Excerpt from Jews, Race, and Environment (1911; New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2006), 541–44.
For biographical information on Maurice Fishberg, see the note at the beginning of selection 3. On the history of European debates about the Jews and the economy, including the Jews and capitalism, see Derek Penslar, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
Certain peculiarities have been noted by many authors while speaking of the Jewish merchant and artisan. There appears to prevail a superstition that the Jew is superior to any merchant of other faith, as a trader. Some think he is more “smart,” “clever,” “calculating,” and so forth. Ruppin thinks that all these and other terms are inadequate, and do not completely describe the Jewish superiority in this regard. He coins the word “intellectualismus,” and says that the superior intellectuality of the Jew explains his success in business. He [Ruppin] agrees, however, that the English are just as good as the Jews, while they are no match at all for the Americans, who are much better businessmen.6 Both friends and enemies of the Jews thus often exaggerate the so-called Jewish commercial spirit, which on investigation proves to be a pure legend. There is no question that during the Middle Ages, when the higher classes of the European population looked down at commerce, the Jews, meeting with little or no competition, excelled as merchants. At the present, also, in Eastern Europe they excel because the bulk of the population is agricultural, while the cultured classes devote themselves mostly to military or professional pursuits. This is especially the case in Rumania, where the Christian natives sadly neglect mercantile pursuits; the [members of the] richer class live on the incomes from their estates, or pursue military or professional pursuits, while the common people are mostly peasants, and to a smaller degree artisans who are kept in ignorance, so that over 90 percent of the population is illiterate. Of course here the Jew excels in business, though the Greeks in that country are at least as good, if not better, at commerce. For similar reasons the Jews succeed in other parts of Eastern Europe. But many of the Russian and Polish merchants are unquestionably shrewder and more successful in business than the Jews. A good public school system for the Christian population of Eastern Europe could within a few decades educate the common people so that they would rival the Jews in commerce. In addition it must be mentioned that most other religious minorities seem to develop good business capacity while living among a hostile majority. The Greeks and Armenians in Turkey are good examples. “The Armenian in a foreign land is an artisan, laborer, trader, merchant, banker, speculator, and so on, but never an agriculturist, as at home,” says Rohrbach. It is particularly interesting to note that the Armenian merchants enjoy about the same evil reputation as the Jewish merchants in Eastern Europe. When inquiries are made in the Caucasus about the Armenians, a German, Georgian, Russian, or anybody else volunteers the information that they are despicable swindlers. It is well known that in the Orient three ascending degrees of fraudulent businessmen are proverbially known: one Greek is as bad as two Jews; one Armenian is as bad as two Greeks; and two Armenians are as bad as the devil. The opinion about the Armenian is not unanimously accepted. Sometimes it is said that two Greeks are as bad as the devil.7 It is curious to note that Rohrbach’s description of the condition of the Armenians in the Caucasus is exactly the same as that commonly given of the Jews in Eastern Europe. It appears that they are mainly the merchants and middlemen of that region. Anyone who wants to do any kind of business must come in contact with them. The result is that there is hardly an inhabitant of the Caucasus who has had no business transaction of any kind with an Armenian, and perhaps has even been cheated by him, which is almost inevitable, considering the bargaining and business methods of the East. The result is that nearly everybody bears testimony as to the unscrupulousness of the Armenian. The same is true about the Jews in Eastern Europe. The Russians, Poles, and others cannot successfully compete with the Jews, simply because the latter never drink to excess and assiduously attend to their affairs. When they meet, however, with Greeks, Armenians, and others who are equally sober and persevering, they do not excel at all; while with the Chinese they cannot even compare as traders, as has been repeatedly shown by many observers. Their poverty in Eastern Europe bears good testimony that they are not such good businessmen as they are reputed to be. To ascribe to them superior qualifications in this regard is absurd. Any other civilized people placed in the same position would be as successful in business as the Jews.
In a study of the Jewish spirit in modern commercial life, Sombart8 brings forward considerable evidence to the effect that the Jews in Europe were the first to discard the ancient trade traditions which considered it unethical for a merchant to undersell another; to be satisfied with small profits on large and brisk sales; to occasionally sell at a loss when advisable to get rid of a certain line of goods or to push out a competitor; to sell on the installment plan; and above all, to advertise in newspapers and otherwise, and thus create a demand for their goods.9 It is problematical whether they were alone in the field with these business methods during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It seems to me that because they constituted the majority of the people engaged in commerce in those days, they were the most conspicuous, and for that reason Christian merchants of Germany, France, England, and so forth have complained that they are crowding them out, as Sombart shows. At any rate, at present they [the Jews] are not alone in this field. All successful business of today is conducted on these principles. To call this the “Jewish capitalistic method,” as Sombart does, and ascribe it to race characteristics of the Jews is not justified. The most that can be said is that being the first merchants in Europe with international connections, brought about through historical vicissitudes, they were ahead of their time. Even at this game the English, and especially the Americans, have outdone them during the last fifty years.
6. A. Ruppin, Die Juden der Gegenwart, pp. 176–178.
7. P. Rohrbach, In Turan and Armenien, pp. 214, 203. Quoted from Ruppin, Zeitsch. Demographie und Statistik der Juden, pp. 177–181; 1907.
8. [Werner Sombart (1863–1941) was a German sociologist and national economist. His well-known and controversial Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (The Jews and modern capitalism) was published in 1911; it was translated into English by M. Epstein (New York: Collier, 1962).]
9. Werner Sombart, “Jüdischer Geist in modernen Wirtschaftsleben,” Die Neue Rundschau, pp. 585–615, May 1910.