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Capitalism and the Jews |  | Author: Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
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Pages: 272
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Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 4.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0691144788
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.940089924
EAN: 9780691144788
ASIN: 0691144788
Publication Date: January 24, 2010
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Provocative essays on capitalism and the Jews September 3, 2010
Rolf Dobelli (Switzerland)
Good etiquette advises that discussing religion, money and politics with strangers is not prudent, but, fortunately, professor Jerry Z. Muller ignores this maxim. Instead, this broadly published academician presents four exceptional essays assessing the role of Jews in developing capitalism in terms of complex social, historical and religious structures. He wrote the series, which covers centuries of history, over the course of 30 years of study. His combined notes and bibliography alone are 29 pages. Muller tellingly shows the relationships among the political, theological and economic ideas that created some of the best and worst events in modern society. getAbstract highly recommends this enlightening, accessible work of contemporary scholarship.
Read more about this book in the online summary:
http://www.getabstract.com/summary/13577/capitalism-and-the-jews.html
How the history of capitalism and the history of the Jews have been interlinked June 14, 2010
ROROTOKO (www.rorotoko.com)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Capitalism and the Jews" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Muller's book interview ran here as the cover feature on June 14, 2010.
 A Provocative, Stimulating and Balanced Series of Essays June 13, 2010
Herbert L Calhoun (Falls Church, VA USA)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Almost sixty years after the European Holocaust, the issue of the role of Jews in Western society remains one of the "touchiest," if not the "touchiest" of all topics in the public square. Other taboo topics are the over-representation of white males as child molesters and serial killers, as well as the over-representation of blacks and Hispanic in the U.S. crime statistics. However, this author tackles the project of Jewish over-representation in the economic sphere head-on and in a more or less historian's academic way. As an eminent historian, he is able to operate below the radar of ethnic angst, and well above the fray; and thus in the process is able to dodge the bullet of being charged with being an "anti-Semite."
That said taking the "high road" has both advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is that it raises the level of the discourse from one of "denigrating Jews" to one of seeking to better understand the Jewish role in helping to shape Western culture. But the disadvantage is that it does so at the very high cost of leaving the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the back of the room, virtually untouched. That is to say, the author carefully steers around most of the most sensitive time-bombs in contemporary American culture: Jewish over-representation in almost every aspect of American political and cultural life; their role in our disastrous Middle East policy in uncritical Jewish support of Israel; the role Jews played in advancing Communism and supporting its efforts; the heavy-handed influence and distorting effect Jewish lobbying has had (and continues to have) on the American political process, as well as the role Jewish elites (for instance the Robert Rubin clique) may have played in designing the architecture of deregulation that led directly to the recent Wall Street financial excesses and its eventual collapse; Jewish overrepresentation in the media and in moviemaking in Hollywood; the emerging ominous coalition between Jewish and Christian Zionists and its chilling effect on free speech; and finally the problem of Jewish dual citizenship and Jews who spy for Israel, etc.
Perhaps it was asking too much to hope that all these issues would be addressed under the single rubric of "Jews and Capitalism." And although I was disappointed that Muller (A history professor at Catholic U. here in D.C.) did not treat the issue of the Jewish role in American society more generally, there is nevertheless excellent history here about the obvious impact Jews have had on Western economies. It is both interesting and enlightening history that until now has been buried far too long under the weight and the banner of "political incorrectness."
He begins by quoting Milton Friedman, the acknowledged godfather of free-market capitalism, who (himself a Jew) wondered aloud why Jews, who have benefitted so much from the capitalist system, have also been its most severe critics, and in fact were at the forefront of offering up Communism as an alternative to it. The author's story here is that although Jews were central to the formation of capitalism before the 19th century, and excelled at free-market principles since, they were at the same time also champions of communism, which rejected capitalism. He argues that supporting communism turned out to be a mistake that resulted in a backlash leading in part to the rise of Hitler in Germany.
The fact that Jews have been so successful at capitalism arguably is the reason (even more so than religion or ethnicity) that there is so much hidden racial and ethnic envy, animus and hatred towards Jews. In defense of this thesis the author cites the disproportionate percentages of Jews who composed the societies of Europe leading up to the First World War (40% of Germany's corporate elite; 54% of the owners of Hungary's commercial establishments and 85% of its bank directors -- while being only 3% of the population). In the U.S. for most of the Twentieth Century, Jews have been "massively overrepresented" in proportion to their numbers (about 2.6% of the U.S. population) in academia, medicine, law, architecture, engineering, he U.S. Congress, high-level governmental jobs and high finance. According to one annual survey (Forbes), Jews who account for less than three percent of the U.S. population, constituted 20% of the faculty of elite American universities.
The author's main point in what constitutes a provocative series of essays seems to be to give a more honest and non-emotional accounting of the role Jews have played in both the evolution of capitalism and its opposite, communism, and their twin effect on modern Western economies. I believe he has succeeded admirable at this more limited task. Four stars.
Objective Book (collection of 4 essays) on the history of Jewish people in business & economics April 28, 2010
S. Riley (Chicopee, MA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I just finished reading this book, and although the title did raise eyebrows among my friends, the book is as objective as possible. The author, a HISTORIAN, writes on the topic of this book purposefully, accurately, OBJECTIVELY - and purely in a historical context. This is NOT neo-nazi propoganda, anti-semetic, racist, bigoted, demeaning or anything else negative in the slightest sense. I enjoyed it very much, as I do many other business, economic, and history books - and this book combines those areas perfectly. The author should be commended for writing such a unique and fascinating book. It should be read by any people in the business world who want a simple, accurate and well-written collection of four essays that explain the historical background of "Capitalism and the Jews" (which by the way was the title of a speech given by Milton Friedman, a Jew himself, President Reagan's main economic advisor in the 80s). I write this review as an atheist/former Catholic with a background in economics and business consulting.
P.S. You might also like a very recent book called Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
Cultural Capital of Jews Turning Them Mostly into Capitalism Advocates April 6, 2010
Serge J. Van Steenkiste (Atlanta, GA)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Professor Jerry Muller makes a compelling case in showing that the attitude of Jews towards capitalism was overshadowed by the contemptuous view that Christianity held about trade and commerce for a long time (pp. 33; 158). Until the 19th century C.E., anti-Semitism was predominantly religious in nature, grounded in the sympathy that the Christian churches had for peasants and artisans, the sources of "sweat" labor (pp. 18; 28; 54; 70; 116).
At the same time, these churches failed to understand the economic value of gathering and analyzing information (pp. 19; 116; 205-206). Christianity officially regarded trade and money lending as "unproductive," "parasitic," and "usurious" best left to those outside the community of the faithful, i.e., the Jews (pp. 8; 15; 23-25; 27; 37-38; 43; 116-117).
The "cultural capital" of Jews positioned them well to play a disproportional role in (early) modern capitalism for the following reasons (pp. 4; 9; 209; 213):
1. Judaism was more favorably disposed toward commerce than Christianity which was inclined to glorify poverty (pp. 5; 77; 81-85; 110-115).
2. Jewish culture prized "religious intellectualism" which was easily transferred from religious to secular learning (pp. 70; 87-89).
3. Judaism favored a lifestyle based on discipline, the conscious planning of action, and the avoidance of intoxication (p. 88).
4. Jewish success in the market was based upon longer time horizons. Success for those Jews starting at the low end of commercial life required a willingness to work long and hard and to save in order to accumulate capital (pp. 58-59; 61; 88-89).
5. The propensity to develop social networks was due, in part, to the exclusion of Jews from the larger, gentile society, which provided both a form of collective self-policing and a proto-social security system (pp. 7; 53; 91-92).
6. Jewish culture put much emphasis on high familial investment in children (pp. 92-93).
With the industrial revolution firing on all cylinders, anti-Semitism shifted its emphasis by attacking the Jews as capitalists bent on destroying and despoiling the traditional society (pp. 41; 44; 56-57; 158). The social and economic stratification in which Jews were placed made many of them economically successful, which created resentment among social losers in a given capitalist society (pp. 65-66; 129; 189; 204-205; 213-214). To reduce the resentment created by their success, Jews supported 1) tzedakah (= philanthropy) whose beneficiaries also included non-Jews and 2) income redistribution through governmental income transfers (pp. 126; 130-131).
After WWI, anti-Semites came to the outlandish realization that Jewish capitalists would participate in their own destruction by cooperating with their communist counterparts to topple Christian civilization (p. 161)!
To his credit, Professor Muller brilliantly shows why Milton Friedman's argument, that Jews played a prominent role in disparaging capitalism while profiting from it enormously, clearly lacks nuance (pp. 73; 124). To come to this conclusion, Professor Muller looks at the range of Jewish political responses to capitalism that he labels integrationist, isolationist, socialist, and nationalist, respectively (pp. 10-12; 104; 190).
1. The majority of Jews in Europe and North America opted for integrating themselves into the broader capitalist economy without repudiating their distinct Jewish identity (pp. 39; 104; 109; 115; 215).
2. The isolationist (or Orthodox) Jews found niches in the capitalist economy that would reduce, to the strict minimum, their social interactions with gentiles and less orthodox Jews (p. 105).
3. The socialist Jews believed in the substitution of the untried communism to the failing capitalist system for the same reasons that non-Jews espoused this ideology (pp. 35; 80; 105-107). Furthermore, these Jews naively hoped that abolishing capitalism would take care of anti-Semitism which was often linked to anti-capitalism (pp. 42; 133). The disastrous role that some Central and Eastern European Jews played in different communist revolutions in the wake of both WWI and WWII, reinforced the prevalent anti-Semitism that did not need additional oil to burn brightly in the hearts of anti-Semites (pp. 124; 140-141; 151; 158; 165-170; 174; 183; 188). The identification of Jews with communism was based upon a distortion similar to the exaggeration of the reality that Jews were more successful capitalists (pp. 135; 147; 152-153; 163; 175-177). Most Jews did not embrace communism because of its atheism and its economic policy (pp. 140; 174). Most communists were not Jews (p. 160). To their credit, these socialist Jews, however, debunked the stereotype of the Jews as "greedy" and "materialistic" (pp. 126; 137).
4. The nationalist (or Zionist) Jews emphasized first and foremost the need for a homeland over which Jews would exercise sovereign power without coming to an agreement on the prevailing economic system (p. 106). Zionism was a reaction to the rise of ethnic nationalism that had a basis in the politics of capitalist economic transformation of others (pp. 190-191; 194-199; 202; 208-210). These nationalist Jews faced two unique and formidable obstacles compared to most other ethnic groups: 1. Re-(acquire) a territorial base on which to form a nation-state and 2. Transform themselves from an economically and socially specialized stratum into a combination of "peoplehood" and "statehood" needed to re-(acquire) sovereignty over a distinct territory (pp. 215-218). Professor Muller observes on this subject that the Israeli economy transitioned much faster from its agrarian, socialist beginnings to its present-day highly commercial nature than older Western capitalist economies did (pp. 122-123). The recently published book "Start-Up Nation" by Dan Senor and Saul Singer is illuminating on this subject.
Professor Muller acknowledges that the high representation of Jews in intellectual professions makes them stand out as standard bearers of almost any political ideology (p. 125). The concept of "tikkun olam" (= repairing the world) in Judaism is not alien to this development.
In summary, Professor Muller realizes a tour de force in remaining as objective as possible in his examination of the multidimensional relationship that Jews have had with capitalism.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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