Die Entstehung der Kapitalismustheorie in der Gründungsphase der deutschen Soziologie

»The development of the theory of capitalism in the foundation phase of the German sociology. From the historical national economy to the historical sociology of Werner Sombart and Max Weber«

This study is an attempt to present the process of development of the theory of capitalism in the period from the late 1880s to the first decade of the 20th century in relation to conceptual connections between contemporary authors. Shirō Takebayashi thus also contributes to shedding light on the development of Werner Sombart's and Max Weber's historical sociology from historical national economics.

For historical national economists like Gustav Schmoller, Lujo Brentano, Karl Bücher, Werner Sombart and Max Weber it is important to theoretically evaluate the research into cottage industry which developed in the 1880s for the understanding of the overall historical development of economic life. Their theoretical analyses are made in connection with the dispute over methods, in which Carl Menger highlighted the contrast between theoretical and historical national economics. This led Sombart and Weber to develop a theory of capitalism under the influence of Karl Marx, which they call social science. This social science, in which history and theory are linked, gives rise to their historical sociology.

There has thus been a trend since the beginning of the 20th century to divide national economics into economics (in today’s sense) and sociology. When we discuss today the social science so named by Sombart and Weber with regard to the foundation of sociology, it must be taken into account that their research was done while the national economic classification was in a process of transformation, during which the still unstable academic disciplines became differentiated.