THE JEWS AND MODERN COMMUNISM: THE SOMBART THESIS RECONSIDERED

Abstract

The recent reissuance of Werner Sombart's classic work on The Jews and Modern Capitalism is a welcome event-both in itself and for making available once again this significant effort to understand the relationship between religion and the economy.' But rather than simply recreate the past, it is important to evaluate the present. Specifically, we should reconsider, against the background of Sombart's understanding, the global problem of Jews and their place in a variety of social systems, particularly in the light of the rise of modern communism as a major political and economic force of our age. But before getting directly to our topic, it is worthwhile to briefly summarize just what the actually states. For like the so-called Weber thesis concerning the relationship of Protestantism and the emergence of modern capitalism, the actual writings of Sombart are more often discussed than digested. Sombart employs a benign transvaluation of Marx's capitalism as that organization wherein regularly two distinct socio-economic groups cooperate. They are the owners of the means of production and the great body of workers who possess essentially only their labor power. The pursuit of gain is the mainspring of the system; the procedure is rationalism, planning and efficiency in the means of production. Economic activity is regulated by a cash nexus requiring exact calculations. The structure of cooperation is induced by a common appeal to the marketplace. In this context, the apparent success of the Jews under capitalism is attributed by Sombart to four factors: their dispersion over a wide area, their treatment as perennial strangers, their semi-citizenship, and their liquid wealth. But these objective circumstances are important only in the context of special Jewish characteristics: religious values are taught