Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

286 Economics
able monographs which have rarely been used, even by historians ... if generalization
is entirely ruled out history, too, ultimately ceases to be a science.
If the historical school did not succeed in rebutting classical economics, no
false modesty prevented it from showing up its own weaknesses; but the heavy
volumes published by its followers can hardly be called interesting.
This, however, does not apply to the works of Werner Sombart or Max Weber,
of the younger generation in the historical school, who set out to counteract its
theoretical nihilism. Both relied on the scientific contribution of Marx to provide
different replies to the problems he had raised. Sombart was quite candid:
‘By the ingenious way in which he posed the problems, Marx opened the way to
fertile research for a whole century. Any economist who failed to understand
the questions he had put were doomed to sterility. ..’ (Das Wirtschaftsleben im
Zeitalter des Hochkapitalismus, Munich-Lepizig, 1929, p. xix). Weber’s approach
to Marx was similar.
This is not the place to go into the details of this discussion, which still surprises
even today by its deep understanding of the Marxist revolt and its significance
for the development of the social sciences; or to analyze the idea of the
spirit of capitalism derived from the philosophy of Hegel, which played so important
a r61e in the explanation which Sombart and Weber gave of the origin
and triumphant progress of the capitalist entrepreneur. It wil suffice to mention,
only, their ambitious idea of a comprehensive economic science concentrating
(as Marx had already done) on the crucial theoretical problem of the origin and
development of the capitalist social and economic structure. Their search for
general economic principles carried them beyond the restricted research of their
predecessors (limited mostly to distribution problems), to the problems of production
techniques and the social organization of labour in the broadest sense,
economic activity being always considered in conjunction with the analysis of
the class structure of society.
The Sombart and Weber critique of the historical school mined it from within.
It rehabilitated economics as a theoretical science, but really constituted an
epilogue to historicism as a school. As a practical model for the elaboration of
an integrated social science, the works of Sombart and Weber might have had a
considerable influence on at least three disciplines : sociology, economics and
history (economic history in particular). However, this did not occur. Sociologists
and other writers acknowledged their value and interest, but their influence
on the development of the social sciences has been marginal, except in America,
where C. Wright Mills has done much to popularize them.
There are doubtless many reasons for the lack of success of a social research
programme which seemed so promising. Sombart and Weber published in German,
and Nazism and the second world war interrupted all normal exchanges
about social methods and ideas between Germany and the rest of the world.
However, certain intrinsic weaknesses in the comprehensive economics approach
prevented it, especially then, from developing on the ambitious lines that
Sombart and Weber suggested. What were the particular features of the time?
During the three decades between the beginning of the first world war and the
end of the second, there was an urgent social need for a pragmatic type of econom-