Két lexikoncikk a kapitalizmusról. Sombart zsidó pénzkölcsönzői és Schumpeter teremtő rombolása
Two Encyclopaedia Articles on Capitalism: Sombart on Jewish Money Lenders and Schumpeter on Creative Destruction

Summary/Abstract: The discourse about the term capitalism and its subsequent evolution into an acknowledged historical and analytical description of an era were shaped by the works of W. Sombart and J. Schumpeter. Starting from their encyclopaedia articles on capitalism, this paper follows the inception and reception of their parallel contributions about the genesis and development of capitalism: Sombart’s reasoning on the role of Jews and Schumpeter’s metaphor on “creative destruction” as the driving force. Sombart’s attempt to show that the Jews, their otherness, and their moneylending activities played a crucial role in the rise of modern capitalism was met with a mixed and controversial reception—from applause to sharp rebuttal as unscientific nonsense—by conservative German professors and religious scholars alike. Schumpeter’s metaphor, on the other hand, became a byword. Rather than searching for an external factor responsible for the emergence of the capitalist spirit, Schumpeter described the development of capitalism as an endogenous growth process of entrepreneurial innovation. Despite some similar features of their outlook and ideas, Sombart’s manifold, unsystematic and contradictory, and in some respect politically biased, oeuvre is largely forgotten by now, while Schumpeter’s legacy continues to attract adherents in evolutionary economics.

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