Werner Sombart

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Werner Sombart bigraphy, stories - German economist , sociologist , historian

Werner Sombart : biography

January 19, 1863 – May 18, 1941

Werner Sombart (19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a German economist and sociologist, the head of the “Youngest Historical School” and one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Life and work

Early career, socialism and economics

He was born in Ermsleben, Harz, as the son of a wealthy liberal politician, industrialist, and estate-owner, Anton Ludwig Sombart, and studied at the universities of Pisa, Berlin, and Rome, both law and economics. In 1888, he received his Ph.D. from Berlin under the direction of Gustav von Schmoller and Adolph Wagner, then the most eminent German economists. One of his daughters, Clara was married to Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, who first described the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

As an economist and especially as a social activist, Sombart was then seen as radically left-wing, and so only received—after some practical work as head lawyer of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce—a junior professorship at the out-of-the-way University of Breslau. Although faculties at such eminent universities as Heidelberg and Freiburg called him to chairs, the respective governments always vetoed this. Sombart, at that time, was an important Marxian, someone who used and interpreted Karl Marx—to the point that Friedrich Engels called him the only German professor who understood Das Kapital. Sombart called himself a "convinced Marxist,". but later wrote that "It had to be admitted in the end that Marx had made mistakes on many points of importance." Werner Sombart (1896), Socialism and the Social System NY: Dutton and Sons, translated by M. Epstein, p. 87

Sombart was not the first sociologist to devote a whole book to the concept of social movement in his 1896 published Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung. His understanding of social movements is inspired by a book on social movements by Lorenz von Stein and Marx. For him, the rising worker’s movement was a result of the inherent contradictions of capitalism. The proletarian situation created a “love for the mass”, which together with the tendency “to a communistic way of life” in social production were the prime features of the social movement.

In 1902, his magnum opus, Der moderne Kapitalismus (Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart), appeared in two volumes (he expanded the work in 1916, and added a third volume in 1927; all three volumes were then split into semi-volumes for a total of six books). It is a systematic history of economics and economic development through the centuries and very much a work of the Historical School. The first book deals with the transition from feudal society to capitalism, and the last book treats conditions in the 20th century. The development of capitalism is divided into three stages:. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968. Encyclopedia.com.

  • Early capitalism (Frühkapitalismus), ending before the industrial revolution;
  • High capitalism (Hochkapitalismus), beginning about 1760;
  • Late capitalism (Spätkapitalismus), beginning with World War I.

Although later much disparaged by neo-classical economists, and much criticized in specific points, Der moderne Kapitalismus is still today a standard work with important ramifications for, e.g., the Annales school (Fernand Braudel).

In 1906, Sombart accepted a call to a full professorship at the Berlin School of Commerce, an inferior institution to Breslau but closer to political “action” than Breslau. Here, inter alia, companion volumes to Modern Capitalism dealing with luxury, fashion, and war as economic paradigms appeared; especially the former two are the key works on the subject until today. In 1906 his Why is there no Socialism in the United States? also appeared. The book is a famous work on American exceptionalism in this respect to this day.Walker, Jesse (2011-02-22) , Reason