Werner Sombart

Werner Sombart is a economist and German Sociologue born the January 19th 1863 and dead the May 18th 1941. He is the chief of “the young historical school” and one of the researchers in the most remarkable social sciences European of the first quarter of the 20th century.

Its beginning of career, the Socialism and the economy

Born with Ermsleben, in the Harz, in Germany, wire of a rich person liberal, industrial politician and landowner, Anton Ludwig Sombart, it studied at the universities of Pisa, Berlin and Rome, at the same time the right and the economy. In 1888, he was doctor of the Université of Berlin under the direction of Gustav von Schmoller, the most eminent German economist of the time.

As economist and more still as a “social” militant, Sombart was then regarded as Extreme left, and so it to him was only offered - afterwards of practical works as legal director of the Chamber of commerce of Bremen - an assisting post of professor of remote Université of Breslau. Though faculties of prestigious universities such as Heidelberg and Freiburg claimed it, the respective governments opposed it. Sombart, in this time there, was an eminent “Marxien” - not a Marxist, but somebody who used and interpreted Karl Marx - so much so that Friedrich Engels issued that he was the only German professor who included/understood the Capital.

In 1902, its major work, Modern Capitalism (modern DER Kapitalismus ), appeared in six volumes. With this work, it created the word “Capitalisme” (that Marx did not have in fact used!); It is a systematic history of the economy and economic development through the ages and a true work of the Historique school. Though devaluated later on by the neo-classic economists, and very criticized on particular points, it is today still about traditional with ramifications with for example the school of Annals (Fernand Braudel). The book was translated into many languages, but not into English, because the Université of Princeton which holds the rights of them it did not publish.

In 1906, Sombart accepted a post of professor at the business school of Berlin, an institution less prestigious than Breslau but nearer to the political action. Within this framework, it worked out its work, in the continuation of Modern sound Capitalisme , in connection with the luxury, of the mode, and the war like economic paradigms; it should be underlined in particular that the two sums of money remain work of reference so far on these subjects. In 1906 published its Pourquoi is there no Socialism in the United States? , which, although having been blamed naturally since then, remains a traditional work on the American exceptionalism on this subject.

Its career of Sociologist

Finally, in 1917, Sombart became professor with the Université of Berlin, which was then the most prestigious University in Europe if it is not in the world. It preserved its pulpit until in 1931 but continued to teach until in 1940. For this period, it was the one of most influential sociologists, much more prestigious than his friend max Weber, who of course later eclipsed it so much so that today Sombart is virtually forgotten in this field.

Insistence of Sombart to place sociology like part intrinsic of humanities ( Geisteswissenschaften ), as a need because she “plays” with the men and thus requires a comprehension ( Verstehen ) empathic intern, rather than comprehension ( Begreifen ) external, objectifies (to be noted that these two German words are translated by only one into English understanding or French comprehension ), became very unpopular during the life even of Sombart. This reaction came from the contradiction of this theory with the “scientifisation” of social sciences (familiarly quoted like the “jealousy of physics”), in the tradition of Auguste Count, Emile Durkheim and Weber (although that is a bad interpreatation; Weber largely sharing the sights of Sombart in this field), and which became with the mode during these years and more or less remained until now.

However, because of the number of joint elements between the approaches of Sombart and the Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, which is, it-also an approach of comprehension of the world based on the Verstehen , it returns in hand in certain sociological or even philosophical circles which are in sympathy with this vision of the world and critical of the “scientific” approach. The principal sociological tests of Sombart are gathered in its posthumous collection of 1956 Noo-Soziologie .

End of its career and the National-socialisme

During the Weimar Republic, Sombart was directed politically more and more on the right; its relations with the Nazis are still discussed today. Its book of Anthropology of 1938, Vom Menschen , is clearly anti-nazi, and was really prevented of publication and distribution by the Nazis. Its preceding work, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911), is during study of max Weber on the relations between the Protestantisme (and particularly the Calvinisme) and the Capitalisme, except that Sombart placed the Jews in the middle of his development. This book was classified as philosémite when it was published, but several contemporary Jewish researchers describe it like anti-semite, at least by his consequences. In its attitude towards the Nazis, it is often compared to Martin Heidegger and its friend and colleague Carl Schmitt, but it seems that whereas the two last were thinkers close to the ideology of IIIe Reich in their field, Sombart was always ambivalent. Sombart had, and even more than proportionally, the Jewish students, the majority of them felt moderately positive after the war in connection with its behavior; he was neither a hero, nor resistant.

The work of Sombart today

The posterity of the work of Sombart is difficult to evaluate, because its dealings pled with the Nazis made an analysis objective complexes (whereas its initial socialist positions penalized it in the more middle-class circles), particularly in Germany.

As it was established, in Histoire of the economy, its Modern Capitalisme is regarded as one important moment and a source of inspiration, although many details were questioned. Major elements of its economic work relates to the discovery - recently still revalidée - emergence of the partly double Comptabilité like an essential precondition of capitalism or the interdisciplinary studies of the city in the direction of the urban studies. It also forged the term and the concept of the creative Destruction which is a major element of the Théorie of the innovation of Joseph Schumpeter (Schumpeter borrowed enormously from Sombart, without always indicating its debt). Sombart is today a reference for the current of the economic historians néo schumpétériens, criticisms of the neo-classic economy, whose Erik Reinert is one of the principal representatives.

In Sociologie, the majority of the commentators hold it for a minor figure and her sociological theory like a bizzarery, which is clearly contradicted by the Journal off Classical Sociology ; today they are rather the philosophical sociologists and culturalists who, with the economists hétérodoxes, use his work. Sombart was always very popular with the Japan; one of the reasons of its weak reception to the the United States is that the essence of its work was for one long period nonavailable in English.

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