1. The German-Jewish Economic Elite (1900-1933).
- Author
-
Windolf, Paul
- Subjects
CAPITALISM ,HECKSCHER-Ohlin principle ,CENTRAL economic planning ,COMPARATIVE advantage (International trade) - Abstract
The question which role the Jewish minority played in the development of capitalism was a controversial issue already before the First World War. Werner Sombart emphasized the "great importance of Jews for modern economic life, one that far surpassed all other influences." Max Weber argued instead that it was not possible to attribute the characteristic form of capitalistic rationality to the Jewish religion or Jewish traditions (protestant ethic). In this paper I take the Sombart-Weber controversy as a starting point. The hypothesis of a relatively high percentage of Jews among the corporate elite will be tested with more recent data. We have collected a database which contains the entire top executive personnel of the largest firms in Germany (and the US) for the period 1896 to 1938. In Germany about 16% of the Board members were of Jewish origin. At the center of the network (big linkers) about 25% were Jewish. The percentage of Jews in the general population was less than 1% in 1914. The paper focuses on the following question: How do we explain the fact that a minority subject to numerous forms of discrimination during the entire nineteenth century still generated a considerable percentage of the top management in German big business? What comparative advantages did the Jewish minority enjoy that enabled them to succeed in the competition for leading positions in corporate management? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009