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The Jews and Modern Capitalism
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
Translator’s Introductory NoteWerner Sombart is undoubtedly one of the most striking personalities in the Germany of to-day. Born in 1863, he has devoted himself to research in economics, and has contributed much that is valuable to economic thought. Though his work has not always been accepted without challenge, it has received universal recognition for its brilliance, and his reputation has drawn hosts of students to his lectures, both at Breslau, where he held the Chair of Economics at the University (1890–1906), and now in Berlin at the Handelshochschule, where he occupies a similar position. 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, April 21, 1913. Part I — The Contribution of the Jews to Modern Economic Life Chapter
1:
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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.
Chapter
4:
The Foundation of Modern Colonies
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 East Indies even in mediaeval times,1 and when the nations of Europe, after 1498, stretched out their hands to seize the lands of an ancient civilization, the Jews were welcomed as bulwarks of European supremacy, though they came as pioneers of trade. In all likelihood—exact proofs have not yet been established—the ships of the Portuguese and of the Dutch must have brought shoals of Jewish settlers to their respective Indian possessions. At any rate, Jews participated extensively in all the Dutch settlements, including those in the East. We are told that Jews were large shareholders in the Dutch East India Company.2 We know that the Governor of the Company who, “if he did not actually establish the power of Holland in Java, certainly contributed most to strengthen it,”3 was called Cohn (Coen). Furthermore, a glance at the portraits of the Governors of the Dutch colonies would make it appear that this Coen is not the only Jew among them.4 Jews were also Directors of the Company;5 in short, no colonial enterprise was complete without them.6
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 America has had a strong influence on the economic life of Europe and on the whole of its civilization; and therefore the part which the Jews have played in building up the American world is of supreme import as an element in modern development. That is why I shall dwell on this theme a little more fully, even at the risk of wearying the reader.10
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 Columbus, read a paper in which he stated that Christobal Colon (not Columbus) was a Spaniard who on his mother’s side was of Jewish descent. He showed by reference to documents in the town of Pontevedra, in the province of Galicia, that the family of Colon lived there between 1428 and 1528, and that the Christian names found among them were the same as those prevalent among the relatives of the Spanish admiral. These Colons and the Fonterosa family intermarried. The latter were undoubtedly Jews, or they had only recently been converted, and Christobal’s mother was called Suzanna Fonterosa. When disorders broke out in the province of Galicia the parents of the discoverer of America migrated from Spain to Italy. These facts were substantiated by Don Celso from additional sources, and he is strengthened in his belief by distinct echoes of Hebrew literature found in the writings of Columbus, and also because the oldest portraits show him to have had a Jewish face.
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 May 21, 1577, the law forbidding Jews to emigrate to the Spanish colonies was formally repealed.
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 Barbados into Jamaica,27 which in consequence soon became wealthy. Now, while in 1656, the year in which the English finally wrested the island from Spain, there were only three small refineries in Jamaica, in 1670 there were already 75 mills at work, many of them having an output of 2000 cwts. By 1700 sugar was the principal export of Jamaica and the source of its riches. The petition of the English merchants of the colony in 1671, asking for the exclusion of the Jews, makes it pretty plain that the latter must have contributed largely to this development. The Government however, encouraged the settlement of still more Jews, the Governor in rejecting the petition remarking28 that “he was of opinion that his Majesty could not have more profitable subjects than the Jews and the Hollanders; they had great stocks and correspondence.” So the Jews were not expelled from Jamaica, but “became the first traders and merchants of the English colony.”29 In the 18th century they paid all the taxes and almost entirely controlled industry and commerce.
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 March 26, 1665, reached him from the Court of the Company in Amsterdam, containing the order to let the Jews settle and trade in the colonies under the control of the Company, “also because of the large amount of capital which they have invested in shares of this Company.”38 It was not long before they found their way to Long Island, Albany, Rhode Island and Philadelphia.
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 Bavaria) who started a concern which now has branches in all the most important centres in the States. Their story began with the arrival in America in the year 1837 of Joseph Seligman. Two other brothers followed in 1839; a third came two years later. The four began business as clothiers in Lancaster, moving shortly after to Selma, Ala. From here they opened three branches in three other towns. By 1848 two more brothers had arrived from Germany and the six moved North. In 1850, Jesse Seligman opened a shop in San Francisco—in the first brick house in that city. Seven years later a banking business was added to the clothing shop, and in 1862 the house of Seligman Brothers was established in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris and Frankfort.50
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.
Chapter
5:
The Foundation of the Modern State
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.
The Jews as Purveyors
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 London merchants entrusted by the Council of State with the army contract for corn.2 It is said that he annually imported into England silver to the value of £100,000. In the period that ensued, especially in the wars of William III, Sir Solomon Medina (“the Jew Medina”) was “the great contractor,” and for his services he was knighted, being the first professing Jew to receive that honour.3
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
The Jews as Financiers
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 Holland made themselves felt beyond the borders of the Netherlands, because that country in the 17th and 18th centuries was the reservoir from which all the needy princes of Europe drew their money. Men like the Pintos, Delmontes, Bueno de Mesquita, Francis Mels and many others may in truth be regarded as the leading financiers of Northern Europe during that period.24
Next, English finance was at this time also very extensively controlled by Jews.25 The monetary needs of the Long Parliament gave the first impetus to the settlement of rich Jews in England. Long before their admission by Cromwell, wealthy crypto-Jews, especially from Spain and Portugal, migrated thither via Amsterdam: the year 1643 brought an exceptionally large contingent. Their rallying-point was the house of the Portuguese Ambassador in London, Antonio de Souza, himself a Maranno. Prominent among them was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, who has already been mentioned, and who was as great a financier as he was an army contractor. It was he who supplied the Commonwealth with funds. The little colony was further increased under the later Stuarts, notably under Charles the Second. In the retinue , of his Portuguese bride, Catherine of Braganza, were quite a number of moneyed Jews, among them the brothers Da Sylva, Portuguese bankers of Amsterdam, who were entrusted with the transmission and administration of the Queen’s dowry.26 Contemporaneously with them came the Mendes and the Da Costas from Spain and Portugal, who united their families under the name of Mendes da Costa.
About the same period the Ashkenazi (German) Jews began to arrive in the country. On the whole, these could hardly compare for wealth with their Sephardi (Spanish) brethren, yet they also had their capitalistic magnates, such as Benjamin Levy for example.
Under William III their numbers were still further increased, and the links between the court and the rich Jews were strengthened. Sir Solomon Medina, who has also been already mentioned, followed the King from Holland as his banker, and with him came the Suasso, another of the plutocratic families. Under Queen Anne one of the most prominent financiers in England was Menasseh Lopez, and by the time the South Sea Bubble burst, the Jews as a body were the greatest financial power in the country. They had kept clear of the wild speculations which had preceded the disaster and so retained their fortunes unimpaired. Accordingly, when the Government issued a loan on the Land Tax, the Jews were in a position to take up one quarter of it. During this critical period the chief family was that of the Gideons, whose representative, Sampson Gideon (1699–1762), was the “trusted adviser of the Government,” the friend of Walpole, the “pillar of the State credit.” In 1745, the year of panics, Sampson raised a loan of £1,700,000 for the assistance of the Government. On his death his influence passed to the firm of Francis and Joseph Salvador, who retained it till the beginning of the 19th century, when the Rothschilds succeeded to the financial leadership.
It is the same story in France, and the powerful position held by Samuel Bernard in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV and in the whole of that of Louis XV may serve as one example among many. We find Louis XIV walking in his garden with this wealthy Jew, “whose sole merit,” in the opinion of one cynical writer,27 “was that he supported the State as the rope does the hanged man.” He financed the Wars of the Spanish Succession; he aided the French candidate for the throne of Poland; he advised the Regent in all money matters. It was probably no exaggeration when the Marquis de Dangeau spoke of him in one of his letters28 as “the greatest banker in Europe at the present time.” In France also the Jews participated to a large extent in the reconsolidation of the French East India Company after the bursting of the South Sea Bubble.29 It was not, however, until the 19th century that they won a really leading position in financial circles in France, and the important names here are the Rothschilds, the Helphens, the Foulds, the Cerfbeers, the Duponts, the Godchaux, the Dalemberts, the Pereires and others. It is possible that in the 17th and 18th centuries also a great many more Jews than those already mentioned were active as financiers in France, but that owing to the rigorous exclusion of Jews they became crypto-Jews, and so we have no full information about them.
It is easier to trace Jewish influence in finance in Germany and Austria through that clever invention—the status of “Court Jew.” Though the law in these countries forbade Jews to settle in their boundaries, yet the princes and rulers kept a number of “privileged” Jews at their courts. According to Graetz,30 the status of “Court Jew” was introduced by the Emperors of Germany during the Thirty Years’ War. Be that as it may, it is an undoubted fact that pretty well every State in Germany throughout the 17th and 18th centuries had its Court Jew or Jews, upon whose support the finances of the land depended.
A few examples by way of illustration. In the 17th century31 we find at the Imperial Court Joseph Pinkherle, of Goerz, Moses and Jacob Marburger, of Gradisca, Ventura Parente of Trieste, Jacob Bassewi Batscheba Schmieles in Prague, the last of whom the Emperor Ferdinand raised to the ranks of the nobility under the title von Treuenburg on account of his faithful services. In the reign of the Emperor Leopold I we meet with the respected family of the Oppenheimers, of whom the Staatskanzler Ludewig wrote in the following terms.32 After saying that the Jews were the arbiters of the most important events, he continues: “In the year 1690 the Jew Oppenheimer was well known among merchants and bankers not only in Europe but throughout the world.” No less famous in the same reign was Wolf Schlesinger, purveyor to the court, who in company with Lewel Sinzheim raised more than one large loan for the State. Maria Theresa utilized the services of Schlesinger and others, notably the Wertheimers, Amsteins and Eskeles. Indeed, for more than a century the court bankers in Vienna were Jews.33 We can gauge their economic influence from the fact that when an anti-Jewish riot broke out in Frankfort-on-the-Main, the local authorities thought it wise in the interest of credit to call upon the Imperial Office to interfere and protect the Frankfort Jews, who had very close trade relations with their brethren in Vienna.34
It was not otherwise at the smaller German courts. “The continually increasing needs of the various courts, each vying with the other in luxury, rendered it imperative, seeing that communication was by no means easy, to have skilful agents in the commercial centres.” Accordingly the Dukes of Mecklenburg had such agents in Hamburg; Bishop John Philip of Wurzburg was in 1700 served by Moses Elkan in Frankfort. This activity opened new channels for the Jews; the enterprising dealer who provided jewels for her ladyship, liveries for the court chamberlain and dainties for the head cook was also quite willing to negotiate a loan.35 Frankfort and Hamburg, with their large Jewish population, had many such financial agents, who acted for ruling princes living at a distance. Besides those already mentioned we may recall the Portuguese Jew, Daniel Abensur, who died in Hamburg in 1711. He was Ministerresident of the King of Poland in that city, and the Polish Crown was indebted to him for many a loan.36 Some of these agents often moved to the court which borrowed from them, and became “Court Jews.” Frederick Augustus, who became Elector of Saxony in 1694, had a number of them: Leffmann Berentz, of Hanover, J. Meyer, of Hamburg, Berend Lehmann, of Halberstadt (who advanced money for the election of the King of Poland) and others.37 Again, in Hanover the Behrends were Chief Court Purveyors and Agents to the Treasury;38 the Models, the Fraenkels and the Nathans acted in a similar capacity to the Duchy of Ansbach. In the Palatinate we come across Lemte Moyses and Michel May, who in 1719 paid the debt of 2½ million gulden which the Elector owed the Emperor,39 and lastly, in the Marggravate of Bayreuth, there were the Baiersdorfs.40
Better known perhaps are the Court Jews of the Brandenburg-Prussian rulers—Lippold, under Joachim II; Gomperz and Joost Liebmann, under Frederick III; Veit, underFrederick William I; and Ephraim, Moses, Isaac and Daniel Itzig, under Frederick II. Most famous of all the German Court Jews, the man who may be taken as their archetype, was Suess-Oppenheimer, who was at the court of Charles Alexander of Wiirtemberg.41
Finally, we must not leave unmentioned that during the 18th century, more especially in the Revolutionary Wars, the Jews played no small role as financiers in the United States of America. Haym Salomon42 ranks side by side with the Minis and the Cohens in Georgia,43 but the most prominent of them all was Robert Morris, the financier par excellence of the American Revolution.44
And now comes an extraordinary thing. Whilst for centuries (especially during the 17th and the 18th—the two so momentous in the growth of the modern State) the Jews had personal financial dealings with the rulers, in the century that followed (but even during the two already mentioned) the system of public credit gradually took a new form. This forced the big capitalist from his dominating position more and more into the background, and allowed an ever-increasing number of miscellaneous creditors to take his place. Through the evolution of the modern method of floating loans the public credit was, so to speak, “democratized,” and, in consequence, the Court Jew became superfluous. But the Jews themselves were not the least who aided the growth of this new system of borrowing, and thus they contributed to the removal of their own monopoly as financiers. In so doing they participated to a greater degree than ever before in the work of building up the great States of the present.
The transformation in the public credit system was but a part of a much vaster change which crept over economic life as a whole, a metamorphosis in which also the Jews took a very great share. Let us consider this change in its entirety.
Chapter
6:
The Predominance of Commerce in Economic Life
It is a matter of common knowledge that the Stock Exchange in modern times is becoming more and more the heart of all economic activities. With the fuller development of capitalism this was only to be expected, and there were three clear stages in the process. The first was the evolution of credit from being a personal matter into one of an impersonal relationship. It took shape and form in securities. Stage two: these securities were made mobile—that is, bought and sold in a market. The last stage was the formation of undertakings for the purpose of creating such securities.
In all the stages the Jew was ever present with his creative genius. We may even go further and say that it was due specifically to the Jewish spirit that these characteristics of modern economic life came into being.
The Origin of Securities1
Securities represent the standardization of personal indebtedness.2 We may speak of “standardization” in this sense when a relationship which was originally personal becomes impersonal; where before human beings directly acted and reacted on each other, now a system obtains. An instance or two will make our meaning clear. Where before work was done by man, it is now done by a machine. That is the standardization of work. In olden times a battle was won by the superior personal initiative of the general in command; nowadays victory falls to the leader who can most skilfully utilize the body of experience gathered in the course of years and can best apply the complicated methods of tactics and strategy; who has at his disposal the best guns and who has the most effective organization for provisioning his men. We may speak in this instance of the “standardization” of war. A business becomes standardized when the head of the firm who came into personal contact with his employees on the one hand and with his customers on the other, is succeeded by a board of directors, under whom is an army of officials, all working on an organized plan, and consequently business is more or less of an automatic process.
Now, at a particular stage in the growth of capitalism credit became standardized. That is to say, that whereas before indebtedness arose as the result of an agreement between two people who knew each other, it was now rearranged on a systematic basis, and the people concerned might be entire strangers. The new relationship is expressed by negotiable instruments, whether bill of exchange or security or banknote or mortgage deed, and a careful analysis of each of them will prove this conclusively.
Of the three persons mentioned in a bill of exchange, the specified party in whose favour the document is made out (the payee) or, if no name is mentioned, the bearer of the document may be quite unknown to the other two; he may have had no direct business relation with the party making out the bill (the drawer), yet this document establishes a claim of the former on the latter—general and impersonal.3
The security gives the owner the right to participate in the capital and the profit of a concern with which he has no direct personal contact. He may never even have seen the building in which the undertaking in question is housed, and when he parts with his security to another person he transfers his right of participation.
Similarly with a banknote. The holder has a claim on the bank of issue despite the fact that he personally may never have deposited a penny with it.
So, in short, with all credit instruments: an impersonal relationship is established between either an individual or a corporation on the one hand (the receiver of moneys), and an unknown body of people (we speak of “the public”) on the other—the lender of moneys.
What share did the Jews take in the creation of this credit machinery? It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to show what that share was by reference to documentary evidence, even if we had a very full account of the position of the Jews in the early economic history of most lands. But unfortunately that aspect of economic development which would have been invaluable for the solution of the problem in hand has been sadly neglected. I refer to the history of money and of banking in the Pyrenean Peninsula during the last centuries of the Middle Ages. But even if such a history were at our disposal, the question would still be difficult to answer. We must remember that the origins of economic organization can no more be discovered by referring to documentary evidence than the origins of legal institutions. No form of organization or tendency in economic life can be traced to a particular day or even a particular year. It is all a matter of growth, and the most that the economic historian can do is to show that in any given period this or that characteristic is found in business life, this or that organization dominates all economic activities. Even for this the ludicrously inadequate sources at our disposal are hardly sufficient. The historian will have to turn to the general history of the particular group in which he happens to be interested.
To take an instance. The history of bills of exchange can scarcely be written merely by referring to the few mediaeval bills which chance has left to us. Such documents are certainly useful to supplement or correct general theories. But we must formulate the general theories first. Let us take a case in point. The bill which for a long time was held to be the oldest extant was drawn by a Jew, Simon Rubens, in the year 1207. This is hardly sufficient evidence on which to base the assertion that the Jews were the inventors of this form of credit instrument.4 Earlier bills have come to light recently, drawn by non-Jews, but they do not render testimony strong enough for the statement that the Jews were not the inventors of bills. Do we know how many thousands of bills circulated in Florence or Bruges, and how can we be sure which section of the population issued them? We do know, however, that the Jews were occupied throughout the Middle Ages in money-dealing, that they were settled in various parts of Europe and that they carried on a continuous intercourse with each other. From these facts we may draw the tolerably certain conclusion that “the Jews, the intermediaries in international trade, utilized on a large scale the machinery of foreign exchanges, then traditionally current in the Mediterranean lands, and extended it.”5
That this method of reasoning requires great caution is self-evident. Yet it may lead to useful conclusions for all that. There are cases, as we shall see, where the share of the Jews in the extension of some economic policy or machinery may be proved by a fund of documentary evidence. In other instances, and they are numerous, we must content ourselves if it can be shown that, at any particular time and in any given place, there must have been some special reason for the utilization by Jews of a form of economic organization then current.
Bearing this in mind, let us enquire into the genesis of one or two types of credit instruments.
The Bill of Exchange
Not merely the early history of the bill of exchange but rather that of the modern endorsable bill is what we are concerned with most of all. It is generally accepted that the endorsing of bills of exchange had been fully developed prior to the 17th century, and the first complete legal recognition of such endorsement was found in Holland (Proclamation in Amsterdam of January 24, 1651).6 Now, as we shall see presently, all developments in the money and credit systems of Holland in the 17th century were due more or less to Jewish influence. Some authorities trace the origin of endorsable bills of exchange to Venice, where they were made illegal by a law of December 14, 1593.7 It is fairly certain that the use of circulating endorsable bills in Venice must have been first commenced by Jews, seeing that we know that nearly all bill-broking in the Adriatic city in the 16th century was in their hands. In the petition of the Christian merchants of Venice of the year 1550 (to which reference has already been made) the passage relating to the bill business of Jews reads as follows8:—
We carry on the same commerce with them also in matters of exchange, because they continually remit to us their money … sending cash, in order that we may change it for them for Lyons, Flanders and other parts of the world on our Exchange, or indeed that we may buy for them silken cloths and other merchandise according to their convenience, gaining our usual commission. That which we say of the inhabitants of Florence holds good also of the other merchants of the same Spanish and Portuguese nation, who dwell in Flanders, Lyons, Rome, Naples, Sicily and other countries, who lay themselves out to do business with us, not only in exchanges but in sending hither merchandise of Flanders, selling corn from Sicily and buying other merchandise to transport to other countries.
A further development in the endorsing of bills appears to have taken place at the fairs of Genoa in the 16th century. Who, we may ask, were the “Genoese,” met with everywhere throughout that century, but especially at the famous fairs of Besancon, dominating the money market, and who all of a sudden showed a remarkable genius for business and gave an impetus to the growth of new methods, hitherto unknown, for cancelling international indebtedness? It is true that the ancient wealthy families of Genoa were the principal creditors of the Spanish Crown as well as of other needy princes. But to imagine that the descendants of the Grimaldis, the Spinolas, the Lercaras exhibited that extraordinary commercial ability which gave a special character to the activity of the Genoese in the 16th century; to think that the old nobility gadded about the fairs at Besancon or elsewhere, or even sent their agents with never-failing regularity—this appears to me an assumption hardly warranted without some very good reason. Can the explanation be that the Jews brought new blood into the decrepit economic body of Genoa? We know9 that fugitives from Spain landed at Genoa, that some of the settlers became Christians, that the rest were admitted into Novi, a small town near Genoa, and that the Jews of Novi did business with the capital; we know, too, that the newcomers were “for the most part intelligent Jewish craftsmen, capitalists, physicians,” and that in the short space of time between their arrival and 1550 they had become so unpopular in Genoa that they had aroused the hatred of the citizens; we know, finally, that there were constant communications between the Genoese bankers and the Jewish, or rather Maranno, banking houses of the Spanish cities, e.g., with the Espinosas, the leading bankers in Seville.10
Securities (Stocks and Shares)
If we should wish to speak of securities in those cases where the capital of a business concern is split up into many parts, and where the liability of the capitalists is limited, we have ample justification for so doing in the case of the Genoa Maones, in the 14th century,11 the Casa di San Giorgio (1407) and the important trading companies of the 17th century. But if stress is laid on the standardization of the credit-relationship, it will not be before the 18th century that we shall find instances of joint-stock enterprise and of securities. For the early contributions to a joint-stock never lost their personal character. The Italian Monies were impregnated through and through with the personality of their founders. In the case of the Maones, the personal factor was no less important than the financial; while at the Bank of St. George in Genoa, the families concerned jealously guarded the principle that each one should obtain its proper share in the directing of the work of the bank. The trading companies too had a strong personal element. In the English East India Company, for instance, it was not until 1650 that shares could be transferred to strangers, but they had to become members of the Company.
In all early instances the security was for unequal and varying sums. The personal relationship thus showed itself plainly enough. In some companies shares could not be transferred at all except by consent of all the other members. In fact, the security was just a certificate of membership, and throughout the 18th century such securities as were made out in the name of a specified person predominated.12 Even where there was freedom of transfer from one person to another (as in the case of the Dutch East India Company) the process was beset with innumerable obstacles and difficulties.18
The modern form of security can therefore not be found before the 18th century. If now it be asked what share did the Jews have in the extension of this form of credit in modern times, the reply is obvious enough. During the last hundred and fifty or two hundred years, Jews have beenlargely instrumental in bringing about the standardization of what was before a purely personal relationship between the holder of stock and the company in which he participated. I am bound to admit, however, that I cannot adduce direct proofs in support of my thesis. But indirectly the evidence is fairly conclusive. Jews were great speculators, and speculation must of necessity tend to substitute for the security wherein the holder is specified one which has no such limitation. A little reflection will show therefore that Jews must have had no small influence on the standardization of securities. In some cases it may even be demonstrated that speculation was responsible for the change from securities of differing amounts to those of equal value. The Dutch East India Company is a case in point. Originally its shares were of all values; later only 3000 florin shares were issued.14
Banknotes
Many opinions prevail as to the precise occasion when banknotes first came into use. For my own part I lay stress on the standardization here also. The first time any banker issued a note without reference to some specific deposit a new type of credit instrument, the modern banknote, came into being. There were banknotes in existence long before that.15 But they bore the depositor’s name and referred to his money.16 I believe that in all probability the personal banknote became a general (impersonal) one in Venice about the beginning of the 15th century. There are on record instances dating from that time of banks making written promises to pay over and above the sums deposited with them. An edict of the Venetian Senate as early as 1421 made it an offence to deal in such documents.17 The first permission to establish a bank was granted to two Jews in 1400, and their success was so great that the nobili made haste to follow their example.18 The question arises, may these two Jews be regarded as the fathers of the modern (impersonal) banknote?
But perhaps no particular firm introduced the new paper money. It may have come into existence in order to satisfy the needs of some locality. Nevertheless, if we take as the place of its origin the town where the earliest banks reached a high degree of perfection, we shall surely be on the safe side. From this point of view Venice is admirably qualified. Now Venice was a city of Jews, and that is wherein its interest for us lies in this connexion. According to a list dating from the year 1152, there were no fewer than 1300 Jews in Venice.19 In the 16th century their number was estimated at 6000; and Jewish manufacturers employed 4000 Christian workmen.20 These figures, to be sure, have no scientific value, but they do show that the Jews must have been pretty numerous in Venice. From other sources we are acquainted with some of their activities. Thus, we find Jews among the leading bankers—one of the most influential families were the Lipmans; and in 1550, as we have already noted, the Christian merchants of Venice stated that they might as well emigrate if trade with the Marannos were forbidden them.
It is possible that the Marannos may have founded the business of banking even while they were yet in Spain. We have, however, no satisfactory information, though many writers have dealt with the subject.21 There is a strong probability that at the time when measures were taken against them (16th century) the Jews were the leading bankers in the Pyrenean Peninsula. If this be so, is not the presumption justifiable that before then, too, the Jews engaged in banking?
Furthermore, Jews were prominent and active figures wherever in the 17th century banks were established. They participated in the foundation of the three great banks of that period—the Bank of Amsterdam, the Bank of England and the Bank of Hamburg. But as none of these owed its origin to purely commercial causes, I shall not emphasize their importance in connexion with the Jews. The facts, nevertheless, are interesting, and I would therefore state that the experience which the Jews gathered when the Bank of Amsterdam was founded served them in good stead when in 1619 the Hamburg Bank came into being. No less than forty Jewish families took shares in the new concern. As for the Bank of England, the latest authorities22 on its history are agreed that the suggestion for the Bank came from Jewish immigrants from Holland.
Public Debt Bonds
The earliest bonds issued for public loans were addressed to some individual lender, and it was long before they changed then” character and became “general” instruments. In Austria, to take one example, it was not until the Debt of 1761 was contracted that the bonds had coupons attached which gave the bearer the right to receive interest.24 Previous to that, the bond was of the nature of a private agreement; the Crown or the Treasury was the debtor of some specific lender.25
To what extent the Jews were responsible for the “standardization” of public credit it is difficult to estimate. So much is certain, that William III’s advisers were Jews; that public borrowing in the German States was commenced on the model of Holland, most probably through the influence of Dutch Jews who, as we have already seen, were the chief financiers in German and Austrian lands. Speaking generally, Dutch Jews were most intimately concerned in European finance in the 18th century.26
As for private loan-bonds or mortgage-deeds, we know very little of their history, and it is almost impossible to compute the direct influence of the Jews here. But indirectly the Jews were, in all likelihood, the originators of this species of credit instrument, more especially of mortgage deeds. We have it on record that Dutch bankers, from about the middle of the 18th century onward, advanced money to colonial planters on the security of their plantations. Mortgage-deeds of this kind were bought and sold on the Stock Exchange, just like Public Debt bonds. The bankers who dealt in them were called “correspondentie” or “Directeurs van de negotiatie,” and the instruments themselves “obligatie.” Documents to the value of no less than 100,000,000 gulden were in circulation before the crash of the 1770’s.27
I must confess that nowhere have I found any mention of Jewish bankers participating in these speculations. Yet even the most superficial acquaintance with the Dutch moneymarket in the 18th century can scarcely leave room for doubt that Jews must have been largely interested in this business. It is a well-known fact (as I hope to show) that in those days anything in Holland connected with money-lending, but especially with stocks and shares and speculation, was characteristically Jewish. We are strengthened in this conclusion through knowing that most of the business in mortgage-banking was carried on with the colony of Surinam. Of the 100,000,000 gulden of mortgage-deeds already mentioned, 60,000,000 worth was from Surinam. Now Surinam, as we noted above, was the Jewish colony par excellence. The possibility that the credit relationship at that time between Surinam and the Motherland was maintained by other than Jewish houses is well-nigh excluded.
So much for the “sources” regarding the Jewish share in the development of modern credit instruments. The sum-total is not much; it is for subsequent research to fill in the details and to add to them. Yet I believe the evidence sufficient for the general conclusion that in the standardization of modern credit the Jews took no inconsiderable share. This impression will only be deepened if we think for a moment of the means by which the standardization was brought about or, at any rate, facilitated. I mean the legal form of the credit instruments, which in all probability was of Jewish origin.
There is no complete agreement among authorities on the history of legal documents as to the origin of credit instruments.28 But in my opinion the suggestion that they owe their modern form to Jewish influence has much to be said for it. Let it be remembered that such documents first came into use among merchants, in whose ranks the Jewish element was not insignificant. The form that became current received recognition in judicial decisions, and eventually was admitted into the body of statute law, first of all presumably in Holland.
The only question is. Can we possibly deduce modern credit instruments from Rabbinic law? I believe we can.
In the first place, the Bible and the Talmud are both acquainted with credit instruments. The Biblical passage is in the Book of Tobit, iv. 20; v. 1, 2, 3; ix. 1, 5.
The best known passage in the Talmud is as follows (Baba Bathra, 172):—“In the court of R. Huna a document was once produced to this effect: T, A.B., son of C.D., have borrowed a sum of money from you.’ R. Huna decided that ‘from you’ might mean ‘from the Exilarch or even from the King himself.’”
Second, in later Jewish law, as well as in Jewish commercial practice, the credit instrument is quite common. As regards practice, special proof is hardly necessary; and as for theory, let me mention some Rabbis who dealt with the problem.29
First in importance was Rabbenu Asher (1250–1327), who speaks of negotiable instruments in his Responsa (lxviii. 6, 8). “If A sends money to B and C, and notes in his bill ‘payable to bearer by B and C,’ payment must be made accordingly.” So also R. Joseph Caro in his Choshen Mishpat: “If in any bill no name is mentioned but the direction is to ‘pay bearer,’ then whoever presents the bill receives payment” (lxi. 10; cf. also 1.; lxi. 4, 10; lxxi. 23). R. Shabbatai Cohen in his Shach. (1. 7; lxxi. 54) is of the same opinion.
Thirdly, it is very likely that the Jews, in the course of business, independently of Rabbinic laws, developed a form of credit instrument which was quite impersonal and general in its wording. I refer to. the Mamre (Mamram, Momran).30 It is claimed that this document first appeared among the Polish Jews in the 16th century, or even earlier. Its form was fixed, but a space was left for the name of the surety, sometimes, too, for the amount in question. There is no doubt that such documents were in circulation during three centuries and were very popular, circulating even between Christians and Jews. Their value as evidence consists in that they already had all the characteristics of modern instruments: (1) the holder put the document in circulation by endorsement; (2) there is no mention of the personal relationship of the debtor and the creditor; (3) the debtor may not demand proof of endorsement or transfer; (4) if the debtor pays his debt without the presentation of the Mamre having been made to him, it is considered that he has not really discharged his obligation; and lastly (5) the cancellation of the document is almost the same as it is to-day—if it is lost or stolen the holder of the document informs the debtor; public notice is given by a declaration posted up for four weeks in the synagogue, wherein the bearer of the instrument is requested to come forward; at the end of four weeks, if nothing happens, the creditor demands payment of the debtor.
In the fourth place, it would appear that Jewish influences were potent in the development of many weighty points of legal practice. Let me mention some.
(1) During the 16th century there circulated in different parts of Europe credit instruments with blanks for filling in names. What was their origin? Is there not a possibility that they emanated from Jewish commercial circles, having been modelled on the pattern of the Mamre? They are met with in the Netherlands,31 in France32 and in Italy.33 In the Netherlands they appeared towards the beginning of the 16th century at the Antwerp fairs, just when the Jews began to take a prominent part in them. An Ordinance of the year 1536 states explicitly that “at the Antwerp fairs payment for commodities was made by promissory notes, which might be passed on to third persons without special permission.” It would seem from the wording that the practice of accepting notes in payment for goods was a new one. What sort of documents were these notes? Can they have been Christian Mamrem? Even more Jewish were the documents in vogue in Italy a century later. I mean the first known “open” note, issued by the Jewish bill-brokers, Giudetti, in Milan. The note was for 500 scudi, payable through John Baptist Germanus at the next market day in Novi to the personal order of Marcus Studendolus in Venice for value received. Studendolus sent the bill to de Zagnoni Brothers in Bologna “with his signature, leaving a sufficient blank space at the end for filling in the amount, and the name of the person in whose favour the de Zagnonis preferred payment to be made.” The recorder of this instance remarks34 that “Italian financial intercourse could hardly have thought of a facility of this kind, had there not been a model somewhere to imitate. Such a model is found in France, where from the 17th century onward bearer bonds were in general circulation.” The question at once suggests itself, how did this document arise in France. Will the example of Holland account for it? Even in Italy it may be a case of Maranno influence—Studendolo(?) in Venice, Giudetti in Milan!
(2) Of very great significance in the development of modern credit instruments is the Antwerp Custom of 1582, wherein it is for the first time admitted that the holder of a note has the right of suing in a court of law.35 This conception spread rapidly from Antwerp to Holland—as rapidly, indeed, as the Jewish refugees from Belgium settled down among the Dutch.36
(3) In Germany the first State to adopt credit instruments was Saxony. In the year 1747 an adventurer of the name of Bischopfield suggested to the Minister of Finance the plan of a Public Loan, and it seems that Bischopfield was in communication with Dutch Jews at the time.37 Further, an ordinance of 20th September 1757 forbade Dutch Jews to speculate in Saxon Government Stock. All of which points to Jewish influence—on the one side of the Dutch Jews, and on the other of Polish Jews, owing to the connexion of the royal houses of Saxony and Poland. So great was this influence that one authority comes to the definite conclusion that the Mamre became the model for credit instruments.38
(4) Among the instruments wherein the name of the holder was inserted we must include marine insurance policies. It is recorded that the Jewish merchants of Alexandria were the first to use the formulae “o qual si voglia altera persona,” “et qwsvis alia persona” and “sive quamlibet aliam personam” (“or to any other person desired”).39
Now why did the Jewish merchants of Alexandria adopt this legal form? The answer to this question is of the gravest import, more especially as I believe that the causes for which we are seeking were inherent in the conditions of Jewish life.
(5) That leads me to my fifth consideration. It was to the interest of the Jews to a very large degree—in some respects even it was to the interest of the Jews alone—to have a proper legal form for credit instruments. For what was it that impelled the Jewish merchants of Alexandria to make out their policies to bearer? Anxiety as to the fate of their goods. Jewish ships ran the risk of capture by Christian pirates and the fleets of His Catholic Majesty, who accounted the wares of Jews and Turks as legitimate booty. Hence the Jewish merchants of Alexandria inserted in their policies some fictitious Christian name, Paul or Scipio, or what you will, and when the goods arrived, received them in virtue of the “bearer” formula in their policies.
How often must the same cause have actuated Jews throughout the Middle Ages! How often must they have endeavoured to adopt some device which concealed the fact that they were the recipients either of money or of commodities sent from a distance. What more natural than that they should welcome the legal form which gave “the bearer” the right of claiming what the document he had entitled him to. This formula made it possible for fortunes to vanish if the Jews in any locality passed through a storm of persecution. It enabled Jews to deposit their money wherever they wanted, and if at any time it became endangered, to remove it through the agency of some fictitious person or to transfer their rights in such a way as not to leave a trace of their former possessions. 40 It may seem inexplicable that while throughout the Middle Ages the Jews were deprived of their “all” at very short intervals, they managed to become rich again very quickly. But regarded in the light of our suggestion, this problem is easily explained. The fact was that the Jews were never mulcted of their “all”; a good portion of their wealth was transferred to a fictitious owner whenever the kings squeezed too tight.
Later, when the Jews commenced to speculate in securities and commodities (as we shall see in due course) it was only to be expected that they would extend the use of this form of bond, more particularly in the case of securities.41 It is obvious that if a big loan is subscribed by a large number of comparatively small contributors bearer bonds offer facilities of various kinds.42
The remark of a Rabbi here and there demonstrates this conclusively. One passage in the commentaries of R. Shabbatai Cohen is distinctly typical. “The purchaser of a bond,” he says, “may claim damages against the debtor if he pays the debt without obtaining a receipt, the reason being that as there is no publicity in the transaction this practice is detrimental to dealings in such instruments. It is true that Rabbenu Asher and his school expressed no view concerning Shetarot (instruments) of all kinds, which the Rabbis introduced in order to extend commerce. That is because dealings in such instruments were not very common, owing to the difficulty of transfer. But the authorities were thinking only of personal bonds. In the case of bearer bonds, the circulation of which at the present time (i.e., the 17th century) is greater far than that of commodities, all ordinances laid down by the Rabbis for the extension of commerce are to be observed.”
(6) Here again we touch a vital question. I believe that if we were to examine the whole Jewish law concerning bearer bonds and similar instruments we should find—and this is my sixth point—that such documents spring naturally from the innermost spirit of Jewish law, just as they are alien to the spirit of German and Roman law.
It is a well-known fact that the specifically Roman conception of indebtedness was a strictly personal one.43 The obligatio was a bond between certain persons. Hence the creditor could not transfer his claim to another, except under exceedingly difficult conditions. True, in later Roman law the theory of delegation and transmission was interpreted somewhat liberally, yet the root of the matter, the personal relationship, remained unchanged.
In German law a contract was in the same way personal; nay, to a certain extent it was even more so than in Roman law. The German principle on the point was clear enough. The debtor was not obliged to render payment to any one but the original creditor to whom he had pledged his word. There could in no wise be transference of claim—as was the case in English law until 1873. It was only when Roman law obtained a strong hold on Germany that the transfer of claims first came into vogue. The form it took was that of “bearer bonds”—the embodiment of an impersonal credit relationship.
It is admitted that the legal notion underlying all “bearer” instruments—that the document represents a valid claim for each successive holder—was not fully developed either in the ancient world or in the Middle Ages.44 But the admission holds good only if Jewish law be left out of account. Jewish law was certainly acquainted with the impersonal credit relationship.45 Its underlying principle is that obligations may be towards unnamed parties, that you may carry on business with Messrs. Everybody. Let us examine this principle a little more closely.
Jewish law has no term for obligation: it knows only debt (“Chov”) and demand (“Tvia”). Each of these was regarded as distinct from the other. That a demand and a promise were necessarily bound up with some tangible object is proved by the symbolic act of acquisition. Consequently there could be no legal obstacles to the transfer of demands or to the making of agreements through agents. There was no necessity therefore for the person against whom there was a claim to be defined, the person in question became known by the acquisition of certain commodities. In reality claims were against things and not against persons. It was only to maintain a personal relationship that the possessor of the things was made responsible. Hence the conception that just as an obligation may refer to some specified individual, so also it may refer to mankind as a whole. Therefore a transference of obligations is effected merely by the transference of documents.
So much would appear from the view held by Auerbach. Jewish law is more abstract in this respect than either Roman or German law. Jewish law can conceive of an impersonal, “standardized” legal relationship. It is not too much to assume that a credit instrument such as the modern bearer bond should have grown out of such a legal system as the Jewish. Accordingly, all the external reasons which I have adduced in favour of my hypothesis are supported by what may be termed an “inner” reason.
And what is this hypothesis? That instruments such as modern bearer bonds owe thenorigin chiefly to Jewish influences.
Buying and Selling Securities ¾The Evolution of a Legal Code Regulating Exchange
In modern securities we see the plainest expression of the commercial aspect of our economic life. Securities are intended to be circulated, and they have not served their true purpose if they have not been bought and sold. Of course it may be urged that many a security rests peacefully in a safe, yielding an income to its owner, for whom it is a means to an end rather than a commodity for trading in. The objection has a good deal in it. A security that does not circulate is in reality not a security at all; a promissory note might replace it equally well. The characteristic mark of a security is the ease with which it may be bought and sold.
Now if to pass easily from hand to hand is the real raison d’être of the security, everything which facilitates that movement matters, and therefore a suitable legal code most of all. But when is it suitable? When it renders possible speedy changes in the relationship between two people, or between a person and a commodity.
In a society where every commodity continues as a rule in the possession of one and the same person, the law will strive all it can to fix every relationship between persons and things. On the other hand, if a body of people depends for its existence on the continued acquisition of commodities, its legal system will safeguard intercourse and exchange.
In modern times our highly organized system of intercommunication, and especially dealings in securities and credit instruments of all kinds, has facilitated the removal of old and the rise of new legal relationships. But this is contrary to the spirit of Roman and German law, both of which placed obstacles in the way of commodities changing hands. Indeed, under these systems any one who has been deprived of a possession not strictly in accordance with law may demand its return from the present owner, without the need of any compensation, even though his bona-fides be established. In modern law, on the other hand, the return of the possession can be made only if the claimant pays the present owner the price he gave for it—to say nothing of the possibility that the original owner has no claim whatever against the present holder.
If this be so, whence did the principle, so alien to the older systems, enter into modern law? The answer is that in all probability it was from the Jewish legal code, in which laws favouring exchange were an integral part from of old.
Already in the Talmud we see how the present owner of any object is protected against the previous owners. “If any one,” we read in the “Mishna” (Baba Kama, 114b and 115a), “after it has become known that a burglary took place at his house finds his books and utensils in the possession of another, this other must declare on oath how much he paid for the goods, and on his receiving the amount returns them to the original owner. But if no burglary has taken place, there is no need for this procedure, for it is then assumed that the owner sold the goods to a second person and that the present owner bought them.” In every case, therefore, the present owner obtains compensation, and in certain given circumstances he retains the objects without any further ado. The “Gamara,” it is true, wavers somewhat in the discussion of the passage, but in general it comes to the same conclusion. The present owner must receive “market protection,” and the previous owner must pay him the price he gave.
The attitude of the Talmud, then, is a friendly one towards exchange, and the Jews adopted it throughout the Middle Ages. But more than that—and this is the important point—they succeeded quite early in getting the principle recognized by Christian law-courts in cases where Jews were concerned. For centuries there was a special enactment regulating the acquisition of moveables by Jews; it received official recognition for the first time in the “Privileges” issued by King Henry IV to the Jews of Speyers in 1090. “If a commodity that has been stolen,” we read therein, “is found in the possession of a Jew who declares that he bought it, let him swear according to his law how much he paid for it, and if the original owner pays him the price, the Jew may restore the commodity to him.” Not only in Germany, but in other lands too46 (in France already about the middle of the 12th century), is this special ordinance for Jews to be met with.47
The Stock Exchange
But when all is said, the principal thing was to establish a suitable market for credit instruments. The Stock Exchange answered the purpose. And just as the commodities there to be bought and sold were impersonal embodiments of claims, so, too, was the dealing divested of its personal character. Indeed, this is a feature of the Stock Exchange which differentiates it from other markets. It is no longer the trustworthiness that a merchant enjoys in the estimation of his fellow-merchants, based upon personal experience, that underlies business activities, but the general, abstract valuation of credit, the ditto di Borsa. Prices are no longer formed by the higgling of two or more traders talking over their transactions, but rather by a mechanical process, representing the average of a thousand and one units.48
As for the history of the Stock Exchange (in the broadest connotation of the term), it may be divided into two periods—(1) from its beginning in the 16th to the end of the 18th century, an epoch of growth and development, and (2) from the 19th century to the present day, when the Stock Exchange dominates all economic activities.
It is now generally agreed that the origin of Stock Exchange dealing most likely began with the associating of bill-brokers.49 The centres where the famous exchanges first arose in the 16th and 17th centuries were previously well known for a brisk trade in bills.
The important thing for us is that just when the Stock Exchanges came into being the Jews almost entirely monopolized bill-broking. In many towns, indeed, this business was regarded as a Jewish specialty. That such was the case in Venice we have already seen.50 It was also true of Amsterdam, though we must add that the first mention of Jews in that capacity was not until the end of the 17th century.51 Despite this, however, I believe we shall be safe in assuming that previous to that date also they were influential bill-brokers.
In Frankfort-on-the-Main we hear the same story. Already in the 16th century a contemporary”52 says of the Jews who came to the fan’s that their presence was “hardly ornamental but certainly very useful, especially in the bill-discounting business.” Again, in 1685, the Christian merchants of Frankfort complained that the Jews had captured the whole of the business of bill-broking.53 Lastly, Gliickel von Hamein states in her Memoirs that friends of her family dealt in bills, “as was customary among Jews.”34
As for Hamburg, Jews certainly introduced the business of bill broking there. A hundred years after the event (1733) a document in the Archives of the Senate expressed the opinion that “Jews were almost masters of the situation in bill-broking and had quite beaten our people at it.”55 And even as late as the end of the 18th century the Jews were almost the only purchasers of bills in Hamburg. Among other German towns, it is recorded that in Furth bill-broking (in the 18th century) was almost entirely in Jewish hands.56
The position in Vienna was no different. The Austrian capital, as is well known, became a notable centre as a stock market at the end of the 18th century, and the State Chancellor Ludewig remarks concerning the activities of the Jews under Leopold I, “chiefly in Vienna by the influence and credit of the Jews business of the greatest importance is often transacted. Especially exchanges and negotiations of the first import in the market.”
So in Bordeaux, where we are told57 “the chief business activity is buying bills and introducing gold and silver into the realm.” Even from so far north as Stockholm the same story reaches us.58 There also the Jews dominated the bill-broking market in the early 19th century (1815). As the principal bill-brokers of the period, the Jews must have had much to do with the establishment of the Stock Market. But more than that. They gave the Stock Exchange and its dealings their peculiar features in that they became the “originators of speculation in futures,” and, indeed, of speculation generally.
When speculation in stocks first arose is as yet difficult to determine. Some have held59 that the Italian cities furnish examples of this kind of dealing as early as the 15th century.60 But to my mind this has not yet been conclusively proved.61
Not in Italy in the 15th, but in Amsterdam in the 17th century will the beginnings of modern speculation have to be more correctly placed. It is almost certain that the Dutch East India Company’s shares called stock-jobbing into existence. The large number of shares of equal value that were suddenly put into circulation at that time, the strong speculative temper of the age, the great interest taken in the Company ever since its foundation, the changing rates of profit that its activities produced—all these must surely have given an impetus to stock and share dealing on the Amsterdam Exchange,62 then already a highly developed institution. In the space of only eight years dealing in stock became so general and so reckless that it was regarded as an evilby the authorities, who tried to abolish it. A proclamation by the Government of the 26th February, 1610, forbade merchants to sell more shares than they actually possessed. Similar prohibitions were issued in 1621, 1623, 1677, 1700 and so on, all equally without effect.
Who were the speculators? The answer is, all those irrespective of religion who had sufficient money to enable them to participate. Nevertheless the assumption will not be too bold that the Jews were more prominent than others in this activity. Their contribution to the growth of Stock Exchange business was their specialization in stockbroking and the device of dealing in futures. We are not without evidence on both points. Towards the end of the 18th century it was a generally accepted fact that Jews had “discovered” the stock and share business.63 This belief does not necessarily prove anything; yet that it was without any foundation is hardly likely, especially as there are witnesses to give it support. Nicolas Muys van Holy, who has already been mentioned, says that Jews were the principal stockholders—already in the second half of the 17th century. Later they are found as large investors in both the Dutch India Companies. De Pinto64 is the authority as regards the Dutch East India Company, and for the West India Company there is the letter of the Directors to Stuyvesant,65 the Governor of New Amsterdam, requesting him to allow the Jews to settle in the Company’s colony, “also because of the large amount of capital which they have invested in shares of the Company.” Referring to both companies, Manasseh ben Israel66 reported to Cromwell “that the Jews were enjoying a good part of the Dutch East and West India Company.”
Most significant of all, however, the book which for the first time exhaustively treated of Stock Exchange business in all its branches was written by a Portuguese Jew in Amsterdam, towards the end of the 17th century. I refer to Don Joseph de la Vega’s Confusion de confusiones, etc., which appeared in 1688,67 and which a Stock Exchange specialist has described as “being still the best description, both in form and substance, of stock and share dealing even to-day.” The book bears witness to the fact that a Jew was the first “theorist” in the sphere of speculations in futures. De la Vega was himself engaged in commerce and his treatise clearly reflects the atmosphere in which he lived.
De la Vega’s book in conjunction with the other evidence quoted cannot but lead to the conclusion that if the Jews were not actually the “fathers” of Stock Exchange business they were certainly primarily concerned in its genesis.
Should this view nevertheless be sceptically received by some, I have a trump card in the way of direct proof in support of it. We possess a report, probably of the French Ambassador in The Hague, written for his Government in the year 1698, wherein he distinctly states that the Jews held the Stock Exchange business in their hands, and shaped its development as they willed. The most salient passages68 here follow in full:—
In this State (Holland) the Jews have a good deal of power and according to the prognostications of these pretended political speculators, themselves often unreliable, the prices of these stocks vary so considerably that they cause transactions to take place several times a day, transactions which merit the term wager or bet rather than business; the more so, as the Jews who dominate this kind of activity are up to all manner of tricks which take in people, even if they be ever so skilled.... Their Jewish brokers and agents, the cleverest of their kind in all the world.... Bonds and shares, of all of which they hold large amounts.
The author, acquainted as he is with all the secrets of Stock Exchange activity, describes at length how the Jews succeeded in obtaining the influential position they held on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. I shall refer to this in due course.
Much light is thrown on the conditions of the Stock Exchange in the Dutch capital when compared with those in other centres. Let us take London first, which from the 18th century onward succeeded Amsterdam as the chief financial centre in Europe. The predominance of Jews in the Stock Exchange in London is perhaps more apparent even than in the case of Amsterdam. The growing activity in the London Stock market towards the end of the 17th century may be traced to the exertions of Amsterdam Jews, who at that time began to settle in England. If this be so, it is proof positive that the Jews were in large measure responsible for the expansion of Stock Exchange dealing in Amsterdam. Else how could they have been so influential in the London Exchange, highly developed as it then already was?
One or two particulars in the story of the accession to power of the Jews in the London Exchange may be noted.
In 1657 Solomon Dormido applied for admission as a member of the Exchange, from which Jews were officially excluded. The law which ordered this exclusion seems to have been conveniently forgotten. Any how, towards the end of the 17th century the Exchange (which since 1698 had become known as ‘Change Alley) was full of Jews. So numerous did they become that a special corner of the building was designated the “Jews’ Walk.” “The Alley throngs with Jews,” wrote a contemporary. 69
Whence these throngs?70 The answer is obvious. They came in the train of William III from Amsterdam, and brought with them the machinery of Stock Exchange dealings in vogue there. The events, as related by John Francis, are regarded as a true presentation by many authorities, even on the Jewish side.
The Stock Exchange was like Minerva: it appeared on the scene ready armed. The principal participants in the first English loan were Jews: they assisted William III with their advice, and one of them, the wealthy Medina, was Marlborough’s banker, giving the General an annual grantof £6,000 and receiving in return the advantage of being first in the field with news of the wars. The victories of the English troops were as profitable to Medina as they were honourable for England. All the tricks bound up with rising and falling prices, lying reports from the seat of war, the pretended arrival of couriers, the formation of financial cliques and cabals behind the scenes, the whole system of Mammon’s wheels—they knew them all, the early fathers of the Stock Exchange, and utilized them to the full to their own advantage.
By the side of Sir Solomon Medina (“the Jew Medina,” as he was called), who may be regarded as having originated speculation in the public funds in England, we may place a number of other wealthy Jews of the reign of Anne, all of whom speculated on the Stock Exchange. Manasseh Lopez was one. He amassed a fortune in the panic which followed the false news that the Queen was dead, buying up all Government Stock which had fallen in price in consequence. A similar story is told of Sampson Gideon, known among the Gentiles as “the great Jew broker.”71 A notion of the financial strength of the Jews in the London of those days may be obtained when it is recalled that at the beginning of the 18th century the number of Jewish families with an annual income between £1000 and £2000 was put by Picciotto at 100; those with an annual income of £300 at 1000; whilst some individual Jews, such as Mendes da Costa, Moses Hart, Aaron Frank, Baron d’Aguilar, Moses Lopez Pereira, Moses or Anthony da Costa (who towards the end of the 17th century was a Director of the Bank of England) and others were among the wealthiest merchants in London.
It is evident then that the wealth of the Jews brought about Stock Exchange speculation on a large scale. But more striking still, the business of stock-jobbing as a specialized profession was introduced into the London Exchange by Jews, probably in the first half of the 18th century. As far as I am aware this fact has hitherto passed unnoticed. But there is abundant proof in support of it.
Postlethwayt, who is pretty reliable in matters of this kind, asserts72 that “Stock-jobbing … was at first only the simple occasional transferring of interest and shares from one to another as persons alienated their estates; but by the industry of the stockbrokers, who got the business into their hands, it became a trade; and one, perhaps, which has been managed with the greatest intrigue, artifice, and trick that ever anything which appeared with a face of honesty could be handled with; for, while the brokers held the box, they made the whole exchange the gamesters, and raised and lowered the prices of stocks as they pleased and always had both buyers and sellers, who stood ready, innocently to commit their money to the mercy of their mercenary tongues.” That Jews formed a considerable proportion of brokers is wellknown. As early as 1697, out of one hundred sworn brokers on the London Exchange, no fewer than twenty were Jews and aliens. Doubtless their number increased in the centuries that followed. “The Hebrews flocked to ‘Change Alley from every quarter under heaven,” wrote Francis. Indeed, a reliable observer of the 1730’s (that is to say, a generation after their first appearance on the London Exchange) remarks73 that there were too many Jewish brokers for them all to do business, consequently this “has occasioned almost one half of the Jew brokers to run into stock-jobbing.” The same authority puts the number of Jews then in London at 6000.
This process, by which stock-jobbing was in a sense the outcome of stockbroking, was not limited to London. The same tendencies showed themselves in Frankfort. Towards the end of the 17th century the Jews there were in possession of the entire broking business,74 and gradually no doubt worked their way into stock-jobbing. In Hamburg75 the Portuguese Jews had four brokers in 1617, whilst a little later there were twenty. Taking these facts into consideration, taking into consideration also that public opinion regarded the Jews as responsible for the growth of arbitrage business on the London Exchange,76 and that Jews participated to a great degree in the big speculations in Government Stock towards the end of the 18th century, we shall be forced to agree with the view that has been expressed by a first-rate authority,77 that if to-day London is the chief financial centre of the world, it owes this position in large measure to the Jews.
In the period of early capitalism, the Stock Exchanges of other towns lagged far behind those of Amsterdam and London. Even in Paris it was not until towards the end of the 18th century that business became at all brisk. The beginnings of stock speculation (or Agiotage, as it is called in France) can be traced to the early 18th century; Ranke78 discovered the term Agioteur in a letter of Elisabeth Charlotte, dated 18th January, 1711. The writer is of the opinion that the term had some connexion with the billets de monnaye (bills) but that it was unknown before. It would seem, therefore, that the Law period left no lasting impression. For even in the 1730’s the economic pre-eminence of England and Holland, both more capitalistically advanced than their neighbour, was felt in France. One writer of the time79 makes this clear. “The circulation of stock is one of the sources of great wealth to our neighbours; they have a bank, dividendsare paid, and stock and shares are sold.” Apparently then such was not the case in France. Even in 1785, an edict (7th August) proclaimed that “the King is informed that for some time past a new kind of commodity has been introduced into the capital”—viz., stocks and shares.
The condition of comparative unimportance which Stock Exchange activities occupied in France during the 18th century is a direct indication that the Jews had little influence on the economic life of France (and especially of Paris) in that period. The cities in which they resided, such as Lyons or Bordeaux, were hardly favourable to the development of stockbroking. In Lyons, however, there was for a short space, in the 16th century, a fairly brisk trade in what would to-day be called securities, but no satisfactory reasons have as yet been offered to explain it.80 Anyhow, it had no after-effects.
But to return to Paris. What stockbroking it had it probably owed to the Jews. The centre of this business was in the Rue Quincampoix, which later became notorious through the swindles connected with the name of Law. Now in this particular street there lived, in the words of a reliable authority,81 “many Jews.” Be that as it may, the man with whom the first stock speculations in France were connected, one who was a greater master of the art of manipulation than even Law, was Samuel Bernard, the well-known financier of Louis XIV. No wonder then that the billets de monnaye, when they became merely bits of valueless paper, were nicknamed Bernardines.82 And as for John Law, his knowledge of the mechanism of the Stock Exchange had been acquired in Amsterdam.83 Whether he was himself a Jew (it has been held84 that Law == Levy) I have been unable to discover. It is, however, quite possible. Was not his father a “goldsmith” (and banker)? He was, it is true, a Christian, but that is not necessarily a proof of his non-Jewishness. The Jewish appearance of the man in portraits (for example, in the German edition (1720) of his Money and Trade Considered) rather supports the thesis that he was a Jew. On the other hand, the peculiar mixture of the lordling and the adventurer which characterized his nature is against the assumption.
In Germany the Exchanges of Frankfort and Hamburg, the two Jewish towns par excellence, alone reached a position of any importance. Illustrations of the Jewish influence have already been dealt with.
As for Berlin, it may be said that the Stock Exchange there was a Jewish institution from its very inception. At the beginning of the last century, even before 1812, when they were emancipated, the Jews predominated numerically on the Exchange. Of the four Presidents, two were Jews; and the whole Stock Exchange Committee was made up as follows:—4 Presidents, 10 Wardens of the two Gilds, 1 of the Elbe Seamen’s Gild, and 8 “of the merchants of the Jewish nation, elected thereto.” Out of a total of 23, therefore, 10 were Jews. That is to say, professing Jews: it is impossible to determine whether, and how many, baptized Jews and crypto-Jews were in the committee.
As it is, their number shows plainly enough that stockbroking had its large quota of Jews. Of six sworn bill-brokers three were Jews. Further, of the two sworn brokers in cotton and silk, one was a Jew, and his substitute was also a Jew. That is to say, of a total of three, two were Jews.85
Stockbroking so far as Germany in the 18th century was concerned was carried on only in Hamburg and Frankfort. Already at the beginning of that century trading in securities was forbidden. A proclamation of the Hamburg Council, dated 19th July, 1720, expresses itself as follows:—“The Council has heard to its abhorrence and great disgust, that certain private citizens, under the pretext of founding an assurance company, have on their own authority commenced business as dealers in shares. The Council fears that harmful consequences may ensue therefrom as well to the public at large, as also to the said private citizens.”86 It seems that the powers that be were only voicing the general feeling in the matter; “the dangerous and wickedly ruinous trade in stocks and shares” a writer of the tune87 indignantly called it.
Were Jews here also the originators? So much at least is certain, that the impetus to stock-dealing came from the circles of the assurers, as is apparent from the above-mentioned proclamation of 1720. Now, as a matter of fact, it is known that Jews actively stimulated the growth of marine insurance in Hamburg.88 Any further evidence as to Stock Exchange influences is only indirect. The same applies to Frankfort The first certain trace dates from 1817, and refers to Augsburg. There is on record the decision of a court of law in a bill case of the 14th February in the year mentioned. A motion to enforce payment of the difference in the price of a credit-instrument which rose owing to the rise of the market-rate was dismissed, on the ground that it was of the nature of a game of hazard. The sum in question was 17,630 florins, and the original contract was for delivery of 90,000 florins’ worth of lottery tickets in the Bavarian State Lottery. The plaintiff’s name was Heymann, the defendant’s H. E. Ullmann! This is the first attested case of speculation in bonds in Germany.89
But with the year 1817 we reach a period which differed from the preceding one, and which I consider as opening a new epoch in the history of Stock Exchange transactions. Why new? What were its special features that it should be described by that dreadful word “modern”?
Judgments on the Stock Exchange by contemporaries then and now show how widely different a position it occupies to-day from what it did even a hundred years ago.
Until well on in the 18th century, even in capitalistic circles, speculation in the public funds was looked at askance. The standard commercial handbooks and dictionaries in English, French, Italian and German, which have come down to us from the 18th century, either make no mention at all of dealings in stocks (especially in the economically “backward” countries), or if, like Postlethwayt, they do treat of the subject, they cannot sufficiently express their contempt for it. The view concerning the Stock Exchange which is to-day held by the petty trader, the small shopkeeper or the farmer was in the 18th century that of the rich merchant. When in 1733 Sir John Barnard’s Bill (to prevent the “infamous practice of stock-jobbing”) was being discussed in the House of Commons, all the speakers were unanimous in their condemnation of the business. Half a generation later the same harsh terms are to be found in the pages of Postlethwayt, who refers to “those mountebanks we very properly call stockbrokers.” Stock-jobbing he regards as a “public grievance,” which has become “scandalous, to the nation.”90 No wonder that the legislation of the period completely forbade the business.
But the dislike of the Stock Exchange went deeper still. It was bound up with an aversion for what the Exchange rested on—securities in general. Naturally the interests of the State coincided with those who defended the trade in securities, so that Ruler and Jobber were ranged as a lonely couple on one side, while everybody else was on the other—save only those who indulged in the purchase of securities. In truth, the National Debt was looked upon as something of which States had need to be ashamed, and the best men of their generation were agreed that its growth was an evil which should be combated by all possible means. Thinkers and practical men were united on this point. In commercial circles the question was seriously discussed how the public debt could be paid off, and it was even suggested that the State should disavow its responsibilities in connexion with the debt, and so wipe it out. And this in England in the second half of the 18th century!91 Nor were the theorists of the time differently minded. The system of public borrowing is called by David Hume “a practice … ruinous beyond all controversy;”92 Adam Smith writes of “the ruinous practice of funding,” “the ruinous expedient of perpetual funding ... has gradually enfeebled every State which has adopted it” … “the progress of the enormous debts, which at present oppress and will in the long run probably ruin all the great nations of Europe.”93 In these opinions, as always, Adam Smith is the mirror of the economic conditions of his age, a period of early capitalistic development, and nothing distinguishes it from our own so well as the fact that in the complete system of Adam Smith there is no niche available for the study of securities, or of the Stock Exchange and its business.
About the same time, however, a book appeared which dealt only with credit and its blessings, with the Stock Exchange and its significance; a book which may be justly termed the “Song of Songs” of Public Debts and share-dealing; a book which looked to the Future, as the Wealth of Nations looked to the Past. I refer to the Traité du credit et de la circulation, published in 1771 from the pen of Joseph de Pinto. Now Pinto was a Portuguese Jew, hence my special reference to him in this connexion. In his pages may be found the very arguments which have been put forward in the 19th century in defence of public credit, of dealings in securities and of speculation in the public funds. If Adam Smith in his system be said to stand at the end ofthe period in which the Stock Exchange was in its infancy, Pinto may be regarded as standing at the beginning of the modern era with its theory of credit, in which stock and share speculation have become the centre of economic activity, and the Stock Exchange the heart of the body economic.
Silently, but none the less surely, public opinion veered round in favour of dealings in securities and of the recognition of the Stock Exchange as a necessity. Public opinion grew as these grew, and step by step, hostile legislation was removed, so that when the Napoleonic wars were over and peace reigned once more, the Stock Exchange began to take on enormous dimensions.
We see, then, that there is some justification for speaking of a new period in the history of the Stock Exchange. What were the actual changes? And to what extent were the Jews concerned in bringing about the new state of affairs?
There was not much modification in the mechanism of the Stock Exchange; that was complete as early as 1688, when de la Vega published his book. Naturally, subsidiary kinds of business activities cropped up here and there, and of these, too, Jews were generally the originators. Thus I have discovered94 that the business of insurance was established (in Germany) by W. Z. Wertheimer in Frankfort, and that of the peculiar form of ship chartering known as “Heuergeschäft” Jews were the founders.
But the rise of subsidiary businesses was not the salient point in the development of Stock Exchange activities. It was rather the extensive and intensive growth of the volume of business.
The enormous increase in the number of securities which have appeared in the market since the beginning of the 19th century, and the rapidity with which they came before the public, are facts too well known to need repetition. But with this increase came also an extension of speculation. Until about the middle of the 18th century, speculation in London and Amsterdam may be compared to little ripples on the face of the water. It was not till 1763, as a reliable informant tells us, that the first private loan was floated in Amsterdam. Previously what speculation there was was limited to public bonds, “but during the last war a vast ocean of annuities flooded the market.”95 Even so, there were only fortyfour different kinds of securities on the Amsterdam Exchange about the middle of the century. Of these, twenty-five were bonds of internal, and six of German loans. When the century closed, the first category of bonds numbered eighty, and the second thirty.96 Then came a sudden upward movement, especially after the defeat of Napoleon. From the first establishment of the Amsterdam Exchange until the year 1770, a total debt of 250,000,000 Gulden had been dealt in; whereas in fourteen years (1808–22) one London firm alone issued a greater sum—22,000,000 pounds. All this is common knowledge; and the identity of that one London firm, which in a decade floated so vast a sum on the market, does not need further indication.
With the mention of this firm, and of its four branches, we have touched on the connexion between the extensive growth of Stock Exchange activities and the Jewish influence upon it. For the expansion of the share market between 1800 and 1850 was also the expansion of the house of Rothschild and its appendages. The name Rothschild refers to more than the firm: it stands for the whole of Jewish influence on the Stock Exchange. By the aid of that influence the Rothschilds were enabled to attain to their powerful position—it may even be said to their unique position—in the market for Government securities. It was no exaggeration to assert that in many a land the minister of finance who could not come to an agreement with this firm might as well close the doors of his exchequer. “There is only one power in Europe,” was a dictum well-known about the middle of the 19th century, “and that is Rothschild: a dozen other banks are his underlings, his soldiers are all honest merchants and workmen, and speculation is his sword” (A. Weil). Heine’s wit, in passages that are surely too well-known to need quoting, has demonstrated the importance of the family better far than any table of figures.
I have not the least intention of writing here a history of the Rothschilds, even in outline. The reader will find ample material97 at his disposal should he wish to acquaint himself with the fortunes of this remarkable family. All I shall do will be to point out one or two characteristics which the modern Stock Exchange owes to them, in order to make clear that not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, the Stock Exchange bears the impress of the Rothschilds (and therefore of the Jew).
The first feature to be observed is that, since the appearance of the Rothschilds, the stock market has become international. This was only to be expected, considering the enormous extension of Stock Exchange activities, which necessitated the flow of vast sums from all parts of the inhabited world to the borrowing centres. To-day the internationalization of the stock market is an accepted fact; at the commencement of the 19th century it was regarded with nothing short of amazement. When in 1808, during the Peninsular War, Nathan Rothschild undertook in London to attend to the pay of the English army in Spain, his action was regarded as a stupendous achievement, and indeed, laid the foundation of all his influence. Until 1798 only the Frankfort firm had been in existence; in that year one of the sons of Mayer Amschel established a branch in London, another son settled in Paris in 1812, a third in Vienna in 1816, and a fourth in Naples in 1820. The conditions were thus given whereby a foreign loan might be treated as though it were an internal loan, and gradually the public became accustomed to investing their capital in foreign securities, seeing that the interest could be paid at home in coins of the realm. Writers of the early 19th century describe it as a marvellous thing that “every holder of Government stock … can receive his dividends in various places at his convenience without any difficulty. The Rothschilds in Frankfort pay interest for many Governments; the Paris house pays the dividends on the Austrian Métalliques, the Neapolitan Rentes, the Anglo-Neapolitan Loan either in London, Naples or Paris.”98
The circle of possible investors was thus enlarged. But the Rothschilds were also alive to the importance of obtaining every available penny that could be borrowed, and for this purpose they skilfully utilized the machinery of the Stock Exchange for floating loans.
As far as can be judged from contemporary records,99 the issue by the Rothschilds of the Austrian bonds in 1820–1 was an epoch-making event, both in public borrowing and in Stock Exchange business. For the first time all the ropes were pulled to create a demand for the shares, and speculations in Government stocks may be stated to have begun on this occasion, at least on the Continent.
“To create a demand” was henceforth the watchword of the Stock Exchange. “To create a demand” was the object in view when, by means of systematic buying and selling, changes were brought about in price; and the Rothschilds devoted themselves to the business from the first.100 In a sense, they carried on what the French called agiotage, and this was something quite new for a great banking firm to do. In reality the Rothschilds only adopted the methods of the Amsterdam Jews for artificially influencing the market, but they applied them to a new purpose—the placing of fresh securities before the public. The changed relation of the banker to the Stock Exchange on the one hand, and to the public on the other, will become more apparent when we have glanced at the new activities which loomed on the horizon at this period—the age of the Rothschilds—and began to play an independent role. I mean the business of bringing out loans.
The Creation of Securities
The business of bringing out loans is an attempt to obtain profit by means of the creation of securities. It is important because it represents a capitalistic force of exceedingly great power. Henceforth, stocks and shares come into being not because of the needs of those who require money and depend on credit, but quite independently, as a form of capitalistic enterprise. Hitherto the possible investor was waited for until he came; now he is sought out. The loan-floater becomes, as it were, aggressive; he gives the impetus to the borrowing movement. But this is hardly ever noticeable. We see how it works, however, when small States require loans; we may imagine a kind of “commercial traveller in loans.” “Now we have wealthy firms with large machinery, whose time and staff are devoted to hunting about the world for Powers for whom to bring out loans.”101
Naturally, the loan-floater’s relation to the Stock Exchange and the public changes. He must be aggressive and pushful, now that his main work is to get people to take up shares.
There is as yet no satisfactory history of the business of bringing out loans. We do not know, therefore, when it first began; its origins, however, no doubt reach back into the 18th century, and probably there were three well marked stages in its growth.
In the first of these, either a bank or a wealthy individual (who, in the pre-Stock Exchange period himself made the loan) was entrusted with the placing of the debt in return for a commission. Such was the method adopted in Austria throughout the whole of the 18th century: “Loans of fairly large sums, especially those contracted abroad, were usually obtained through the intervention of a bank or a group of financiers. The firm in question arranged, by means of public subscription, for the supply of the amount needed; handed over the sum to the borrower or his agent; undertook’ the payment of interest and portions of the principal to the individual lenders—out of their own funds if need be; all, of course, for a consideration.”102
But about the middle of the 18th century there were already “dealers in loans.” In 1769 there were Italian and Dutch firms who would willingly undertake the floating of loans.103 Adam Smith’s description of this business makes the matter plainer still. “In England … the merchants are generally the people who advance money to Government. But by advancing it they do not mean to diminish, but, on the contrary, to increase their mercantile capitals; and unless theyexpected to sell with some profit their share in the subscription for a new loan, they never would subscribe.” In France, on the other hand, those concerned in the finances were people of private means, who advanced their own money.104
Where did the specialists in this business come from? Not from among the bankers, who in the 18th century floated loans, but in all probability from among the dealers in stock and shares. Towards the end of the 18th century the charmed circle of London bankers who had the monopoly of bringing out Government loans was broken through by competition from the ranks of the stockholders. Here, too, it was a Jewish firm that took the initiative, and brought the emission of loans into connexion with the Stock Exchange. I refer to the “Rothschilds of the 18th century,” the men who predominated in ‘Change Alley in those days—Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid. In 1792 they came forward as the first members of the Stock Exchange105 to compete with the bankers of London in the bringing out of the new loan, and from that date until the death of the second brother, Abraham, which occurred in 1810, this firm controlled the money market. Perhaps we may account them as the first “loan specialists,” whom the Rothschilds succeeded. But even if there is some doubt about the Goldsmids’ claim, there can be no possible doubt about the Rothschilds’, who were thus certainly the first in the field.
But it is obvious that only a few wealthy firms could subsist by the business of issuing public loans. After all, the demand was comparatively limited. But as soon as opportunities offered themselves for the creation of securities for private needs, a very wide field of activity was ready for ploughing. All that was necessary was to create a big demand artificially, and this tendency gave birth to company-promoting and mortgage business.
Company-promoting is carried on by firms “whose business it professedly is to make money by manufacturing stocks and shares wholesale and forcing them upon the public” (Crump). The strength of the motive power that thus began to actuate economic activities need scarcely be described. It was not to the interest of undertakers, some of no small importance, to create fresh capital by the issue of new stock or by extending the old, without any reference at all to the question as to whether there was a demand for the stock or not.
Who first started this form of business? It will not be difficult to show that even if the Jews did not actually establish it, they certainly helped forward its development.
The first ray of light on this matter, as far as we can make out, is once again the activity of the Rothschilds. The railway boom of the 1830’s made it possible to carry on company-promoting on a large scale. The Rothschilds, as well as other Jewish houses (the d’Eichthals, the Foulds, etc.), were the first in the field, and brought this branch of business to a flourishing condition.
The extent of the participation may be gathered in some degree from the length of the lines built, or the amount of capital subscribed. But the actual share of the individual firms cannot be estimated. Nevertheless, we know that the Rothschilds “built” the Northern Railway in France, the Northern Railway in Austria, the Austro-Italian Railway, and many more.
Further, judging from the views of contemporaries, it would appear that the Rothschilds were really the first “Railway Kings.” In 1843 the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung wrote as follows: “When in the last few years speculation became rife in industrial undertakings, and railways grew to be a necessity for the Continent, the Rothschilds took the plunge and placed themselves at the head of the new movement.” The house of Rothschild set the fashion in railway building as it had done before in public loans. “Scarcely a company that was started in Germany but looked to the goodwill of Rothschild. Those in which he had no say were not very successful, and little could be made out of them.”106 Statements such as these, in which friend and foe agree, are significant enough.
Ever since those days the activity of floating companies has become a specialty of Jewish undertakers. In the first place, the very biggest men, such as Baron Hirsch or Dr. Strousberg, were Jews. But the rank and file, too, have many Jews among them. A glance at the figures on the next page concerning the promotion of companies in Germany in the two years 1871–3 suffices to show that an astoundingly large number of Jews participated in the work.107 But these figures do not tell the whole story. In the first place, they form only a selection of the whole, and refer (of set purpose) to the “shaky” companies, from which the Jews will probably have kept away; and secondly, in many cases, the Jews were behind the scenes as controlling influences, and those in the foreground were merely puppets. Even so the figures will serve a useful purpose.
The tendency is perhaps best seen where private banking is still important, as it is in England. Here, as I am told on the best authority, of the 63 banks in the Bankers’ Almanack for 1904, 33 were Jewish firms, or at least with a strong Jewish interest, and of these 33, 13 were firstclass concerns.
It is more difficult to determine the proportion of Jews in this calling in countries (e.g., Germany) where the private banker has been displaced by the joint-stock bank. But everything points to Jewish influence in the tendency of the joint-stock banks to act as company promoters.
None of the decades of company-flotation, neither the fifties nor the seventies, nor still less the nineties, would have been conceivable without the co-operation of the speculative bank. The stupendous undertakings in railway construction owe their very existence to the banks, which advanced capital to limited companies of their own creation. Private firms, it is true, did no little in the same direction, but their means did not allow of rivalry with the great banks. In France, between 1842 and 1847, no less than 144 million francs were spent in railway building; in the following four years 130 millions, while from 1852 to 1854 the sum had reached 250 millions; in 1855 alone it was 500 millions, and in 1856 520 millions.108 It was the same in Germany. “The entire work of building our net of railways in this period (1848–70) … was carried through … with the assistance of banks.”109
The reason for this is not far to seek. On the one hand, the increase of available capital, which was due to the rise of new joint-stock banks, paved the way for proportionately larger undertakings. On the other hand, since the joint-stock company in trying to obtain greater profits strove, harder than a private firm to add to its activities, all possible opportunities that presented themselves were utilized to the full.110 How did this special banking activity originate?111 I believe it may be traced to 1852, when the credits mobiliers112 were first established. The history of the crédit mobilier is well known.113 What interests us specially is that it owes its inception to two Portuguese Jews, Isaac and Emil Pereire, and that other Jews participated in it. The list of subscribers showed that the two Pereires together held 11,446 shares, and Fould-Oppenheim 11,445, that among the other large shareholders were Mallet Freres, Benjamin Fould, Torlonia (of Rome), Solomon Heine (of Hamburg), Oppenheim (of Cologne)—in other words, the chief representatives of European Jewry. The Rothschilds were not found in the ist, for the crédit mobilier was directed against them.
|
Nature of Establishment |
Total Number |
Number of Jews |
|
Twenty-five firms of first-rate importance that floated companies |
25 |
16 |
|
Two of the biggest mining syndicates |
13 |
5 |
|
Continental Railway Company (capital 1½ million sterling) |
6 |
4 |
|
Twelve land-purchase companies in Berlin |
80 |
27 |
|
Building Society, “Unter den Linden” |
8 |
4 |
|
Nine building banks |
104 |
37 |
|
Nine Berlin breweries |
54 |
27 |
|
Twenty North German machine building companies |
148 |
47 |
|
Ten North German gasworks |
49 |
18 |
|
Twenty paper factories |
89 |
22 |
|
Twelve North German chemical works |
67 |
22 |
|
Twelve North German textile factories |
65 |
27 |
The French crédit mobilier produced in the years that followed a number of offshoots, legitimate and illegitimate, all of Jewish blood. In Austria there was the “Kaiserlich-Koenigliche privilegierte oesterreichische Kreditanstalt,” established in 1855 by S. M. Rothschild. In Germany the first institution modelled on the new principle was the Bank fur Handel und Industrie (Darmstadter Bank), founded in 1853, on the initiative of the Oppenheims of Cologne.114 One of the first directors of this bank was Hess, who had been a high official in the crédit mobilier. The Berliner Discontogesellschaft was the second institution of the same kind. Its origin was Christian, but its transformation into what it is to-day is the work of David Hausemann. It was the same with the third German instance—the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft, which was called into being by the Cologne firms already mentioned in connexion with the Darmstadter Bank, and by the best known Berlin bankers, such as Mendelssohn & Co., S. Bleichroder, Robert Warschauer & Co., Schickler Brothers, and others Finally, in the case of the Deutsche Bank (1870) the Jewish element again predominated.
The Commercialization of Industry
With the speculative banks capitalistic development reached its zenith, at any rate, for the time being. They pushed the process of the commercialization of economic life as far forward as it could go. Themselves children of the Stock Exchange, the speculative banks brought Stock Exchange activities (i.e., speculation) to their fullest bloom.115 Trade in securities was extended to undreamt-of proportions. So much so, that the opinion has been expressed that, in Germany at any rate, the speculative joint-stock banks will replace the Stock Exchange.118 There may be a grain of truth in this, provided the terms be properly understood. That the Stock Exchange may cease to be an open market and be dominated by la haute finance is possible; but as an economic organization it is bound to gain, if anything, by modern developments, seeing that its sphere is continuously being widened.
That is what I mean by the commercialization of industry. The Stock Exchange activities of the joint-stock banks are becoming more and more the controlling force in every department of economic life. Indeed, all undertakings in the field of industry are now determined by the power of finance. Whether a new industrial concern shall be established or an old one enlarged, whether a “universal provider” shall receive an increase of capital in order to extend his business—all this is now decided in the private offices of banks or bankers. In the same way the distribution of commodities is becoming more and more a financial problem. It is not too much to say that our chief industries are as much financial as industrial concerns. The Stock Exchange determines the price of most international manufactured articles and raw materials, and he who hopes to survive the competitive strain must be able to command the Stock Exchange. In a word, it may be safely asserted that all economic activities nowadays are tending to become commercial dealings.
The electrical industry is the best example. From its first foundations it represented a new type. Hitherto the great capitalistic industries regarded their work as finished when they had obtained and carried out their orders. A particular factory would appoint an agent in every big town, who in most cases represented other factories as well, and whose search for customers could not be marked by any very striking initiative. In the electrical industry all this was changed. Its organizers were the first to see that one of the primary duties of an industry was to create a market for itself. What did they do? They endeavoured to capture the customer. On the one hand, they attempted to control buyers. For example, by purchasing shares either in tram companies about to be turned into electric tramways, or in entirely new undertakings, they could obtain a dominating influence over the body which gave orders for the commodities they were manufacturing. In case of need, the directors of electrical undertakings would themselves call into being limited companies for such activities as would create a demand for their goods. The most successful electrical works have to-day become in an increasing degree similar to banks for floating companies.
Nor is this all. Another policy they adopted was to establish branches in all parts in order to seize upon as much of the market as they could. Whereas formerly reliance was placed on general agents, now the work of extending the connexion is delegated by each firm to a special representative of its own. What is the result? The customer is seen at closer quarters; his needs are better understood and, therefore, better supplied; his wishes more easily met, and so forth.
It is well known that such was the system adopted by the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft and that Felix Deutsch was foremost in its extension. The older companies have but slowly followed suit. Siemens and Halske long thought themselves “too grand to run after customers,” until Berliner, one of their directors, accepted the new plan to such good effect, that his company soon regained the lost ground from its rival. This instance is typical, and we may say generally that the commercialization of industry was the gap in the hedge through which the Jews could penetrate into the field of the production and transportation of commodities, as they had done earlier in commerce and finance.
By this we are not asserting that the history of the Jews as industrialists commences here. Far from it. As soon as modern capitalism differentiated between the technical and commercial aspects of all economic processes, so soon was the Jew found engaged in both. It is true that commerce attracted him more, but already in the early capitalistic period Jews were among the first undertakers in one industry or another.
Here they established the tobacco industry (Mecklenberg, Austria); there, whisky distilling (Poland, Bohemia); in some countries they were leather manufacturers (France, Austria), in others silk manufacturers (Prussia, Italy and Austria); they made stockings in Hamburg; looking glasses in Fürth; starch in France; cotton in Moravia. And almost everywhere they were pioneers in the tailoring trade. I could show by reference to the materials I have collected that in the 18th and early 19th centuries there were many other instances of Jews as capitalistic industrialists. 117 But I hold that an account of this aspect of Jewish economic history is useless, seeing that it contains nothing specifically Jewish. Jews were driven into an industry by mere chance, and in all probability it would have thriven without them equally well. Let us take an instance or two. In Poland and Austria the position of the Jews as the stewards of the nobility brought it about that they became whisky distillers. In other countries their enterprise in the tobacco industry was a direct result of their status as Court Jews, in connexion with which they very often held the tobacco monopoly. In the majority of instances their commercial activities led to their stocking manufactured articles, and eventually to their making of them, as in the case of textiles. But the process is a common one, and non-Jews passed through it equally with Jews. There was, however, an exception in the case of old clo’ dealing. That was an essentially Jewish business, and led first to the sale of new clothes, and eventually to tailoring.
But when all is said, Jewish influence on industrial undertakings was not very great until their commercialization came about; that is, until in almost every modern industry the work of directing and organizing has become common to all, and a man may pass from one industry to another without thereby diminishing his skill. The technical side is now in all cases a subdivision by itself. It is no uncommon thing therefore to find that a man who started in the leather industry ends up as an ironmaster, after having been in turn (shall we say?) a manufacturer of alcoholic liquors and of sulphuric acid. The capitalistic undertaker of old bore a technical impress, the modern undertaker is quite colourless. Can you imagine Alfred Krupp manufacturing anything but guns, Borsig anything but machines, Werner von Siemens anything but electrical apparatus? Can you picture H. H. Myer at the head of any other concern but the Nord-deutscher Lloyd? On the other hand, if Rathenau, Deutsch, Berliner, Arnold, Friedlander, Ballin changed positions to-morrow they would be no less successful than in their present capacities. And what is the reason? They are all men of commerce, and the particular sphere of their activity matters not in the least.
It has been put thus: the Christian makes his way up, starting as technician; the Jew as commercial traveller or clerk.
The extent of Jewish participation in industrial undertakings to-day would be very useful to know, but there is little material to go upon. We shall have to be content with an approximate estimate, based on the numbers of Jews who are directors of industrial concerns. The method is unsatisfactory—naturally so. How is it possible to say with certainty who is a Jew and who is not? How many people are aware, for example, that Hagen of Cologne, who holds more directorships than any other man in Germany, was originally called Levy? But apart from this, mere numbers are no criterion of the extent of influence. Moreover, in some companies business ability alone does not determine the membership of the Board of Directors; in others there is an unwritten law to exclude Jews from positions of trust. In any case, therefore, the figures that have been obtained relate only to a small portion of the Jewish influence.
MANAGING DIRECTORS
|
Industry |
Total |
Number of Jews |
Percentage of Jews |
|
Leather and rubber |
19 |
6 |
31.5 |
|
Metal |
52 |
13 |
25.0 |
|
Electrical |
95 |
22 |
23.1 |
|
Brewing |
71 |
11 |
15.7 |
|
Textiles |
59 |
8 |
13.5 |
|
Chemicals |
46 |
6 |
13.0 |
|
Mining |
183 |
23 |
12.8 |
|
Machinery |
90 |
11 |
12.2 |
|
Potash |
36 |
4 |
11.1 |
|
Cement, timber, glass, |
7 |
4 |
7.0 |
|
Total |
808 |
108 |
13.3 |
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
|
Industry |
Total |
Number of Jews |
Percentage of Jews |
|
Brewing |
165 |
52 |
31.5 |
|
Metal |
130 |
40 |
30.7 |
|
Cement, timber, glass, |
137 |
41 |
29.9 |
|
Potash |
156 |
46 |
29.4 |
|
Leather and rubber |
42 |
12 |
28.6 |
|
Electrical |
339 |
91 |
26.8 |
|
Mining |
640 |
153 |
23.9 |
|
Chemicals |
127 |
29 |
22.8 |
|
Machinery |
215 |
48 |
21.4 |
|
Textiles |
141 |
19 |
13.5 |
|
Total |
2092 |
511 |
24.4 |
For all that I quote them; they have been compiled for me from the last edition of the Handbook of German Joint-Stock Companies. In the case of the electrical industries, only those with a capital of 6 million mark have been noted; in the chemical industries those with 5 millions; machinery and textiles with 4 millions, and the remainder with 3 millions. What do these figures suggest? Is the Jewish influence in the industries named great or small? I think it is very large, at any rate quantitatively. Bear in mind that the social group which occupies almost a seventh part of all directorships, and nearly a quarter of all the boards of directors, forms exactly only a hundredth part of the entire population of the German Empire.
Chapter
7:
The Growth of a Capitalistic Point of View in Economic Life
It is evident from the survey in the previous chapters that Jewish influence extended far beyond the commercial institutions which it called into being. In other words, the Stock Exchange is not merely a piece of machinery in economic life, it is the embodiment of a certain spirit. Indeed, all the newest forms of industrial organization are the products of this spirit, and it is to this that I wish specially to call the reader’s attention.
The outer structure of the economic life of our day has been built up largely by Jewish hands. But the principles underlying economic life—that which may be termed the modern economic spirit, or the economic point of view—may also be traced to a Jewish origin.
Proofs for the statement will have to be sought in directions other than those hitherto followed. Documentary evidence is obviously of little avail here. But what will certainly be a valuable guide is the feeling that prevailed in those circles which first became alive to the fact that the Jewish attitude of mind was something alien. Non-Jewish merchants or their spokesmen expressed opinions which, though one-sided and often harsh, are nevertheless of immense help, because they naively set forth the dislike of the Jewish spirit, reflecting it, as it were, as in a mirror (though often enough, to be sure, it was a convex mirror). The people who voiced the opinions to which we are about to refer looked on the Jews as their worst enemies, and therefore we must try to read between the lines, and deduce the truth from statements which were meant to convey something very different. The task is made the more easy because of the uniformity in the opinions formulated—a uniformity due by no means to thoughtless imitation, but rather to similarity of conditions. Their very similarity adds to their forcefulness as proofs.
In the first place, it must be noted that wherever Jews appeared as business competitors, complaints were beard that Christian traders suffered in consequence: their livelihood, we are told, was endangered, the Jews deprived them of their profits, their chances of existence were lessened because their customers went to Jews, and so forth.
A few extracts from documents of the 17th and 18th centuries, the period which concerns us most, will illustrate what has been mentioned. Let us turn first to Germany. In 1672 the Estates of Brandenburg complain that the Jews “take the bread out of the mouths of the other inhabitants.” 1 Almost the same phrase is found in the petition of the merchants of Danzig, of March 19th, 1717.2 In 1712 and 1717 the good citizens of the old town of Magdeburg object to the admission of Jews into their midst, “because the welfare of the city, and the success of traders, depends upon the fact that ... no Jewish dealing is permitted here.”3
In 1740 Ettenheim made a communication to its Bishop, wherein it was stated that “as is well-known, the Jews’ low ways make only for loss and undoing.” The same idea is voiced in the proverb, “All in that city doth decay, where Jews are plentiful as hay.”4 In the preamble to the Prussian Edict of 1750, mention is made that “the big merchants of our town complain … that the Jews who deal in the same commodities as they do, lessen their business considerably.” It was the same in the South of Germany. In Nuremberg, for example, the Christian traders had to sit by and see their customers make purchases of Jews. In 1469 the Jews were expelled from Nuremberg; a very large number of them settled in the neighbouring town of Fürth, and their customers from the first-named city, seeking the best advantage for themselves as buyers, journeyed to Fürth to do their shopping.[The first German railway was built between Nuremberg and Fürth (1835). Whether the Jewish influence mentioned in the text had anything to do with it is difficult to say. But it is a curious fact.—Trans.] No wonder that the City Fathers of Nuremberg showered ordinances on the town throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, forbidding dealings with Jews from Fürth.5
That Jews all through the 18th century were refused admission to the merchant-gilds, no less than to the craft-gilds, is too well-known to need further emphasis.6
Was it different in England? By no means. Says Josiah Child, “The Jews are a subtil people … depriving the English merchant of that profit he would otherwise gain”; they carry on their business “to the prejudice of the English merchants.”7 When in 1753 the Jews’ Naturalization Bill became law, the ill-will of the populace against the hated race was so great that the Act had to be repealed the very next year. One great fear was that if the Jews became English citizens they would “oust the natives from their employment.”8
From Marseilles to Nantes the same tones were heard in France. The merchants of the latter city in 1752 bewailed their fate in the following terms: “The prohibited trade carried on by these strangers … has caused considerable loss to the merchants of this town, so much so, that if they are not favoured by the good-will of these gentry, they are in the predicament of being able neither to provide for their families nor to pay their taxes.”9 Seven years earlier, in 1745, the Christian traders of Toulouse regretfully declared that “everybody runs to the Jewish traders.” 10 “We beseech you to bar the onward march of this nation, which otherwise will assuredly destroy the entire trade of Languedoc”—such was the request of the Montpelier Chamber of Commerce.11 Their colleagues in Paris compared the Jews to wasps who make their way into the hive only to kill the bees, rip open their bodies and extract the honey stored in their entrails.12
In Sweden,13 in Poland,14 the same cry resounded.15 In 1619 the civic authorities of Posen complained, in an address to King Sigismund, that “difficulties and stumbling-blocks are put in the way of merchants and craftsmen by the competition of Jews.”
But all this does not suffice. We want to know more than that the Jews endangered the livelihood of the others. We want to find out the reason for this. Why were they able to become such keen competitors of the Christian traders? Only when this question has been answered will we understand the peculiar nature of Jewish business methods, “les secrets du négoce,” as Savary calls them.
Let us refer to contemporary opinion, to the men who were sufficiently in touch with everyday life to know the reason. Here again the answer is pretty well unanimous. And what is it? The Jews were more successful because of their dishonest dealing. “Jews … have one law and custom whenever it pays them; it is called lying and cheating,” you may read in the pages of Philander von Sittewald.16 Equally complimentary is the Comic Lexicon of Cheating, compiled by George Paul Hönn,17 where under “Jews,” the only interpolation in the whole book is made as follows: “Jews are cheats, collectively and individually.…” The article “Jews,” in the General Treasury for Merchants, is of the same calibre,18 while an anonymous writer on manners and morals declares that the Jews of Berlin “make their living by robbing and cheating, which, in their opinion, are no crimes.”19
Similar views were current in France. “The Jews,” says Savary, “have the reputation of being good at business, but they are supposed not to be able to carry it on with strict honesty and trustworthiness.”20
Now what do these accusations amount to? Even if the term “cheating” be given a very wide connotation, the commercial practices of many Jews hardly came within its scope. When it was asserted that Jews were cheats, that was only an epithet to describe the fact that Jews in their commercial dealings did not always pay regard to the existing laws or customs of trade. Jewish merchants offended in neglecting certain traditions of their Christian compeers, in (now and again) breaking the law, but above all, in paying no heed to commercial etiquette. Look closely into the specific accusations hurled against Jewish traders, examine their innermost nature, and you shall find that the conflict between Jewish and Christian merchants was a struggle between two outlooks, between two radically differing—nay, opposite—views on economic life. To understand this conflict in its entirety, it will be necessary to obtain some idea of the spirit that dominated economic activities, activities in which from the 16th century onwards the Jews were obtaining a surer footing from day to day. So much did they seem to be out of harmony with that spirit that everywhere they were looked upon as a disturbing element.
During the whole of the period which I have described as the “early capitalistic age,” and in which the Jews began to make their influence felt, the same fundamental notions generally prevailed in regard to economic life as characterized the Middle Ages—feudal relationships, manual labour, three estates of the realm, and so forth.
The centre of this whole was the individual man. Whether as producer or as consumer, his interests determined the attitude of the community as of its units, determined the law regulating economic activities and the practices of commercial life. Every such law was personal in its intent; and all who contributed to the life of the nation had a personal outlook. Not that each person could do as he liked. On the contrary, a code of restrictions hedged about his activities in every direction. But the point is that the restrictions were born of the individualistic spirit. Commodities were produced and bought and sold in order that consumers might have their wants sufficiently satisfied. On the other hand, producers and traders were to receive fair wages and fair profits. What was fair, and what sufficient for your need, tradition and custom determined.
And so, producer and trader should receive as much as was demanded by the standard of comfort in their station in life. That was the mediaeval view; it was also the view current in the early capitalistic age, even where business was carried on along more or less modern lines. We find its expression in the industrial codes of the day, and its justification in the commercial literature.21
Hence, to make profit was looked upon by most people throughout the period as improper, as “unchristian”; the old economic teaching of Thomas Aquinas was observed,22 at least officially. The religious or ethical rule was still supreme;23 there was as yet no sign of the liberation of economic life from its religious and ethical bonds. Every action, no matter in what sphere, was done with a view to the Highest Tribunal—the will of God. Need it be pointed out that the attitude of Mammon was as opposed to this as pole is to pole?
Producer and trader should receive sufficient for their need. One outstanding result of this principle was strictly to circumscribe each man’s activity in his locality. Competition was therefore quite out of the question. In his own sphere a man might work as he willed—when, how, where—in accordance with tradition and custom. But to cast a look at his neighbour’s sphere—that he was forbidden to do. Just as the peasant received his holding—so much field, with pasture and woodland, as would keep him and his family, just as he never even dreamt of adding to his possessions, so, too, the craftsman and the merchant were to rest content with their portions and never covet their neighbour’s. The peasant had his land, the town-dweller his customers: in either case they were the source whence sprang his livelihood; in either case they were of a size sufficient for the purpose. Hence, the trader had to be assured of his custom, and many were the ordinances which guarded him against competition. Besides, it was commercial etiquette. You did not run after customers. You waited until they came, “and then” (in the words of De Foe’s sermon), “with God’s blessing and his own care, he may expect his share of trade with his neighbours.”24 The merchant who attended fairs did not do otherwise; “day and night he waits at his stall.”25
To take away your neighbour’s customers was contemptible, unchristian, and immoral.26 A rule for “Merchants who trade in commodities” was: “Turn no man’s customers awayfrom him, either by word of mouth or by letter, and do not to another what you would not have another do to you.”27 It was, however, more than a rule; it became an ordinance, and is met with over and over again. In Mayence its wording was as follows:28 “No one shall prevent another from buying, or by offering a higher price make a commodity dearer, on pain of losing his purchase; no one shall interfere in another’s business undertaking, or carry on his own on so large a scale as to ruin other traders.” In Saxony it was much. the same.29 “No shopkeeper shall call away the customers from another’s shop, nor shall he by signs or motions keep them from buying.”
But to attract customers even without interfering with your neighbour’s business was regarded as unworthy. As late as the early 18th century in London itself it was not considered proper for a shopkeeper to dress his window tastefully, and so lure purchasers. De Foe, no less than his later editors, did not mince words in expressing his contempt for such a course, of which, as he mentions apparently with some satisfaction, only a few bakers and toymen were guilty.30
To the things that were not permitted belonged also advertising your business and praising your wares. The gentle art of advertising first appeared in Holland sometime about the middle of the 17th century, in England towards its end, in France much later. The Ghentsche Post-Tijdingen, founded in 1667, contained the first business advertisement in its issue of October 3rd of that year.31 At this time none of the London news-sheets published advertisements; even after the Great Fire not one business thought of advertising its new address. It was not until 1682, when John Houghton established The Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, that the merchant community of London became accustomed to utilizing the Press as a medium for advertising.32 This had been preceded by the practice, in a small way, of distributing bills in the streets to passers-by.
Two generations later Postlethwayt33 gave currency to the then existing views. “Advertising in the newspapers, in regard to matters of trade and business, is now grown a pretty universal practice all over the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland; … and however mean and disgraceful it was looked upon a few years since, by people of reputation in trade, to apply to the public by advertisements in the papers; at present (1751) it seems to be esteemed quite otherwise; persons of great credit in trade experiencing it to be the best, the easiest and the cheapest method of conveying whatever they have to offer to the knowledge of the whole kingdom.”
They were not quite so far advanced in France at that time. In his Dictionary (1726) Savary34 says nothing of the economic aspect of the term reclame. Not until six years later—in 1732, when his supplement was published—does he add: “A poster exhibited in public thoroughfares to make something generally known.” And what does he instance? The sale of ships; the time of sailing; the announcement by the big trading companies of the arrival of goods from distant parts, but only in cases where they are to be publicly sold; the establishment of new factories; change of address. The business advertisement in its most elementary form is lacking. It is lacking also in the newspapers of the period until the second half of the 18th century. Surprising as it may seem, the first issue of the famous advertisement sheet, Les Petites Affiches, which appeared on May 13, 1751, contained no real business advertisement.” In other words, the simple announcement “I sell such-and-such wares at such-and-such a place” did not become general in England until the 18th century, and in France not till much later. In Germany only one or two towns were to the fore in this respect. Berlin and Hamburg may be instanced, but even there the innovations are isolated, the only exception being books, which were originally much advertised.
To praise your goods or to point out wherein your business was superior to others was equally nefarious. But the last word in commercial impropriety was to announce that your prices were lower than those of the man opposite. ‘To undersell” was most ungentlemanly: “No blessing will come from harming your neighbour by underselling and cutting prices.”36
Bad as underselling itself was in the eyes of the people of those days, it was beneath contempt to advertise it. “Since the death of our author,” say the editors of the fifth edition (1745) of De Foe’s Complete English Tradesman,37 “this underselling practice is grown to such a shameful height that particular persons publickly advertise that they undersell the rest of the trade.” It may be asked, Why were the editors so concerned about the matter? The reason is manifest in a subsequent passage, “We have had grocers advertising their underselling one another at a rate a fair trader cannot sell for and live.” It is the old cry: fixed profits, a fixed livelihood, a fixed production and fixed prices.
We possess a French instance which shows even more strikingly how heinous this offence was thought to be, even in Paris. An Ordinance of 176138 proclaimed to all and sundry in the French capital that to advertise that you are selling your goods at a price below the customary one must be regarded as the last resource of a merchant in difficulties, and that such action deserved severe condemnation. The Ordinance proceeded to forbid the traders of Paris and its suburbs “to run after one another trying to find customers, and above all, to distribute hand-bills calling attention to their wares.”
Like the producers, the consumers also received attention. In a certain sense the consumer received even more, for the naive conception that all production was in the interests of consumption had not yet disappeared. Hence the stress laid on good wares, on the principle that commodities should really be what they pretended; and innumerable were the ordinances that were everywhere promulgated to this intent, more especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It was long before the purely capitalistic notion gained acceptance that the value in exchange of any commodity was what influenced the undertaker most. We may see how slow its progress was from the conflicting opinions on the subject in England in the 18th century. Sir Josiah Child appears to have been in the minority on this, as on most other questions, when he formulated the demand that every manufacturer should be allowed to judge for himself as to the kind of commodity, and the quality, that he brought into the market. It is curious enough nowadays to read Child’s plea for the right of the manufacturer to make shoddy goods. “If ,we intend to have the trade of the world,” he cries,39 “we must imitate the Dutch, who make the worst as well as the best of all manufactures, that we may be in a capacity of serving all markets and all humours.”
In a world of economic ideas such as these, the theory of “just price” was an organic element Price was not something in the formation of which the individual had a say. Price was determined for him; it was a subject to religious and ethical principles as everything else in economic life. It was to be such as would make for the common good, as well of the consumer as of the producer. Different ages had their own standard for determining it; in Luther’s day, for example, the cost of production was the deciding factor. But as commercial intercourse widened, the doctrine of the just price was found to be more and more impossible, and the view that price must be determined by the factors in the market40 found general acceptance. But be that as it may, the point to accentuate is that price was based on ethical and not (as was held to be the case later) on natural principles. Then people said that the individual must not determine price at his own will; whereas later the view was that he could not so determine it.
What manner of world was that in which opinions such as these predominated? If we had to describe it in a word, we should say that it was “slow.” Stability was its bulwark and tradition its guide. The individual never lost himself in the noise and whirl of business activity. He still had complete control of himself; he was not yet devoid of that native dignity, which does not make itself cheap for the sake of profit. Trade and commerce were everywhere carried on with a dash of personal pride. And all this to a greater extent in the country than in the large towns, where advancing capitalism made itself soonest felt. “The proud and haughty demeanour of the country merchant” is noted by a keen observer of his time.41 We can almost see the type, in his kneebreeches and long coat, his head bewigged and his manner somewhat stiff. Business with him was an even process; he got through it without much thought or worry, serving his circle of customers in the traditional way, knowing nothing of excitement, and never complaining that the way was too short.
To-day one of the best signs of a flourishing trade is a universal hurry and scurry, but towards the end of the 18th century that was regarded as .a sure token of idleness. The man of business was deliberately slow of stride. “In Paris people are in one continuous haste—because there is nothing to do there; here (in Lyons, the centre of the silk industry, and a town of some commercial importance) our walk is slow because every one is busy.” Such is the verdict of the observer,42 already mentioned, in the year of grace 1788.
In this picture the Nonconformist, the Quaker, the Methodist, is a fitting figure, even though we are accustomed to think of him as one of the first to be associated with capitalistic ideas. As his inner life, so was his outward bearing to be. “Walk with a sober pace, not tinkling with your feet,” was a canon of the Puritan rule of life.43 “The believer hath, or at least ought to have, and, if he be like himself, will have, a wellordered walk, and will be in his carriage stately and princely.”44
This was the world the Jews stormed. At every step they offended against economic principles and the economic order. That seems clear enough from the unanimous complaints of the Christian traders everywhere.
But were the Jews the only sinners in this respect? Was it fair to single out “Jewish dealing” and to stigmatize it as inclined to be dishonest, as contrary to law and practice, as characterized by lying and deception? There can be little doubt that the practices of Christian manufacturers and traders were not always blameless in the matter of being opposed to custom and regulation. Human nature being what it is, this was only to be expected. But apart from that, the age with which we are concerned could not boast of a very high standard of commercial morality. Else why the necessity for the plethora of ordinances and prohibitions which touched economic activities at every point? Contemporary evidence certainly leaves no doubt on the subject.
We have already mentioned the Cheating Lexicon which was published at the beginning of the 18th century. It must have been widely read, for in the space of a few years several editions were issued. Turn to its pages, and you will ask in amazement whether there was any honesty left in the world. True, this impression is created by the concentration within a small space of very many instances and illustrations of cheating and swindling. But even making allowance for this fact, the impression cannot be eradicated that there must have been a good deal of questionable conduct in those days. And if any doubt still lurks on this point other witnesses soon obliterate it. “You can find but few wares nowadays (1742) that have not been adulterated,” is the plaint of one German writer.45 Numerous are the prohibitions of the evil; imperial edicts (such as that of 1497), police regulations (such as that of Augsburg, of 1548) and rules originating in merchant circles (such as that of Lübeck, of 1607) all deal with the practice. But falsification was by no means limited to the production of commodities; it was not unknown in commerce too. Fraudulent bankruptcies must have occurred very frequently in the 17th and 18th centuries, and must have formed a problem difficult of solution. Again and again there were complaints about their uninterrupted reappearance.46 Indeed, the loose commercial morality of English merchants in the 17th century was proverbial.47 Cheating and falsifying were said to be “the besetting sin of English tradesmen.” “Our merchants,” says a 17th-century writer,48 “by their infinite over-asking for commodities proclaim to the world that they would cheat all if it were in their power.”
Such being the case, what reason was there for marking out the Jews? And can we really speak of something specially characteristic in the conduct of Jews over against the established principles of the time? I believe we can. I believe that the specifically Jewish characteristic consisted in that it was not an individual here and there who offended against the prevailing economic order, but the whole body of Jews. Jewish commercial conduct reflected the accepted point of view among Jewish traders. Hence Jews were never conscious of doing wrong, of being guilty of commercial immorality; their policy was in accordance with a system, which for them was the proper one. They were in the right; it was the other outlook that was wrong and stupid. We are not here speaking of capital delinquencies generally acknowledged to be wrong, and generally condemned. For a ‘distinction must be drawn between the fundamental regulations of any legal institution (e.g., property), and those which vary with the progress of society. Stealing will be looked upon as a capital offence as long as property exists; but there will be much difference of opinion from age to age on the question of taking interest. The first falls under the former category; the second under the latter.
No doubt, in their peculiar commercial activity, Jews were guilty of both sorts of misdemeanours. In early times Jews committed wrongs which were universally regarded as such. They were constantly accused, for example, of receiving and dealing in stolen property.49 But Jews, as a body, themselves condemned practices of this kind; and for that matter, there were honest and dishonest Jews as there were honest and dishonest Christians. If any Jews were addicted to systematic cheating, they in so far set themselves up against the majority of Jews and Christians, both of whom were agreed that such conduct was not in accord with the accepted standards of right. We are not without records that illustrate this very forcibly. The history of the Jews in Hamburg is an instance. In the 17th century, the Portuguese Jews undertook to a certain extent to be responsible to the authorities for the proper commercial conduct of the newly arrived German Jews. As soon as the Tedescos came into the city, they had to promise their Portuguese brethren not to buy stolen property, nor otherwise to carry on shady business. On one occasion the Elders of the German Jews were summoned before the Mahamad [The governing body of the Portuguese Jewish congregation. The term is still used among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in London.—Trans.] and warned because several of them had broken their pledge; on another occasion because they had bought stolen goods from soldiers.50
The point I am emphasizing must be remembered in considering the accusations hurled against the Jews in the early capitalistic age, accusations which, on the whole, were not unfounded. Universally accepted offences, such as stealing or receiving stolen property, must not be included under this heading. Jews equally with Christians abhorred such crimes. The practices, however, common to all Jews, which overstepped law and custom, but which Jews did not feel as being wrong, the practices which may be looked upon as being the result of a specifically Jewish outlook, these must come within our ken. And what do we find on examining them?
We find that the Jew rises before us unmistakably as more of a business-man than his neighbour; he follows business for its own sake; he recognizes, in the true capitalistic spirit, the supremacy of gain over all other aims.
I know of no better illustration than the Memoirs of Glückel von Hamein, a mine of information, by the way, about Jewish life and thought in the early capitalistic age. Glückel, the wife of a merchant in Hamburg, lived between 1645 and 1724, the period when the Jewish communities of Hamburg and Altona shot up to a position of prosperity, and in almost every respect we may regard this remarkable woman as a type of the Jew of that day. Her narrative grips the reader because of its natural simplicity and freshness. As I read these Memoirs, in which a complete personality is revealed to us in a life rich in experience, I was again and again reminded of the famous Frau Rat (Goethe’s mother).
If I cite just this splendid book in order to show the predominating interest of money among Jews in those days, it is because I believe that this characteristic must have been general, seeing that even in so gifted a woman as Glückel it also stands out. In very truth, money is the be-all and end-all with her, as with all the other people of whom she has anything to say. Accounts of business enterprise occupy but a small space in the book, but on no less than 609 occasions (in 313 pages) does the authoress speak of money, riches, gain and so forth. The characters and their doings are mentioned only in some connexion or other with money. Above all, we are told of good matches—good from the financial point of view. To marry her children is in fact the chief object of Glückel’s business activities. “He also saw my son, and they were almost on the point of coming to terms, but they could not close because of a thousand marks.” Incidents of this kind abound in the book. Of her second marriage she says, “in the afternoon my husband wedded me with a valuable gold ring an ounce in weight.” I cannot help regarding the peculiar conception of marriage-making, which used to be current among Jews, as symptomatic of the way they looked upon money, and especially the tendency among them of appraising even the most precious things in life from a purely business point of view. Children, for example, have their value. That was a matter of course among Jews in those days. “They are all my darling children, and may they all be forgiven, as well those on whom I had to spend a lot of money as those on whom I spent nothing,” writes Glückel. It was as marriageable persons that they had a price, which varied with the state of the market. Scholars, or the children of scholars, were much in demand. In one case we are told that a father speculated in his children. The fortunes of Solomon Maimon, as related by Graetz, are well known and frequently cited in this connexion. “At eleven years of age he had so complete a mastery of the Talmud that he ... became much sought after as a possible husband. His needy father, in a speculating spirit, provided him with two brides at once, without his being able to see … either of them.” Similar incidents are abundant enough to warrant the conclusion that they must have been typical.
But the objection may be urged that among Christians also money was no less valued, only the fact was not admitted; people were hypocritical. There is perhaps a certain. element of truth in this objection. In that case I should say what was specifically Jewish was the naivete with which money was made the pivot of life; it was a matter of course; no attempt was made to hide it.
What light does contemporary opinion in the 17th and 18th centuries shed upon the characteristic to which we have called attention? There appears to be universal agreement on the subject, which lends support to our theory. The Jew in those days of undeveloped capitalism was regarded as the representative of an economic outlook, wherein to obtain profit was the ultimate goal of all commercial activity. Not his “usury” differentiated him from the Christian, not that he sought gain, not that he amassed wealth; only that he did all this openly, not thinking it wrong, and that he scrupulously and mercilessly looked after his business interests. But more awful things are related of Christian “usurers” who “are worse than Jews.” “The Jews wears his soul on his sleeve and is not ashamed, but these carry on their devil’s trade with hypocritical Christian countenances.”51
One or two more contemporary opinions must be quoted. “These people have no other God but the unrighteous Mammon, and no other aim than to get possession of Christian property … they... look at everything for their profit.”52 Such is the verdict of the Rev. John Megalopolis, who wrote on March 18th, 1655. Another judgment is harsher still.53 “No trust should be put in the promises made there (in Brazil) by the Jews, a race faithless and pusillanimous, enemies to all the world and especially to all Christians, caring not whose house burns so long as they may warm themselves at the coals, who would rather see a hundred thousand Christians perish than suffer the loss of a hundred crowns.” The statement of Savary,54 who was amicably disposed towards the Jews, is also to the point. “A usurious merchant or one too keen, who tries to get a mean advantages and flays those who have dealings with him, is termed ‘a real Jew.’ People say ‘he has fallen into the hands of Jews’ when those with whom a man does business are hard, immovable and stingy.” It is true that a very Christian merchant first coined the phrase “Business is business,” but Jews undoubtedly were the first to mould their policy in accordance with it.
In this connexion we ought to mention also that the proverbs of all nations have always depicted the Jew as the gain-seeker, who had a special love of money. “Even to the Jew our Lady Mary is holy” (Hungarian)—in reference to the Kremnitzer gold ducats. “Yellow is the colour that suits the Jew best” (Russian). “Yellow is the dearest colour for the Jew” (German).
This profit-seeking, which the Jew held to be legitimate, will account for his business principles and practices, of which complaints were so frequently made. In the first place, he paid no attention to the strict delimitation of one calling or of one handicraft from another, so universally insisted on by law and custom. Again and again we hear the cry that Jews did not content themselves with one kind of activity; they did whatever they could, and so disturbed the order of things which the gild system wished to see maintained. Their aim was to seize upon all commerce and all production; they had an overpowering desire to expand in every direction. “The Jews strive to destroy the English merchants by drawing all trade towards themselves,” is a further complaint of the Rev. John Megalopolis in 1655.’55 ‘The Jews are a subtil people prying into all kinds of trade,” said Sir Josiah Child.56 And Glückel von Hamein thus describes her father’s business: “He dealt in precious stones, and in other things—for every Jew is a Jack-of-all-trades.”
Innumerable were the occasions when the German gilds complained of this Jewish ubiquitousness in trade, which paid no heed to the demarcation of all economic activities into strictly separate categories. In 1685, the city authorities of Frankfort-on-the-Main were loud in their cry that Jews had a share in all kinds of business—e.g., in linen and silk retailing, in cloth and book selling.” In the other Frankfort (on the Oder)58 Jews were blamed for selling foreigp braid to the detriment of the goldlace makers, and so forth.
Perhaps the reason for this tendency to universal trading may be found in that a large number of miscellaneous articles, all forfeited pledges, brought together by mere chance, collected in the shops of Jews, and their sale would naturally enough interfere with the special business of all manner of dealers. The very existence of these second-hand shops—the prototype of the stores in modern times—was a menace to the prevailing order of commerce and industry. A vivid picture of such a collection of second-hand goods is given in an old Ratisbon song, dating from the 15th century,59 and the details could not but have become more well-marked as time went on.
No
handicraft however mean,
But the Jew would damage it i’ the extreme.
For if any one had need of raiment
To the Jew he’d hie with payment;
Whether ‘twas silver or linen or tin,
Or aught his house was lacking in,
The Jew was ready to serve his need,
With pledges he held—right many indeed.
For stolen goods and robbers’ plunder
They and the Jew were seldom asunder.
*******
Mantle, hose or damsel’s veil,
The Jew he had them all for sale.
To the craftsman, then, there came but few,
For all the world dealt with the Jew.
Here an interesting question presents itself. Is there any connexion between the breach of gild regulations and the stress laid on pure business ends on the part of the Jews, and their hostile attitude to mercantilism? Was it their aim to establish the principle that trade should be untrammelled, regardless of the commercial theory which guided the mercantilist States? It looks like it. “Jewish trade,” was the term applied to the commerce of Frankfort in the 18th century, because it was mostly import trade, “which gives useful employment to but few German hands and flourishes only by reason of home consumption.”60 And when in the early 19th century Germany was flooded with the cheap products of England, which were sold for the most part at auctions, Jews were held to be the mainstay of this import trade. The Jew almost monopolized the auctions. “Since dealing in manufactured articles is to a great extent in the hands of Jews, the commerce of England is for the most part with them.” The Jew had “his shop full of foreign hats, shoes, stockings, leather gloves, lead and copper ware, lacquer work, utensils, readymade clothing of all sorts—all brought over by English ships.”61 It was the same story in France.62 Nor was this all. The Jews were guilty of another deadly sin in the mercantilist calendar: they imported raw materials. 63
We see, then, that the Jews, in following their business interests, gave as little heed to the barriers between States as to those between industries. Still less did they have regard to the prevailing code of etiquette in any industry. We have already seen how custom-chasing was looked upon in the early capitalistic age. Here the Jews were continual offenders. Everywhere they sought out sellers or buyers, instead of waiting for them in their shops, as commercial custom prescribed. Of this we have abundant proof.
A complaint was lodged by the furriers of Konigsberg64 in 1703 against “the Jews Hirsch and Moses, who with their agents are always first in the field in buying raw material and selling the ready-made furs, whereby they (the supplicants) suffer much loss.” In 1685 the jewellers and goldsmiths of Frankfort had a similar experience.65 They were forced to buy all the old gold and silver they needed from Jews, who, by means of their numerous “spies,” snapped it away from under the very noses of the Christians. A few years previously the whole of the trading body of that town had protested against Jews “spying out the business of Christian merchants.” Earlier still, in 1647, the tailors of Frankfort petitioned66 that the Jews should be forbidden to engage in the sale of new clothing. “A source of bitter weeping it is, that the Jews may freely wander up and down the streets, laden with all manner of goods and cloth, like so many camels and asses, running to meet every newcomer to Frankfort, be he of high or low degree, and offering to sell him what he wants; and so deprive us of our daily bread.”67 Still earlier even than this, in 1635, was the petition of the silk merchants, who bemoaned the fact that the Jews “wait about in the city outside the bounds of the Jewish quarter, in inns and wherever opportunity offers; they run through many a street, both openly and in secret, to meet the soldiers and their officers, when these come to town. They have arranged with certain master-tailors to give them facilities for exhibiting their wares at their shops when troops march past.”68
In 1672 a complaint is heard from Brandenburg.69 “Jews go about as chapmen among the villages and in the towns and force their wares on people.” A similar story comes from Frankfort-on-the-Oder,70 wherein the details are fuller. Jews run after customers—the travellers to their hotels, the nobility to their castles and the students to their lodgings. And in Nikolsburg, in Austria, we are told71 that “the Jews have drawn to themselves all the trade, all the money, all the goods. They wait outside the city, try to strike up an acquaintance with travellers while they are yet on the road, and endeavour to take away their custom from Christian citizens.”
How the Jews were ever on the look-out for new customers is described by a well-informed writer of the early 19th century.72 It was a practice with them, he says, “to pay frequent visits to all and sundry places of public resort where, by reading the many news-sheets, they sought to obtain knowledge of possibilities for doing business, and especially of noting what strangers were expected to arrive; and by listening to every conversation, to find out whose houses were in danger in order to make bargains or contracts with them.”
The streets in which the Jewish old clo’ men lived were the scenes of similar activities, the end in view always being the same. In fact, the dealers sometimes seized the passer-by by the arm and tried to force him to make purchases. This method of carrying on business is not unknown in our modern cities; it was known in the Paris of the 18th century, where it was associated with the fripiers, the old clo’ dealers, who, as we are informed,74 were for the most part Jews. One description of such a scene is too good not to be quoted.” “The touts of these disorderly shops call to you uncivilly enough; and when one of them has invited you, all the other shopkeepers on your road repeat the deafening invitation. The wife, the daughter, the servant, the dogs, all howl in your ears. … Sometimes these fellows seize an honest man by the arm, or by his shoulder, and force him to enter in spite of himself; they make a pastime of this unseemly game.…”
We hear the same tale from a traveller who journeyed in Western Germany about that time. “To walk in the streets of those places where there are many Jews has become a nuisance. You are badgered by them every minute and at every turn. You are constantly being asked. Can I sell youanything? Won’t you buy this, that or the other?”75
Or they turn into wandering traders in order to sweep in custom. “The Jew thinks nothing of turning the seats in the porches into a shop counter, often extending them by means of planks; he places a form or table against the wall of any house he can get at, or even makes the front passage into a shop; or, he hires a cart which becomes his moving shop, and often enough he has the bad manners to pull up in front of a shop which sells the same wares as he.”76
“Get hold of the customers”—that was the end and aim. Is it not the guiding principle of the big industries of to-day? Is not the splendid organization of a concern like the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, for example, directed to the same object?
The policy was first systemized when advertising was resorted to. The “deafening invitation” which, as we have just noted, came from the small fripier, is now made by the million-voiced advertisements of our business life. If the Jews are to be considered the originators of the system of “getting hold of the customers,” their claim to be the fathers of modern advertising is equally well established. I am, however, unable to adduce conclusive evidence for this. What is needed is a careful study of the files of the earliest newspapers, in order to discover the names of the people who advertised. As a matter of fact, the whole subject of advertising has as yet been dealt with but scantily. The only branch which has received adequate attention is the history of business announcements. Nevertheless, I am able to give one or two instances which show the connexion of Jews with the practice of advertising.
The very earliest advertisement with which I am acquainted is to be found in No. 63 of the Vossische Zeitung, of May 28, 1711, which is to this effect: “This is to inform all and sundry that a Dutch (Jewish?) merchant has arrived at Mr. Boltzen’s in the Jews’ Street, with all kinds of tea of the finest quality, to be sold cheap. Any one who may care to buy should come early, as the visitor will not stay for more than eight days.”
The first known advertisement in the text of the paper dates from 1753, and hails from Holland. The advertiser was an eye-specialist of the name of Laazer.77 A very old advertisement in the United States—whether the oldest I cannot say—appeared on August 17, 1761, in the New York Mercury, as follows78:—“To be sold by Hayman Levy, in Bayard Street, Camp Equipages of all sorts, best soldiers’ English shoes … and everything that goes to make up the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.”
Finally, the Jews are the founders of the modern Press, i.e., the machinery for advertising, more especially of the cheap newspapers.79 Polydore Millaud, who established the Petit Journal, was the father of the “half-penny Press.”
But to obtain likely addresses, to intercept travellers on their way, to sing the praises of your wares—that was only one side of the game of catching customers. It was supplemented by another, which consisted in so decking-out the goods for sale as to attract people. In this art the Jews were great adepts. Nay more, there is sufficient evidence that they were the first to stand up for the general principle, that it is the right (and the duty) of every trader to carry on his business in such a way as will obtain for him as much of the available custom as possible, or by creating new demands, will increase the circle of buyers.
Now in a community where quality was regulated, the only effective means of achieving this end was price-cutting. We shall therefore not be surprised to find the Jews availing themselves of this weapon, and we shall see that it was just this that made them so disliked among Christian traders, whose economic outlook was all for maintaining prices. The Jew undersells; the Jew spoils prices; the Jew tries to attract customers by low prices—that was the burden of the complaints heard in the 17th and 18th centuries wherever Jews did business.
Our pages would be overloaded did we attempt to cite all the proofs on this point. A few, therefore, will have to suffice.
First for England where, in 1753, the storm burst forth against the Jews on the passing of the Naturalization Bill. One of the principal fears was that if they became recognized citizens, they would oust the natives from their means of livelihood by underselling them.80
Next for France. “The stuffs … which the Jews bring to the fairs … are worth more at the price at which they sell them than those in the traders’ shops,” is the reply81 of the Intendant of Languedoc to the plaints of the merchants of Montpelier (May 31, 1740). The merchants of Nantes82 were of opinion that the public, which dealt with Jews under the impression that they were making a good bargain, were generally duped. At the same time, they admit that prices at Jewish shops are lower than elsewhere. The same admission is made by the Paris traders: the Jews sell even more cheaply than the factories.83 Concerning a Fürth Jew, of the name of Abraham Ouhnan,84 the bronze-dealers of Paris reported that “he sells the same bronzes below the price for which they are sold in this country.” In Lyons the master silk-weavers passed a resolution (October 22, 1760) in which they ascribed the bad times to the influence of the Jews, who had cut prices, and thereby made themselves masters of the silk industry in all the provinces.85
The Swedish Parliament in 1815 debated the question whether the Jews should be allowed entire liberty of trade, and one of the chief reasons which prevailed against themotion was that Jews lowered prices.86
From Poland the same strains reach us. Jews tell Christian traders that if they (the latter) sold their goods as cheaply as the Jews, they too would attract customers.87
It is no different in Germany. From Brandenburg (1672),88 from Frankfort (17th century),89 from Madgeburg (1710)90 the old story is repeated. A Wallachian traveller in Germany91 about the same time reports the ubiquity of this accusation. The General Prussian Edict of 1750 takes cognizance of it. “The merchants of our towns ... complain ... that the Jewish traders who sell the same goods do them great harm, because they sell at a lower price.” Right up to the 19th century it is still met with. In the Supplication of the Augsburg wholesale merchants against the admission of the Jews92 (1803) we may read that “the Jews understand how to derive advantages from the general depression of trade. They obtain goods from people who need money badly at shameful prices, and then spoil the market by selling them at a cheaper rate.”
In many branches of industry Christian manufacturers and merchants even to-day regard the cutting of prices by Jews as a serious endangering of their trade. That this is an open secret and often enough discussed, is well known. I hope to touch upon the matter again in due course.
One more instance from the history of Finance, as showing that the Jews had the reputation of making lower terms. When the Austrian Government early in the 18th century determined on raising another loan, as usual, in Holland, an order was issued (December 9, 1701) to Baron Pechmann, who was negotiating the matter, to make private enquiries whether, in view of the fact that the Hungarian Copper Mines were being pledged to guarantee the loan, a greater sum might not be raised. More especially was he to communicate with the Portuguese Jews in Holland, since the other subjects of the United Provinces asked for an additional guarantee beside the general one.93 In a report of the Court Chancery of Vienna (May 12, 1762) the view is expressed that “it is advisable to come to terms with the Jews in reference to contracts for the army … seeing that they are prepared to quote lower prices than others.”
Here, then, was a problem for all the wiseacres to put their heads together and try to solve. They did, asking each other again and again, at their work and in their shops, on Sunday afternoons in their walks outside the city rampart, and in the evenings at the social pint of beer: How is it possible? How on earth is it done? How can the Jew carry through his “dirty trick” of underselling? What was the reason for it?
The answer differed in accordance with the capacity and the prejudice of each enquirer. And so the numberless explanations on record cannot be accepted without testing their value; unlike the assertion that Jews lowered prices, which, in view of its unanimity, there is no reason to doubt. In any case, for the present only those opinions will be of interest to us which give indication of a special way of carrying on business, or of a special commercial morality.
The commonest explanation is that of dishonesty, and the conclusion was arrived at in some such way as this. Seeing that the Jews have the same expenses, seeing that the cost of production is also the same, if the price is below the current one, everything is not quite above-board. The Jews must have obtained possession of their wares by dishonest means. They were doubtless stolen goods. The bad reputation of the Jews generally must have given probability to this explanation, and the low prices must have lent support to the accusation levelled against them that they were receivers.
I have no intention of citing instances where this line of argument is taken, for in reality it is the least interesting of any. In many cases, no doubt, it was correct. But if that were the only reason forthcoming to account for low prices among Jewish traders, there would be no need to mention the matter at all, for then it would not have the significance which it actually possesses.
As a matter of fact, even the extremists among gild members could not but cast about for other causes to account for the underselling of Jewish traders, and they found them close at hand, not in actual breach of the law, but in practices that were not all they should be. And what were these? That the Jews dealt in prohibited articles (contraband of war, etc.); in lapsed pledges; in goods that had been confiscated (e.g., by customs officials); in goods that had been bought for a mere song from the owners, who were deep in debt and whose necessity, therefore, was great,94 or from those who needed money badly;95 in old goods, bought for next to nothing at auctions; in bankrupt stock;96 in goods the quality of which was not up to the standard of the ordinances of the industrial code;97 or, finally, that the Jew cut prices with the intention of going into bankruptcy himself.98
To what extent instances such as these—“the miserable methods of the Jews” as they were termed by the traders of Metz99—were general or only sporadic, it is difficult to say. Nor does it much matter for our purpose. As to their probability, it is hardly likely that they were all pure inventions. The important thing to note, however, is that shady practices such as those enumerated were laid to the Jews’ door. And even if only a minute proportion were in accordance with actual fact, that would be enough to make them symptomatic, and they would be very useful as supporting the result obtained in other ways. I shall return to this question later. Here we will continue the catalogue of reasons which were urged in explanation of the Jews’ lower prices.
Side by side with those already mentioned was the accusation that the commodities sold by the Jews were of an inferior quality. So frequently is this statement met with that its correctness can hardly be doubted. An official report from Magdeburg, a petition from Brandenburg, a complaint from Frankfort100—all harp on this same string. And the Traders’ Lexicon, to which I have already more than once referred as a reliable authority, states that Jews sold inferior goods “which they know how to polish up, to colour anew, to show off at their best, to provide with a fresh cover, smell and taste that even the greatest connoisseur is often taken in.”
This is repeated almost verbally in the Report of the merchants of Nantes, with which we are by this time so well acquainted. The goods of the Jews are really dear, despite their cheapness. For they sell things that are out of fashion or that cannot be used any longer. Silk stockings they re-dye, pass them through a calender, and then sell them as new. But they cannot be worn more than once. The silk weavers of Lyons tell the same tale:101 the Jews have ruined the silk industry because, in order to be able to sell at low prices, they order goods of second-rate quality only. So, too, the Governor of Bohemia in 1705:102 “The Jews have got hold of all manual occupations and all commerce, but as for the most part they make only poor stuff, there is no chance for a profitable export trade to spring up.” The opinion of Wegelin in the Swedish Parliament (1815), likewise referred to already, is only in accord with the preceding. “It is true,” he said, “that the Jews alone engaged in calico-printing, but they have completely spoiled this branch of industry because of their low quality goods—the so called “Jews’ calico.”
This complaint, which started in the early capitalistic period, has not yet ceased. The cry of the Christian manufacturers that the Jews cut prices has been followed by the corollary that, in order to maintain low prices at all costs, Jews lowered the quality of goods.
Summing up all the facts adduced, we shall perceive that the Jews originated the principle of substitution.
What was called inferior quality in the wares of the Jews was not in reality so. It was not as if the articles were of the same sort as those of other traders, except that they were worse in quality. It was rather that they were new articles, intended for similar use as the old, but made of a cheaper material, or by new processes which lessened the cost of production.. In other words, the principle of substitution was brought into play, and Jews may thus be regarded as the pioneers in its application. The most frequent cases occurred in textile fabrics; but other instances are also on record—for example, substitutes for coffee. In one sense, too, dyeing must be mentioned in this connexion. Jewish influence aided its growth. Originally, the inventors of artificial alizarine used expensive chemicals to mix with their red colouring matter; the Jews introduced cheaper materials, and thus gave an impetus to the dyeing industry.
There is yet one other, though less frequent, accusation levelled against the Jews. It was that the Jews could sell more cheaply than Christians because they gave less weight or short measure.103 They were taunted with this in Avignon, where woollen articles were mentioned, and in the case of German Jews an actual illustration is given. “The Jew is on the look-out for the least advantage. If he measured 10 ells there were only 9%. The Christian (customer) is aware of this, but he says to himself, ‘Jews’ measure is short, ten ells are never quite ten, but then the Jew sells cheap.’”104
In all this the point for us to discover is whether, and if so to what extent, the different courses, which were alleged to have been taken by the Jewish traders in order to reduce prices, may be traced to some general business principle characteristic of the Jews. To my mind, the whole case can be summed up by saying that the Jew to a certain extent held that in business the means justified the end. His consideration for the other traders and his respect for legal enactments and social demands were not very great, while on the other hand, the idea of value in exchange in relation to goods, and the idea that all business activity had reference to wealth and to that only—these became keen. What I have elsewhere described as the inherent tendency in capitalism to obtain profit, regardless of all else, is here seen in its early origin.
But we have not yet done with the inventory of methods adopted by Jews to lower prices. We now turn to those which were of equal fundamental importance with the others already mentioned, but which differed from them materially. While the first brought about only apparent reductions, or actual reductions at other people’s expense, these produced lower prices really and absolutely. What were they? Innovations which decreased the total cost of production in some way or other. Either the producer or the dealer was content with less for himself, or the actual expenses of production were reduced in that wages were lowered or the manufacturing and distributing processes made more efficient.
That all these means of cheapening commodities were adopted by Jews, and by them first, is amply evidenced by records in our possession.
First, the Jew could sell more cheaply because he was satisfied with less than the Christian trader. Unprejudiced observers remarked this fact on many occasions, and even the competitors of the Jews admitted its truth. Let us once again quote the Magdeburg official report. The Jews sell cheaply, “whereby the merchants must suffer loss. For they need more than the Jew, and, therefore, must carry on their business in accordance with their requirements.”105 In another document it is also stated that “the Jew is satisfied with a smaller profit than the Christian.” 106 And what did the Polish Jews tell the Christian Poles?107 That if they (the Poles) did not live so extravagantly, they would be able to sell their goods at the same prices as the Jews. A keen-eyed traveller in Germany towards the end of the 18th century came to the same conclusion. “The reason for the complaint (that Jews sell cheaply) is apparent: it lies in the extravagant pride of the haughty shopkeeper, who in his dealings requires so much for mere show, that he cannot possibly charge low prices. The Jew, therefore, deserves the gratitude of the public, to whom he brings gain by his frugal habits, and forces the shopkeeper with his large expenditure either to be more economical, or to go to the wall.”108 The Report of the Vienna Court Chancery (May 12, 1762) was of the same opinion. The Jews can deliver at a lower rate than the Christians “because they are more thrifty and live more cheaply.” The tale was repeated in a Hungarian document of January 9, 1756, wherein the proposed reduction by Joseph II of Jewish spirit-licences was discussed. It was there pointed out109 that Jews were able to pay more for their licences because of their cheap and poor living.
No less explicit on the point is Sir Josiah Child for the England of his age. ‘They are a penurious people, living miserably,” he says,110 “and therefore can, and do afford to trade for less profit than the English.” By the middle of the 18th century this belief was still current, for the cry went up that the Jews by reason of their extreme frugality were able to undersell the natives.111 The identical view prevailed in France. “It is my firm. belief,” said the Intendant of Languedoc,112 in reply to the chronic complaints of the traders of Montpellier, “that Jewish commerce... does less harm to the merchants of Montpellier than their own lack of attention to the requirements of the public, and their rigid determination to make as large profits as they can.”
But this is not all. There were people who asserted—and they must have been gifted with no little insight—that the Jews had discovered yet another trick, by means of which they succeeded in obtaining as great, or even greater, profits than their Christian neighbours despite their comparatively low prices—they increased their turnover. As late as the early part of the 19th century this was regarded as a specifically “Jewish practice”113—“small profits with a frequent turnover of your capital pay incomparably better than big profits and a slow turnover.” This is no isolated opinion; it occurs very frequently indeed.114
Small profits, quick returns—obviously this was a breaking away from the preconceived idea of an economic organization of society, where one of the cardinal doctrines was to produce for subsistence only. And the Jews were the fathers of this new business-principle. Profit was considered as something fixed by tradition; hence-forward it was determined by each individual trader. That was the great novelty, and again it emanated from Jews. It was a Jewish practice to settle the rate of profit as each trader thought fit; it was a Jewish practice to decide whether to sell at a profit at all, or for a time to do business without making profits in order to earn more afterwards.115
Lastly, we have still to mention the taunt levelled against Jews, that they sought to reduce the cost of production, either by employing the cheapest labour, or by utilizing more economical methods.
With regard to the first, numerous plaints abound. The woollen manufacturers of Avignon,118 the merchants of Montpellier,117 the civic authorities of Frankfort-on-the-Oder118 and the Tailors’ Craft of the other Frankfort are a few cases in point. But none of these disaffected people could realize that the Jews were the earliest undertakers in industries with capitalistic organizations, and, consequently, utilized new forms of production, just as they had utilized them in commerce.
And here we must not pass over another characteristic of Jewish business methods, one, however, which is not mentioned in the literature of the early capitalistic period, probably because it was developed at a later date. I refer to the conscious endeavour of attracting new customers by some device or other—whether it was the placing of goods for sale in a new juxtaposition, or a new system of payment, or a new combination of departments, or the organization of some new service. It would be a most fascinating study to compile a list of all the inventions (exclusive, of course, of technical inventions) which trade and commerce owe to the Jews. Let me refer to a few, about which we are tolerably certain that they are of Jewish origin. I say nothing as to whether Jews were merely the first to apply them, or whether they were actually created by Jews.
First in order I would mention the trade in old and damaged goods, the trade in remnants and rubbish—the Jews were able “here and there to maintain themselves and make a profit out of the commonest articles, which before had no value whatever, such as rags, rabbit-skins and gall-nuts.”119 In short, we may term the Jews the originators of the waste-product business. Thus, in the 18th century in Berlin, Jews were the first feather-cleaners, the first vermin-killers and the inventors of the so-called “white beer.”120
To what extent the general store owes its existence to the Jew it is impossible to say. Anyhow, the Jews, in that they held pledges, were the first in whose shops might be found a conglomeration of wares. And is it not one of the distinguishing marks of a modern store to have for sale articles of various kinds, intended for various uses? The result is that the owner of the store is but little concerned with what he sells, so long as he does sell. His aim is to do business, and this policy is in accordance with the Jewish spirit. But apart from that, it is well-known that to-day stores in the United States121 and in Germany122 are for the most part in the hands of Jews.
An innovation of no little importance in the organization of retail trading at the time of its introduction was the system of payment by installments when goods to a large amount or very costly goods were sold. In Germany, at any rate, it is possible to say with tolerable certainty, that in this, too, Jews were pioneers. “There is a class of shopkeeper among Jews,” we may read in an early 19th-century writer, “indispensable to the ordinary man, and of exceeding great benefit to trade. They are the people who sell clothes or material for clothes to the ordinary customer, and receive payment for it in small instalments.”123
Of Jewish origin also are a number of innovations in the catering business. Thus, the first coffee-house in England (perhaps the first in the world) was opened in Oxford in 1650, or 1651, by a Jew of the name of Jacobs.124 It was not until 1652 that London obtained its first coffeehouse. And to come to a later period, everybody knows that a new era dawned in catering when Kempinsky [Kempinsky is the Lyons of Berlin.—Trans.] introduced the standardization of consumption and of prices as the guiding principles of the business.
In all these instances it is not so much the innovations themselves that interest us, as the tendency to which they bear witness—that a new business ideal had come into existence: the adoption of new tricks. Hence my treatment of this subject in the present chapter, which deals with the Jewish spirit, Jewish commercial morality and the specifically Jewish economic outlook.
Reviewing the ground we have traversed, we see clearly the strong contrast between the Jewish and the non-Jewish outlooks in the early capitalistic period. Tradition, the subsistence ideal, the overpowering influence of status—these were the fundamentals of the latter. And the former—wherein lay its novelty? How may it be characterized? I believe one all-comprehensive word will serve our purpose, and that word is “modern.” The Jewish outlook was the “modern” outlook; the Jew was actuated in his economic activities in the same way as the modern man. Look through the catalogue of “sins” laid at the door of the Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries, and you will find nothing in it that the trader of to-day does not regard as right and proper, nothing that is not taken as a matter of course in every business. Throughout the centuries the Jews championed the cause of individual liberty in economic activities against the dominating views of the time. The individual was not to be hampered by regulations of any sort, neither as to the extent of his production nor as to the strict division between one calling and another: he was to be allowed to carve out a position for himself at will, and be able to defend it against all comers. He should have the right to push forward at the expense of others, if he were so able; and the weapons in the struggle were to be cleverness, astuteness, artfulness; in economic competition there should be no other consideration but that of overstepping the law; finally, all economic activities should be regulated by the individual alone in the way he thinks best to obtain the most efficient results. In other words, the idea of free-trade and of free competition was here to the fore; the idea of economic rationalism; in short, the modern economic outlook, in the shaping of which Jews have had a great, if not a decisive influence. And why? It was they who introduced the new ideas into a world organized on a totally different basis.
Here a pertinent question suggests itself. How are we to explain that even before the era of modern capitalism, Jews showed a capacity for adopting its principles? The question must be expanded into a much larger one. What was it that enabled the Jew to exercise so decisive an influence in the process that made modern economic life what it is, an influence such as we have observed in the foregoing enquiry?
Part II — The Aptitude of the Jews of Modern Capitalism
Chapter 8: The Problem
Before us lies a great problem. We are to explain why the Jews played just the part they did in the economic life of the last two or three centuries. That this is a problem will be admitted with but few exceptions by all. There are a few faddists who deny that the Jews occupied any special position in modern economic life, asserting as they do that there are no Jews. These will object. Then, too, there is that other small category of people who hold that the Jews were economically of such slight import that they were without any influence whatever on modern economic life. But we shall pay little heed to either class in our considerations, which are for all those who think with me that the Jews had a decisive influence on the structure of modern economic life.
I have spoken of the aptitude of the Jews for modern capitalism. If our researches are to be fruitful of results we shall have to make two things absolutely clear: (1) their aptitude—for what? and (2) their aptitude—how developed?
Their aptitude for what? For everything which in the first part of the book we have seen them striving to achieve—founding and promoting international trade, modern finance, the Stock Exchange and the commercialization generally of all economic activities; supporting unrestricted intercourse and free competition, and infusing the modern spirit into all economic life. Now in my superscription of this part of our subject all these activities are summed up in the word “capitalism.” In a special chapter (the ninth) we shall show that all the single facts that have been mentioned hang together, and that they are kept together by means of capitalistic organization. The essentials of the latter, at least in their outline, will therefore also have to be dealt with, in order to demonstrate the special functions of the individual in the capitalistic system. This method will give the death-blow to such vague conceptions, usually met with in connexion with the Jewish problem, as “economic capacity,” “aptitude for commerce and haggling” or other equally dilettante phrases, which have already done too much mischief.
As for the second point, how, by what means, is it possible to achieve any result? If any one rescues a drowning man, it may be that it was because he happened to be standing at the water’s edge, just where a boat was tied, or on a bridge, where a life-belt was ready to hand. In a word, his accidental presence in a particular spot made it possible for him to do the deed, by rowing out in the boat to the man in danger, or by throwing the life-belt to him. Or he may have done it because he was the only one among the crowd on the shore who had the courage to jump into the water, swim out to the sinking man and bring him safely to land. In the first case we might term the circumstances “objective,” in the second “subjective.” The same distinction can be applied to the Jews in considering their aptitude for capitalism: it may be due to objective or to subjective circumstances.
My immediate business will be to deal with the first set of causes, and for many reasons. To begin with, every explanation that is put forward must be closely scrutinized, in order to make sure that no unproved hypothesis is its basis, and that what has to be proved is not a dogma. Dangerous in most cases, it is particularly so in the problem before us, in which racial and religious prejudices may work havoc, as, indeed, they have done in the writings of the great majority of my precursors on this question. I shall do my utmost to avoid their error in this respect, and shall be at great pains to see to it that my considerations are above criticism. My aim is to discover the play of cause and effect as it really was, without any preconceived idea influencing my reasoning, and I shall adduce my proofs in such a way, that they may be easily followed by all—by the assimilationist Jew no less than by the Nationalist; by him who pins his faith to the influence of race as by the warmest supporter of the doctrine of environment; by the anti-Semite as by his opponent. Hence my starting-point will always have to be from facts admitted on all hands. That will preclude any appeal to “special race characteristics” or arguments of that ilk.
Any one who does not admit that the Jews have special gifts may demand that the part played by this people in modern economic life should be explained without any reference to national peculiarities, but rather from the external circumstances in which Jews were placed by the accident of history. I shall endeavour to satisfy this demand in the tenth chapter.
Finally, if it becomes apparent that the contribution of the Jews to modern economic life cannot be entirely explained by the conditions of their historic situation, then will be the time for looking to subjective causes, and for considering the Jews’ special characteristics. This shall be the purpose of the twelfth chapter.
Chapter
9:
What is a Capitalist Undertaker?
Capitalism1 is the name given to that economic organization wherein regularly two distinct social groups co-operate—the owners of the means of production, who at the same time do the work of managing and directing, and the great body of workers who possess nothing but their labour. The co-operation is such, that the representatives of capital are the subjective agents, that is, they decide as to the “how” and the “how much” in the process of production, and they undertake all risks.
Now what are the mainsprings of the whole system? The first, and perhaps the chiefest, is the pursuit of gain or profit. This being the case, there is a tendency for undertakings to grow bigger and bigger. Arising from that, all economic activities are strictly logical. Whereas in the pre-capitalistic period quieta non movere was the watchword and Tradition the guiding star, now it is constant movement. I characterize the whole as “economic rationalism,” and this I would term the second mainspring of the capitalistic system.
Economic rationalism expresses itself in three ways. (1) There is a plan, in accordance with which all things are ordered aright. And the plan covers activities in the distant future. (2) Efficiency is the test applied in the choice of all the means of production. (3) Seeing that the “cash nexus” regulates all economic activity, and that everywhere and always a surplus is sought for, exact calculations become necessary in every undertaking.
Everybody knows that a modern business is not merely, say, the production of rails or cotton or electric motors, or the transport of stones or of people. Everybody knows that these are but parts in the organization of the whole. And the characteristics of the undertaker are not that he arranges for the carrying out of the processes named. They are to be found elsewhere, and for the present we may put it roughly that they are a constant buying and selling of the means of production, of labour or of commodities. To vary the phrase somewhat, the undertaker makes contracts concerning exchanges, wherein money is the measure of value.
When do we speak of having accomplished a successful piece of business? Surely when the contract-making has ended well. But what is meant precisely by “well”? It certainly has no reference to the quality or to the quantity of the goods or services given or received; it refers solely and only to the return of the sum of money expended, and to a surplus over and above it (profit). It is the aim of the undertaker so to manipulate the factors over which he has control as to bring about this surplus.
Our next step must be to consider what functions the capitalistic undertaker (the subjective economic factor) has in the sphere of capitalism, seeing that our purpose is to show the capacity of the Jews in this direction. We shall try to discover what special skill is necessary in order to be successful in the competitive struggle. In a word, we shall seek for the type.
To my mind, the best picture of the modern capitalistic undertaker is that which paints him as the combination of two radically different natures in one person. Like Faust, he may say that two souls dwell within his breast; unlike Faust’s, however, the two souls do not wish to be separated, but rather, on the contrary, desire to work harmoniously together. What are these two natures? The one is the undertaker (not in the more limited sense of capitalistic undertaker, but quite generally), and the other is the trader.
By the undertaker I mean a man who has an object in view to which he devotes his life, an object which requires the cooperation of others for its achievement, seeing that its realization is in the world of men. The undertaker must thus be differentiated from the artist or the prophet. Like them he has a mission; unlike them he feels that he must bring it to realization. He is a man, therefore, who peers into the distant future, whose every action is planned and done only in so far as it will help the great whole. As an instance of an undertaker in this (non-capitalistic) sense we may mention an African or a North Pole explorer. The undertaker becomes a capitalistic undertaker when he combines his original activities with those of the trader.
And what is a trader? A man whose whole being is set upon doing profitable business; who appraises all activities and all conditions with a view to their money value, who turns everything into its gold equivalent. The world to such a man is one great market-place, with its supply and demand, its conjunctures—good and bad—and its profits and losses. The constant question on his lips is, “What does it cost? What can I make out of it?” His last question would in all probability be, “What is the price of the universe?” The circle of his thoughts is circumscribed by one piece of business, to the successful issue of which he devotes all his energies.
In the combination I have endeavoured to sketch, the undertaker is the constant factor, the trader the variant one.
Constant the undertaker must be, for, having set his heart upon some far-distant goal, he is of necessity bound to follow some plan in order to reach it. Change in his policy is contrary to his nature. Constancy is the basis of his character. But the trader is changeable, for his conduct wavers with the conditions of the market. He must be able to vary his policy and his aim from one moment to another if the prevailing conjuncture so demands it. “Busy-ness” marks him out above all else.
This theory of the two souls in one body is intended to clarify our conception of the capitalistic undertaker. But we must analyse the conception still further, this time into its actual component parts.
In the undertaker I perceive the following four types:—
(1) The Inventor—not merely in the technical sense, but in that of the organizer introducing new forms which bring greater economies into production, or transport, or marketing.
(2) The Discoverer—of new means of selling his commodities, either intensively or extensively. If he finds a new sphere for his activities—let us say he sells bathing-drawers to Eskimos, or gramophones to Negroes—we have a case of extensive discovery; if he creates new demands in markets where he already has a footing, we may speak of intensive discovery.
(3) The Conqueror. An undertaker of the right kind is always a conqueror, with the determination and will-power to overcome all the difficulties that beset his path. He must also be able to risk much, to stake his all (that is to say, his fortune, his good name, even his life), if need be, to achieve great results for his undertaking. It may be the adoption of new methods in manufacture, the extension of his business though his credit is unstable, and so on.
(4) The Organizer. Above all else the undertaker must be an organizer; i.e., he must be able so to dispose of large numbers of individuals as to bring about the most successful result; must be able to fit the round man into the round hole and the square man into the square; must be able to give a man just the job for which he is best equipped, so as to obtain the maximum of efficiency. To do this satisfactorily demands many gifts and much skill. For example, the organizer must be able to tell at a glance what a man can do best, and which man among many will best suit his purpose. He must be able to let others do his work—i.e., to place in positions of trust such persons as will be able to relieve him of responsibility. Finally, he must be able to see to it that the human factors in the work of production are sufficient for the purpose, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and that their relationship to each other is harmonious. In short, the management of his business must be the most efficient possible.
Now business organization means a good deal more than the skilful choice of men and methods; it means taking into consideration also geographical, ethnological and accidentalcircumstances of all sorts. Let me illustrate my point. The Westinghouse Electric Company is one of the best organized concerns in the United States. When the Company decided to capture the English market it set up a branch in this country, the organization of which was modelled exactly on that of the parent concern. After a few years, what was the result? The financial break-up of the English branch, chiefly because sufficient allowance had not been made for the difference in English conditions.
This leads us to the activities of the trader. A trader has no definite calling; he has only certain well-defined functions in the body economic. But they are of a very varied kind. For example: to provision ships and supply them with men and ammunition, to conquer wild lands in distant parts, to drive the natives from hearth and home and seize their goods and chattels, to load the ships with these latter and bring them home in order to sell them at public auctions to the highest bidder—all this is a form of trading.
Or, it may be a different form—as when a dealer obtains a pair of old trousers from a needy man of fashion, to whose house he comes in vain five times in succession, and then palms those same trousers off on a stupid yokel.
Or, again, it may take the form of arbitrage dealing on the Stock Exchange.
Clearly there are differences in these instances, as there were between trading in modern and in mediaeval times. In the pre-capitalistic period, to trade meant to trade on a big scale, as the “royal merchants” did in the Italian and German cities, and the trader had to be an undertaker (in the general, and not merely in the capitalistic sense). “Each (of the citizens of Genoa) has a tower in his house; if civil war breaks out, the battlements of these towers are the scenes of conflict. They are masters of the sea; they build them ships, called galleys, and roam for plunder in the most distant parts, bringing the spoil back to Genoa. With Pisa they live in continual enmity.” “Royal merchants” these, if you like; but not traders in my sense.
I regard those as traders who set out with the intention of doing good business; who combine within themselves two activities—calculation and negotiation. In a word, the trader must be (1) a speculating calculator, and (2) a business man, a negotiator.
As a speculating calculator, he must buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. Which means that he must obtain his labour and his raw material at as low a rate as possible, and not waste anything in the process of manufacture. And when the commodity is ready for sale, he must part with it to the man whose credit is sound, and so forth. For all this he must calculate, and he must speculate. By speculation in this sense I mean the drawing of several conclusions from particular instances—let us call it the power of economic diagnosis, the complete survey of the market, the evaluation of all its symptoms, the recognition of future possibilities and the choice of that course which will have the greatest utility in the long run.
To this end the dealer must have a hundred eyes, a hundred ears and a hundred feelers in all directions. Here he may have to search out a needy nobleman, or a State bent on war, in order to offer them a loan at the psychological moment; there, to put his hand on a labour group that is willing to work a few pence below the prevailing rate of wages; here he may have to form a right estimate of the chances that a new article is likely to have with the public; there, to appraise the true effect of a political crisis on the Stock Exchange. In every case the trader expresses the result in terms of money. That is where the calculation comes in. “A wonderfullyshrewd calculator” is a term common in the United States for an adept in this direction.
But a discerning eye for a profitable piece of business is not sufficient: the trader must also possess the capacity for doing business. In this, his negotiating powers will come into play, and he will be doing something very much more akin to the work of an arbitrator between two litigants. He will talk to his opponent, urge reasons and counterreasons in order to induce him to embark on a certain course. To negotiate is to fence with intellectual weapons.
Trading, then, means to negotiate concerning the buying and selling of some commodity, be it a share, a loan, or a concern. Trading must be the term applied to the activity of the hawker at the back-door, trying to sell the cook a “fur” collar, or to that of the Jewish old do’ man, who talks for an hour to the bucolic driver to persuade him to purchase a pair of trousers. But it must be equally applied to the activities of a Nathan Rothschild, who negotiated with the representative of the Prussian Government for a loan of a million. The difference is not one of kind, but of extent, for the essence of all trading is negotiation, which need not necessarily be by word of mouth. The shopkeeper who recommends his goods to the public, be his method what you will, is in reality negotiating. What is all advertisement but “dumb show” negotiation? The end in view is always the same—to convince the possible buyer of the superiority of a particular set of goods. The ideal of the seller is realized when everybody purchases the article he has recommended.
To create interest, to win confidence, to stir up a desire to buy—such is the end and aim of the successful trader. How he achieves it is of little moment. Sufficient that he uses not outward force but inner forces, his customers coming to him of their own free will. He wins by suggestion, and one of the most effective is to arouse in the heart of the buyer the feeling that to buy at once will be most advantageous. “We shall have snow, boys, said the Finns, for they had Aander (a kind of snowshoe) to sell,” we read in the Magnus Barford Saga (1006 A.D.). This is the prototype of all traders and the suggestion of the Finns the prototype of all advertising—the weapon with which the trader fights. No longer does he dwell in fortified towers, as did his precursor in Genoa in the days of Benjamin of Tudela, nor does he wreck the houses of the natives with his guns if they refuse to “trade” with him, as did the early East India settlers in the 17th century.
Chapter
10:
The Objective Circumstances in the Jewish Aptitude for Modern
Capitalism
Now that we know what a capitalist undertaker is our next question must be. What were the outward circumstances that made it possible for the Jews to do so much in shaping the capitalistic system? To formulate an answer we shall have to review the position of the Jews of Western Europe and America from the end of the 15th century until the present time—the period, that is, in which capitalism took form.
How can that position be best characterized?
The Governor of Jamaica in a letter he wrote (December 17, 1671) to the Secretary of State was happy in his phraseology.1 “He was of opinion,” he said, “that His Majesty could not have more profitable subjects than the Jews: they had great stocks and correspondence.” These two reasons, indeed, will account in large measure for the headway made by Jews. But we must also bear in mind their peculiar status among the peoples with whom they dwelt. They were looked upon as strangers and were treated not as full, but as “semi-citizens.”
I would therefore assign four causes for the success of the Jews: (1) their dispersion over a wide area, (2) their treatment as strangers, (3) their semi-citizenship, and (4) their wealth.
Jewish Dispersion over a Wide Area
The fact of primary significance is that the Jews were scattered all over the world. Scattered they had been from the time of the first Exile; they were scattered anew after their expulsion from Spain and Portugal, and again when great masses of them left Poland. We have already accompanied them on their wanderings during the last two or three centuries, and have noted how they settled in Germany and France, in Italy and in England, in the Near East and in the Far West, in Holland, in Austria, in South Africa and in Eastern Asia.
One result of these wanderings was that off-shoots of one and the same family took root in different centres of economic life and established great world-famed firms with numerous branches in all parts. Let us instance a few cases.2
The Lopez family had its seat in Bordeaux, and branches in Spain, England, Antwerp and Toulouse. The Mendes family, well-known bankers, also hailed from Bordeaux, and were to be found in Portugal, France and Flanders. The Gradis, relatives of the Mendes, were also settled in all directions. So, too, the Carceres in Hamburg, in England, in Austria, in the West Indies, in Barbados and in Surinam. Other famous families with world-wide branches were the Costas (Acostas, D’Acostas), the Coneglianos, the Alhadibs, the Sassoons, the Pereires, the Rothschilds. We might continue the list ad infinitum; suffice it to say that Jewish business concerns that had a footing in at least two places on the face of the globe may be counted in hundreds and in thousands.
What all this means is obvious enough. What Christian business houses obtained only after much effort, and even then only to a much less degree, the Jews had at the very beginning—scattered centres from which to carry on international commerce and to utilize international credit; “great correspondence” in short, the first necessity for all international organization.
Let us recall what I observed about the participation of the Jews in Spanish and Portuguese trade, in the trade of the Levant, and in the economic growth of America. It was of great consequence that the great majority of Jews settling in different parts hailed from Spain; they were thus agents in directing colonial trade, and to an even greater extent the flow of .silver, into the new channels represented by Holland, England, France and Germany.
Was it not significant that the Jews directed their footsteps just to these countries, all on the eve of a great economic revival, and were thus the means of allowing them to benefit by Jewish international connexions? It is well known that Jews turned away the flow of trade from the lands that expelled them to those that gave them a hospitable reception. Was it not significant that they were predominant in Leghorn, which in the 18th century was spoken of as “one of the great depots in Europe for the trade of the Mediterranean,”3 significant that they forged a commercial chain binding North and South America together, which assured the North American Colonies of their economic existence, significant above all, that by their control of the Stock Exchanges in the great European centres they were the means of internationalizing public credit?
It was their distribution over a wide area which enabled them to do all this.
An admirable picture of the importance of the Jews from this point of view was drawn by a clever observer who made a study of that people two hundred years ago. The picture has lost none of its freshness; it may be found in the Spectator of September 27, 1712:4—
They are so disseminated through all the trading Parts of the World, that they are become the Instruments by which the most distant Nations converse with one another and by which mankind are knit together in a general correspondence. They are like the pegs and nails in a great building, which though they are but little valued in themselves, are absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame together.
How the Jews utilized for their own advantage the special knowledge that their scattered position gave them, how they regulated their activities on the Stock Exchange, is related in all detail in a Report of the French Ambassador in The Hague, written in the year 1698.5 Our informant is of opinion that the dominance of the Jews on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was due in a large degree to their being so well-informed. This piece of evidence is of such great value that I shall translate the whole of the passage:—
They carry on a correspondence on both these subjects (news and commerce) with those they call their brotherhoods (congregues). Of these, Venice is considered to be the most important (although neither the richest nor the most populous) because it is the link, by way of the brotherhood of Salonica, between the East and the West as well as the South. Salonica is the governing centre for their nation in these two parts of the world and is responsible for them to Venice, which together with Amsterdam, rules the northern countries (including the merely tolerated community of London, and the secret brotherhoods of France). The result of this association is that on the two topics of news and commerce they receive, one might almost say, the best information of all that goes on in the world, and on this they build up their system every week in their assemblies, wisely choosing for this purpose the day after Saturday, i.e., the Sunday, when the Christians of all denominations are engaged in their religious exercises. These systems, which contain the minutest details of news received during the week, are, after having been carefully sifted by their rabbis and the heads of their congregations, handed over on the Sunday afternoon to their Jewish stockbrokers and agents. These are men of great cleverness, who after having arranged a preconcerted plan among themselves, go out separately to spread news which should prove the most useful for their own ends; ready to start manipulations on the morrow, the Monday morning, according to each individual’s disposition: either selling, buying, or exchanging shares. As they always hold a large reserve of these commodities, they can always judge of the most propitious moment, taking advantage of the rise or fall of the securities, or even sometimes of both, in order to carry out their plans.
Equally beneficial was their dispersion for winning the confidence of the great. Indeed, the progress of the Jews to la haute finance was almost invariably as follows. In the first instance their linguistic ability enabled them to be of service to crowned heads as interpreters, then they were sent as intermediaries or special negotiators to foreign courts. Soon they were put in charge of their employer’s fortunes, at the same time being honoured through his graciousness in allowing them to become his creditors. From this point it was no long step to the control of the State finances, and in later years of the Stock Exchanges.
It is no far-fetched assumption that already in ancient times their knowledge of languages and their acquaintance with foreign civilizations must have made them welcome visitors at the courts of kings and won for them royal confidence. Think of Joseph in Egypt; of the Alabarch Alexander (of whom Josephus tells), the intimate of King Agrippa and of the mother of the Emperor Claudius; think of the Jewish Treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia, of whom we may read in the Acts of the Apostles (viii. 27).
As for the Court Jews in the Middle Ages, we have definite information that they won their spurs in the capacity of interpreters or negotiators. We know it of the Jew Isaac, whom Charlemagne sent to the court of the Caliph Haroun al Rashid; of Kalonymus, the Jewish friend and favourite of the Emperor Otto II; of the famous Chasdai Ibn Shaprut (915–70), who achieved honour and renown as the diplomatic representative of the Caliph Abdul-Rahman III in his negotiations with the Christian courts of Northern Spain.6 Similarly when the Christian princes of the Iberian Peninsula required skilful negotiators they sought out Jews. Alphonso VI is a good example. Intent on playing off the petty Mohammedan rulers against each other, he chose Jewish agents, with their linguistic abilities and their insight into foreign ways, to send to the courts of Toledo, Seville and Granada. In the period which followed, Jewish emissaries are met with at all the Spanish courts, including those Jews, learned in ethnography, whom James II commissioned to travel into Asia in order to supply his spies with information and who tried to discover the mythical country of Prester John;7 including also the many interpreters and confidential agents associated with the discovery of the New World.8
Considering the importance of the Spanish period in Jewish history not only from the general, but also from the special economic point of view, these cases are worthy of note in that they clearly show the reason for the rise of Jews to influential positions. But they are not limited to the Spanish period; they abound in subsequent epochs also. Thus, Jewish diplomatists were employed by the States-General in their intercourse with the Powers; and names like Delmonte, Mesquita9 and others are well-known. Equally famous is the Seigneur Hebraeo, as Richelieu called the wealthy Ildefonso Lopez, whom the French statesman sent on a secret mission to Holland, and on his return bestowed upon him the tide of “Conseiller d’Etat ordinaire.”10
Finally, the dispersion of the Jews is noteworthy in another way. Their dispersion internationally was, as we have seen, fruitful enough of results; but their being scattered in every part of some particular country had consequences no less potent. To take one instance—the Jews were army-purveyors (and their activities as such date from the days of antiquity, for do we not read that when Belisarius besieged Naples, the Jewish inhabitants offered to supply the town with provisions?).11 One reason was surely that they were able to accumulate large quantities of commodities much more easily than the Christians, thanks to their connexions in the different centres. “The Jewish undertaker,” says one 18th-century writer, “is free from these difficulties. All he need do is to stir up his brethren in the right place, and at a moment’s notice he has all the assistance he requires at his disposal.”12 In truth, the Jew at that time never carried on business “as an isolated individual, but always as a member of the most extended trading company in the world.”13 In the words of a petition of the merchants of Paris in the second half of the 18th century,14 “they are atoms of molten money which flow and are scattered, but which at the least incline reunite into one principal stream.”
The Jews as Aliens
During the last century or two Jews were almost everywhere strangers in the sense of being new-comers. They were never old-established in the places where their most successful activities were manifest; nor did they arrive in such centres from the vicinity, but rather from distant lands, differing in manners and customs, and often in climate too, from the countries of their settlements. To Holland, France and England they came from Spain and Portugal and then from Germany; they journeyed to Hamburg and Frankfort from other German cities; later on they dispersed all over Germany from Russian Poland.
The Jews, then, were everywhere colonists, and as such learned the lesson of speedy adaptation to their new surroundings. In this they were ahead of the European nations, who did not become masters of this art until the settlements in America were founded.
New-comers must have an observant eye in order to find a niche for themselves amid the new conditions; they must be very careful of their behaviour, so that they may earn their livelihood without let or hindrance. While the natives are still in their warm beds the new-comers stand without in the sharp morning air of dawn, and their energy is all the keener in consequence. They must concentrate their thoughts to obtain a foothold, and all their economic activities will be dictated by this desire. They must of necessity determine how best to regulate their undertakings, and what is the shortest cut to their goal—what branches of manufacture or commerce are likely to prove most profitable, with what persons business connexions should be established, and on what principles business itself should be conducted. What is all this but the substitution of economic rationalism for time-honoured Tradition? That the Jews did this we have already observed; why they were forced to do it becomes apparent when we recall that everywhere they were strangers in the land, new-comers, immigrants.
But the Jews were strangers among the nations throughout many centuries in yet another sense, which might be termed psychological and social. They were strangers because of the inward contrast between them and their hosts, because of their almost caste-like separation from the peoples in whose midst they dwelt. They, the Jews, looked upon themselves as a peculiar people: and as a peculiar people the nations regarded them. Hence, there was developed in the Jews that conduct and that mental attitude which is bound to show itself in dealings with “strangers,” especially in an age in which the conception of world-citizenship was as yet nonexistent. For in all periods of history innocent of humanitarian considerations the mere fact that a “stranger” was being dealt with was sufficient to ease the conscience and loosen the bonds of moral duty. In intercourse with strangers people were never quite so particular. Now the Jews were always brought into contact with strangers, with “others,” especially in their economic activities, seeing that everywhere they were a small minority. And whereas the “others” dealt with a stranger, say, once in ten times or even in a hundred, it was just the reverse with the Jews, whose intercourse with strangers was nine out of the ten or ninety-nine out of the hundred times. What was the consequence? The Jew had recourse to the “ethics for strangers” (if I may use this term without being misunderstood) far more frequently than the non-Jew; for the one it was the rule, whilst for the other it was only the exception. Jewish business methods thus came to be based on it.
Closely interwoven with their status as strangers was the special legal position which they occupied everywhere. But this has an importance of its own, and we shall therefore assign an independent section to it.
Jews as Semi-Citizens
At first glance the legal position of the Jews would appear to have had an immense influence on their economic activities in that it limited the callings to which they might devote themselves, and generally closed the avenues to a livelihood. But I believe that the effect of these restrictions has been over-estimated. I would even go so far as to say that they were of no moment whatever for the economic growth of Jewry. At least, I am not aware that any of the traces left by Jews on the development of the modern economic system were due to the restraining regulations. That these could not have left a very deep impress is obvious, seeing that during the period which is of most interest to us the laws affecting Jews differed greatly according to locality. For all that we note a remarkable similarity in Jewish influence throughout the whole range of the capitalistic social order.
How varied the laws in restraint of Jews were is not always sufficiently realized. To begin with, there were broad differences between those of one country and of another. Thus, while the Jews in Holland and England were in a position of almost complete equality with their Christian neighbours so far as their economic life was concerned, they laboured under great disabilities in other lands. But even in these last their treatment was not uniform, for in certain towns and districts they enjoyed entire economic freedom, as, for example, in the papal possessions in France.15 Moreover, even the disabilities varied in number and in kind in each country, and sometimes in different parts of the same country. In most instances they appeared to be quite arbitrary; nowhere was there any underlying principle visible. In one place Jews might not be hawkers, and in another they were not allowed to be shopkeepers. Here they received permission to be craftsmen; there this right was denied them. Here they might deal in wool, there they might not. Here they might sell leather, there it was forbidden them. Here the sale of alcoholic liquors was farmed out to them, there such an idea seemed preposterous. Here they were encouraged to start factories, there they were strictly enjoined to desist from all participation in capitalistic undertakings. Such examples might be continued indefinitely.
Perhaps the best is furnished by Prussia’s treatment of her Jews in the 18th century. Here in one and the same country the restrictive legislation for one locality was totally opposed to that of another. The revised General Privileges of 1750 (Article 2) forbade Jews the exercise of handicrafts in many places; yet a royal order of May 21, 1790, permitted the Jews in Breslau “to exercise all manner of mechanical arts,” and went on to say that “it would be a source of much pleasure to Us if Christian craftsmen of their own free will took Jewish boys as apprentices and eventually received them into their gilds.” A similar enactment was made in the General Reglement for the Jews of South-East Prussia, dated April 17, 1797 (Article 10).
Again, while the Jews of Berlin were forbidden (by Articles 13 and 15 of the General Privileges of 1750) to sell meat, beer and brandy to non-Jews, all the native-born Jews of Silesia had complete freedom of trade in this respect (in accordance with an Order of February 13, 1769).
The list of commodities in which they were allowed or forbidden to trade seems to have been drawn up with an arbitrariness that passes comprehension. Thus, the General Privileges of 1750 allowed the Jews to deal in foreign or home leather prepared though undyed, but not in raw or dyed leather; in raw calf and sheep skins, but not in raw cow or horse hides; in all manner of manufactured woollen and cotton wares, but not in raw wool or woollen threads.
The picture becomes still more bewildering when we take into consideration the varying legal status of the different classes of Jews. The Jewish community of Breslau, for instance, was (until the Order of May 21, 1790, changed things) composed of four groups: (1) those with “general privileges,” (2) those with “privileges,” (3) those who were only tolerated, and (4) temporary residents.
The first class included those Jews who were on an equal footing with Christians so far as trade and commerce were concerned, and whose rights in this respect were hereditary. In the second were comprised such Jews as had “special (limited) privileges” given them, wherein they were allowed to trade in certain kinds of goods specifically mentioned. But their rights did not pass to their children, though the children received preference when privileges of this kind were being granted. The third class was composed of Jews who had the right of living in Breslau, but whose economic activities were even more limited than those in the second class. As for the fourth, it contained the Jews who received permission to dwell in the town for a temporary period only.
But even of such rights as they had they were never sure. In 1769, for example, the Silesian Jews who lived in country districts were allowed to receive in farm the sale of beer, brandy and meat; in 1780 the permission was withdrawn; in 1787 it was renewed.
Yet in all this it must not be forgotten that regulations in restraint of industry and commerce during the last two or three centuries were for the most part a dead letter; as a matter of fact, capitalistic interests found ways and means of getting round them. The simplest method was to overstep the law, a course to which as time went on the bureaucratic State shut its eyes. But there were lawful means too of circumventing inconvenient paragraphs: concessions, privileges, patents, and the whole collection of documents granting exceptional treatment which princes were always willing to issue if only an additional source of income accrued therefrom. The Jews were not slow in obtaining such privileges. The proviso mentioned in the Prussian Edicts of 1737 and 1750—that all restraints referring to Jews might be removed by a special royal order—was tacitly held to apply in all cases. Some way out must have been possible, else how could the Jews have engaged in those trades (e.g., leather, tobacco) which the law forbade them?
At one point, however, industrial regulations made themselves felt as very real checks to the progress of the Jew, and that was wherever economic activities were organized on a corporate basis. The gilds were closed to them; they were kept back by the crucifix which hung in each gild-hall, and round which members assembled. Accordingly, if they wished to engage in any industry or trade monopolized by a gild, they were forced to do so as “outsiders,” interlopers and free traders.
But a still greater obstacle in their path were the laws regulating their position in public life. In all countries there was a remarkable uniformity in these; everywhere the Jew was shut out from public offices, central or local, from the Bar, from Parliament, from the Army, from the Universities. This applied to the States of Western Europe—France, Holland, England—and also to America. But there is no need to consider with any degree of fullness the legal status of the Jews in the preemancipation era, seeing that it is fairly generally known. Only this we would mention here—that their condition of semi-citizenship continued in most countries right into the 19th century. The United States was the first land in which they obtained civil equality; the principle was there promulgated in 1783. In France the famous Emancipation Law dates from 27th September 1791; in Holland the Batavian National Assembly made the Jews full citizens in 1796. But in England it was not until 1859 that they were granted complete emancipation, while in the German States it took ten years longer. On 3rd July 1869 the North German Confederation finally set the seal on their civil equality; Austria had already done so in 1867, and Italy followed suit in 1870.
Equally well-known is it that in many cases the emancipation laws have become dead letters. Open any Liberal paper in Germany (to take a good instance) and day by day you will find complaints that Jews are never given commissions in the Army, that they are excluded from appointments to the Bench, and so on.
This set-back which the Jews received in public life was of great use to industry and commerce in that the Jew concentrated all his ability and energy on them. The most gifted minds from other social groups devoted themselves to the service of the State; among the Jews, in so far as they did not spend themselves in the Beth Hamidrash [the Communal House of Study], such spirits were forced into business. Now the more economic life aimed at profit-making and the more the moneyed interests acquired influence, the more were the Jews driven to win for themselves by means of commerce and industry what was denied them by the law—respect and power in the State. It becomes apparent why gold (as we have seen) was appraised so highly among Jews.
But if exclusion from public life was of benefit to the economic position of the Jews in one direction, giving them a pull over their Christian neighbours, it was equally beneficial in another. It freed the Jews from political partisanship. Their attitude towards the State, and the particular Government of the day, was wholly unprejudiced. Thanks to this, their capacity to become the standard-bearers of the international capitalistic system was superior to that of other people. For they supplied the different States with money, and national conflicts were among the chief sources from which Jews derived their profit. Moreover, the political colourlessness of their position made it possible for them to serve successive dynasties or governments in countries which, like France, were subjected to many political changes. The history of the Rothschilds illustrates the point. Thus the Jews, through their inferior civil position, were enabled to facilitate the growth of the indifference of capitalism to all interests but those of gain. Again, therefore, they promoted and strengthened the capitalistic spirit.
The Wealth of the Jews
Among the objective conditions which made possible the economic mission of the Jews during the last three or four centuries must be reckoned that at all times and in all places where their role in economic life was no mean one, they disposed of large sums of money. But this assertion says nothing about the wealth of the whole body of Jews, so that it is idle to urge the objection that at all periods there were poor Jews, and very many of them. Any one who has ever set foot in a Jewish congregation on the Eastern borders of Germany, or is acquainted with the Jewish quarter of New York, knows that well enough. But what I maintain—a more limited proposition—is that much wealth and great fortunes were to be found, and still are to be found, among Jews ever since the 17th century. Put in a slightly different way, there were always many wealthy Jews, and certainly the Jews on an average were richer than the Christians round them. It is beside the mark to say that the richest man in Germany or the three richest in America are not Jews.
A good many of the exiles from the Pyrenean Peninsula must have been very wealthy indeed. We are informed that their flight brought with it an “exodo de capitaes,” a flow of capital from the country. However, in many instances they sold their property, receiving foreign bills in exchange.16 The richest among the fugitives probably made for Holland. At any rate it is recorded that the first settlers in that country—Manuel Lopez Homen, Maria Nunez, Miguel Lopez and others—had great possessions.17 Whether other wealthy Spaniards followed in the 17th century, or whether those already resident added to their fortunes, it is not easy to discover. But certain it is that the Jews of Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries were famed for their riches. True, there are no statistics to illustrate this, but an abundance of other weighty evidence exists. Travellers could not sufficiently admire the splendour and the luxury of the houses of these refugees who dwelt in what were really palaces. And if you turn to a collection of engravings of that period, do you not very soon discover that the most magnificent mansions in, say, Amsterdam or The Hague were built by Jews or inhabited by them—those of Baron Delmonte, of the noble Lord de Pinto, of the Lord d’Acoste and others? (At the close of the 17th century de Pinto’s fortune was estimated at 8,000,000 florins.) Of the princely luxury at a Jewish wedding in Amsterdam, where one of her daughters married, Gliickel von Hamein draws a vivid picture in her Memoirs.18
It was the same in other lands. For 17th and 18th century France we have the generalization of Savary, who knew most things. “We say,” these are his very words, “we say that a tradesman is ‘as rich as a Jew’ when he has the reputation of having amassed a large fortune.”19
As for England, actual figures are extant concerning the wealth of the rich Sephardim soon after their arrival. A crowd of rich Jews followed in the train of Catharine of Braganza, Charles II’s bride, so that while in 1661 there were only 35 Jewish families in London, two years later no less than 57 new-comers were added to the list. In 1663, as appears from the books of Alderman Blackwell, the following was the half-yearly turnover of the wealthy Jewish merchants:20 Jacob Aboab, £13,085; Samuel de Vega, £18,309; Duarte de Sylva, £41,441; Francisco da Sylva, £14,646; Fernando Mendes da Costa, £30,490; Isaac Dazevedo, £13,605; George and Domingo Francia, £35,759; and Gomez Rodrigues, £13,124.
The centres of Jewish life in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries were, as we have already observed, Hamburg and Frankfort-on-the-Main. For both cities it is possible to compute the wealth of the resident Jews by the aid of figures.
In Hamburg, too, it was Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were the first settlers. In 1649, 40 of their families participated in the foundation of the Hamburg Bank, which shows that they must have been fairly comfortably off. Very soon complaints were made of the increasing wealth and influence of the Jews. In 1649 they were blamed for their ostentatious funerals and for riding in carriages to take the air; in 1650 for building houses like palaces. In the same year sumptuary laws forbade them too great a show of magnificence.21 Up to the end of the 17th century the Sephardic Jews appear to have possessed all the wealth; about that time, however, their Ashkenazi brethren also came quickly to the fore. Glückel von Hamein states that many German-Jewish families which in her youth were in comparative poverty later rose to a state of affluence. And Glückel’s observations are borne out by figures dating from the first quarter of the 18th century.22 In 1729 the Jewish community in Altona was composed of 279 subscribing members, of whom 145 were wealthy, possessing between them 5,434,300 mark [£271,715], that is, an average of more than 37,000 mark [£1850] per head. The Hamburg community had 160 subscribing members, 16 of whom together were worth 501,500 mark [£25,075]. These figures appear to be below the actual state of things, if we compare them with the particulars concerning each individual. In 1725 the following wealthy Jews were resident in Hamburg, Altona and Wandsbeck: Joel Solomon, 210,000 mark; his son-in-law, 50,000; Elias Oppenheimer, 300,000; Moses Goldschmidt, 60,000; Alex Papenheim, 60,000; Elias Salomon, 200,000; Philip Elias, 50,000; Samuel Schiesser, 60,000; Berend Heyman, 75,000; Samson Nathan, 100,000; Moses Hamm, 75,000; Sam Abraham’s widow, 60,000; Alexander Isaac, 60,000; Meyer Berend, 400,000; Salomon Berens, 1,600,000; Isaac Hertz, 150,000; Mangelus Heymann, 200,000; Nathan Bendix, 100,000; Philip Mangelus, 100,000; Jacob Philip, 50,000; Abraham Oppenheimer’s widow, 60,000; Zacharias Daniel’s widow and widowed daughter, 150,000; Simon del Banco, 150,000; Marx Casten, 200,000; Abraham Lazarus, 150,000; Carsten Marx, 60,000; Berend Salomon, 600,000 rthlr.; Meyer Berens, 400,000; Abraham von Halle, 150,000; Abraham Nathan, 150,000.
In view of this list it can scarcely be doubted that there were many rich Jews in Hamburg.
Frankfort presents the same picture; if anything the colours are even brighter. The wealth of the Jews begins to accumulate at the end of the 16th century, and from then onwards it increases steadily. In 1593 there were 4 Jews and 54 Christians (making 7.4 per cent.) in Frankfort who paid taxes on a fortune of over 15,000 florins; in 1607 thennumber had reached 16 (compared with 90 Christians, i.e., 17.7 per cent.).28 In 1618 the poorest Jew paid taxes on 100 florins, the poorest Christian on 50. Again, 300 Jewish families paid as garrison and fortification taxes no less than 100,900 florins in the years 1634 to 1650.24
The number of taxpayers in the Frankfort Jewish community rose to 753 by the end of the 18th century, and together they possessed at least 6,000,000 florins. More than half of this was in the hands of the twelve wealthiest families:25 Speyer, 604,000 florins; Reiss-Ellissen, 299,916; Haas,Kann, Stem, 256,500; Schuster, Getz, Amschel, 253,075; Goldschmidt, 235,000; May, 211,000; Oppenheimer, 171,500; Wertheimer, 138,600; Florsheim, 166,666; Rindskopf, 115,600; Rothschild, 109,375; Sichel, 107,000.
And in Berlin the Jews in the early 18th century were not by any means poor beggars. Of the 120 Jewish families resident in the Prussian capital in 1737 only 10 owned less than 1000 thalers, the rest all had 2000 to 20,000 thaler, and over.26
That the Jews were among the richest people in the land is thus attested, and this state of affairs has continued through the last two or three hundred years right down to our own day, except that to-day it is perhaps more general and more widespread. And its consequence? It can scarcely be overestimated for those countries which offered a refuge to the wanderers. The nations that profited by the Jews’ sojourn with them were well equipped to help forward the development of capitalism. Hence it should be specially noticed that the wanderings of the Jews had the effect of shifting the centre where the precious metals had accumulated. Obviously it could not but influence the trend of economic life that Spain and Portugal were emptied of then: gold and England and Holland enriched.
Nor is it difficult to prove that Jewish money called into existence all the large undertakings of the 17th century and financed them. Just as the expedition of Columbus wouldhave been impossible had the rich Jews left Spain a generation earlier, so the great India Companies might never have been founded and the great banks which were established in the 17th century might not so quickly have attained their stability had it not been that the wealth of the Spanish exiles came to the aid of England, Holland and Hamburg; in other words, had the Jews been expelled from Spain a century later than was actually the case.
This in fact was why Jewish wealth was so influential. It enabled capitalistic undertakings to be started, or at least facilitated the process. To establish banks, warehouses, stock and share-broking—all this was easier for the Jew than for the others because his pockets were better lined. That, too, was why he became banker to crowned heads. And finally, because he had money he was able to lend it. This activity paved the way for capitalism to a greater degree than anything else did. For modern capitalism is the child of money-lending. Money-lending contains the root idea of capitalism; from moneylending it received many of its distinguishing features. In money-lending all conception of quality vanishes and only the quantitative aspect matters. In money-lending the contract becomes the principal element of business; the agreement about the quid pro quo, the promise for the future, the notion of delivery are its component parts. In money-lending there is no thought of producing only for one’s needs.In money-lending there is nothing corporeal (i.e., technical), the whole is a purely intellectual act. In money-lending economic activity as such has no meaning; it is no longer a question of exercising body or mind; it is all a question of success. Success, therefore, is the only thing that has a meaning. In money-lending the possibility is for the first time illustrated that you can earn without sweating; that you may get others to work for you without recourse to force.
In fine, the characteristics of money-lending are the characteristics of all modern capitalistic economic organizations.
But historically, too, modern capitalism owes its being to moneylending. This was the case wherever it was necessary to lay out money for initial expenses, or where a business was started as a limited company. For essentially a limited company is in principle nothing but a matter of money-lending with the prospect of immediate profit.
The money-lending activities of the Jews were thus an objective factor in enabling the Jews to create, to expand and to assist the capitalistic spirit. But our last remarks have already touched upon a further problem, going beyond objective considerations. Is there not already a specific psychological element in the work of the money-lender? But more than this. It may be asked, Can the objective circumstances alone entirely explain the economic role of the Jews? Are there not perhaps special Jewish characteristics which must be taken into account in our chain of reasoning? Before proceeding to this chapter, however, we must turn to an influence of extreme importance in this connexion—to the Jewish religion.
Chapter 11: The Significance of the Jewish Religion in Economic Life
Introductory Note
Three reasons have actuated me in devoting a special chapter to the consideration of the religion of the Jewish people and the demonstration of its enormous influence on Jewish economic activities. First, the Jewish religion ca be fully appreciated in all its bearings from the economic standpoint only when it is studied in detail and by itself; secondly, it calls for a special method of treatment; and thirdly, it occupies a position midway between the objective and the subjective factors of Jewish development. For, in so far as any religion is the expression of some particular spiritual outlook, it has a “subjective” aspect; in so far as the individual is born into it, it has an objective aspect.
The Importance of Religion for the Jewish People
That the religion of a people, or of a group within a people, can have far-reaching influences on its economic life will not be disputed. Only recently Max Weber demonstrated the connexion between Puritanism and Capitalism. In fact. Max Weber’s researches are responsible for this book. For any one who followed them could not but ask himself whether all that Weber ascribes to Puritanism might not with equal justice be referred to Judaism, and probably in a greater degree; nay, it might well be suggested that that which is called Puritanism is in reality Judaism. This relationship will be discussed in due course.
Now, if Puritanism has had an economic influence, how much more so has Judaism, seeing that among no other civilized people has religion so impregnated all national life. For the Jews religion was not an affair of Sundays and Holy Days; it touched everyday life even in its minutest action, it regulated all human activities. At every step the Jew asked himself. Will this tend to the glory of God or will it profane His name? Jewish law defines not merely the relation between man and God, formulates not merely a metaphysical conception; it lays down rules of conduct for all possible relationships, whether between man and man or between man and nature. Jewish law, in fact, is as much part of the religious system as are Jewish ethics. The Law is from God, and moral law and divine ordinances are inseparable in Judaism.1 Hence in reality there are no special ethics of Judaism. Jewish ethics are the underlying principles of the Jewish religion.2
No other people has been so careful as the Jews in providing for the teaching of religion to even the humblest. As Josephus so well put it: Ask the first Jew you meet concerning his “laws” and he will be able to tell you them better than his own name. The reason for this may be found in the systematic religious instruction given to every Jewish child, as well as in the fact that divine service partly consists of the reading and explanation of passages from Holy Writ. In the course of the year the Torah is read through from beginning to end. Moreover, it is one of the primary duties of the Jew to study the Torah. “Thou shalt speak of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up” (Deut. vi. 5).3
No other people, too, has walked in God’s ways so conscientiously as the Jews; none has striven to carry out its religious behests so thoroughly. It has indeed been asserted that the Jews are the least religious of peoples. I shall not stay to weigh the justice of this remark. But certain it is that they are the most “God-fearing” people that ever were on the face of the earth. They lived always in trembling awe, in awe of God’s wrath. “My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee, and I am afraid of Thy judgments,” said the Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 120), and the words may be taken as applicable to the Jews in every age. “Happy is the man that feareth alway” (Prov. xxviii. 14). “The pious never put away their fear” (Tanchuma Chukkath, 24 ).4 One can understand it when one thinks of the Jewish God—fearful, awful, curse-uttering Jehovah. Never in all the world’s literature, either before or since, has humanity been threatened with so much evil as Jehovah promises (in the famous 28th chapter of Deuteronomy) to those who will not keep His commandments.
But this mighty influence (the fear of God) did not stand alone. Others combined with it, and together they had the tendency of almost forcing the Jews to obey the behests of their religion most scrupulously. The first of these influences was their national fate. When the Jewish State was destroyed the Pharisees and Scribes—i.e., those who cherished the traditions of Ezra and strove to make obedience to the Law the end and aim of life—the Pharisees and Scribes came to the head of affairs and naturally directed the course of events into channels which they favoured. Without a State, without their sanctuary, the Jews, under the leadership of the Pharisees, flocked around the Law (that “portable Fatherland,” as Heine calls it), and became a religious brotherhood, guided by a band of pious Scribes, pretty much as the disciples of Loyola might gather around them the scattered remnants of a modern State. The Pharisees now led the way. Their most distinguished Rabbis looked upon themselves as the successors of the ancient Synhedrium, and were indeed so regarded, becoming the supreme authority in spiritual and temporal affairs for all the Jews in the world.5 The power of the Rabbis originated in this fashion, and the vicissitudes of the Jews in the Middle Ages only helped to strengthen it. So oppressive did it eventually become that the Jews themselves at times complained of the burden. For the more the Jews were shut off, or shut themselves off, from the people among whom they dwelt, the more the authority of the Rabbis increased, and the more easily could the Jews be forced to be faithful to the Law. But the fulfilment of the Law, which was urged upon them by the Rabbis, must have been a necessity for the Jews for inner reasons: it satisfied their heart’s desire, it appeared the most precious gift that life had to offer. And why? Because amid all the persecution and suffering which was meted out to the Jews on all sides, that alone enabled them to retain their dignity, without which life would have been valueless. For a very long period religious teaching was enshrined in the Talmud, and hence Jews through many centuries lived in it, for it and through it. The Talmud was the most precious possession of the Jew; it was the breath of his nostrils, it was his very soul. The Talmud became a family history for generation after generation, with which each was familiar. “The thinker lived in its thought, the poet in its pure idealism. The outer world, the world of nature and of man, the powerful ones of the earth and the events of the times, were for the Jew during a thousand years accidents, phantoms; his only reality was the Talmud.”6 The Talmud has been well compared (and the comparison to my mind applies equally to all religious literature) to an outer shell with which the Jews of the Diaspora covered themselves; it protected them against all influences from without and kept alive their strength within.7
We see, then, what forces were at work to make the Jews right down to modern times a more God-fearing people than any other, to make them religious to their inmost core, or, if the word “religious” be objected to, to keep alive among high and low a general and strict observation of the precepts of their religion. And for our purpose, we must regard this characteristic as applicable to all sorts and conditions of Jews, the Marannos of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries included. We must look upon these too as orthodox Jews. Says the foremost authority on that period of Jewish history,8 “The great majority of the Marannos were Jews to a much larger extent than is commonly supposed. They submitted to force of circumstance and were Christians only outwardly. As a matter of fact they lived the Jewish life and observed the tenets of the Jewish religion.… This admirable constancy will be appreciated to the full only when the wealth of material in the Archives of Alcalia de Henares, Simancas and other places has been sorted and utilized.”
But among professing Jews the wealthiest were often enough excellent Talmudic scholars. Was not a knowledge of the Talmud a highway to honour, riches and favour among Jews? The most learned Talmudists were also the cleverest financiers, medical men, jewellers, merchants. We are told, for example, of some of the Spanish Ministers of Finance, bankers and court physicians that they devoted to the study of the Holy Writ not only the Sabbath day but also two nights of each week. In modern times old Amschel Rothschild, who died in 1855, did the same. He lived strictly according to Jewish law and ate no morsel at a stranger’s table, even though it were the Emperor’s. One who knew the Baron well says of him that “he was looked upon as the most pious Jew in all Frankfort. Never have I seen a man so afflict himself—beating his breast, and crying to Heaven—as Baron Rothschild did in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement. The continual praying weakens him so that he falls into a faint. Odorous plants from his garden are held to his nose to revive him.”9 [Sombart in the German text quotes this as an occurrence on the Sabbath. It is obvious that the description refers to the Day of Atonement.—Trans.] His nephew William Charles, who died in 1901 and who was the last of the Frankfort Rothschilds, observed all the religious prescriptions in their minutest detail. The pious Jew is forbidden to touch any object which under certain circumstances has become unclean by having been already touched by some one else. And so a servant always walked in front of this Rothschild and wiped the door-handles. Moreover, he never touched paper money that had been in use before; the notes had to be fresh from the press.
If this was how a Rothschild lived, it is not surprising to come across Jewish commercial travellers who do not touch meat six months in the year because they are not absolutely certain that the method of slaughtering has been in accordance with Jewish law.
However, if you want to study orthodox Judaism you must go to Eastern Europe, where it is still without disintegrating elements—you must go there personally or read the books about it. In Western Europe the orthodox Jews are a small minority. But when we speak of the influence of the Jewish religion it is the religion that held sway until a generation ago that we mean, the religion that led the Jews to so many victories.
The Sources of the Jewish Religion
Mohammed called the Jews “the people of the Book.” He was right. There is no other people that lived so thoroughly according to a book. Their religion in all its stages was generally incorporated in a book, and these books may be looked upon as the sources of the Jewish religion. The following is a list of such books, each originating at a particular time and supplementing some other.
1. The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, until the destruction of the Second Temple. It was read in Hebrew in Palestine and in Greek (Septuagint) in the Diaspora.
2. The Talmud (more especially the Babylonian Talmud), from the 2nd to the 6th century of the Common Era, the principal depository of Jewish religious teaching.
3. The Code of Maimonides, compiled in the 12th century.
4. The Code (called the Turim) of Jacob ben Asher (1248–1340).
5. The Code of Joseph Caro—the Shulchan Aruch (16th century).
These “sources” from which the Jewish religion drew its life appear in a different light according as they are regarded by scientific research or with the eyes of the believing Jew. In the first case they are seen as they really are; in the second, they are idealized.
What are they in reality? The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, is the foundation upon which the entire structure of Judaism was built up. It was written by many hands at different periods, thus forming, as it were, a piece of literary mosaic.10 The most important portion of the whole is the Torah, i.e., the Pentateuch. It received its present shape by the commingling of two complete works some time in the period after Ezra. The one was the old and the new (the Deuteronomic) Law Book (650 B.C.) and the other, Ezra’s Law Book (440 B.C.).[I.e. Deut. v. 45–xxvi, 69 (about 650 B.C.) and Exod. xii. 25–31, xxxv to Lev. xv; Numb. i–x; xv– xix; xxvii–xxxvi. (about 445 B.C.).] And its special character the Torah owes to Ezra and Nehemiah, who introduced a strict legal system. With Ezra and the school of Soferim (scribes) that he founded, Judaism in the form which it has to-day originated; from that period to the present it has remained unchanged.
Beside the Torah we must mention the so-called Wisdom Literature—the Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus and the Proverbs. This section of Jewish literature is wholly postexilic; only in that period could it have arisen, assuming as it did the existence of the Law, and the prevailing belief that for obeying the Law God gave Life, for transgressing it Death. The Wisdom Literature, unlike the Prophetic Books, was concerned with practical life. Some of the books contain the crystallized wisdom of many generations and are of a comparatively early date. The Book of Proverbs, for example, the most useful for our purpose, dates from the year 180 B.C.11
Two streams flow from the Bible. The one, chiefly by way of the Septuagint, ran partly into Hellenistic philosophy and partly into Pauline Christianity. That does not concern us further.
The other, chiefly by way of the Hebrew Bible current in Palestine, ran into Jewish “Law,” and the course of this we shall have to follow.
The specifically Jewish development of the Holy Writ already began as early as Ezra’s day; it was due to the first schools of Soferim (scribes), and the later schools of Hillel and Shammai only extended and continued the work. The actual “development” consisted of explanations and amplifications of the Holy Writ, arrived at as the result of disputation, the method in vogue in the Hellenistic World. The development was really a tightening of the legal formalism, with the view of protecting Judaism against the inroads of Hellenistic Philosophy. Here, as always, the Jewish religion was the expression of a reaction against disintegrating forces. The Deuteronomic Law was the reaction against Baal worship; the Priestly Code against Babylonian influences; the later Codes of Maimonides and Rabbenu Asher and Caro against Spanish culture; and the teaching of the Tannaim [Tannai—teacher] in the century preceding and that commencing the Common Era against the enervating doctrines of Hellenism.12
The old oral tradition of the “Wise” was codified about the year 200 A.D. by R. Judah Hanassi (the Prince), usually called Rabbi. His work is the Mishna. Following on the Mishna are further explanations and additions which were collected and given a fixed form in the 6th century (500-550 A.D.) by the Sdboraim [Saborai—those who give opinions]. Those portions which had reference to the Mishna alone were termed the Gemara, the authors of which were the Amoraim [Amorai—speaker], Mishna and Gemara together form the Talmud, of which there are two versions, the Palestinian and the Babylonian. The latter is the more important.13
The Talmud, as edited by the Saboraim, has become the chief depository of Jewish religious teaching, and its universal authority resulted from the Mohammedan conquests. To begin with, it became the legal and constitutional foundation for Jewish communal life in Babylon, at the head of which stood the “Prince of the Captivity” and the Presidents of the two Talmudic colleges, the Gaonim [Gaon—Excellency]. As Islam spread further and further afield the Jewish communities in the lands that it conquered came into closer relation with the Gaonate in Babylon; they asked advice on religious, ethical and common law questions and loyally accepted the decisions, all of which were based on the Talmud. Indeed, Babylonian Jewry came to be regarded as the new centre of Jewish life.
As soon as the Gemara was written down, and so received permanent form, the development of Judaism ceased. Nevertheless we must mention the three codes which in the post-Talmudic period embodied all the substance of the religion, first, because they presented it in a somewhat different garb, and secondly, because in their regulation of the religious life they could not but pay some heed to changed conditions. All the three codes are recognized by Jews as authoritative side by side with the Talmud, and the last, the Shulchan Aruch, is looked upon today by the orthodox Jew as containing the official version of religious duties. What is of interest to us in the case of all the codes is that they petrified Jewish religious life still more. Of Maimonides even Graetz asserts as much. “A great deal of what in the Talmud is still mutable, he changed into unmodifiable law. ... By his codification he robbed Judaism of the power of developing.… Without considering the age in which the Talmudic regulations arose, he makes them binding for all ages and circumstances.” R. Jacob ben Asher went beyond Maimonides, and Joseph Caro beyond Jacob ben Asher, reaching the utmost limit. His work tends to ultra-particularism and is full of hair-splitting casuistry. The religious life of the Jews “was rounded off and unified by the Shulchan Aruch, but at the cost of inwardness and unfettered thought. Caro gave Judaism the fixed form which it has retained down to the present day.”14
This, then, is the main stream of Jewish religious life; these the sources from which Judaism drew its ideas and ideals. There were, of course, tributary streams, as, for instance, that of the Apocalyptic literature of the pre-Christian era, which stood for a heavenly, a universal, an individualistic Judaism;15 or that of the Kabbala, which busied itself with symbols and arithmetical figures. But these had small share in the general development of Jewish life, and may be neglected so far as their effect on historic Judaism is concerned. Nor were they ever recognized by “official” Judaism as sources of the Jewish religion.
So much for the realistic conception of these sources. But what of that current in orthodox Jewish circles? In many respects the belief of the pious Jew touching the origin of the Jewish system is of much more consequence than its real origin. We must therefore try and acquaint ourselveswith that belief.
The traditional view, which every orthodox Jew still holds, is that the Jewish system has a twofold birth: partly through Revelation and partly in the inspiration of the “Wise.” Revelation refers to the written and the oral tradition. The former is contained in the holy books of the Bible—the Canon as it was fixed by the members of the Great Synagogue. It has three parts16:—the Torah or Pentateuch, the Prophetical Books and the “Writings” (the remaining books). The Torah was given to Moses on Sinai and he “gradually instructed the people in it during their forty years’ wandering in the wilderness. ... It was not until the end of his life that he finished the written Torah, the five books of Moses, and delivered them unto Israel, and we are in duty bound to consider every letter, every word of the written Torah as the Revelation of God.”17 The remaining books were also the outcome of divine revelation, or, at any rate, were inspired by God. The attitude towards the Prophetical literature and the Hagiographa, however, is somewhat freer than that towards the Torah.
The Oral Tradition, or the Oral Torah, is the explanation of the written one. This, too, was revealed to Moses on Sinai, but for urgent reasons was not allowed to be written down at once. That took place at a much later date—only after the destruction of the second Temple—and was embodied in Mishna and Gemara, which thus contain the only correct explanation of the Torah, seeing that they were divinely revealed. In the Talmud are included also rabbinic ordinances and the Haggada, i.e., the interpretation of those portions of Holy Writ other than the legal enactments. The interpretation of the latter was called the Halacha, and Halacha and Haggada supplemented each other. Beside these were placed the collection of decisions, i.e., the three codes already referred to.
What was the significance of all this literature for the religious life of the Jews? What was it that the Jew believed, what were the commands he obeyed?
In the first place it must be premised that so far as I am aware there is no system of dogmas in Judaism.18 Wherever compilation of such a system has been attempted it was invariably the work of non-Jews.19 The nature of the Jewish religion and more especially the construction of the Talmud, which is characterized by its lack of order, is inconsistent with the formulation of any dogmatic system. Nevertheless certain principles may be discovered in Judaism, and its spirit will be found expressed in Jewish practices. Indeed, it will not be difficult to enumerate these principles, since they have remained the same from the very beginning. What has been termed the “spirit of Ezekiel” has been paramount in Judaism from Ezra’s day to ours. It was only developed more and more, only taken to its logical conclusions. And so to discover what this “spirit” is we need only refer to the sources of the religion—the Bible, the Talmud and the later Rabbinic literature.
It is a harder task to determine to what extent this or that doctrine still finds acceptance. Does, for example, the Talmudic adage, “Kill even the best of the Gentiles,” still hold good? Do the other terrible aphorisms ferreted out in Jewish religious literature by Pfefferkom, Eisenmenger, Rohling, Dr. Justus and the rest of that fraternity, still find credence, or are they, as the Rabbis of to-day indignantly protest, entirely obsolete? It is obvious, of course, that the single doctrines were differently expressed in different ages, and if the whole literature, but more especially the Talmud, is referred to on particular points, opposite views, the “pros” and the “cons,” will be found. In other words, it is possible to “prove” absolutely anything from the Talmud, and hence the thrust and counter-thrust between the anti-Semites and their Jewish and non-Jewish opponents from time immemorial; hence the fact that what the one proved to be black by reference to the Talmud the others proved to be white on the same authority. There is nothing surprising in this when it is remembered that to a great extent the Talmud is nothing else than a collection of controversies of the different Rabbinical scholars.
To discover the religious ordinances which regulated actual life we must make a distinction which, to my mind, is very real—the distinction between the man who by personal study strives to find out the law for himself, and the one who accepts it on the authority of another. In the case of the first, the thing that matters is that some opinion or other is found expressed. It is of no consequence that its very opposite may also be there. For the pious Jew who obtains edification by the study of his literature the one view was enough. It may have been the spur to a particular course of action; or it may have provided him with an additional reason for persisting in a course upon which he had already entered. The sanction of the book was sufficient in either event, most of all if it was the Bible or, better still, the Torah. Since all was of divine origin, one passage was as binding as another. This held good whether applied to the Bible, to the Talmud or to the later Rabbinic writings.
The matter assumes a different aspect if the individual does not, or cannot, study the sources himself but relies on the direction of his spiritual adviser or on books recommended by him. Such a one is confronted with only one opinion, arrived at by the proper interpretation of contradictory texts. Obviously these views must have varied from time to time, in accordance with the Rabbinic traditions in each epoch. Hence, to find the laws that in any period were binding we much search for its Rabbinic traditions—no great task since the publication of the Rabbinic law-books. From the llth to the 14th century we have the Yad Hachawka [“Strong Hand”] of Maimonides, from the 14th to the 16th the Tur of R. Jacob ben Asher, and after the 16th the Shulchan Aruch of Caro. Each of these gives the accepted teachings of the age, each is the decisive authority. For the last three hundred years the Shulchan Aruch has thus laid down the law wherever there were differences of opinion. As the text-book I have already quoted says, “First and foremost the Shulchan Aruch of R. Joseph Caro, together with the notes of R. Moses Isserlein and the other glosses, is recognized by all Israel as the Code on which we model our ritual observances.” The Law is also summed up in the 613 precepts which Maimonides derived from the Torah and when even to-day are still in force. “According to the tradition of our Teachers (of blessed memory) God gave Israel by the hand of Moses 613 precepts, 248 positive and 365 negative. All these are binding to all eternity; only those which have reference to the Jewish State and agricultural life in Palestine and to the Temple service in Jerusalem are excepted, as they cannot be carried out by the Jews of the Diaspora. We can obey 369 precepts, 126 positive and 243 negative; and in addition the seven Rabbinic commands.”20
The lives of Orthodox Jews were governed by these manuals during the last century and still are so to-day, in so far as the guidance of the Rabbinic law was followed and opinions based on a personal study of the sources were not formed. From the manuals we have mentioned, therefore, we must gather the ordinances which were decisive for each individual instance in religious life. Hence Reformed Judaism is of no concern to us, and books trimmed to suit modern ideas, such as the great majority of the latest expositions of the “Ethics of Judaism,” are absolutely useless for our purpose—which is to show the connexion between capitalism and genuine Jewish teaching, and its significance in modern economic life.
The Fundamental Ideas of the Jewish Religion
Let me avow it right away: I think that the Jewish religion has the same leading ideas as Capitalism. I see the same spirit in the one as in the other.
In trying to understand the Jewish religion—which, by the way, must not be confused with the religion of Israel (the two are in a sense opposites)—we must never forget that a Safer was its author, a rigidly minded scribe, whose work was completed by a band of scribes after him. Not a prophet, mark you; not a seer, nor a visionary nor a mighty king; a Safer it was. Nor must we forget how it came into being: not as an irresistible force, not as the expression of the deepest needs of contrite souls, not as the embodiment of the feelings of divinely inspired votaries. No; it came into being on a deliberate plan, by clever deductions, and diplomatic policy which was based on the cry “Its religion must be preserved for the people.” The same calm consideration, the same attention to the ultimate goal were responsible in the centuries that followed for the addition of line to line and precept to precept. That which did not fit in with the scheme of the Soferim from before the days of Ezra and that which grew up afterwards, fell away.
The traces of the peculiar circumstances which gave it birth are still visible in the Jewish religion. In all its reasoning it appeals to us as a creation of the intellect, a thing of thought and purpose projected into the world of organisms, mechanically and artfully wrought, destined to destroy and to conquer Nature’s realm and to reign itself in her stead. Just so does Capitalism appear on the scene; like the Jewish religion, an alien element in the midst of the natural, created world; like it, too, something schemed and planned in the midst of teeming life. This sheaf of salient features is bound together in one word: Rationalism. Rationalism is the characteristic trait of Judaism as of Capitalism; Rationalism or Intellectualism—both deadly foes alike to irresponsible mysticism and to that creative power which draws its artistic inspiration from the passion world of the senses.
The Jewish religion knows no mysteries, and is perhaps the only religion on the face of the globe that does not know them. It knows not the ecstatic condition wherein the worshipper feels himself at one with the Godhead, the condition which all other religions extol as the highest and holiest. Think of the Soma libation among the Hindoos, think of entranced Indra himself, of the Homa sacrifice of the Persians, of Dionysus, the Oracle of Greece and of the Sibylline books, to which even the staid Romans went for advice, only because they were written by women who in a state of frenzy prophesied the future.
Down to the latest days of the Roman Empire the characteristic of religious life which remained the same in all aspects of heathenism continued to manifest itself—the characteristic which spread far and wide and infected large masses of people, of working yourself up by sheer force to a pitch of bodily or mental excitement, often becoming bacchanalian madness, and then regarding this as the deity’s doing and as part of his service. It was a generally accepted belief that certain sudden impulses or bursts of passion or resolutions were roused in the soul of a man by some god or other; and conduct of which a man was ashamed or which he regretted, was usually ascribed to the influence of a god.21 “It was the god who drove me to it”—so, in Plautus’s comedy, the young man who had seduced a maiden excused himself to his father.
The same thing must have been experienced by Mohammed in his morbid condition when his fits of ecstasy were upon him, and there is a good deal of mysticism in Islam. At least Mohammedanism has its howling dervishes.
And in Christianity, too, so far as it was not Judaism, room was found for emotional feeling—witness the doctrine of the Trinity, the sweet cult of Mariolatry, the use of incense, the communion. But Judaism looks with proud disdain on these fantastic, mystical elements, condemning them all. When the faithful of other religions hold converse with God in blissful convulsions, in the Jewish synagogue, called a Shool [i.e., School] not without significance, the Torah is publicly read. So Ezra ordained, and so it is done most punctiliously. “Ever since the destruction of the State, study became the soul of Judaism, and religious observances without knowledge of the ordinances which enjoined them was considered as being of little worth. The central feature of public service on Sabbaths and Holy Days was the lesson read from the Law and the Prophets, the translation of the passages by the Targumists [Interpreters] and the homiletic explanation of them by the Haggadists [Preachers].”
Radix
stultitiae, cui frigida sabbata cordi
Sed cor frigidus relligione sua
Septima quaeque dies turpi damnato vetemo
Tanquam lassati mollis imago dei.
[The Sabbath—monstrous folly!—fills the need
Of hearts still icier than their icy creed,
Each seventh day in shameful sloth they nod,
And ape the languor of their weary God.]
Such was the Roman view.22
Judaism then looked askance at mysteries. With no different eye did it regard the holy enthusiasm for the divine in the world of feeling. Astarte, Daphne, Isis and Osiris, Aphrodite, Fricka and the Holy Virgin—it would have none of them. It banished all pictorial art from its cult. “And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the sound of words but ye saw no form” (Deut. iv. 12). “Cursed be the man that maketh a graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman.…” (Deut. xxvii. 15). The command, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” finds acceptance to-day, and the pious Jew has no statues made, nor does he set them up in his house.23
The kinship between Judaism and Capitalism is further illustrated by the legally regulated relationship—I had almost said the businesslike connexion, except that the term has a disagreeable connotation—between God and Israel. The whole religious system is in reality nothing but a contract between Jehovah and His chosen people, a contract with all its consequences and all its duties. God promises something and gives something, and the righteous must give Him something in return. Indeed, there was no community of interest between God and man which could not be expressed in these terms—that man performs some duty enjoined by the Torah and receives from God a quid pro quo. Accordingly, no man should approach God in prayer without bringing with him something of his own or of his ancestors’ by way of return i for what he is about to ask.24
The contract usually sets forth that man is rewarded for duties performed and punished for duties neglected; the rewards and punishments being received partly in this and partly in the next world. Two consequences must of necessity follow: first, a constant weighing up of the loss and gain which any action needs must bring, and secondly, a complicated system of bookkeeping, as it were, for each individual person.
The whole of this conception is excellently well illustrated by the words of Rabbi [164–200 A.D.]: “Which is the right course for a man to choose? That which he feels to be honourable to himself and which also brings him honour from mankind. Be heedful of a light precept as of a grave one, for you do not know what reward a precept brings. Reckon the loss incurred by the fulfilment of a precept against the reward secured by its observance, and the gain gotten by a transgression against the loss it involves. Reflect on three things and you will not come within the power of sin. Know what is above thee—a seeing eye, and a hearing ear, and all your deeds written in a book.”25 So that whether one is accounted “righteous” or “wicked” depends on the balance of commands performed against commands neglected. Obviously this necessitates the keeping of accounts, and each man therefore has his own, in which his words and his deeds, even the words spoken in jest, are all carefully registered. According to one authority (Ruth Rabba, 33a) the prophet Elijah keeps these accounts; according to another (Esther Rabba, 86a) the duty is assigned to angels.
Every man has thus an account in heaven: Israel a particularly large one (Sifra, 446). And one of the ways of preparing for death is to have your “account” ready (Kohelet Rabba, Tic). Sometimes “extracts” from the accounts are forthcoming (by request). When the angels brought an accusation against Ishmael, God asked, “What is his position at present? Is he a righteous man or a wicked?” (i.e., do the commands performed outweigh those neglected?). And the angels replied, “He is a righteous man.” When Mar Ukba died, he asked for a statement of his account (of the money he had given to charity). It totalled 7000 zuzim. As he was afraid that this would not suffice for his salvation he gave away half of his fortune in order to be on the safe side (Kethuboth, 25; Baba Bathra, 7). The final decision as to the righteousness or wickedness of any man is made after his death. The account is then closed, and the grand total drawn up. The result is inserted in a document (Shetar) which is handed to each individual after it has been read out.26
It is not difficult to perceive that the keeping of these accounts was no easy matter. In Biblical times, so long as rewards and punishments were meted out in the life on earth, the task was no great one. But in the period that followed, when rewards and punishments were granted partly in this life and partly in life everlasting, the question grew to be troublesome, and in the Rabbinic theology an intricate and artistic system of bookkeeping was evolved. This distinguished between the capital sum or the principal, and the fruits or the interest, the former being reserved for the future world, the latter for this. And in order that the reward which is laid up in heaven for the righteous may not be diminished, God does not lessen the stock when He grants him ordinary earthly benefits. Only when he receives extraordinary, i.e., miraculous, benefits on earth does the righteous man suffer a diminution of his heavenly reward. Moreover, the righteous is punished for his sins at once on earth, as the wicked is rewarded for his good deeds, so that the one may have only rewards in heaven and the other only chastisements.27
Another conception is bound up with this of divine bookkeeping and is closely akin to a second fundamental trait of capitalism—the conception of profit. Sin or goodness is regarded as something apart from the sinner. Every sin, according to Rabbinic theology, is considered singly and by itself. “Punishment is according to the object and not the subject of the sin.”28 The quantity of the broken commandments alone counts. No consideration whatever is had for the personality of the sinner or his ethical state, just as a sum of money is separated from persons, just as it is capable of being added to another abstract sum of money. The ceaseless striving of the righteous after well-being in this and the next world must needs therefore take the form of a constant endeavour to increase his rewards. Now, as he is never able to tell whether at a particular state of his conscience he is worthy of God’s goodness or whether in his “account” the rewards or the punishments are more numerous, it must be his aim to add reward after reward to his account by constantly doing good deeds to the end of his days. The limited conception of all personal values thus finds no admission into the world of his religious ideas and its place is taken by the endlessness of a pure quantitative ideal.
Parallel with this tendency there runs through Jewish moral theology another which regards the getting of money as a means to an end. The conception is frequently found in books of religious edification, the authors of which realizing but seldom that in their warnings against the acquisition of too much wealth they are glorifying this very practice. Usually the treatment of the subject is under the heading “covetousness,” forbidden by the tenth commandment. “A true Israelite,” remarks one of the most popular of modern “helps to faith,”29 “avoids covetousness. He looks upon all his possessions only as a means of doing what is pleasing in the sight of God. For is not the entire purpose of his life to use all his possessions, all enjoyment as the means to this end? Indeed it is a duty ... to obtain possessions and to increase one’s enjoyments, not as an end in themselves but as a means to do God’s will on earth.”
But if it is urged that this is no conclusive proof of the connexion between the religious idea and the principle of getting gain, a glance at the peculiar ordering of divine service will soon be convincing. At one stage in the service there is a veritable public auction. The honorary offices connected with the reading of the law are given to the highest bidder. Before the scrolls are taken from the Ark, the beadle walks round the central platform (the Almemor) and cries out:
“Who will buy Hazoa vehachnosa? (i.e., the act of taking the scrolls from the Ark and of replacing them). Who will buy Hagboha? (the act of raising the scroll in the sight of the people). Who will buy Gelilah?” (the act of rolling up the scroll when the reading is finished). These honours are knocked down to the highest bidder, and the money given to the synagogue poor-box. It need hardly be said that to-day this practice has long been eliminated from synagogue worship. In days of long ago it was quite general.30 Again, the words of some of the Talmudic doctors, who at times dispute over the most difficult economic questions with all the skill of experienced merchants, cannot but have a curious connotation, and must needs lead to the conclusion that they preached the getting of gain. It would be fascinating to collect those passages of the Talmud wherein the modern practice of making profit is recommended by this or that Rabbi, in many cases themselves great traders. I will quote an instance or two. “R. Isaac also taught that a man should always have his money in circulation.” It was R. Isaac, too, who gave this piece of good advice. A man should divide his fortune into three parts, investing one in landed property, one in moveable goods, and holding the third as ready cash (Baba Mezia, 42a). “Rav once said to his son. Come let me instruct thee in worldly matters. Sell your goods even while the dust is yet upon your feet.” (What is this but a recommendation to have a quick turnover?) “First open your purse and then unloose the sack of wheat.… Have you got dates in the box? Hasten at once to the brewer” (Pesachim, 113a).
What is the meaning of this parallelism between the Jewish religion and capitalism? Is it a mere chance? A stupid joke perpetrated by Fate? Is the one the effect of the other, or are both traceable to the same causes? Questions such as these naturally suggest themselves to us, and I hope to answer them as we proceed. Here it will suffice to have called attention to them. Our next step will be the comparatively simpler one of showing how individual customs, conceptions, opinions and regulations of the Jewish religion influenced the economic conduct of Jews, of showing whether they facilitated the extension of capitalism by the Jews, and, if so, to what degree. We shall limit ourselves in this to primary psychological motives, avoiding all speculative difficulties. Our first problem will be to discover the goal set up by the Jewish religion and its influence on economic life, and the next section is devoted to it
The Idea of Rewards and Punishments
The idea of contract, which is part and parcel of the underlying principles of Judaism, must perforce have the corollary that whoever carries out the contract receives reward, whoever breaks it receives punishment. In other words, the legal and ethical assumption that the good prosper and the evil suffer punishment was in all ages a concept of the Jewish religion. All that changed was the interpretation of prosperity and punishment.
The oldest form of Judaism knows nothing of another world. So, weal and woe can come only in this world. If God desires to punish or to reward, He must do so during man’s lifetime. The righteous therefore is prosperous here, and the wicked here suffer punishment. Obey my precepts, says the Lord, “so that thou mayest live long and prosper in the land which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee.” Hence the bitter cry of Job, “Wherefore do the wicked live, becomeold, yea, wax mighty in power? … But my way He hath fenced up, that I cannot pass ... He hath broken me down on every side ... He hath also kindled His wrath against me” [Job xxi. 7; xix. 8, 10, 11]. “Why hath all this evil come upon me, seeing that I walked in His path continually?”
A little after Ezra’s time the idea of another world (Olam Habo) finds currency in Judaism, the idea, too, of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection of the body. These beliefs were of foreign origin, coming probably from Persia. But like all other alien elements in Judaism they, too, were given an ethical meaning, in accordance with the genius of the religion. The doctrine grew up that only the righteous and the pious would rise up after death. The belief in eternity was thus made by the Soferim to fit in with the old teaching of rewards and punishments, in order to heighten the feeling of moral responsibility, i.e., of the fear of the judgment of God.”
The idea of prosperity on earth is now extended. It is no longer the only reward of a good life, for a reward in the world to come is added to it. Still, God’s blessing in this world is no small part of the total reward. Moreover, the very fact that a man is prosperous here was proof positive that his life was pleasing to God, and that therefore he might expect reward in the next world also. Then, too, the idea of a blind fate is no longer troublesome. Wha