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Werner Sombart (January 19, 1863-May 18, 1941) was
a Germany|German economics|economist and
sociology|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, Germany, 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 Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D. from
Berlin under the direction of Gustav von
Schmoller, then the most eminent German economist.

As an economist and especially 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 on chairs, the Moneymasters lobby in
governments always vetoed this. Sombart, at that
time, was an important Marxian, not a Marxist, but
someone who used and interpreted Karl Marx - to
the point that Friedrich Engels called him the
only German professor who understood Das Kapital.
For Sombart it was never a matter of right or left
- he simply understood the impoverishing effect of
the ‘Moneymasters’ – which he opposed and
described in his first book Der moderne
Kapitalismus.

In 1902, his magnum opus, Der moderne
Kapitalismus, appeared in six volumes. This book
coins the word "Capitalism" (which Karl Marx|Marx
had actually not used!); it is a systematic
history of economics and economic development
through the centuries and very much a work of the
Historical School. Although later much disparaged
by Neoclassical economics|neo-classical
economists, and much criticized in specific
points, it is still today a standard work with
important ramifications for, e.g., the Annales
school (Fernand Braudel). The book has been
translated into many languages, but not into
English, as Princeton University Press obtained
and holds to the English copyright but purposely
withholds the book as its references money and
wealth creation by the moneymasters which does not
fit into todays political correct picture.

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, i.a.,
companion volumes to Modern Capitalism dealing
with luxury, fashion, and war as economic
paradigms appear; especially the former two are
the key works on the subject until today. In 1906
also appeared his Why is there no Socialism in the
United States?, which, while naturally having been
questioned since then, is the classical work on
American exceptionalism in this respect.

===Middle Career and Sociology===

Finally, in 1917, Sombart became professor at the
Humboldt University|University of Berlin, then the
preeminent university in Europe if not in the
world. He remained on the chair until 1931 but
continued teaching until 1940. During that period,
he was also one of the leading sociologists
around, much more prominent than his friend Max
Weber, who later of course eclipsed him to the
point that Sombart is virtually forgotten in that
field by now. Sombart's insistence on Sociology as
a part of the Humanities (Geisteswissenschaften),
necessarily so because it dealt with human beings
and therefore required inside, empathic
"Verstehen" rather than the outside, objectivizing
"Begreifen" (both German words translate as
"understanding" into English), became extremely
unpopular already during his lifetime, because it
was the opposite of the "scientification" of the
social sciences (jocularly referred to as "physics
envy"), in the tradition of Auguste Comte, Émile
Durkheim and Max Weber|Weber (although this is a
misunderstanding; Weber largely shared Sombart's
views in these matters), which became fashionable
during this time and has more or less remained so
until today. However, because Sombart's approach
has much in common with Hans-Georg Gadamer's
Hermeneutics, which likewise is a Verstehen-based
approach to understanding the world, he is coming
back in some sociological and even philosophical
circles that are sympathetic to that approach and
critical towards the scientification of the world.
Sombart's key sociological essays are collected in
his posthumous 1956 work, Noo-Soziologie.

===Late Career and National Socialism===

The 'political correct' fraction today claims that
during the Weimar Republic, Sombart moved to the
right; his relation to the Nazis is therefor
debated. 
V. Gordon Childe, the famous Australian
Prehistorian, wrote a book called The Aryans,
prior to the rise of Hitler. Colin Renfrew wrote
that, after Hitler's use of the Aryan theme,
"Childe subsequently avoided all mention of his
book The Aryans, although in fact it offered no
evidence in favour of the delusion of racial
superiority and was very careful to distinguish
between language and culture and supposed racial
classifications"(Archaeology and Language, p. 4).
Given that Childe was a Marxist, this shows the
force of the Political Correctness in postwar
years. It may be the reason for the discrediting
of Sombart.

The  'Journal of Classical Sociology' brings an
interesting article with the question
http://www.aston.ac.uk/downloads/lss/Sociology/JCl
assSoc.pdf 'Why Is Werner Sombart Not Part of the
Core of Classical Sociology?'. THIS IS A MUST-READ
for all who like to understand Sombart. His 1938
anthropology book, Vom Menschen, is clearly
anti-Nazi, and was indeed hindered in publication
and distribution by the Nazis. His earlier book,
Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911), is a
pendant to Max Weber's study on the connection
between Protestantism (especially Calvinism) and
Capitalism, only that Sombart puts the Jews at the
core of the development. This book was seen as
Philo-Semitism|philosemitic when it appeared, but
several contemporary Jewish scholars describe it
as anti-semitism|antisemitic. The spirit of time
changes its perception. In his attitude towards
the Nazis - and only in that - , he is often
linked to Martin Heidegger and his much younger
friend and colleague Carl Schmitt, but it is clear
that, while the last one tried to be the vanguard
thinker for the Third Reich in his field and only
became critical when he were too individualistic
and elbowed out from their power positions,
Sombart was always much more affiliated with the
19th century thinking. Sombart had many, indeed
more than proportional, Jewish students, most of
who felt after the war moderately positive about
him, although he clearly was no hero nor
resistance fighter. Sombarts son :de:Nicolaus
Sombart describes the family friend and main
nazi-apologet Carl Schmitt in his books from an
intimate and nevertheless critical point of view
and gives reasons from near for the entanglement
of sophisticated persons like Schmitt.

===Sombart Today===

Sombart's legacy today is difficut to ascertain,
because the alleged Nazi affiliations have made an
objective reevaluation difficult (while his
earlier Socialist ones harmed him with the more
bourgeois circles), especially in Germany. As has
been stated, in economic history, his "Modern
Capitalism" is regarded as a milestone and
inspiration, although many details have been
questioned. Key insights from his economic work
concern the - recently again validated - discovery
of the emergence of double-entry accounting as a
key precondition for Capitalism and the
interdisciplinary study of the City in the sense
of urban studies. He also coined the term and
concept of creative destruction which is a key
ingredient of Joseph Schumpeter's theory of
innovation (Schumpeter actually borrowed much from
Sombart, not always with proper reference). In
Sociology, mainstream proponents still like to
regarded him a 'minor figure' and his sociological
theory an oddity, which is clearly contradicted by
the
http://www.aston.ac.uk/downloads/lss/Sociology/JCl
assSoc.pdf 'Journal of Classical Sociology'; today
it is more philosophical sociologists and
culturologists who rediscover his work. Sombart
has always been very popular in Japan; one of the
reasons of a lack of reception in the United
States is that most of his works were not
translated into English - in spite of, and
excluding as far as the reception is concerned,
the classic study on Why there is no Socialism in
America.

==Bibliography==

===Works by Sombart===
*Sombart, Werner (1906):  Das Proletariat. Bilder
und Studien. Die Gesellschaft, vol. 1. Berlin:
Rütten & Loening.
*Sombart, Werner (1906):  Warum gibt es in den
Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? Tübingen:
Mohr.  Several English translations, incl. (1976):
Why is there No Socialism in the United States.
New York: Sharpe.
*Sombart, Werner (1911):  Die Juden und das
Wirtschaftsleben. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
Several English translations, incl. (1951): The
Jews and Modern Capitalism. Glencoe, IL: Free
Press.
*Sombart, Werner: Der moderne Kapitalismus.
Historisch-systematische Darstellung des
gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen
Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Final edn. 1916,
repr. 1969, paperback edn. (3 vols. in 6): 1987
Munich: dtv.  (Also in Spanish; no English
translation yet.)
* Sombart, Werner (1921):  Luxus und Kapitalismus.
München: Duncker & Humblot, 1922.  English
translation: Luxury and capitalism. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
* Sombart, Werner (1934):  Deutscher Sozialismus.
Charlottenburg: Buchholz & Weisswange.  English
translation (1937, 1969): A New Social Philosophy.
New York: Greenwood.
*Sombart, Werner (1938):  Vom Menschen. Versuch
einer geisteswissenschaftlichen Anthropologie.
Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 
*Sombart, Werner (1956):  Noo-Soziologie. Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot.
*Sombart, Werner (2001):  Economic Life in the
Modern Age. Nico Stehr and Reiner Grundmann, eds.
New Brunswick: Transaction.  (New English
translations of key articles and chapters by
Sombart, including (1906) in full and the segment
defining Capitalism from (1916))

===Works about Sombart===
*Appel, Michael (1992):  Werner Sombart:
Historiker und Theoretiker des modernen
Kapitalismus. Marburg: Metropolis. 
*Backhaus, Jürgen G. (1996), ed. Werner Sombart
(1863-1941): Social Scientist. 3 vols. Marburg:
Metropolis. (The standard, all-encompassing work
on Sombart in English.)
*Backhaus, Jürgen G. (2000), ed. Werner Sombart
(1863-1941): Klassiker der Sozialwissenschaft.
Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme. Marburg:
Metropolis.
*Brocke, Bernhard vom (1987), ed.:  Sombarts
Moderner Kapitalismus. Materialien zur Kritik und
Rezeption. München: dtv
*Lenger, Friedrich (1994):  Werner Sombart,
1863-1941. Eine Biographie. München: Beck.  
*Nussbaum, Frederick Louis (1933):  A History of
the Economic Institutions of Modern Europe: An
Introduction of 'Der Moderne Kapitalismus' of
Werner Sombart. New York: Crofts.
*:de:Nicolaus Sombart|Sombart, Nicolaus (1991): 
Jugend in Berlin, 1933-1943. Ein Bericht.
Frankfurt/Main: Fischer.
*:de:Nicolaus Sombart|Sombart, Nicolaus  (1991):
Die deutschen Männer und ihre Feinde. Carl
Schmitt - ein deutsches Schicksal zwischen
Männerbund und Matriachatsmythos. Munich: Hanser.