Overview

A world of new and rapidly developing technology. A world of innovations in finance, not to mention disastrous bubbles. A world in which saying or believing in the wrong thing can lose you your livelihood or even your life. A world in which beggars line the streets and employers cannot find enough workers. Sound familiar? This is the world which gave birth to modern capitalism. Sombart takes us on a journey through the epoch of early capitalism, exploring the factors that influenced its development, from the development of a demand for luxury goods by French courtesans, to the demand for weapons and uniforms for the new standing armies, to the use of colonisation for creating the demand for and the supply of goods, to the creation of the 'worker' as something different from the craftsman and the entrepreneur as an entirely new phenomenon.

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"In general I do not need specially to point out, although the following studies go back in their most important points of view to much older work, how much they owe in their development to the mere existence of Sombart's important works, with their pointed formulations and this even, perhaps especially, where they take a different road. Even those who feel themselves continually and decisively disagreeing with Sombart's views, and who reject many of his theses, have the duty to do so only after a thorough study of his work. (Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, 198) He uses the conception of the spirit as the means to bring order and unity into the historical material. It is one of the most striking features of Sombart's work that he is able to interpret a whole epoch of history in such an illuminating and convincing way in terms of one great leading idea. It gives a unity to his presentation which marks a great advance over the entirely disconnected studies of historical facts presented by the historical school proper. It does not give the impression that he is ""philosophizing"" independently of the facts. On the contrary, he is able to achieve an amazing degree of concreteness in his picture. - Talcott Parsons Werner Sombart puts his own stamp upon everything he writes. From its metaphysical foundations to its literary finish, his work is highly individualized. He has brought to light buried treasures of daily life in the Middle Ages. He has found new meanings in familiar materials. He has challenged conclusions which pass muster in our economic histories and concepts accepted in our theoretical treatises. In view of the seeming collapse of the German ""historical school,"" his method of work has an interest approaching the dramatic. Every serious student of economics should acquaint himself with Sombart's contribution. - Wesley C. Mitchell"

Author Information

Werner Sombart (1863-1941) was one of the leading German economists and social scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The son of an industrialist, his academic career was hampered by his early reputation as a Marxist economist. However, Sombart in his own work reversed Marx's primacy of base over superstructure and emphasised the role of Geist or spirit. This focus on the psychological foundations of capitalism was to be a constant for Sombart throughout his career and became more pronounced after he became disillusioned with socialism.After World War I his thought began to shift in a more conservative direction and this 'conservative turn' has been cited as a reason for Sombart's subsequent neglect, a neglect that is all the more surprising given how prominent a social scientist he was at his peak.Sombart's contribution to economic thought as one of the leading figures in the later German Historical School was extremely wide ranging. It stretched over the following fields: urban economics, defence economics, fiscal sociology, comparative economic systems, industrial organisation, the idea of the mixed economy, accounting theory, religion in the development of capitalism, double-entry accounting and the rise of capitalism, the drivers of technological innovation, and environmental economics. Kerry Nitz is founder of K A Nitz publishing and since 2012 has published over 20 new English translations of works of fiction never before translated into English. He is the leading translator for the early 20th Century German authors Hermann Stehr and Georg Engel, and also translated the first volume of Werner Sombart's Modern Capitalism.

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