Abstract In this article economist Werner Sombart attempts to trace several causal factors which led eventually to the emergence of a capitalist civilization. The essential features are the profit motive and rationality; an exchange economy, in which the material requirements of several trades are satisfied by free exchanges of equivalent goods or money, may be either artisanal or capitalistic. Sombart takes as his point of departure a precapitalistic feudal society in early medieval Europe when a sufficiency for existence was the goal of every man. The spirit of enterprise manifests itself in personalities like the "freebooter," the "speculator" and the "projector" who rely on robbery of economic surpluses created by others to form the capital necessary for their undertakings. Sombart was undistinguished as a forecaster. Writing shortly before World War I he predicted an end to large-scale wars, a declining world population and the impending disappearance of capitalism. Besides a defective telescopic vision, however, he also displayed attenuated historical perspective, attributable in some measure to the paucity of source material then at his disposal.
Kenneth S. Most (Sun,) studied this question.
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