Capitalism And The Jews

Author : Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2010-01-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400834365

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Capitalism and the Jews by Jerry Z. Muller Pdf

How the fate of the Jews has been shaped by the development of capitalism The unique historical relationship between capitalism and the Jews is crucial to understanding modern European and Jewish history. But the subject has been addressed less often by mainstream historians than by anti-Semites or apologists. In this book Jerry Muller, a leading historian of capitalism, separates myth from reality to explain why the Jewish experience with capitalism has been so important and complex—and so ambivalent. Drawing on economic, social, political, and intellectual history from medieval Europe through contemporary America and Israel, Capitalism and the Jews examines the ways in which thinking about capitalism and thinking about the Jews have gone hand in hand in European thought, and why anticapitalism and anti-Semitism have frequently been linked. The book explains why Jews have tended to be disproportionately successful in capitalist societies, but also why Jews have numbered among the fiercest anticapitalists and Communists. The book shows how the ancient idea that money was unproductive led from the stigmatization of usury and the Jews to the stigmatization of finance and, ultimately, in Marxism, the stigmatization of capitalism itself. Finally, the book traces how the traditional status of the Jews as a diasporic merchant minority both encouraged their economic success and made them particularly vulnerable to the ethnic nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a fresh look at an important but frequently misunderstood subject, Capitalism and the Jews will interest anyone who wants to understand the Jewish role in the development of capitalism, the role of capitalism in the modern fate of the Jews, or the ways in which the story of capitalism and the Jews has affected the history of Europe and beyond, from the medieval period to our own.

Author : Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2011-11-27
Category : Capitalism
ISBN : 069115306X

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Capitalism and the Jews by Jerry Z. Muller Pdf

How the fate of the Jews has been shaped by the development of capitalism The unique historical relationship between capitalism and the Jews is crucial to understanding modern European and Jewish history. But the subject has been addressed less often by mainstream historians than by anti-Semites or apologists. In this book Jerry Muller, a leading historian of capitalism, separates myth from reality to explain why the Jewish experience with capitalism has been so important and complex--and so ambivalent. Drawing on economic, social, political, and intellectual history from medieval Europe through contemporary America and Israel, Capitalism and the Jews examines the ways in which thinking about capitalism and thinking about the Jews have gone hand in hand in European thought, and why anticapitalism and anti-Semitism have frequently been linked. The book explains why Jews have tended to be disproportionately successful in capitalist societies, but also why Jews have numbered among the fiercest anticapitalists and Communists. The book shows how the ancient idea that money was unproductive led from the stigmatization of usury and the Jews to the stigmatization of finance and, ultimately, in Marxism, the stigmatization of capitalism itself. Finally, the book traces how the traditional status of the Jews as a diasporic merchant minority both encouraged their economic success and made them particularly vulnerable to the ethnic nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a fresh look at an important but frequently misunderstood subject, Capitalism and the Jews will interest anyone who wants to understand the Jewish role in the development of capitalism, the role of capitalism in the modern fate of the Jews, or the ways in which the story of capitalism and the Jews has affected the history of Europe and beyond, from the medieval period to our own.

Author : Werner Sombart
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 529 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2017-09-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781351480437

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The Jews and Modern Capitalism by Werner Sombart Pdf

Since its first appearance in Germany in 1911, Jews and Modern Capitalism has provoked vehement criticism. As Samuel Z. Klausner emphasizes, the lasting value of Sombart's work rests not in his results-most of which have long since been disproved-but in his point of departure. Openly acknowledging his debt to Max Weber, Sombart set out to prove the double thesis of the Jewish foundation of capitalism and the capitalist foundation of Judaism. Klausner, placing Sombart's work in its historical and societal context, examines the weaknesses and strengths of Jews and Modern Capitalism.

Author : Rebecca Kobrin
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2012-08-20
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813553290

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Chosen Capital by Rebecca Kobrin Pdf

At which moments and in which ways did Jews play a central role in the development of American capitalism? Many popular writers address the intersection of Jews and capitalism, but few scholars, perhaps fearing this question’s anti-Semitic overtones, have pondered it openly. Chosen Capital represents the first historical collection devoted to this question in its analysis of the ways in which Jews in North America shaped and were shaped by America’s particular system of capitalism. Jews fundamentally molded aspects of the economy during the century when American capital was being redefined by industrialization, war, migration, and the emergence of the United States as a superpower. Surveying such diverse topics as Jews’ participation in the real estate industry, the liquor industry, and the scrap metal industry, as well as Jewish political groups and unions bent on reforming American capital, such as the American Labor Party and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, contributors to this volume provide a new prism through which to view the Jewish encounter with America. The volume also lays bare how American capitalism reshaped Judaism itself by encouraging the mass manufacturing and distribution of foods like matzah and the transformation of synagogue cantors into recording stars. These essays force us to rethink not only the role Jews played in American economic development but also how capitalism has shaped Jewish life and Judaism over the course of the twentieth century. Contributors: Marni Davis, Georgia State University Phyllis Dillon, independent documentary producer, textile conservator, museum curator Andrew Dolkart, Columbia University Andrew Godley, Henley Business School, University of Reading Jonathan Karp, executive director, American Jewish Historical Society Daniel Katz, Empire State College, State University of New York Ira Katznelson, Columbia University David S. Koffman, New York University Eli Lederhendler, Hebrew University, Jerusalem Jonathan Z. S. Pollack, University of Wisconsin—Madison Jonathan D. Sarma, Brandeis University Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University Daniel Soyer, Fordham University

Author : Michele Battini
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231541329

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Socialism of Fools by Michele Battini Pdf

In Socialism of Fools, Michele Battini focuses on the critical moment during the Enlightenment in which anti-Jewish stereotypes morphed into a sophisticated, modern social anti-Semitism. He recovers the potent anti-Jewish, anticapitalist propaganda that cemented the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in the European mind and connects it to the atrocities that characterized the Jewish experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning in the eighteenth century, counter-Enlightenment intellectuals and intransigent Catholic writers singled out Jews for conspiring to exploit self-sustaining markets and the liberal state. These ideas spread among socialist and labor movements in the nineteenth century and intensified during the Long Depression of the 1870s. Anti-Jewish anticapitalism then migrated to the Habsburg Empire with the Christian Social Party; to Germany with the Anti-Semitic Leagues; to France with the nationalist movements; and to Italy, where Revolutionary Syndicalists made anti-Jewish anticapitalism the basis of an alliance with the nationalists. Exemplified best in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous document that "leaked" Jewish plans to conquer the world, the Jewish-conspiracy myth inverts reality and creates a perverse relationship to historical and judicial truth. Isolating the intellectual roots of this phenomenon and its contemporary resonances, Battini shows us why, so many decades after the Holocaust, Jewish people continue to be a powerful political target.

Author : Michael R Cohen
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2017-12-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781479881017

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Cotton Capitalists by Michael R Cohen Pdf

Honorable Mention, 2019 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society A vivid history of the American Jewish merchants who concentrated in the nation’s most important economic sector In the nineteenth century, Jewish merchants created a thriving niche economy in the United States’ most important industry—cotton—positioning themselves at the forefront of expansion during the Reconstruction Era. Jewish success in the cotton industry was transformative for both Jewish communities and their development, and for the broader economic restructuring of the South. Cotton Capitalists analyzes this niche economy and reveals its origins. Michael R. Cohen argues that Jewish merchants’ status as a minority fueled their success by fostering ethnic networks of trust. Trust in the nineteenth century was the cornerstone of economic transactions, and this trust was largely fostered by ethnicity. Much as money flowed along ethnic lines between Anglo-American banks, Jewish merchants in the Gulf South used their own ethnic ties with other Jewish-owned firms in New York, as well as Jewish investors across the globe, to capitalize their businesses. They relied on these family connections to direct Northern credit and goods to the war-torn South, avoiding the constraints of the anti-Jewish prejudices which had previously denied them access to credit, allowing them to survive economic downturns. These American Jewish merchants reveal that ethnicity matters in the development of global capitalism. Ethnic minorities are and have frequently been at the forefront of entrepreneurship, finding innovative ways to expand narrow sectors of the economy. While this was certainly the case for Jews, it has also been true for other immigrant groups more broadly. The story of Jews in the American cotton trade is far more than the story of American Jewish success and integration—it is the story of the role of ethnicity in the development of global capitalism.

Author : Ilaria Iannuzzi
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2022-02-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781527580213

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Origins of Capitalism and Jewish Ethics by Ilaria Iannuzzi Pdf

This book focuses on the religious origins of the spirit of capitalism through the thought of Werner Sombart. It offers a critical analysis of the link he makes between Jewish ethics and the spirit of capitalism. Sombart’s exploration of this topic has not found, to this day, adequate representation in the literature. As such, this book analyses the origins of capitalism through a materialistic and spiritual approach, thus offering an unprecedented methodological and epistemological path. It brings to light a different, little-investigated, avenue of exploration followed by the social processes that have governed the relationship between economy and religion, in the belief that this can generate new cognitive and development perspectives for contemporary capitalism.

Author : Charles Asher Small
Publisher : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2013-11-28
Category : Law
ISBN : 9789004265561

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Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity by Charles Asher Small Pdf

This volume contains a selection of essays based on papers presented at a conference organized at Yale University and hosted by the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA) and the International Association for the Study of Antisemitism (IASA), entitled “Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity.” The essays are written by scholars from a wide array of disciplines, intellectual backgrounds, and perspectives, and address the conference’s two inter-related areas of focus: global antisemitism and the crisis of modernity currently affecting the core elements of Western society and civilization. Rather than treating antisemitism merely as an historical phenomenon, the authors place it squarely in the contemporary context. As a result, this volume also provides important insights into the ideologies, processes, and developments that give rise to prejudice in the contemporary global context. This thought-provoking collection will be of interest to students and scholars of antisemitism and discrimination, as well as to scholars and readers from other fields.

Author : Francesca Trivellato
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2021-06-08
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780691217383

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The Promise and Peril of Credit by Francesca Trivellato Pdf

How an antisemitic legend gave voice to widespread fears surrounding the expansion of private credit in Western capitalism The Promise and Peril of Credit takes an incisive look at pivotal episodes in the West’s centuries-long struggle to define the place of private finance in the social and political order. It does so through the lens of a persistent legend about Jews and money that reflected the anxieties surrounding the rise of impersonal credit markets. By the close of the Middle Ages, new and sophisticated credit instruments made it easier for European merchants to move funds across the globe. Bills of exchange were by far the most arcane of these financial innovations. Intangible and written in a cryptic language, they fueled world trade but also lured naive investors into risky businesses. Francesca Trivellato recounts how the invention of these abstruse credit contracts was falsely attributed to Jews, and how this story gave voice to deep-seated fears about the unseen perils of the new paper economy. She locates the legend’s earliest version in a seventeenth-century handbook on maritime law and traces its legacy all the way to the work of the founders of modern social theory—from Marx to Weber and Sombart. Deftly weaving together economic, legal, social, cultural, and intellectual history, Trivellato vividly describes how Christian writers drew on the story to define and redefine what constituted the proper boundaries of credit in a modern world increasingly dominated by finance.

Author : Chad Alan Goldberg
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2017-05-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226460550

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Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought by Chad Alan Goldberg Pdf

The French tradition: 1789 and the Jews -- The German tradition: capitalism and the Jews -- The American tradition: the city and the Jews

Author : Matthew Lange
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Antisemitism
ISBN : 3039110403

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Antisemitic Elements in the Critique of Capitalism in German Culture, 1850-1933 by Matthew Lange Pdf

This volume examines selected works of German literature from Gustav Freytag to Joseph Goebbels in relation to ethical, socio-economic, and political texts from the economic «take off» period in the middle of the nineteenth century up to the rise of National Socialism and investigates two aspects of anti-Semitic anti-capitalistic representations contained therein. First it traces how the Jews gained the dubious distinction of being the inventors, even embodiment, of capitalism and elaborates on negative traits assigned to both of them. Second it examines how representations of specifically Jewish capitalists were instrumentalized both to discredit laissez faire and simultaneously to assist in the definition of a specifically «German» socio-economic ethos.

Author : WERNER. SOMBART
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1033201146

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JEWS AND MODERN CAPITALISM by WERNER. SOMBART Pdf

Author : David S. Koffman
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2019-02-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781978800861

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The Jews’ Indian by David S. Koffman Pdf

The Jews' Indian investigates the history of American Jewish relationships with Native Americans, both in the realm of cultural imagination and in face-to-face encounters. This book is the first history to analyze Jewish participation in, and Jews' grappling with the legacies of Native American history and the colonial project upon which America rests.

Author : Werner Sombart,Jennifer Gadarowski,M. Epstein
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 1494941066

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The Jews and Modern Capitalism by Werner Sombart,Jennifer Gadarowski,M. Epstein Pdf

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

Author : Shlomo Avineri
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2019-08-06
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780300248777

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Karl Marx by Shlomo Avineri Pdf

This new exploration of Marx as a Jewish thinker presents “a perceptive and fair-minded corrective to superficial treatments” of his life and work (Jonathan Rose, Wall Street Journal). A philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journalist, and editor, Karl Marx was one of the most influential and revolutionary thinkers of modern history. But he is rarely thought of as a Jewish thinker, and his Jewish background is either overlooked or misrepresented. Here, distinguished scholar Shlomo Avineri argues that Marx’s Jewish origins made a significant impression on his work. Marx was born in Trier, then part of Prussia, and his family had enjoyed full emancipation under earlier French control of the area. But then its annexation to Prussia deprived the Jewish population of its equal rights. These developments led to the reluctant conversion of Marx’s father, and similar tribulations radicalized many other Jewish intellectuals of that time. Avineri puts Marx’s Jewish background in its proper and balanced perspective, and traces Marx’s intellectual development in light of the historical, intellectual, and political contexts in which he lived.