Language:
English
Year of publication:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Society
Angaben zur Quelle:
39,1 (2001) 71-77
Keywords:
Sombart, Werner,
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Economics
;
Jewish philosophy
Abstract:
Before 1933, Sombart's "The Jews and Modern Capitalism" (1911) was viewed solely as a work on the origins of modern capitalism. Since World War II, many scholars have focused on Sombart's antisemitism and its place in the history of German antisemitism. Sombart ascribed to the Jews some group characteristics (rationalism, abstractness of spirit, etc.) which had been viewed negatively in the 17th-18th centuries but became necessary for the capitalist of the later epoch. He regarded these traits as "racial, " but he used the word "race" in the sense of ethnicity. He made many positive statements about the Jews and insisted on the preservation of the German-Jewish symbiosis, so useful for Germany. In the 1930s, Sombart came to support Nazism because he believed that the Jewish spirit had ceased to be complementary and had instead become dominant. Sombart's views were supported by Zionists and some Jewish intellectuals, but were branded as antisemitic by assimilationists. The antisemites in Germany were also divided on how to perceive his ideas.
Note:
Discusses, also, Sombart's ambivalent attitude towards the Jews.
URL:
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