The Jews and Modern
Capitalism
Werner Sombart
Translated by M. Epstein
Contents
Translator’s Introductory
Note
Part I: The Contribution of
the Jews to Modern Economic Life
Chapter 1: Introductory
Chapter 2: The
Shifting of the Centre of Economic Life since the Sixteenth Century
Chapter 3: The
Quickening of International Trade
Chapter 4: The
Foundation of Modern Colonies
Chapter 5: The
Foundation of the Modern State
Chapter 6: The
Predominance of Commerce in Economic Life
Chapter 7: The
Growth of a Capitalistic Point of View in Economic Life
Part II: The Aptitude of
the Jews of Modern Capitalism
Chapter 8: The
Problem
Chapter 9: What
is a Capitalist Undertaker?
Chapter 10: The Objective Circumstances in the Jewish Aptitude for Modern
Capitalism
Chapter 11: The Significance of the Jewish Religion in Economic Life
Chapter 12: Jewish Characteristics
Part III: The Origin of the
Jewish Genius
Chapter 13: The Race Problem
Chapter 14: The Vicissitudes of the Jewish People
Notes and References
Werner Sombart is undoubtedly one of the most striking
personalities in the
But Sombart is an artist as well as a scholar; he combines reason
with imagination in an eminent degree, and he has the gift, seldom enough
associated with German professors, of writing in a lucid, flowing, almost
eloquent style. That is one characteristic of all his books, which are worth
noting. The rise and development of modern capitalism has been the theme that
has attracted him most, and his masterly treatment of it may be found in his Der
moderne Kapitalismus (2 vols., Leipzig, 1902). In 1896 he published Sozialismus
und soziale Bewegung, which quickly went through numerous editions and may
be described as one of the most widely read books in German-speaking countries.[1] Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19ten
Jahrhundert appeared in 1903, and Das Proletariat in 1906.
For some years past Sombart has been considering the revision of
his magnum opus on modern capitalism, and in the course of his studies
came across the problem, quite accidentally, as he himself tells us, of the
relation between the Jews and modern capitalism. The topic fascinated him, and
he set about inquiring what that relationship precisely was. The results of his
labours were published in the book[2] of which this is an English edition. The English version
is slightly shorter than the German original. The portions that have been left
out (with the author’s concurrence) are not very long and relate to general
technical questions, such as the modern race theory or the early history of
credit instruments. Furthermore, everything found within square brackets has
been added by the translator. My best thanks are due to my wife, who has been
constantly helpful with suggestions and criticisms, and to my friend Leon Simon
for the verse rendering on pp. 000–000.
M. E. London,
Two possible methods may be used to discover to what extent any
group of people participated in a particular form of economic organization. One
is the statistical; the other may be termed the genetic.
By means of the first we endeavour to ascertain the actual number
of persons taking part in some economic activity—say, those who establish trade
with a particular country, or who found any given industry—and then we
calculate what percentage is represented by the members of the group in which
we happen to be interested. There is no doubt that the statistical method has
many advantages. A pretty clear conception of the relative importance for any
branch of commerce of, let us say, foreigners or Jews, is at once evolved if we
are able to show by actual figures that 50 or 75 per cent of all the persons
engaged in that branch belong to either the first or the second category named.
More especially is this apparent when statistical information is forthcoming,
not only as to the number of persons but also concerning other or more striking
economic factors—e.g., the amount of paid-up capital, the quantity of
the commodities produced, the size of the turnover, and so forth. It will be
useful, therefore, to adopt the statistical method in questions such as the one
we have set ourselves. But at the same time it will soon become evident that by
its aid alone the complete solution cannot be found. In the first place, even
the best statistics do not tell us everything; nay, often the most important
aspect of what we are trying to discover is omitted. Statistics are silent as
to the dynamic effects which strong individualities produce in economic, as indeed in all
human life—effects
which have consequences reaching far beyond the limits of their immediate
surroundings. Their actual importance for the general tendency of any
particular development is greater far than any set of figures can reveal.
Therefore the statistical method must be supplemented by some other.
But more than this. The statistical method, owing to lack of
information, cannot always be utilized. It is indeed a lucky accident that we
possess figures recording the number of those engaged in any industry or trade,
and showing their comparative relation to the rest of the population. But a
statistical study of this kind, on a large scale, is really only a possibility
for modern and future times. Even then the path of the investigator is beset by
difficulties. Still, a careful examination of various sources, including the
assessments made by Jewish communities on their members, may lead to fruitful
results. I hope that this book will give an impetus to such studies, of which,
at the present time, there is only one that is really useful—the enquiry of
Sigmund Mayr, of Vienna.
When all is said, therefore, the other method (the genetic), to
which I have already alluded, must be used to supplement the results of
statistics. What is this method? We wish to discover to what extent a group of
people (the Jews) influence or have influenced the form and development of
modern economic life—to discover, that is, their qualitative or, as I have
already called it, their dynamic importance. We can do this best of all by
enquiring whether certain characteristics that mark our modern economic life
were given their first form by Jews, i.e., either that some particular
form of organization was first introduced by the Jews, or that some well-known
business principles, now accepted on all hands as fundamental, are specific
expressions of the Jewish spirit. This of necessity demands that the history of
the factors in economic development should be traced to their earliest
beginnings. In other words, we must study the childhood of the modern
capitalistic system, or, at any rate, the age in which it received its modern
form. But not the childhood only: its whole history must be considered. For
throughout, down to these very days, new elements are constantly entering the
fabric of capitalism and changes appear in its characteristics. Wherever such
are noted our aim must be to discover to whose influence they are due. Often
enough this will not be easy; sometimes it will even be impossible; and scientific
imagination must come to the aid of the scholar.
Another point should not be overlooked. In many cases the people who are responsible
for a fundamental idea or innovation in economic life are not always the inventors (using
that word in its narrowest meaning). It has often been asserted that the Jews
have no inventive powers; that not only technical but also economic discoveries
were made by non-Jews alone, and that the Jews have always been able cleverly
to utilize the ideas of others. I dissent from this general view in its
entirety. We meet with Jewish inventors in the sphere of technical science, and
certainly in that of economics, as I hope to show in this work. But even if the
assertion which we have mentioned were true, it would prove nothing against the
view that Jews have given certain aspects of economic life the specific
features they bear. In the economic world it is not so much the inventors that
matter as those who are able to apply the inventions: not those who conceive
ideas (e.g., the hire-purchase system) as those who can utilize them in
everyday life.
Before proceeding to the problem before us—the share of the Jews
in the work of building up our modern capitalistic system—we must mention one
other point of importance. In a specialized study of this kind Jewish influence
may appear larger than it actually was. That is in the nature of our study,
where the whole problem is looked at from only one point of view. If we were
enquiring into the influence of mechanical inventions on modern economic life
the same would apply: in a monograph that influence would tend to appear larger
than it really was. I mention this point, obvious though it is, lest it be said
that I have exaggerated the part played by the Jews. There were undoubtedly a
thousand and one other causes that helped to make the economic system of our
time what it is. Without the discovery of America and its silver treasures,
without the mechanical inventions of technical science, without the ethnical
peculiarities of modern European nations and their vicissitudes, capitalism
would have been as impossible as without the Jews.
In the long story of capitalism, Jewish influence forms but one
chapter. Its relative importance to the others I shall show in the new edition
of my Modern Capitalism, which I hope to have ready before long.
This caveat will, I trust, help the general reader to a
proper appreciation of the influence of Jews on modern economic life. But it
must be taken in conjunction with another. If on the one hand we are to make some
allowance, should our studies apparently tend to give Jews a preponderating
weight in economic affairs, on the other hand, their contribution is very often
even larger than we are led to believe. For our researches can deal only with
one portion of the problem, seeing that all the material is not available. Who to-day
knows anything definite about the individuals, or groups, who founded this or that industry,
established this or that branch of commerce, first adopted this or that
business principle? And even where we are able to name these pioneers with
certainty, there comes the further question, were they Jews or not?
Jews—that is to say, members of the people who profess the Jewish
faith. And I need hardly add that although in this definition I purposely leave
out any reference to race characteristics, it yet includes those Jews who have
withdrawn from their religious community, and even descendants of such, seeing
that historically they remain Jews. This must be borne in mind, for when we are
determining the influence of the Jew on modern economic life, again and again
men appear on the scene as Christians, who in reality are Jews. They or their
fathers were baptized, that is all. The assumption that many Jews in all ages
changed their faith is not far fetched. We hear of cases from the earliest
Middle Ages; in Italy, in the 7th and 8th centuries; at the same period in
Spain and in the Merovingian kingdoms; and from that time to this we find them
among all Christian nations. In the last third of the 19th century, indeed,
wholesale baptisms constantly occurred. But we have reliable figures for the
last two or three decades only, and I am therefore inclined to doubt the
statement of Jacob Fromer that towards the end of the twenties in last century
something like half the Jews of Berlin had gone over to Christianity.1 Equally improbable is the view of Dr. Wemer,
Rabbi in Munich, who, in a paper which he recently read, stated that altogether
120,000 Jews have been baptized in Berlin. The most reliable figures we have
are all against such a likelihood. According to these, it was in the nineties
that apostasy on a large scale first showed itself, and even then the highest
annual percentage never exceeded 1.28 (in 1905), while the average percentage
per annum (since 1895) was 1. Nevertheless, the number of Jews in Berlin
who from 1873 to 1906 went over to Christianity was not small; their total was
1869 precisely.2
The tendency to apostasy is stronger among Austrian Jews,
especially among those of Vienna. At the present time, between five and six
hundred Jews in that city renounce their faith every year, and from 1868 to
1903 there have been no less than 9085. The process grows apace; in the years
1868 to 1879 there was on an average one baptism annually for every 1200 Jews;
in the period 1880 to 1889 it was one for 420–430 Jews; while between 1890 and
1903 it had reached one for every 260– 270.3
But the renegade Jews are not the only group whose influence on
the economic development of our time it is difficult to estimate. There are
others to which the same applies. I am not thinking of the Jewesses who married
into Christian families, and who, though they thus ceased to be Jewish, at any
rate in name, must nevertheless have retained their Jewish characteristics. The
people I have in mind are the crypto-Jews, who played so important a part in
history, and whom we encounter in every century. In some periods they formed a
very large section of Jewry. But their non-Jewish pose was so admirably
sustained that among their contemporaries they passed as Christians or
Mohammedans. We are told, for example, of the Jews of the South of France in
the 15th and 16th centuries, who came originally from Spain and Portugal (and
the description applies to the Marannos everywhere): “They practised all the
outward forms of Catholicism; their births, marriages and deaths were entered
on the registers of the church, and they received the sacraments of baptism,
marriage and extreme unction. Some even took orders and became priests.”4 No wonder then that they do not appear as Jews
in the reports of commercial enterprises, industrial undertakings and so forth.
Some historians even to-day speak in admiring phrase of the beneficial
influence of Spanish or Portuguese “immigrants.” So skillfully did the
crypto-Jews hide their racial origin that specialists in the field of Jewish
history are still in doubt as to whether a certain family was Jewish or not.5 In those cases where they adopted Christian
names, the uncertainty is even greater. There must have been a large number of
Jews among the Protestant refugees in the 17th century. General reasons would
warrant this assumption, but when we take into consideration the numerous
Jewish names found among the Huguenots the probability is strong indeed.6
Finally, our enquiries will not be able to take any account of
all those Jews who, prior to 1848, took an active part in the economic life of
their time, but who were unknown to the authorities. The laws forbade Jews to
exercise their callings. They were therefore compelled to do so, either under
cover of some fictitious Christian person or under the protection of a
“privileged” Jew, or they were forced to resort to some other trick in order to
circumvent the law. Reliable authorities are of opinion that the number of Jews
who in many a town lived secretly in this way must have been exceedingly large.
In the forties of last century, for example, it is said that no less than
12,000 Jews, at a moderate estimate, were to be found in Vienna. The wholesale
textile trade was at that
time already in their hands, and entire districts in the centre of the city
were full of Jewish shops. But the official list of traders of 1845 contained
in an appendix the names of only sixty-three Jews, who were described as
“tolerated Jewish traders,” and these were allowed to deal only in a limited
number of articles.7
But enough. My point was to show that, for many and various
reasons, the number of Jews of whom we hear is less than those who actually
existed. The reader should therefore bear in mind that the contribution of the
Jews to the fabric of modern economic life will, of necessity, appear smaller
than it was in reality.
What that contribution was we shall now proceed to show.
One of the most important
facts in the growth of modern economic life is the removal of the centre of
economic activity from the nations of Southern Europe — the Italians, Spaniards
and Portuguese, with whom must also be reckoned some South German lands — to
those of the North-West — the Dutch, the French, the English and the North
Germans. The epoch-making event in the process was Holland’s sudden rise to
prosperity, and this was the impetus for the development of the economic
possibilities of France and England. All through the 17th century the
philosophic speculators and the practical politicians among the nations of
North-Western Europe had but one aim: to imitate Holland in commerce, in
industry, in shipping and in colonization.
The most ludicrous explanations of this well-known fact have been
suggested by historians. It has been said, for example, that the cause which
led to the economic decline of Spain and Portugal and of the Italian and South
German city states was the discovery of America and of the new route to the
East Indies; that the same cause lessened the volume of the commerce of the
Levant, and therefore undermined the position of the Italian commercial cities
which depended upon it. But this explanation is not in any way satisfactory. In
the first place, Levantine commerce maintained its pre-eminence throughout the
whole of the 17th and 18th centuries, and during this period the prosperity of
the maritime cities in the South of France, as well as that of Hamburg, was
very closely bound up with it. In the second place, a number of Italian towns,
Venice among them, which in the 17th century lost all their importance,
participated to a large extent in the trade of the Levant in the 16th century,
and that despite the neglect of the trade route. It is a little difficult to
understand why the nations which had played a leading part until the 15th
century — the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese — should have suffered in
the least because of the new commercial relations with America and the East
Indies, or why they should have been placed at any disadvantage by their
geographical position as compared with that of the French, the English or the
Dutch. As though the way from Genoa to America or the West Indies were not the
same as from Amsterdam or London or Hamburg! As though the Spanish and
Portuguese ports were not the nearest to the new lands — lands which had been
discovered by Italians and Portuguese, and had been taken possession of by the
Portuguese and the Spaniards!
Equally unconvincing is another reason which is often given. It
is asserted that the countries of North-Western Europe were strong consolidated
states, while Germany and Italy were disunited, and accordingly the former were
able to take up a stronger position than the latter. Here, too, we ask in
wonder whether the powerful Queen of the Adriatic was a weaker state in the
16th century than the Seven Provinces in the 17th? And did not the empire of
Philip II excel all the kingdoms of his time in power and renown? Why was it,
moreover, that, although Germany was in a state of political disruption,
certain of its cities, like Hamburg or Frankfort-on-the-Main, reached a high
degree of development in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as few French or English
cities could rival?
This is not the place to go into the question in all its
many-sidedness. A number of causes contributed to bring about the results we
have mentioned. But from the point of view of our problem one possibility
should not be passed over which, in my opinion, deserves most serious
consideration, and which, so far as I know, has not yet been thought of. Cannot
we bring into connexion the shifting of the economic centre from Southern to
Northern Europe with the wanderings of the Jews? The mere suggestion at once
throws a flood of light on the events of those days, hitherto shrouded in
semi-darkness. It is indeed surprising that the parallelism has not before been
observed between Jewish wanderings and settlement on the one hand, and the economic
vicissitudes of the different peoples and states on the other. Israel passes
over Europe like the sun: at its coming new life bursts forth; at its going all
falls into decay. A short résumé of the changing fortunes of the Jewish people
since the 15th century will lend support to this contention.
The first event to be recalled, an event of world-wide import, is
the expulsion of the Jews from
It was by a remarkable stroke of fate that these two occurrences,
equally portentous in their significance — the opening-up of new continents and
the mightiest upheavals in the distribution of the Jewish people—should have
coincided. But the expulsion of the Jews from the Pyrenean Peninsula did not
altogether put an end to their history there. Numerous Jews remained behind as
pseudo-Christians (Marannos), and it was only as the Inquisition, from the days
of Philip II onwards, became more and more relentless that these Jews were
forced to leave the land of their birth.2 During
the centuries that followed, and especially towards the end of the 16th, the
Spanish and Portuguese Jews settled in other countries. It was during this
period that the doom of the economic prosperity of the Pyrenean Peninsula was
sealed.
With the 15th century came the expulsion of the Jews from the
German commercial cities — from Cologne (1424–5), from Augsburg (1439–40), from
Strassburg (1438), from Erfurt (1458), from Nuremberg (1498–9), from Ulm
(1499), and from Ratisbon (1519).
The same fate overtook them in the 16th century in a number of
Italian cities. They were driven from Sicily (1492), from Naples (1540– 1), from
Genoa and from Venice (1550). Here also economic decline and Jewish emigration
coincided in point of time.
On the other hand, the rise to economic importance, in some cases
quite unexpectedly, of the countries and towns whither the refugees fled, must
be dated from the first appearance of the Spanish Jews. A good example is that
of
In France in the 17th and 18th centuries the rising towns were
Marseilles, Bordeaux, Rouen — again the havens of refuge of the Jewish exiles.6
As for Holland, it is well-known that at the end of the 16th
century a sudden upward development (in the capitalistic sense) took place
there. The first Portuguese Marannos settled in Amsterdam in 1593, and very
soon their numbers increased. The first synagogue in Amsterdam was opened in
1598, and by about the middle of the 17th century there were Jewish communities
in many Dutch cities. In Amsterdam, at the beginning of the 18th century, the estimated
number of Jews was 2400.7 But even by the
middle of the 17th century their intellectual influence was already marked; the
writers on international law and the political philosophers speak of the
ancient Hebrew commonwealth as an ideal which the Dutch constitution might well
seek to emulate.8 The Jews themselves
called Amsterdam at that time their grand New Jerusalem.9 Many of the Dutch settlers had come from the Spanish
Netherlands, especially from Antwerp, whither they had fled on their expulsion
from Spain. It is true that the proclamations of 1532 and 1539 forbade the
pseudo-Christians to remain in Antwerp, but they proved ineffective. The
prohibition was renewed in 1550, but this time it referred only to those who
had not been domiciled for six years. But this too remained a dead letter: “the
crypto-Jews are increasing from day to day.” They took an active part in the
struggle for freedom in which the Netherlands were engaged, and its result
forced them to wander to the more northerly provinces.10 Now it is a remarkable thing that the brief space during which
Antwerp became the commercial centre and the money-market of the world should
have been just that between the coming and the going of the Marannos.11
It was the same in England. The economic development of the
country, in other words, the growth of capitalism,12
ran parallel with the influx of Jews, mostly of Spanish andPortuguese
origin.13
It was believed that there were no Jews in England from the time
of their expulsion under Edward I (1290) until their more or less officially
recognized return under Cromwell (1654–56). The best authorities on
Anglo-Jewish history are now agreed that this is a mistake. There were always
Jews in England; but not till the 16th century did they begin to be numerous.
Already in the reign of Elizabeth many were met with, and the Queen herself had
a fondness for Hebrew studies and for intercourse with Jews. Her own physician
was a Jew, Rodrigo Lopez, on whom Shakespeare modelled his Shylock. Later on,
as is generally known, the Jews, as a result of the efforts of Manasseh ben
Israel, obtained the right of unrestricted domicile. Their numbers were
increased by further streams of immigrants including, after the 18th century,
Jews from Germany, until, according to the author of the Anglia Judaica, there were 6000 Jews in London alone in the year
1738.14
When all is said, however, the fact that the migration of the
Jews and the economic vicissitudes of peoples were coincident events does not
necessarily prove that the arrival of Jews in any land was the only cause of
its rise or their departure the only cause of its decline. To assert as much
would be to argue on the fallacy “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” Nor are the
arguments of later historians on this subject conclusive, and therefore I will
not mention any in support of my thesis.15 But
the opinions of contemporaries always, as I think, deserve attention. So I will
acquaint the reader with some of them, for very often a word suffices to throw
a flood of light on their age.
When the Senate of Venice, in 1550, decided to expel the Marannos
and to forbid commercial intercourse with them, the Christian merchants of the
city declared that it wouldmean their ruin and that they might as well leave
Venice with the exiles, seeing that they made their living by trading with the
Jews. The Jews controlled the Spanish wool trade, the trade in Spanish silk and
crimsons, sugar, pepper, Indian spices and pearls. A great part of the entire
export trade was carried on by Jews, who supplied the Venetians with goods to
be sold on commission; and they were also bill-brokers.16
In England the Jews found a protector in Cromwell, who was
actuated solely by considerations of an economic nature. He believed that he
would need the wealthy Jewish merchants to extend the financial and commercial
prosperity of the country. Nor was he blind to the usefulness of having moneyed
support for the government.17
Like Cromwell, Colbert, the great French statesman of the 17th
century, was also sympathetically inclined towards the Jews, and in my opinion
it is of no small significance that these two organizers, both of whom
consolidated modern European states, should have been so keenly alive to the
fitness of the Jew in aiding the economic (i.e.,
capitalistic) progress of a country. In one of his Ordinances to the
Intendant of Languedoc, Colbert points out what great benefits the city of
Marseilles derived from the commercial capabilities of the Jews.18 The inhabitants of the great French trading
centres in which the Jews played an important role were in no need of being
taught the lesson; they knew it from their own experience and, accordingly,
they brought all their influence to bear on keeping their Jewish
fellow-citizens within their walls. Again and again we hear laudatory accounts
of the Jews, more especially from the inhabitants of Bordeaux. In 1675 an army
of mercenaries ravaged Bordeaux, and many of the rich Jews prepared to depart.
The Town Council was terrified, and the report presented by its members is worth
quoting. “The Portuguese who occupy whole streets and do considerable business
have asked for their passports. They and those aliens who do a very large trade
are resolved to leave; indeed, the wealthiest among them, Gaspar Gonzales and
Alvares, have already departed. We are very much afraid that commerce will
cease altogether.”19 A few years later the
Sous-Intendant of Languedoc summed up the situation in the words “without them
(the Jews) the trade of Bordeaux and of the whole province would be inevitably
ruined.”20
We have already seen how the fugitives from the Iberian Peninsula
in the 16th century streamed into Antwerp, the commercial metropolis of the
Spanish Netherlands. About the middle of the century, the Emperor in a decree
dated
Antwerp lost no small part of its former glory by reason of the
departure of the Jews, and in the 17th century especially it was realized how
much they contributed to bring about material prosperity. In 1653 a committee
was appointed to consider the question whether the Jews should be allowed into
Antwerp, and it expressed itself on the matter in the following terms: “And as
for the inconveniences which are to be feared and apprehended in the public
interest — that they (the Jews) will attract to themselves all trade, that they
will be guilty of a thousand frauds and tricks, and that by their usury they
will devour the wealth of good Catholics — it seems to us on the contrary that
by the trade which they will expand far beyond its present limits the benefit
derived will be for the good of the whole land, and gold and silver will be
available in greater quantities for the needs of the state.”22
The Dutch in the 17th century required no such recommendations;
they were fully alive to the gain which the Jews brought. When Manasseh ben
Israel left Amsterdam on his famous mission to England, the Dutch Government
became anxious; they feared lest it should be a question of transplanting the
Dutch Jews to England, and they therefore instructed Neuport, their ambassador
in London, to sound Manasseh as to his intentions. He reported (December 1655)
that all was well, and that there was no cause for apprehension. “Manasseh ben
Israel hath been to see me, and did assure me that he doth not desire anything
for the Jews in Holland but only for those as sit in the Inquisition in Spain
and Portugal.”23
It is the same tale in Hamburg. In the 17th century the
importance of the Jews had grown to such an extent that they were regarded as
indispensable to the growth of Hamburg’s prosperity. On one occasion the Senate
asked that permission should be given for synagogues to be built, otherwise,
they feared, the Jews would leave Hamburg, and the city might then be in danger
of sinking to a mere village.24 On another
occasion, in 1697, when it was suggested that the Jews should be expelled, the
merchants earnestly entreated the Senate for help, in order to prevent the
serious endangering of Hamburg’s commerce.25 Again,
in 1733, in a special report, now in the Archives of the Senate, we may read:
“In bill-broking, in trade with jewellery and braid and in the manufacture of
certain cloths the Jews have almost a complete mastery, and have surpassed our
own people. In the past there was no need to take cognizance of them, but now
they are increasing in numbers. There is no section of the great merchant
class, the manufacturers and those who supply commodities for daily needs, but
the Jews form an important element therein. They have become a necessary evil.”26 To the callings enumerated in which the Jews
took a prominent part, we must add that of marine insurance brokers.27
So much for the judgment of contemporaries. But as a complete
proof even that will not serve. We must form our own judgment from the facts,
and therefore our first aim must be to seek these out. That means that we must
find from the original sources what contributions the Jews made to the
building-up of our modern economic life from the end of the 15th century onward
— the period, that is, when Jewish history and general European economic
progress both tended in the same direction. We shall then also be able to state
definitely to what extent the Jews influenced the shifting of the centre of
economic life.
My own view is, as I may say in anticipation, that the importance
of the Jews was twofold. On the one hand, they influenced the outward form of
modern capitalism; on the other, they gave expression to its inward spirit.
Under the first heading, the Jews contributed no small share in giving to
economic relations the international aspect they bear to-day; in helping the
modern state, that framework of capitalism, to become what it is; and lastly,
in giving the capitalistic organization its peculiar features, by inventing a
good many details of the commercial machinery which moves the business life of
to-day, and co-operating in the perfecting of others. Under the second heading,
the importance of the Jews is so enormous because they, above all others,
endowed economic life with its modern spirit; they seized upon the essential
idea of capitalism and carried it to its fullest development.
We shall consider these points in turn, in order to obtain a
proper notion of the problem. Our intention is to do no more than ask a
question or two, and here and there to suggest an answer. We want merely to set
the reader thinking. It will be for later research to gather sufficient
material by which to judge whether, and to what extent, the views as to cause
and effect here propounded have any foundation in actual fact.
The transformation of European commerce which has taken place
since the shifting of the centre of economic activity owed a tremendous debt to
the Jews. If we consider nothing but the quantity of commodities that passed through their
hands, their position is unique. Exact statistics are, as I have already
remarked, almost non-existent; special research may, however, bring some
figures to light that will be useful. At present there is, to my knowledge,
only some slight material on this head, but its value cannot be overestimated.
It would appear that even before their formal admission into
England—that is, in the first half of the 17th century—the extent of the trade
in the hands of Jews totalled one-twelfth of that of the whole kingdom.1 Unfortunately we are not told on what
authority this calculation rests, but that it cannot be far from the truth is
apparent from a statement in a petition of the merchants of London. The
question was whether Jews should pay the duty on imports levied on foreigners.
The petitioners point out that if the Jews were exempted, the Crown would
sustain a loss of ten thousand pounds annually.2
We are remarkably well informed as to the proportion of trading
done by Jews at the Leipzig fairs,3 and as
these were for a long period the centre of German commerce, we have here a
standard by which to measure its intensive and extensive development. But not
alone for
It is only since the Easter fair of 1756 that we are able to
compare the Jewish with the Christian traders, as far as numbers are concerned,
for it is only from that date that the Archives possess statistics of the
latter. The average number of Jews attending the Leipzig fair was as follows:—
|
1675-1680 416 1681-1690 489 1691-1691 834 1701-1710 854 1711-1720 769 1721-1730 899 1731-1740 874 1741-1748 708 |
1767-1769 995 1770-1779 1652 1780-1789 1073 1790-1799 1473 1800-1809 3370 1810-1819 4896 1820-1829 3747 1830-1839 6444 |
Note especially the speedy increase towards the end of the 17th
and 18th centuries and also at the beginning of the 19th.
If we glance at the period 1766 to 1839, we see that the fairs
were visited annually by an average of 3185 Jews and 13,005 Christians—that is
to say, the Jews form 24.49 per cent, or nearly one-quarter of the total number
of Christian merchants. Indeed, in some years, as for example between 1810 and
1820, the Jewish visitors form 33% per cent of the total of their colleagues
(4896 Jews and 14,366 Christians). This is significant enough, and there is no
need to lay stress on the fact that in all probability the figures given in the
table are underestimated.
The share taken by Jews in the commerce of a country may
sometimes be ascertained by indirect means. We know, for example, that the
trade of Hamburg with Spain and Portugal, and also with Holland, in the 17th
century was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews.5 Now some 20 per cent. of the ships’ cargoes leaving Hamburg
were destined for the Iberian Peninsula, and some 30 per cent for Holland.6
Take another instance. The Levant trade was the most important
branch of French commerce in the 18th century. A contemporary authority informs
us that it was entirely controlled by Jews—“buyers, sellers, middlemen,
bill-brokers, agents and so forth were all Jews.”7
In the 16th and 17th centuries, and even far into the 18th, the
trade of the Levant as well as that with, and via, Spain and Portugal,
was the broadest stream in the world’s commerce. This mere generalization goes
far to prove how preeminent, from the purely quantitative point of view, the
Jews were in forwarding the development of international intercourse. Already
in Spain the Jews had managed to obtain control of the greater portion of the
Levant trade, and everywhere in the Levantine ports Jewish offices and
warehouses were to be found. Many Spanish Jews at the time of the expulsion
from Spain settled in the East; the others journeyed northwards. So it came
about that almost imperceptibly the Levantine trade became associated with the
more northerly peoples. In Holland, more especially, is the effect of this seen: Holland
became a commercial country of world-wide influence. Altogether, the commercial
net, so to say, became bigger and stronger in proportion as the Jews
established their offices, on the one hand further afield, on the other in
closer proximity to each other.8 More
particularly was this the case when the Western Hemisphere—largely through
Jewish influence—was drawn into the commerce of the world. We shall have more
to say on this aspect of the question in connexion with the part the Jews
played in colonial foundations.
Another means by which we may gain a clear conception of what the
Jews did for the extension of modern commerce is to discover the kind of
commodities in which they for the most part traded. The quality of the commerce
matters more than its quantity. It was by the character of their trade that
they partially revolutionized the older forms, and thus helped to make commerce
what it is to-day.
Here we are met by a striking fact. The Jews for a long time
practically monopolized the trade in articles of luxury, and to the fashionable
world of the aristocratic 17th and 18th centuries this trade was of supreme
moment. What sort of commodities, then, did the Jews specialize in? Jewellery,
precious stones, pearls and silks.9 Gold
and silver jewellery, because they had always been prominent in the market for
precious metals. Pearls and stones, because they were among the first to settle
in those lands (especially Brazil) where these are to be found; and silks,
because of their ancient connexions with the trading centres of the Orient.
Moreover, Jews were to be found almost entirely, or at least
predominantly, in such branches of trade as were concerned with exportation on
a large scale. Nay, I believe it may with justice be asserted that the Jews
were the first to place on the world’s markets the staple articles of modern
commerce. Side by side with the products of the soil, such as wheat, wool,
flax, and, later on, distilled spirits, they dealt throughout the 18th century
specially in textiles,10 the output of a
rapidly growing capitalistic industry, and in those colonial products which for
the first time became articles of international trade, viz., sugar and tobacco.
I have little doubt that when the history of commerce in modern times comes to
be written Jewish traders will constantly be met with in connexion with
enterprises on a large scale. The references which quite by accident have come
under my notice are already sufficient to prove the truth of this assertion.11
Perhaps the most far-reaching, because the most revolutionary,
influence of the Jews on the development of economic life was due to their
trade in new commodities, in the preparation of which new methods supplanted
the old. We may mention cotton,12 cotton
goods of foreign make, indigo and so forth.13 Dealing
in these articles was looked upon at the time as “spoiling sport,” and
therefore Jews were taunted by one German writer with carrying on “unpatriotic
trade”14 or “Jew-commerce, which gave
little employment to German labour, and depended for the most part on home
consumption only.”15
Another great characteristic of “Jew-commerce,” one which all
later commerce took for its model, was its variety and many-sidedness. When in
1740 the merchants of Montpelier complained of the competition of the Jewish
traders, the Intendant replied that if they, the Christians, had such
well-assorted stocks as the Jews, customers would come to them as willingly as
they went to their Jewish competitors.16 We
hear the same of the Jews at the Leipzig fairs: “The Jewish traders had a
beneficial influence on the trade of the fairs, in that their purchases were so
varied. Thus it was the Jews who tended to make trade many-sided and forced
industry (especially the home industries) to develop in more than one
direction. Indeed, at many fairs the Jews became the arbiters of the market by
reason of their extensive purchases.”17
But the greatest characteristic of “Jew-commerce” during the
earlier capitalistic age was, to my mind, the supremacy which Jewish traders
obtained, either directly or by way of Spain and Portugal, in the lands from
which it was possible to draw large supplies of ready money. I am thinking of
the newly discovered gold and silver countries in Central and South America.
Again and again we find it recorded that Jews brought ready money into the
country.18 The theoretical speculator and
the practical politician knew well enough that here was the source of all
capitalistic development. We too, now that the mists of Adam Smith’s doctrines
have lifted, have realized the same thing. The establishment of modern economic
life meant, for the most part, and of necessity, the obtaining of the precious
metals, and in this work no one was so successfully engaged as the Jewish
traders. This leads us at once to the subject of the next chapter, which deals
with the share of the Jews in colonial expansion.
We are only now beginning to realize that colonial expansion was
no small force in the development of modern capitalism. It is the purpose of
this chapter to show that in the work of that expansion the Jews played, if not
the most decisive, at any rate a most prominent part.
That the Jews should have been keen colonial settlers was only
natural, seeing that the New World, though it was but the Old in a new garb,
seemed to hold out a greater promise of happiness to them than crossgrained old
Europe, more especially when their last Dorado (Spain) proved an inhospitable
refuge. And this applies equally to all colonial enterprises, whether in the
East or the West or the South of the globe. There were probably many Jews
resident in the
It is as yet unknown to what extent the Jews shared in the growth
of economic life in India after the English became masters there. We have,
however, fairly full information as to the participation of the Jews in the
founding of the English colonies in South Africa and Australia. There is no
doubt that in these regions (more particularly in Cape Colony), wellnigh all
economic development was due to the Jews. In the twenties and thirties of the
19th century Benjamin Norden and Simon Marks came to South Africa, and “the
industrial awakening of almost the whole interior of Cape Colony” was their
work. Julius Mosenthal and his brothers Adolph and James established the trade
in wool, skins, and mohair. Aaron and Daniel de Pass monopolized the whaling
industry; Joel Myers commenced ostrich fanning. Lilienfeld, of Hopetown, bought
the first diamonds. 7 Similar leading positions were occupied by the
Jews in the other South African colonies, particularly in the Transvaal, where
it is said that to-day twenty-five of the fifty thousand Jews of South Africa
are settled.8 It is the same story in
Australia, where the first wholesale trader was Montefiore. It would seem to be
no exaggeration therefore that “a large proportion of the English colonial
shipping trade was for a considerable time in the hands of the Jews.”9
But the real sphere of Jewish influence in colonial settlements,
especially in the early capitalistic period, was in the Western Hemisphere.
America in all its borders is a land of Jews. That is the result to which a
study of the sources must inevitably lead, and it is pregnant with meaning.
From the first day of its discovery
The very discovery of America is most intimately bound up with
the Jews in an extraordinary fashion. It is as though the New World came into
the horizon by their aid and for them alone, as though Columbus and the rest
were but managing directors for Israel. It is in this light that Jews, proud of
their past, now regard the story of that discovery, as set forth in the latest
researches.11 These would seem to show
that it was the scientific knowledge of Jewish scholars which so perfected the
art of navigation that voyages across the ocean became at all possible. Abraham
Zacuto, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Salamanca,
completed his astronomical tables and diagrams, the Almanach perpetuum, in
1473. On the basis of these tables two other Jews, Jose Vecuho, who was Court astronomer
and physician to John II of Portugal, and one Moses the Mathematician (in
collaboration with two Christian scholars), discovered the nautical astrolabe,
an instrument by which it became possible to measure from the altitude of the
sun the distance of a ship from the Equator. Jose further translated the
Almanack of his master into Latin and Spanish.
The scientific facts which prepared the way for the voyage of
Columbus were thus supplied by Jews. The money which was equally necessary came
from the same quarter, at any rate as regards his first two voyages. For the
first voyage, Columbus obtained a loan from Louis de Santangel, who was of the King’s
Council; and it was to Santangel, the patron of the expedition, and to Gabriel
Saniheg, a Maranno, the Treasurer of Aragon, that the first two letters of
Columbus were addressed. The second voyage was also undertaken with the aid of
Jewish money, this time certainly not voluntarily contributed. On their
expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Jews were compelled to leave much treasure
behind; this was seized by Ferdinand for the State Exchequer, and with a
portion of it Columbus was financed.
But more than that. A number of Jews were among the companions of
Columbus, and the first European to set foot on American soil was a Jew—Louis
de Torres. So the latest researches would have us believe. 12
But what caps all—Columbus himself is claimed to have been a Jew.
I give this piece of information for what it is worth, without guaranteeing its
accuracy. At a meeting of the Geographical Society of Madrid, Don Celso Garcia
de la Riega, a scholar famous for his researches on
Scarcely were the doors of the New World opened to Europeans than
crowds of Jews came swarming in. We have already seen that the discovery of
America took place in the year in which the Jews of Spain became homeless, that
the last years of the 15th century and the early years of the 16th were a
period in which millions of Jews were forced to become wanderers, when European
Jewry was like an antheap into which a stick had been thrust. Little wonder, therefore,
that a great part of this heap betook itself to the New World, where the future
seemed so bright. The
first traders in America were Jews. The first industrial establishments in
America were those of Jews. Already in the year 1492 Portuguese Jews settled in
St. Thomas, where they were the first plantation owners on a large scale; they
set up many sugar factories and gave employment to nearly three thousand
Negroes.13 And as for Jewish emigration to
South America, almost as soon as it was discovered, the stream was so great
that Queen Joan in 1511 thought it necessary to take measures to stem it.14 But her efforts must have been without avail,
for the number of Jews increased, and finally, on
In order to do full justice to the unceasing activity of the Jews
in South America as founders of colonial commerce and industry, it will be
advisable to glance at the fortunes of one or two colonies.
The history of the Jews in the American colonies, and therefore
the history of the colonies themselves, falls into two periods, separated by
the expulsion of the Jews from Brazil in 1654.
We have already mentioned the establishment of the sugar industry
in St. Thomas by Jews in 1492. By the year 1550 this industry had reached the
height of its development on the island. There were sixty plantations with
sugar mills and refineries, producing annually, as may be seen from the tenth
part paid to the King, 150,000 arrobes of sugar.15
From St. Thomas, or possibly from Madeira,16 where they had for a long time been engaged in the sugar
trade, the Jews transplanted the industry to Brazil, the largest of the
American colonies. Brazil thus entered on its first period of prosperity, for
the growth of the sugar industry brought with it the growth of the national
wealth. In those early years the colony was populated almost entirely by Jews
and criminals, two shiploads of them being brought thither annually from
Portugal.17 The Jews quickly became the
dominant class, “a not inconsiderable number of the wealthiest Brazilian
traders were New Christians.”18 The first
Governor-General was of Jewish origin, and he it was who brought order into the
government of the colony. It is not too much to say that Portugal’s new
possessions really began to thrive only after Thomé de Souza, a man of
exceptional ability, was sent out in 1549 to take matters in hand.19 Nevertheless the colony did not reach the
zenith of its prosperity until after the influx of rich Jews from Holland,
consequent on the Dutch entering into possession in 1642. In that very year, a
number of American Jews combined to establish a colony in Brazil, and no less
than six hundred influential Dutch Jews joined them.20 Up to about the middle of the 17th century all the large sugar plantations
belonged to Jews,21 and contemporary
travellers report as to their many-sided activities and their wealth. Thus
Nieuhoff, who travelled in Brazil from 1640 to 1649, says of them:22 “Among the free inhabitants of Brazil that
were not in the (Dutch West India) Company’s service the Jews were the most
considerable in number, who had transplanted themselves thither from Holland.
They had a vast traffic beyond the rest; they purchased sugar-mills and built
stately houses in the Receif. They were all traders, which would have been of
great consequence to the Dutch Brazil had they kept themselves within the due
bounds of traffic.” Similarly we read in F. Pyrard’s Travels:29 “The profits they make after being nine or
ten years in those lands are marvellous, for they all come back rich.”
The predominance of Jewish influence in plantation development
outlasted the episode of Dutch rule in Brazil, and continued, despite the
expulsion of 1654,24 down to the first half
of the 11th century.25 On one occasion,
“when a number of the most influential merchants of Rio de Janeiro fell into
the hands of the Holy Office (of the Inquisition), the work on so many
plantations came to a standstill that the production and commerce of the
Province (of Bahio) required a long stretch of time to recover from the blow.”
Later, a decree of the 2nd March 1768 ordered all the registers containing
lists of New Christians to be destroyed, and by a law of 25th March 1773 New
Christians were placed on a footing of perfect civic equality with the
orthodox. It is evident, then, that very many crypto-Jews must have maintained
their prominent position in Brazil even after the Portuguese had regained
possession of it in 1654, and that it was they who brought to the country its
flourishing sugar industry as well as its trade in precious stones.
Despite this, the year 1654 marks an epoch in the annals of
American-Jewish history. For it was in that year that a goodly number of the
Brazilian Jews settled in other parts of America and thereby moved the economic
centre of gravity.
The change was specially profitable to one or two important
islands of the West Indian Archipelago and also to the neighbouring coastlands,
which rose in prosperity from the time of the Jewish influx in the 17th
century. Barbados, which was inhabited almost solely by Jews, is a case in
point.26 It came under English rule in
1627; in 1641 the sugar cane was introduced, and seven years later the
exportation of sugar began. But the sugar industry could not maintain itself.
The sugar produced was so poor in quality that its price was scarcely
sufficient to pay for the
cost of transport to England. Not till the exiled “Dutchmen” from Brazil
introduced the process of refining and taught the natives the art of drying and
crystallizing the sugar did an improvement manifest itself. As a result, the
sugar exports of Barbados increased by leaps and bounds, and in 1661 Charles II
was able to confer baronetcies on thirteen planters, who drew an annual income
of £10,000 from the island. By about the year 1676 the industry there had grown
to such an extent that no fewer than 400 vessels each carrying 180 tons of raw
sugar left annually.
In 1664 Thomas Modyford introduced sugar manufacturing from
Of the other English colonies, the Jews showed a special
preference for Surinam.30 Jews had been
settled there since 1644 and had received a number of privileges—“whereas we
have found that the Hebrew nation … have … proved themselves useful and
beneficial to the colony.” Their privileged position continued under the Dutch,
to whom Surinam passed in 1667. Towards the end of the 17th century their
proportion to the rest of the inhabitants was as one to three, and in 1730 they
owned 115 of the 344 sugar plantations.
The story of the Jews in the English and Dutch colonies finds a
counterpart in the more important French settlements, such as Martinique,
Guadeloupe, and San Domingo.81 Here also
sugar was the source of wealth, and, as in the other cases, the Jews controlled
the industry and were the principal sugar merchants.
The first large plantation and refinery in Martinique was
established in
1655 by Benjamin Dacosta, who had fled thither from Brazil with 900
co-religionists and 1100 slaves.
In San Domingo the sugar industry was introduced as early as
1587, but it was not until the “Dutch” refugees from Brazil settled there that
it attained any degree of success.
In all this we must never lose sight of the fact that in those
critical centuries in which the colonial system was taking root in America (and
with it modern capitalism), the production of sugar was the backbone of the
entire colonial economy, leaving out of account, of course, the mining of
silver, gold and gems in Brazil. Indeed, it is somewhat difiicult exactly to
picture to ourselves the enormous significance in those centuries of
sugar-making and sugar-selling. The Council of Trade in Paris (1701) was guilty
of no exaggerated language when it placed on record its belief that “French
shipping owes its splendour to the commerce of the sugar-producing islands, and
it is only by means of this that the navy can be maintained and strengthened.”
Now, it must be remembered that the Jews had almost monopolized the sugar
trade; the French branch in particular being controlled by the wealthy family
of the Gradis of Bordeaux. 32
The position which the Jews had obtained for themselves in
Central and South America was thus a powerful one. But it became even more so
when towards the end of the 17th century the English colonies in North America
entered into commercial relations with the West Indies. To this close union,
which again Jewish merchants helped to bring about, the North American
Continent (as we shall see) owes its existence. We have thus arrived at the
point where it is essential to consider the Jewish factor in the growth of the
United States from their first origins. Once more Jewish elements combined,
this time to give the United States their ultimate economic form. As this view
is absolutely opposed to that generally accepted (at least in Europe), the
question must receive full consideration.
At first sight it would seem as if the economic system of North
America was the very one that developed independently of the Jews. Often
enough, when I have asserted that modern capitalism is nothing more or less
than an expression of the Jewish spirit, I have been told that the history of
the United States proves the contrary. The Yankees themselves boast of the fact
that they throve without the Jews. It was an American writer—Mark Twain, if I
mistake not—who once considered at some length why the Jews played no great
part in the States, giving
as his reason that the Americans were as “smart” as the Jews, if not smarter.
(The Scotch, by the way, think the same of themselves.) Now, it is true that we
come across no very large number of Jewish names to-day among the big captains
of industry, the well-known speculators, or the Trust magnates in the country.
Nevertheless, I uphold my assertion that the United States (perhaps more than
any other land) are filled to the brim with the Jewish spirit. This is
recognized in many quarters, above all in those best capable of forming a
judgment on the subject. Thus, a few years ago, at the magnificent celebration
of the 250th anniversary of the first settlement of the Jews in the United
States, President Roosevelt sent a congratulatory letter to the Organizing
Committee. In this he said that that was the first time during his tenure of
office that he had written a letter of the kind, but that the importance of the
occasion warranted him in making an exception. The persecution to which the
Jews were then subjected made it an urgent duty for him to lay stress on the
splendid civic qualities which men of the Jewish faith and race had developed
ever since they came into the country. In mentioning the services rendered by
Jews to the United States he used an expression which goes to the root of the
matter—“The Jews participated in the up-building of this country.”33 On the same occasion ex-President Cleveland
remarked: “I believe that it can be safely claimed that few, if any, of those
contributing nationalities have directly and indirectly been more influential
in giving shape and direction to the Americanism of to-day.”34
Wherein does this Jewish influence manifest itself? In the first
place, the number of Jews who took part in American business life was never so
small as would appear at the first glance. It is a mistake to imagine that
because there are no Jews among the half-dozen well-known multimillionaires,
male and female, who on account of the noise they make in the world are on all
men’s lips, therefore American capitalism necessarily lacks a Jewish element.
To begin with, even among the big Trusts there are some directed by Jewish
hands and brains. Thus, the Smelters’ Trust, which in 1904 represented a
combination with a nominal capital of 201,000,000 dollars, was the creation of
Jews—the Guggenheims. Thus, too, in the Tobacco Trust (500,000,000 dollars), in
the Asphalt Trust, in the Telegraph Trust, to mention but a few, Jews occupy
commanding positions.36 Again, very many
of the large banking-houses belong to Jews, who in consequence exercise no
small control over American economic life. Take the Harriman system, which had
for its goal the fusion
of all the American railways. It was backed to a large extent by
Kuhn, Loeb & Co., the well-known banking firm of New York.
Especially influential are the Jews in the West California is for the most part
their creation. At the foundation of the State Jews obtained distinction as
Judges, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, and so on, and last but not least, as
business men. The brothers Seligman—William, Henry, Jesse and James—of San
Francisco; Louis Sloss and Lewis Gerstle of Sacramento (where they established
the Alaska Commercial Company), Hellman and Newmark of Los Angeles, are some of
the more prominent business houses in this part of the world. During the
gold-mining period Jews were the intermediaries between California and the
Eastern States and Europe. The important transactions of those days were
undertaken by such men as Benjamin Davidson, the agent of the Rothschilds;
Albert Priest, of Rhode Island; Albert Dyer, of Baltimore; the three brothers
Lazard, who established the international banking-house of Lazard Freres of
Paris, London and San Francisco; the Seligmans, the Glaziers and the Wormsers.
Moritz Friedlaender was one of the chief “Wheat kings.” Adolph Sutro exploited
the Cornstock Lodes. Even to-day the majority of the banking businesses, no
less than the general industries, are in the hands of Jews. Thus, we may
mention the London, Paris and American Bank (Sigmund Greenbaum and Richard
Altschul); the Anglo-Californian Bank (Philip N. Lilienthal and Ignatz
Steinhart); the Nevada Bank; the Union Trust Company; the Farmers’ and
Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles; John Rosenfeld’s control of the coalfields; the
Alaska Commercial Company, which succeeded the Hudson Bay Company; the North
American Commercial Company, and many more.36
It can scarcely be doubted that the immigration of numerous Jews
into all the States during the last few decades must have had a stupendous
effect on American economic life everywhere. Consider that there are more than
a million Jews in New York to-day, and that the greater number of the
immigrants have not yet embarked on a capitalistic career. If the conditions in
America continue to develop along the same lines as in the last generation, if
the immigration statistics and the proportion of births among all the
nationalities remain the same, our imagination may picture the United States of
fifty or a hundred years hence as a land inhabited only by Slavs, Negroes and
Jews, wherein the Jews will naturally occupy the position of economic leadership.
But these are dreams of the future which have no place in this
connexion, where our main concern is with the past and the present. That Jews have taken
a prominent share in American life in the present and in the past may be
conceded; perhaps a more prominent share than would at first sight appear.
Nevertheless, the enormous weight which, in common with many others who have
the right of forming an opinion on the subject, I attach to their influence,
cannot be adequately explained merely from the point of view of their numbers.
It is rather the particular kind of influence that I lay stress on, and this
can be accounted for by a variety of complex causes.
That is why I am not anxious to overemphasize the fact, momentous
enough in itself, that the Jews in America practically control a number of
important branches of commerce; indeed, it is not too much to say that they
monopolize them, or at least did so for a considerable length of time. Take the
wheat trade, especially in the West; take tobacco; take cotton. We see at once
that they who rule supreme in three such mighty industries must perforce take a
leading part in the economic activities of the nation as a whole. For all that
I do not labour this fact, for to my mind the significance of the Jews for the
economic development of the United States lies rooted in causes far deeper than
these.
As the golden thread in the tapestry, so are the Jews interwoven
as a distinct thread throughout the fabric of America’s economic history;
through the intricacy of their fantastic design it received from the very
beginning a pattern all its own.
Since the first quickening of the capitalistic spirit on the
coastlands of the ocean and in the forests and prairies of the New World, Jews
have not been absent; 1655 is usually given as the date of their first
appearance. 37 In that year a vessel with
Jewish emigrants from Brazil, which had become a Portuguese possession,
anchored in the Hudson River, and the passengers craved permission to land in
the colony which the Dutch West India Company had founded there. But they were
no humble petitioners asking for a favour. They came as members of a race which
had participated to a large extent in the new foundation, and the governors of
the colony were forced to recognize their claims. When the ship arrived, New
Amsterdam was under the rule of Stuyvesant, who was no friend to the Jews and
who, had he followed his own inclination, would have closed the door in the
face of the newcomers. But a letter dated
Then their manifold activities began, and it was due to them that
the colonies were able to maintain their existence The entity of the United
States to-day is only possible, as we know, because the English colonies of
North America, thanks to a chain of propitious circumstances, acquired i degree
of power and strength such as ultimately led to their complete independence. In
the building up of this position of supremacy the Jews were among the first and
the keenest workers.
I am not thinking of the obvious fact that the colonies were only
able to achieve their independence by the help of a few wealthy Jewish firms
who laid the economic foundations for the existence of the New Republic. The
United States would never have won complete independence has not the Jews
supplied the needs of their armies and furnished them with the indispensable
sinews of war. But what the Jews accomplished in this direction did not arise out
of specifically American conditions. It was a general phenomenon, met with
throughout the history of the modern capitalistic States, and we shall do
justice to instances of it when dealing with wider issues.
No. What I have in mind is the special service which the Jews
rendered the North American colonies, one peculiar to the American Continent—a
service which indeed gave America birth. I refer to the simple fact that during
the 17th and 18th centuries the trade of the Jews was the source from which the
economic system of the colonies drew its lifeblood. As is well known, England
forced her colonies to purchase all the manufactured articles they needed in
the Mother-country. Hence the balance of trade of the colonies was always an
adverse one, and by constantly having to send money out of the country they
would have been drained dry. But there was a stream which carried the precious
metals into the country, a stream diverted in this direction by the trade of
the Jews with South and Central America. The Jews in the English colonies
maintained active business relations with the West Indian Islands and with
Brazil, resulting in a favourable balance of trade for the land of their
sojourn. The gold mined in South America was thus brought to North America and
helped to keep the economic system in a healthy condition.39
In the face of this fact, is there not some justification for the
opinion that the United States owe their very existence to the Jews? And if
this be so, how much more can it be asserted that Jewish influence made the United States just
what they are—that is, American? For what we call Americanism is nothing else,
if we may say so, than the Jewish spirit distilled.
But how comes it that American culture is so steeped in
Jewishness? The answer is simple—through the early and universal admixture of
Jewish elements among the first settlers. We may picture the process of
colonizing somewhat after this fashion. A band of determined men and women—let
us say twenty families—went forth into the wilds to begin their life anew.
Nineteen were equipped with plough and scythe, ready to clear the forests and
till the soil in order to earn their livelihood as husbandmen. The twentieth
family opened a store to provide their companions with such necessaries of life
as could not be obtained from the soil, often no doubt hawking them at the very
doors. Soon this twentieth family made it its business to arrange for the
distribution of the products which the other nineteen won from the soil. It was
they, too, who were most likely in possession Of ready cash, and in case of
need could therefore be useful to the others by lending them money. Very often
the store had a kind of agricultural loan-bank as its adjunct, perhaps also an
office for the buying and selling of land. So through the activity of the
twentieth family the farmer in North America was from the first kept in touch
with the money and credit system of the Old World. Hence the whole process of
production and exchange was from its inception along modern lines. Town methods
made their way at once into even the most distant villages. Accordingly, it may
be said that American economic life was from its very start impregnated with
capitalism. And who was responsible for this? The twentieth family in each
village. Need we add that this twentieth family was always a Jewish one, which
joined a party of settlers or soon sought them out in their homesteads?
Such in outline is the mental picture I have conceived of the
economic development of the United States. Subsequent writers dealing with this
subject will be able to fill in more ample details; I myself have only come
across a few. But these are so similar in character that they can hardly be
taken as isolated instances. The conclusion is forced upon us that they are
typical. Nor do I alone hold this view. Governor Pardel of California, for
example, remarked in 1905: “He (the Jew) has been the leading financier of
thousands of prosperous communities. He has been enterprising and aggressive.”40
Let me quote some of the illustrations I have met with. In 1785 Abraham Mordccai
settled in Alabama. “He established a trading-post two miles west of Line
Creek, carrying on an extensive trade with the Indians, and exchanging his
goods for pinkroot, hickory, nut oil and peltries of all kinds.”41 Similarly in Albany: “As early as 1661, when
Albany was but a small trading post, a Jewish trader named Asser Levi (or
Leevi) became the owner of real estate there.”42 Chicago
has the same story. The first brick house was built by a Jew, Benedict Schubert,
who became the first merchant tailor in Chicago, while another Jew, Philip
Newburg, was the first to introduce the tobacco business.43 In Kentucky we hear of a Jewish settler as
early as 1816. When in that year the Bank of the United States opened a branch
in Lexington, a Mr. Solomon, who had arrived in 1808, was made cashier.44 In Maryland,45 Michigan,46 Ohio47 and
Pennsylvania48 it is on record that Jewish
traders were among the earliest settlers, though nothing is known of their
activity.
On the other hand, a great deal is known of Jews in Texas, where
they were among the pioneers of capitalism. Thus, for example, Jacob de Cordova
“was by far the most extensive land locator in the State until 1856.” The
Cordova’s Land Agency soon became famous not only in Texas but in New York,
Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the owners of large tracts of Texas land
resided. Again, Morris Koppore in 1863 became President of the National Bank of
Texas. Henry Castro was an immigration agent; “between the years 1843–6 Castro
introduced into Texas over 5000 immigrants … transporting them in 27 ships,
chiefly from the Rhenish provinces.… He fed his colonists for a year, furnished
them with cows, farming implements, seeds, medicine, and in short with
everything they needed.”49
Sometimes branches of one and the same family distributed
themselves in different States, and were thereby enabled to carry on business
most successfully. Perhaps thebest instance is the history of the Seligman
family. There were eight brothers (the sons of David Seligman, of Bayersdorf,
in
In the Southern States likewise the Jew played the part of the
trader in the midst of agricultural settlers.51 Here
also (as in Southern and Central America) we find him quite early as the owner
of vast plantations. In South Carolina indeed, “Jew’s Land” is synonymous with
“Large Plantations.”52 It was in the South
that Moses Lindo became famous as one of the first undertakers in the
production of indigo.
These examples must suffice. We believe they tend to illustrate
our general statement, which is supported also by the fact that there was a
constant stream of Jewish emigration to the United States from their earliest
foundation. It is true that there are no actual figures to show the proportion
of the Jewish population to the total body of settlers. But the numerous
indications of a general nature that we do find make it pretty certain that
there must always have been a large number of Jews in America.
It must not be forgotten that in the earliest years the
population was thinly scattered and very sparse. New Amsterdam had less than
1000 inhabitants.53 That being so, a
shipful of Jews who came from Brazil to settle there made a great difference,
and in assessing Jewish influence on the whole district we shall have to rate
it highly.54 Or take another instance.
When the first settlement in Georgia was established, forty Jews were among the
settlers. The number may seem insignificant, but when we consider the meagre
population of the colony, Jewish influence must be accounted strong. So, too,
in Savannah, where in 1733 there were already twelve Jewish families in what
was then a tiny commercial centre.55
That America early became the goal of German and Polish Jewish
emigrants is well known. Thus we are told: “Among the poorer Jewish families of
Posen there was seldom one which in the second quarter of the 19th century did
not have at least one son (and in most cases the ablest and not least
enterprising) who sailed away across the ocean to flee from the narrowness and
the oppression of his native land.”56 We
are not surprised, therefore, at the comparatively large number of Jewish
soldiers (7243 )57 who took part in the
Civil War, and we should be inclined to say that the estimate which puts the
Jewish population of the United States about the middle of the 19th century at
300,000 (of whom 30,000 lived in New York)58 was
if anything too moderate.
The development of the modern colonial system and the
establishment of the modern State are two phenomena dependent on one another.
The one is inconceivable without the other, and the genesis of modern
capitalism is bound up with both. Hence, in order to discover the importance of
any historic factor in the growth of capitalism it will be necessary to find
out what, and how great a part that factor played in both the colonial system
and the foundation of the modern State. In the last chapter we considered the
Jews in relation to the colonial system; in the present we shall do the same
for the modern State.
A cursory glance would make it appear that in no
direction could the Jews, the “Stateless” people, have had less influence than
in the establishment of modern States. Not one of the statesmen of whom we
think in this connexion was a Jew—neither Charles the Fifth, nor Louis the
Eleventh, neither Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, Cromwell, Frederick William of
Prussia nor Frederick the Great.1 However, when speaking of these modern statesmen and
rulers, we can hardly do so without perforce thinking of the Jews: it would be
like Faust without Mephistopheles. Arm in arm the Jew and the ruler stride
through the age which historians call modern. To me this union is symbolic of
the rise of capitalism, and consequently of the modern State. In most countries
the ruler assumed the role of protector of the persecuted Jews against the
Estates of the Realm and the Gilds—both pre-capitalistic forces. And why? Their
interests and their sympathies coincided. The Jew embodied modern capitalism,
and the ruler allied himself with this force in order to establish, or
maintain, his own position. When, therefore, I speak of the part played by the
Jews in the foundation of modern States, it is not so much their direct
influence as organizers that I have in mind, as rather their indirect
co-operation in the process. I am thinking of the fact that the Jews furnished
the rising States with the material means necessary to maintain themselves and
to develop; that the Jews supported the army in each country in two ways, and
the armies were the bulwarks on which the new States rested. In twoways: on the
one hand, the Jews supplied the army in time of war with weapons, and munition
and food; on the other hand, they provided money not only for military purposes
but also for the general needs of courts and governments. The Jews throughout
the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were most influential as army-purveyors and
as the moneyed men to whom the princes looked for financial backing. This
position of the Jews was of the greatest consequence for the development of the
modern State. It is not necessary to expatiate on this statement; all that we
shall do is to adduce instances in proof of it. Here, too, we cannot attempt to
mention every possible example. We can only point the way; it will be for
subsequent research to follow.
Although there are numerous cases on record of Jews acting in the
capacity of army-contractors in Spain previous to 1492, I shall not refer to
this period, because it lies outside the scope of our present considerations.
We shall confine ourselves to the centuries that followed and begin with
England.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the Jews had already achieved
renown as army-purveyors. Under the Commonwealth the most famous
army-contractor was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, “the great Jew,” who came to
London some time between 1630 and 1635, and was very soon accounted among the
most prominent traders in the land. In 1649 he was one of the five
It was the same in the wars of the Spanish Succession; here, too,
Jews were the principal army-contractors.4 In
1716 the Jews of Strassburg recall the services they rendered the armies of
Louis XIV by furnishing information and supplying provisions.8 Indeed, Louis XIV’s army-contractor-in-chief
was a Jew, Jacob Worms by name;6 and in
the 18th century Jews gradually took a more and more prominent part in this
work. In 1727 the Jews of Metz brought into the city in the space of six weeks
2000 horses for food and more than 5000 for remounts.7 Field-Marshal Maurice of Saxony, the victor of Fontenoy,
expressed the opinion that his armies were never better served with supplies
than when the Jews were the contractors.8 One
of the best known of the Jewish armycontractors in the time of the last two
Louis was Cerf Beer, in whose patent of naturalization it is recorded that “...
in the wars which raged in Alsace in 1770 and 1771 he found the opportunity of
proving his zeal in our service and in that of the State.”9
Similarly, the house of the Gradis, of Bordeaux, was an
establishment of international repute in the 18th century. Abraham Gradis set
up large storehouses in Quebec to supply the needs of the French troops there.10 Under the Revolutionary Government, under the
Directory, in the Napoleonic Wars it was always Jews who acted as purveyors.11 In this connexion a public notice displayed
in the streets of Paris in 1795 is significant. There was a famine in the city
and the Jews were called upon to show their gratitude for the rights bestowed
upon them by the Revolution by bringing in corn. “They alone,” says the author
of the notice, “can successfully accomplish this enterprise, thanks to their
business relations, of which their fellow citizens ought to have full benefit.”
12 A parallel story comes from Dresden. In
1720 the Court Jew, Jonas Meyer, saved the town from starvation by supplying it
with large quantities of corn. (The Chronicler mentions 40,000 bushels.)18
All over Germany the Jews from an early date were found in the
ranks of army-contractors. Let us enumerate a few of them. There was Isaac
Meyer in the 16th century, who, when Cardinal Albrecht admitted him a resident
of Halberstadt in 1537, was enjoined by him, in view of the dangerous times,
“to supply our monastery with good weapons and armour.” There was Joselman von
Rosheim, who in 1548 received an imperial letter of protection because he had
supplied both money and provisions for the army. In 1546 , there is a record of
Bohemian Jews who provided great; coats and blankets for the army.14 In the next century (1633) another Bohemian
Jew, Lazarus by name, received an offiicial declaration that he “obtained
either in person, or at his own expense, valuable information for the Imperial
troops, and that he made it his business to see that the army had a good supply
of ammunition and clothing.”15 The Great
Elector also had recourse to Jews for his military needs. Leimann Gompertz and Solomon
Elias were his contractors for cannon, powder and so forth.16 There were numerous others: Samuel Julius,
remount contractor under the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony; the Model
family, court-purveyors and army-contractors in the Duchy of Ansbach in the
17th and 18th centuries are well known.17 In
short, as one writer of the time pithily expresses it, “all the contractors are
Jews and all the Jews are contractors.”18
Austria does not differ in this respect from Germany, France and
England. The wealthy Jews, who in the reign of the Emperor Leopold received
permission to re-settle in Vienna (1670)—the Oppenheimers, Wertheimers, Mayer
Herschel and the rest—were all army-contractors.19
And we find the same thing in all the countries under the Austrian Crown.20 Lastly, we must mention the Jewish
army-contractors who provisioned the American troops in the Revolutionary and
Civil Wars.21
This has been a theme on
which many historians have written, and we are tolerably well informed
concerning this aspect of Jewish history in all ages. It will not be necessary
for me, therefore, to enter into this question in great detail; the enumeration
of a few well-known facts will suffice.
Already in the Middle Ages we find that everywhere taxes,
saltmines and royal domains were farmed out to Jews; that Jews were royal
treasurers and money-lenders, most frequently, of course, in the Pyrenean
Peninsula, where the Almoxarife and the Rendeiros were chosen preferably from
among the ranks of the rich Jews. But as this period does not specially concern
us here, I will not mention any names but refer the reader to the general
literature on the subject.22
It was, however, in modern times, when the State as we know it
today first originated, that the activity of the Jews as financial advisers of
princes was fraught with mighty influence. Take Holland, where although
officially deterred from being servants of the Crown, they very quickly
occupied positions of authority. We recall Moses Machado, the favourite of
William III; Delmonte, a family of ambassadors (Lords of Schoonenberg); the
wealthy Suasso, who in 1688 lent William two million gulden, and others.23
The effects of the Jewish haute finance in