffen," in Geigers
jüdische Zeitschrift, vols. 9 and 10; D. Hoffmann, op. cit., p.
129;
Lazarus, op. cit., § 144. Lazarus is curiously incomplete. What he
says in his third chapter about the duty of Israel towards non-Jews
does his heart all credit, but it is hardly in accord with
historic truth.
73. Cf. Choshen Mishpat. §§ 188, 194, 227, 231, 259, 266, 272, 283,
348, 389, etc.
74. "When he appears before the divine Judge, the first question
that
man is asked is. Have you been straightforward and honest in
busi-ness?"
Sabbath, 31a. This Talmudic quotation is the motto of a little
book (privately printed) dealing with passages concerning honesty,
Das Biblisch-rabbinische Handelsgesetz, by Rabbi Stark.
75. Choshen Mishpat, § 231. The passage given in the text is from §
227..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/283
76. Graetz, vol. 10, pp. 62, 81.
77. Choshen Mishpat, § 227; Baba Mezia, 49b.
78. In addition, see John G. Dow, "Hebrew and Puritan," in J.Q.R.,
vol.
3 (1891), p. 52.
79. Graetz, vol. 9, pp. 86, 213; vol. 10, p. 87; Hyamson, p. 164;
J.Q.R.,
vol. 3, p. 61.
Chapter 12
1. Cf. also R. S. Woodworth, "Racial Differences in Mental
Traits," in
Bulletin mensuel des Institut Solvay (1910), No. 21.
2. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel chez les nations (1893), p. 289;
also
cf. H. St. Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts (3rd
ed., 1901), p. 457. [An English edition of this book is now to be
had.]
3. I cannot here enter into a disquisition of the various meanings
at-tached
to the terms People, Nation, Nationality. The reader will find
all that he needs in that excellent study of F. J. Neumann, Volk
und
Nation (1888). See, too. Otto Bauer, Die Nationalitätenfrage und
die Sozialdemokratie (1907); F. Rosenblüth, Zur Begriffsbestimmung
von Volk und Nation (1910).
4. A. Jellinek, Der jüdische Stamm in Sprichwortem (2nd series,
1882),
pp. 18, 91.
5. J. Zollschan, Das Rassenproblem writer besonderer
Berücksichtigung
der theoretischen Grundlagen der jüdischen Rassenfrage (1910), p.
298.
6. Jellinek, op. cit; (3rd series, 1885), p. 39.
7. Juan Huarte de San Juan, Examen de ingenios para las Sciencias.
Pomplona (1575), (Biblioteca de autores Españoles, lxv, p. 469).
8. Jellinek, op. cit. This book by the well-known Rabbi of Vienna
is one
of the very best that has been written on the Jewish spirit Good,
too,
is the booklet of D. Chwolson, Die semitischen Völker (1872), which
criticizes Renan's Histoire générale et systeme compare de langues
Sèmitique (1855). A third writer who in my opinion has looked deep
into the Jewish soul is Kari Marx, in his Judenfrage (1844). What
has been said about the Jewish spirit since these men (all Jews!)
wrote
is either a repetition of what they said or a distortion of the
truth.
9. For Jews as mathematicians, see M. Steinschneider in
Monatsschrift,
vols. 49--51 (1905--7).
10. For Jews as physicians, see M. Kayserling, "Zur Geschichte der
judischen Aerzte," in Monatsschrift, vols. 8 (1859) and 17
(1868)..284/Werner Sombart
11. Zollschan, op. cit.. p. 159.
12. C. Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde, vol. 1 (1847), p. 414.
13. "Une certaine gravité orgueilleuse et un fierté noble fait le
caractère
distinctif de cette nation," Pinto, "Reflexions," etc., in the
Lettres de
quelques juifs, vol. 1, p. 19.
14. J. M. Jost, Geschichte des Judentums und seiner Sekten, vol. 3
(1859), p. 207.
15. Derech Erez Zutta, ch. viii.
16. Megilla, 16.
17. Midrash Rabba to Genesis, 1, 44.
18. "Développer une chose qui existe en germe, perfectionner ce
qui est,
exprimer tout ce qui tient dans une idée qu'il n'aurait pas trouvée
seul." -- M. Murel, L'esprit juif (1901), p. 40.
19. K. Knies, Credit, vol. 1, p. 240; vol. 2, p. 169.
Chapter 13
1. F. Martins, "Die Bedeutung der Vererbung fiir
Krankheitsenstehung
und Rassenerhaltung," in Archiv für Rass. und Ges. Biologie, vol. 7
(1910), p. 477.
2. Some of the most important of recent works on the ethnology and
anthropology of the Jews are the following: von Luschan, "Die
anthropologische Stellung der Juden," in Korrespondemblatt fur
Anthropologie, vol. 23 (1892); Judt, Die Juden als Rasse (1903).
On the historic side, much light has been thrown on the problem by
Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme (1906). Side by
side with this excellent book may be placed one somewhat older, A.
Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden w den Fremden
(1896). That the whole literature on Babylonia must be mentioned
here goes without saying, i.e., the works of Winkler, Jeremias, and
others. Recently there appeared a book by W. Erbt, Die Hebräer.
Kanaan im Zeitalter der hebraischen Wanderung und hebraischen
Staatengründung (1906).
3. H. V. Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition of the University of
Pennsylvania. Series A, Cuneiform Texts, vol. 9 (1898), p. 28; the
same author's Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century
(1903), p. 409.
4. Cf. von Luschan, "Zur phys. Anthropologie der Juden," in
Z.D.S.J.,
vol. 1 (1905), p. 1.
5. The chief exponent of this theory is Ludwig Wilser, who has set
forth.The Jews and Modern Capitalism/285
his view in numerous articles, and at great length in his book. Die
Germanen (1903). His chief opponent is Zollschan,op. cit., p. 24.
6. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, vol. 5, p. 549.
7. Graetz, vol. 5, pp. 188, 330, 370.
8. Graetz, vol. 7, p. 63.
9. All these instances in Undo [see note 22, Chapter 5], p. 10.
10. In his criticism of Hoeniger, who holds the view expressed in
the
text as applicable to Cologne. Others who have supported Brann are
Lau, Kuessen, and A. Kober, Studie zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte
der Juden in Köln am Rhine (1903), p. 13.
11. Maurice Fishberg, "Zur Frage der Herkunft des blonden Elements
im Judentum" in Z.D.S.J., vol. 3 (1907), pp. 7, 25. A contrary view
in the same journal, vol. 3, p. 92, is Elias Auerbach's
"Bemerkungen
zu Fishbergs Theorie," etc.
12. Cf. F. Sofer, "Uber die Plastizitat der menschlichen Rassen,"
in
Archiv für Rass. und Ges. Biologie, vol. 5 (1908), p. 666; E.
Auerbach, "Die jüdisehe Rassenfrage," in the same journal, vol. 4,
p.
359; also vol. 4, p. 370, where von Luschan expounds an almost
identical view. Cf. also Zollschan, op. cit; pp. 125, 134, etc.
13. See the results in Judt, op. cit. Cf. also A. D. Elkind, Die
Juden.
Erne vergleichend-anthropologische Untersuchung (1903). I know
the book only from the review by Weinberg in Archiv für Rass. und
Ges. Biologie, vol. 1 (1904), p. 915. Cf. also Elkind's
"Anthropologische Untersuchungen über die russ.- polnischen Juden,"
in Z.D.S.J., vol. 2 (1906), pp. 49, 65, and his other essay in
vol. 4
(1908), p. 28; Leo Sofer, "Zur Anthropologische Stellung der
Juden,"
in Pol. anthrop. Revue, vol. 7 (cf. review of this in Z.D.S.J;
vol. 4, p.
160). Cf. E. Auerbach, op. cit., p. 332; Aron Sandier,
Anthropologie
und Zionismus (1904), though his results are not first-hand;
Zollschan,
op. cit., pp. 125, 134, etc.
14. The theory of "racial differences" between Ashkenazim and
Sephardim is supported by S. Weissenberg, "Das jüdisehe
Rassenproblem," in Z.D.S.J.. vol. 1 (1905); M. Fishberg, "Beitrage
zur phys. Anthropologie der nordafrikanischen Juden," ditto.
Oppo-nents
of the view are most of the authors mentioned in note 13.
15. For an all-round consideration of this question see Leo Sofer,
"Zur
Biologie und Pathologie der judischen Rasse," in Z.D.S.J.. vol. 2
(1906), p. 85. For further views, see the issues Biologie, vol. 4
(1907),
pp. 47, 149: Siegfried Rosenfeld, "Die Sterblichkeit der Juden in
Wien.286/Werner Sombart
und die Ursachen der jüdischen Mindersterblichkeit."
16. F. Hertz, Moderne Rassen-Theorie (1904), p. 56.
17. C. H. Stratz, Was sind Juden? Eine
ethnographischanthropologische
Studie (1903), p. 26.
18. Illustrations in Judt, op. cit., and elsewhere. Cf. also L.
Messerschmidt, Die Hettiter (1903).
19. Cf. Hans Friedenthal, Über einen experimentalen Nachweis von
Blutsverwandtschaft (1900). Also appeared in the author's Arbeiten
aus dem Gebiete der experimentellen Physiologie (1908); also Carl
Bruck, "Die biologische Differenzierung von Affenarten und
menschlichen Rassen durch spezifische Blutreaktion," reprinted from
the Berliner Klinischen Wochenschrift, vol. 4 (1907), p. 371.
20. Von Luschan, "Offener Brief an Herrn Dr. Elias Auerbach," in
Archiv
für Rassen und Ges. Biologie. vol. 4 (1907), p. 371.
21. A. Ruppin, "Die Mischehe," in Z.D.S.J., vol. 4, p. 18.
22. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, vol. 5, p. 529.
23. M. Braunschweiger, Die Lehrer der Mischna (1890), p. 27.
24. Graetz, vol. 6, p. 22.
25. Graetz, vol. 6, 320.
26. Gregor. Ep. ix. 36, in Schipper, p. 16.
27. Herzfeld, Handelsgeschichte der Juden des Altertums, p. 204.
28. Herzfeld has perhaps dealt most fully with these questions.
But be-sides
many errors of textual interpretation he is also wrong as re-gards
the dates of documents. He still maintains the chronology cur-rent
before the age of criticism, and therefore places most of his
sources
in the pre-exilic period.
29. For the Talmudic period, see Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 118, where
over a
hundred imports into Palestine are given.
30. A. Bertholet, op. cit., p. 2.
31. Cf. Büchsenschutz, Besitz und Erwerb im griechischen Altertum
(1869), p. 443.
32. L. Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. 3, p. 571.
33. Kiddushin, 826.
34. Aboth de R. Nathan, xxx. 6.
35. Pesachim, 113a.
36. Pesachim, 506. Cf. also the articles "Welthandel" and "Handel"
in
J. Hamburger's Real-Encyklopädie des Judentums (1883, 1886) for
more material under this heading.
37. A. Bertholet, "Deuteronomium" (1899), in Marti's Kurz..The
Jews and Modern Capitalism/287
Bandkommentar zum A.T. On the passage in the text, Bertholet
re-marks
that it refers to a period in which Israel is scattered all over
the
globe as a people of traders, and is a force in the world because
of its
wealth. Bertholet informs me that he regards the passage xv. 4--6
as a
later addition to the text, and because the words appear to point
to an
extensive distribution of Israel he would incline to assign them
to the
Greek period after Alexander.
But for myself I cannot believe that the Jews were then a
scattered com-mercial
people. In order to make quite sure that I had not overlooked
important passages I wrote to Professor Bertholet to ask him on
what
grounds he based his opinion. In his reply he referred me to Prov.
vii.
19; xii. 11; xiii. 11; xx. 21; xxiii. 4; xxiv. 27; xxviii. 19, 20,
22;
Ecclus. xxvi. 29--xxvii. 2. These passages deal with the dangers of
wealth, and I have already discussed them in another connexion.
None
of them, however, appear to me to point to trade on a large scale.
Certainly Prov. vii. 19 may have reference to a travelling trader,
but
not necessarily. And when we are told of Tobit (to whom also
Profes-sor
Bertholet referred) that he was King Enemessar's "agorastes"
and as such had a comfortable income, does not that rather point
to a
feudal state of society? Again, Ananias, a merchant at the court of
Adiabene (of whom Josephus tells), may have been a Hofjude. Of
course, I do not deny that Jews participated in international
trade.
But I contend that this was not characteristic of them. What was
characteristic was the business of lending, and of this it may be
said,
as Bertholet does, that Israel was then (in the period after
Alexander)
a power in the earth.
38. I am indebted to Professor Bertholet for calling my attention
to this
document.
39. E. Renan, Les Apôtres (1866), p. 289.
40. J. Wellhausen, Medina vor dem Islam (1889), p. 4.
41. Cf. Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden im frankischen
und deutschen Reiche bis zum Jahre 1273 (1902), Nos. 45, 62.
42. Cf. Lindo, op. cit; p. 73.
43. Statutes of Jewry, in Cunningham, Growth of English Industry
and
Commerce, vol. 1 (1905), p. 204.
44. Wassermann, "Die Entwickelung der jiidischen Bevolkerung in d.
Provin. Posen," in Z.D.S.J; vol. 6 (1910), p. 37.
45. F. Delitzsch, Handel und Wandel in Altbabylon (1910), p. 33.
Cf.
Heici, Alttestamentliches Zinsverbot (1907), p. 32, and especially
p..288/Werner Sombart
54.
46. Weber, article "Agrargeschichte im Altertum," in Handworterbuch
der Staatswissenschaften. Cf. also Marquardt, Römische
Staatsverwaltung, vol. 2, p. 55.
47. In the years 1436 and 1437 a number of Jewish pawnbrokers were
invited to Florence by the city council, in order to assist the
poor who
were in need of cash. Cf. M. Ciardemi, Banchieri ebrei in Firenze
net secolo XV e XVI (1907).
When the city of Ravenna was about to join itself to the Republic
of
Venice, one of the conditions of its adhesion was that wealthy Jews
should be sent there to open a loan bank, so that the poverty of
the
population might be lessened. Cf. Graetz, vol. 8, p. 235.
"We have seen that the business of finance in the period up to
1420 was
gradually increasing in the bands of the Jews of Rome;
from 1420 to 1550 circumstances were even more favourable, and
hence
we find a still greater growth. Indeed, it became customary for the
Italian communes to make regular agreements with Jews concerning
money-lending." Cf. Theiner, Cod. dipl. 3, 335, in Paul Rieger's
Geschichte der Juden in Rom (1895), p. 14.
48. A. Moreau de Jonnes, Statistique des peuples de I'antiquité,
vol. 1
(1851), p. 98. For censuses in the Bible, cf. Max Waldstein in
Statistische Monatsschrift, Vienna (1881).
49. A. Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alien Orients
(2nd
ed., 1906), p. 534.
50. F. Buhl, Die sozialen Verhaltnisse der Israeliten (1899), pp.
88,
128.
51. Biographies of the Tahnudic Rabbis are frequent enough. Cf.
Strack,
op. cit.: Graetz, in vol. 4; A. Sammter in the Appendix to his
transla-tion
of Baba Mezia (1876) and M. Braunschweiger. Die Lehrer der
Mishna (1890).
52. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, vol. 5, p. 529.
53. The 58th Canon of the 4th Council of Toledo (633), quoted by
Lindo,
op. cit., p. 14.
54. J. Wellhausen, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 14.
55. Cf. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 345.
56. Cf. Graetz, vol. 5, pp. 11, 39, 50; also the passages in
Schipper, op.
cit., pp. 20, 35; Aronius, op. cit., Nos. 45, 62, 173, 206, 227,
etc.
How Caro, op. cit., p. 83, arrives at the contrary conclusion it
is not
easy to perceive..The Jews and Modern Capitalism/289
57. For the period up to the 12th century, see the references in
Schipper,
op. cit., also my Moderne Kapitalismus, vol. 1.
58. K. F. W. Freiherr von Diebitsch, Kosmopolitische, unparteiische
Gedanken über Juden und Christen (1804), p. 29.
59. I cannot give a complete bibliography of all the works on
biology,
anthropology, ethnology, etc. Only a few will be mentioned for the
guidance of the reader.
The works of Moritz Wagner appear to me to be of great value: Die
Darwinsche Theorie und das Migrationsgesetz (1868); Uber den
Einfluss der geographischen Isolierung und Kolonienbildang auf
die morphologische Veränderung der Organismen (1871); Die
Enstehung der Arten durch räumliche Sonderung (1889).
Ludwig Gumploviez, Der Rassenkampf (1883); Die soziologische
Staatsidee (2nd ed., 1901); Ward, Reine Soziologie, vol. 1; L.
Woltmann, Politische Anthropologie (1903).
For the question of heredity, see H. E. Ziegler, Die
Vererbungstehre in
der Biologie (1905); W. Schallmeyer, Vererbung und Auslese (2nd
ed., 1910); R. Sommer, Familienforschung und Vererbungslehre
(1907); F. Martius, Das pathologische Vererbungsproblem (1909);
J. Schultz, Die Maschinentheorie des Lebens (1909); W. Bolsche,
Das Liebesleben in der Natur (1909).
Chapter 14
1. For the social and economic conditions in ancient Palestine
there are
not many books to hand. Perhaps the best is F. Buhl's work [note
50,
Chapter 13]. A more recent book is Max Lohr's Israels
Kulturentwickelung (1911).
2. Wellhausen, Prolog., p. 10; cf. Budde, The Nomadic Ideal in the
O.T. (1895).
3. F. Ratzel, Völkerkunde, vol. 3, p. 47.
4. Kiddushin, 71a. Cf. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 273.
5. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 321.
6. For a list of Biblical passages in support, see Herzfeld,
Handelsgeschichte der Juden des Altertums, note 9.
7. For this estimation, see Buhl, op. cit., p. 52.
8. Philo, in Flaccum, 6 (II, 523, Mangey), in Stähelin, op. cit.,
p. 33.
9. L. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Röms, vol. 3, p. 570.
10. Cassel, in the article "Juden" in Ersch and Gruber, p. 24.
11. Tacitus, Annal; II, 85; Suetonius and Josephus mention only
Jews..290/Werner Sombart
12. The best accounts of the Diaspora will be found in Graetz,
vol. 3, p.
90; Frankel, "Die Diaspora zur Zeit des zweiten Ternpels," in
Monatsschrift, vol. 2, p. 309; Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 200, and
note 34.
13. An excellent example of Jewish migration within one particular
coun-try
is furnished by the history of the Jews in the province of Posen.
In
1849 there were 21 localities (out of a total of 131) with a
population
of 30 to 40 per cent. of Jews while in 4 there were 41 to 50 per
cent.
Jews, in 3 over 50 per cent. But in the last half century the
Jewish
population of the Posen province has shrunk considerably. Cf. E.
von
Bergmann, Zur Geschichte der deutschen, polnischen und jüdischen
Bevölkerung in der Provinz Posen (1883); Zwanzig Jahre deutscher
Kulturarbeit (1906); B. Breslauer, Die Abwanderung der Juden aus
der Provinz, Posen (1909). For the expulsion of the Jews from
Vienna
at the close of the 17th century cf. David Kaufmann, Die letzte
Vertreibung der Juden aus Wien und Niederösterreich; ihre
Vorgeschichte (1625--1670) und ihre Opfer (1889).
14. L. Neubaur, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden (2nd ed., 1893).
15. According to Gratian, Vita Joh. Commendoni, II, c. 15; Victor
von
Karben, De Vita et Moribus Judieorum (1504); Graetz, vol. 9, p. 62.
16. J. Ranke, Der Mensch, vol. 2, p. 533.
17. Ratzel, Völkerkunde, vol. 3, p. 743.
18. Juan Huarte de San Juan, op. cit; p. 409.
19. F. Delitzsch, op. cit; p. 12.
20. A. Wahrraund, Das Gesetz des Nomadentums (1887), p. 16.
21. Ratzel, op. cit.. vol. 3, p. 56.
22. Pesachim, 87 b. Cf. also 1196.
23. W. Erbt, Die Hebraer (1906), p. 166.
24. Ephraim justifié (1758). L'editeur a Mr. Andre de Pinto, Juif
Portugais, Citoyen et négociant d'Amsterdam.
25. Pinto, "Réflex, critiques sur le premier chap. du vii tome des
oeuvres
de M. Voltaire (1762)," in the Lettres de quelques juifs, (5th ed.,
1781), p. 10.
26. Graetz, vol. 11, p. 54.
27. "L'idée, ou ils sont généralement, d'être issus de la Tribe de
Juda,
dont ils tiennent que les principales families furent envoyées en
Espagne du temps de la captivité de Babylone, nepeut que les porter
à ces distinctions et contribuer à cette élévation de sentimens
qu'on
remarque en eux." -- Pinto, op. cit; p. 17.
28. A. Nossig, "Die Auserwähltheit der Juden im Lichte der
Biologie,".The Jews and Modern Capitalism/291
in Z.D.S.J., vol. 1. Cf. in same volume essay of Curt Michaelis;
also
his "Prinzipien der natürlichen und sozialen Entwicklungsgeschichte
der Menschheit" (Natur und Staat, vol. 5) (1904), p. 63.
29. A. Sandier, op. cit; p. 24.