Europe’s Scientists and Jewish plutocrats (4)

Because of this migration, the Jews became as the driving force of economy of Europe’s southern ports in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1550, the Senate of Venice decided to expel “surreptitious Jews” (Marranos) from the port. Christian traders have also strongly protested and declared that they would leave the city with Marranos because it meant their bankruptcy. At this time, Marranos exclusively dominated over wool and silk and textile trade by Spain and sugar, pepper and precious stones and pearls by India. A significant part of Venice’s export was done by the Jews and main moneychangers of the city were Jews. The trade of Europe’s luxury goods was completely in the hands of the Jews from the Sixteenth century; the jewels and precious stones, the pearls and the silk, the gold and silver of Europe was supplied entirely by the Jews. The Pearls and precious stones came from Brazil and the silk was from the East. In the seventeenth century, such a situation was appeared in all major cities of Netherlands, France and England and the Jews took the pulse of trade and finance. At this time, almost all trades of Hamburg port with Spain and Portugal and Netherlands was at the Jews’ disposal and half the ships left the port of Hamburg went to these three countries. In the eighteenth century, trade with the Ottoman territories in the East Mediterranean lands was the most important branch of the French trade and it was almost entirely at the Jews’ disposal. Customers, sellers, intermediaries, moneychangers and trade employers with the Ottomans were all Jewish people. The main part of Ottoman trade with Europe was monopolized by Jews.
Sombart faced with a strange dilemma in definition of “the Jew”; “It is said that the Jews are the community members who believe in Judaism”. He found that this definition was inadequate; because it didn’t include those who have retired from their religious communities but they and their children and descendants have remained “Jewish ones”. “We have frequently confronted with people who are called Christians, but in fact they are Jews”.
Sombart was the first European economist that marked the phenomenon of “surreptitious Jews”; he considered them as an important factor in economic analysis and explored their role in the process of modern civilization genesis as capitalists. According to Sombart, the “New Christians” were the special phenomenon that they have reserved all Jewish beliefs and virtues in themselves and they acted like an “isolated cult”. For instance, Sombart pointed out to “proselyte” in the south of France who came from Spain and Portugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They attended all Catholic ceremonies. Their Births, marriages and deaths were recorded in church offices and some were even priests. They played a significant role in the subsequent developments of French society. These “surreptitious Jews” have adroitly disguised their origins as the Jewish historians are still suspicious whether a particular family was Jewish or not. In cases in which they have adopted Christian names, there is greater difficulty. According to Sombart, it could be found a large number of “surreptitious Jews” among the Protestant emigrants in the seventeenth century.
By the end of the 1820s, a half of Berlin Jews had converted to Christianity. The number of Christianized Jews of Berlin has been reported 120 thousand people until the book of Sombart. In Vienna, about 500 to 600 Jews have converted to Christianity annually. In the 1840s, the number of “surreptitious Jews” in the European cities was great. According to moderate estimates, there were at least 12 thousands of “surreptitious Jews” in Vienna, all textile trade was at their disposal, and the city was full of Jewish shops. But, at this time, there were only the names of 63 Jewish people in the official list of Vienna’s merchants.
Therefore, Sombart did a detailed research work based on Jewish references in order to write his book. He got marveled over the great roles of Jews and “New Christians” in the emerging of “New world” (United States of America). According to Sombart, the “Proselyte Christians” were become as the conveyors of “Jewish soul” in the Christian community.
Sombart believed that “capitalism spirit” has been moved to Europeans by the Jews and eventually the Europeans have been become brimful of this spirit and then they realized it. “Infidels” got the bourgeois values from the Jews inadvertently; values of capitalism were brought into Christian communities by the Jews, and finally, it routed all Christian values.
In analyzing of Max Weber’s theory, Sombart does not deny the role of Puritans in the emergence and development of modern capitalism, but he thinks it was born out of Judaism. According to Sombart, “Judaism is the mother of capitalism and Puritanism is its perfect spirit”. And elsewhere he definitely writes: “Puritanism is Judaism”.
Sombart refers the prominent place of Jewish oligarchy in the United Kingdom of England in the seventeenth century in order to determine the relationships between the Jews and Puritans and also to belonging of “Puritanical revolution” leaders to “Old Testament”. He writes that Oliver Cromwell’s religious ideas were based on “Old Testament”; he was sincerely eager in the hope of reconciliation between the “Bibles” and to set up an association of “God's chosen people” (the Jews) and “Puritan Britain”. Nathaniel Holmes, a Puritan preacher, did not esteem anything worthier than the humble services to “God's chosen people” (the Jews). Sombart writes that, at the time of “Puritanical revolution”, everything was Jewish in England and if it was also spoken in Hebrew in parliament, there was no doubt that here is Palestinian!
Members of “levelers cult” touted themselves as the “Jewish people” and they demanded that “Torah” would be become as a law in British society. Cromwell’s brokers suggested that he appoint seventy members in the private Council as many as the members of “Sanhedrin Council”. In 1653, “General Thomas Harrison”, from Anabaptist cult, and his party demanded that British Parliament implement the laws of “Torah”. He urged on parliament that Saturday become a public holiday instead of Sunday. Saturday is the Jews’ Easter. And finally, this term was written on the flag of Puritans: “Lion of Judah”.
Sombart believes that Jewish plutocracy is non-separated from European government; anywhere in Europe that there was a government, “the court Jews” were its financial supply power. It is here that he expresses the regard of “modern government” and “Judaism” as the regard of Faust and Mephistopheles.
According to Sombart, modern European states relied on the army and Jews provided the weapons, ammunition and alimentation for the armies during the war and on the other hand, they financed the demanded money of governments. Over the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jews as “the military contractors” and plutocrats who European rulers relied on their financial support were among the most powerful people in Europe. The examples are plentiful: “Frederick Augustus”, when he was entitled as Duke of Saxony in 1694, he gathered a large group of Jewish plutocrats around the court. “Daniel Abensur”, a Portuguese Jew who died in Hamburg in 1717, was an independent minister of Poland in Hamburg and Frederick Augustus, King of Poland, had enormous debts to him. The general contractor of army of Louis XIV, king of France (1643-1715), was a Jew named “Jacob Worms”. In 1716, the Jews of Strasbourg were responsible for intelligence and logistical tasks of French army. At the end of the reign of Louis XIV and entire reign of Louis XV (1715-1774), “Samuel Bernard” was the Personal Banker of French King. Louis XIV walked with this rich Jew in his garden and had a close relationship with him. A cynical French author wrote at that time: “His only thanks were support of government; like as a rope keeps an executed person hanging over the gallows”. Samuel Bernard financed the demanded money of French government for the war with Spain and he undertook the costs of French court candidate in the reign of Poland. It is not probably an exaggeration the statement of “Marquis de Dangeau” in one of his letters that he stresses “Samuel Bernard is the biggest Europe’s banker in the present era”. In France, likewise in Netherlands and United Kingdom and Denmark, Jewish plutocrats participated in development of “French East India Company” in large-scale. But in fact, it was in the nineteenth century that they caught up on all aspects of French economy and the significant dynasties such as Rothschild, DuPont, Helphen, Cerfbeer, Godchaux, Dalembert and so forth emerged. Sombart adds: “It is likely that many Jews in France were active in the field of financial issues in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but due to being surreptitious of their Judaism, they have been unknown to us.
Sombart discovers the Jewish plutocracy and government relationships in the United States of America tenacious. In the Civil Wars in America, “Haym Salomon” alongside “Minis” and “Cohen” in Georgia provided the military supplies for the army. But the most important Jewish person in this era was “Robert Morris” who applied an abundant capital in America’s Revolution. Sombart adds:

United States of America could never achieve a complete independence without meeting the needs of its army by the Jews.

In our perspective, the most prominent point of distinction between the views of Max Weber and Werner Sombart is their different glances at colonies’ role in the emergence of a modern civilization in the West.
Sombart believes that Plant work economy is the “source” of a driving force that “turned on the engine of capitalism”. And because the Jews had a major role in East India and also in Caribbean islands, so he considers their contribution in the development of modern capitalism essential. He rightly distinguishes Overseas’ expansion in the origin of modern capitalism; he surveys the role of Jews in it, in some cases, he even refers to the Jews who settled on the continent of America as “New Christian immigrants” by the names. Sombart thinks that the colonies were the origin of first Europe’s capitalism accumulation and a base for development of modern capitalism.
On the contrary, Weber believes that the role of plant work economy in the emergence of modern capitalism was little. Weber's argument is not based on reality but it is only a theoretical analysis. He says that capitalism relations were formed only on the basis of the market economy and Plant work economy, which is based on the exploitation of slaves, because it had no relationship with the market economy, it could not have a role in the emergence of a capitalism economy. Sombart wrote in response that: “The wealth produced by slaves could be used in any other position as the capital and therefore the capitalism can afford to feed from non-capitalism origins”.
The view of Weber is a prime example showing the transformation of a “theory” to a barrier in the way of objective knowledge. It is clear that the accumulation of wealth through the “traditional” ways, such as looting and slavery, could be the base of “modern operations” of capitalism; and it was in practice so as well.
Abstract theorizing of Max Weber continues. He views that the direct role of Jews in the development of capitalism was limited because, according to him, the Jews were “traditionalist” and they could not proceed with the development of age. Weber agrees with Sombart that Jews played a prominent role in the following fields: financing of governments, investment in military occupation of colonies, the creation of large Plants, trade and exchange. But he claims that Jews had not an important role in industrial production, which was in the foundation of capitalism. He wrote that: “The Jews are typical remnants of primary merchants”.
In response to Weber, Sombart gives many examples of the participation of Jews in the modern industry. He initially refers to recognition difficulty of the role of Jews in stock companies; he writes:

“For example, many people [of Germany] know that Mr. Hagen of cologne having the membership rights of the boards of companies more than anyone else his original name is “Levi”!
However, based on accessible information and well-known Jewish names, Sombart presents that 24.4 percent of board members and 13.3 percent of CEOs of Germany’s different companies in his time, in various industrial fields ranging from textile industries to metallurgy and electronics and chemicals, are Jews.

Sombart refers to strict contribution of the Jews in capitalism of United States of America. Despite the fact, according to the media of this country, it is rarely written the name of Jews in the list of “multimillionaires”:
“Smelters’ trust”, which was created with a nominal capital of 201 million dollars in 1904, is a creation of Jewish Guggenheims. In all “Tobacco Trust”, “Asphalt Trust” “Telegraph Trust” and etc., the Jews have the leading role. Sombart adds:

Let’s look at Harriman railroad conglomerate. This conglomerate is mainly based on the funds of “Kuhn Loeb” company, a famous institution of New York Bank.

Sombart believes California is one of main focuses of the Jews that many its important state positions from judgment to the government and etc., were at the Jews’ disposal from the beginning. During the exploration age of gold, Jews were intermediaries between California and Eastern states of America and Europe continent. The important financial operations of that time were performed by men such as “Benjamin Davidson” (the broker of Rothschild’s family), “Albert Priest” in Rhode Island, “Albert Dyer” in Baltimore, the three brothers of “Lazard” who had an International Banking Center in Paris, London and San Francisco, “Seligman”, “Glazier” and “Wormser” families.
According to Sombart, the great part of America's banking system was at the Jews’ disposal. He refers to “London, Paris and America Bank” (owned by “Sigmund Greenbaum” and “Richard Atshul”), “Anglo-Californian Bank (owned by “Lilienthal” and “Ignatz Steinhart”), “Nevada Bank”, “Union Trust Company”, “Farmers’ and merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles” and etc.
“John Rosenfeld” retains control over the coal mines of United States of America. “Alaska Commercial Company”, which transformed to the “Hudson Bay Company”, “North America Commercial Company” and so on all belonged to the Jews. Jews exclusively have the significant economic branches of United States of America such as wheat, tobacco, and cotton trades and etc., at their disposal. Sombart adds: “Let’s note that now (1911) more than a million Jews live just in New York, many of whom have not yet entered into the capitalism cycle”.