Ethics and Economics in the Work of Werner Sombart

Abstract

The work of Werner Sombart (1863–1941) presents an especially interesting case for any attempt to take stock of the contribution of the historical school to the relationship between economics and ethics. One the one hand Sombart started out as a student of Schmoller following many characteristic paths of the historical school. On the other hand he used his reading of Marx to press for a more theoretical historism and sided with Weber in his attempt to separate carefully between scientific propositions and value judgements.¹ When Sombart published the first edition of his opus magnum Modern Capitalism in 1902 it was directed above all against “the foggy veils of ‘ethical sentiments’” that to him seemed characteristic of the work of the ethical and historical school of economics so dominant in turn of the century Germany.² Since he is usually treated as a representative of the last generation of the historical school his critical stance is in need of explanation. It is due to the nature of Sombart’s work that such an explanation has to proceed historically itself.³ It is well known that Sombart changed his political positions considerably over the course of his long life: from the socialism of the chair to fascism, as an East German author stated in the early 1960s, or from state socialism to romantic anticapitalism, as could be argued more accurately.⁴ These changes were often accompanied by methodological reorientations and were clearly mirrored in his scholarly work as well. Thus the chronological approach being used in this article is not only the consequence of a déformation professionelle of the historian but also the reflection of Sombart’s work itself. This work, however, will only be discussed as far as it touches upon the relationship between ethical values and economic and social science on the one hand, the role of ethical motivation in economic history and in economics more generally on the other.⁵