On anti-capitalism and anti-Semitism
5 September 2024
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Economic Theory
Society and Culture
5 September 2024
Religious anti-Semitism and economic anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is much older than anti-capitalism. In her dissertation Antisemitismus im Lichte der modernen Vorurteilsforschung (“Antisemitism in Light of Modern Prejudice Research”), Susan Gniechwitz demonstrates that the prevailing modern anti-Semitic stereotype differs markedly from the stereotype that dominated during early Christianity and the Middle Ages. Gniechwitz documents a noticeable decline in religious antisemitism and a huge rise in statements focusing on the economic behavior of Jewish people. These economic stereotypes “have become so prevalent that they now form the core of the modern anti-Semitic stereotype.” This is certainly true in modern, western secularised societies.
Marxism and anti-Semitism
Of course, there are anti-Semites whose hatred of Jews is not motivated by anti-capitalism (but by religion, for example) and many anti-capitalists are not anti-Semites. But it is equally clear that there is a notable connection between antisemitism and anti-capitalism. Karl Marx was himself Jewish, but he was undoubtedly anti-Semitic. He wrote to a friend that the Jewish religion was “repugnant” to him. The reason was that Marx accused the Jews of having made money their true god, as he wrote in an essay On the Jewish Question: “What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.”
The strong connection between anti-capitalism and antisemitism is evident here: the criticism is directed at perceived egoism and materialism, traits that Marx associated with both Judaism and capitalism.
These statements from Marx are by no means isolated lapses; there are plenty of other similar examples. At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that there were also numerous socialists who staunchly opposed racism and antisemitism.
Anti-Semitism in the West
Of course, not every anti-capitalist is also an anti-Semite. But it is striking how often the two seem to crop up together. The left-wing politician Klaus Lederer from the German Die Linke party recently said that he was surprised at the widespread prevalence of anti-Semitism within leftist circles: “People use anti-Semitism to make the world easier to understand. All of the perceived ills of capitalism are projected onto one group: the Jews.” This sentiment is particularly evident in universities, where anti-capitalists frequently espouse anti-Israel rhetoric. Lederer was surprised. I wasn’t, because I was well aware of this tradition. For example, on the 31st anniversary of the November pogrom of 1938, the left-wing extremist group “Tupamaros West Berlin” attempted to bomb the Jewish Community Centre. Members of the German RAF (Red Army Faction) terrorist organisation trained with left-wing Palestinian groups and worked together with the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). PFLP terrorists hijacked an airplane in October 1977 to free RAF terrorists. Horst Mahler was a lifelong anti-Semite and anti-capitalist. His path led him from the Marxist RAF to the neo-Nazi Party NPD.
Anti-Semitism under socialist regimes
The persecution of Jews under Stalin was not an isolated incident. The historian Michael Wolffsohn has shown that Jews were persecuted in socialist East Germany (GDR) and other socialist countries from 1949 to 1953. In the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, some Jews were even executed. Their only “offence,” according to Wolffsohn, was their Jewish heritage. As in other socialist states, officials in the GDR compiled “Jewish lists” in the early 1950s and 1967. “There is hardly any doubt that these were deportation lists,” says Wolffsohn. In Poland, the Communist Party spearheaded anti-Jewish campaigns, particularly in 1956 and 1968, which led to the majority of Holocaust survivors leaving Poland.
The commonality: conspiratorial thinking
Anti-capitalists and anti-Semites share one key trait: a strong tendency towards conspiracy thinking. While this is widely recognized in relation to anti-Semites, the same is not true in relation to anti-capitalists. I commissioned the world’s most detailed survey on anti-capitalism, the results of which were published in the journal Economic Affairs: in 34 out of 35 countries, anti-capitalists were more inclined to conspiracy thinking than pro-capitalists. The perceived enemies of anti-Semites and anti-capitalists frequently overlap, with both groups targeting wealthy individuals such as the Rothschilds and George Soros, whom they label “financial Jews.” In the eyes of anti-capitalists and anti-Semites alike, the super-rich are to blame for the world’s problems and are always lurking behind the scenes, secretly pulling the strings.
Findings from modern prejudice research
According to the “model of (often mixed) stereotype content,” which plays a major role in scientific prejudice research, the emotional perception of other social groups is determined by two dimensions. The first is “warmth”: groups can be stereotyped as warm and friendly, or as cold and unfriendly. The second dimension is competence, i.e. ability and proficiency. Groups that are perceived as competent but not warm are therefore met with mixed feelings of admiration and envy. According to researchers, these groups include Jews, the rich, and Asians.
Anti-capitalism and antisemitism both have an important motive: envy. For anti-capitalists, envy relates to the rich. I have also conducted studies on this and published them in the book The Rich In Public Opinion. Envy also plays a role for many anti-Semites. In their view, Jews are “overrepresented” in the financial sector in particular. By the mid-19th century, descriptions of Jewish wealth were already common: “They parade around, adorned with golden and silver pieces, with exquisite pearls and precious stones; at their weddings they dine from silver vessels and cover the table with so many bowls and confit, and finally they arrive in such splendid carriages with a postilion and large entourage.”
Anti-capitalism on the rise
There is no doubt that anti-capitalism is more prevalent in today’s society than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the world stage was dominated by influential figures such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Leszek Balcerowicz, and Deng Xiaoping. After the collapse of the socialist planned economies, people were convinced that capitalism was clearly the better system. However, the lessons learned from that era seem to have been forgotten and anti-capitalism now holds sway in many countries. The fact that anti-Semitism is also growing stronger again is also due to the fact that Islamism is gaining ground worldwide. This trend is particularly evident in the formation of a united front between Islamists and anti-capitalists at universities and demonstrations, fuelled by their shared animosity towards America and Israel. This is no coincidence.
The early 20th century
Werner Sombart’s 1911 book Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (“The Jews and Modern Capitalism”) was very influential. Sombart argued that as a “nomadic people,” Jews did not have a strong connection to the land. According to Sombart, they developed a unique affinity for the abstract concept of money, which gave them a distinct advantage in the realm of capitalism.
The late 19th century
The founder of the French Anti-Semitic League (Ligue antisémitique), Édouard Drumont, wrote in 1890: “The Semite is mercantile, covetous, scheming, subtle and cunning … The Semite is earthbound, with scarcely any concern for the life hereafter … The Semite is a businessman by instinct; he’s a born trader, dealing in everything imaginable, seizing every opportunity to get the better of the next man”. Such quotations highlight the intertwined nature of antisemitism, hatred of the rich, and anti-capitalist sentiments. Drumont was one of the founders of modern anti-Semitism, as was the socialist Eugen Dühring.
National Socialism
Hitler’s animosity towards Jews was not religiously motivated, but anti-capitalist. This was clearly articulated in his early speeches, such as the one delivered on August 13, 1920, on the topic “Why are we anti-Semites?”, in which he attacked the “international stock market and loan capital,” whose sponsors, he alleged, were the Jews: “Therefore this capital grew and today rules practically the whole world, immeasurable as to the amounts, inconceivable in its gigantic relationships, uncannily growing and – the worst part – completely corrupting all honest work, because that is the horrible part, that the normal human being who today has to bear the burden of the interest on this capital has to stand by and see how despite diligence, industry, thrift, despite real work, hardly anything is left to him with which only to feed himself, and even less to clothe himself, at the same time as this international capital devours billions in interest alone which he has to help pay, at the same time in which a racial class is spreading itself out in the state which does not do any other work than to collect interest for itself and to cut coupons.“ More recently, the political scientist Jürgen W. Falter has analysed what motivated people to join the NSDAP and found that anti-Semitic and anti-capitalist attitudes often went hand in hand.
The chimera of “Jewish Bolshevism”
Initially, Hitler believed in the thesis of “Jewish Bolshevism.” But in the Second Book, he wrote: “Indeed, it would be conceivable that in Russia itself an inner change could occur within the Bolshevik world, such that the Jewish element could perhaps be displaced by a more or less Russian nationalist element.“ What started as an assumption in 1928 became a certainty for Hitler in the 1940s. We know from his monologues at the Führer’s headquarters that he increasingly admired Stalin. According to Hitler, Stalin had made no secret of the fact to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop “that he was only waiting for the moment of maturity of their own intelligentsia in the USSR in order to make an end of the Jewry he still needed as a ruling class.” This, and above all the planned economy in the Soviet Union, which in Hitler’s opinion was far superior to that of the capitalist USA, were the reasons why he so admired Stalin.
This article is based on an interview with the author in the September edition of the Jüdische Rundschau, a German-Jewish monthly review. Dr Zitelmann is the author of the book Hitler’s National Socialism, previously reviewed on the IEA blog.
Antisemitism is much older than anti-capitalism. In her dissertation Antisemitismus im Lichte der modernen Vorurteilsforschung (“Antisemitism in Light of Modern Prejudice Research”), Susan Gniechwitz demonstrates that the prevailing modern anti-Semitic stereotype differs markedly from the stereotype that dominated during early Christianity and the Middle Ages. Gniechwitz documents a noticeable decline in religious antisemitism and a huge rise in statements focusing on the economic behavior of Jewish people. These economic stereotypes “have become so prevalent that they now form the core of the modern anti-Semitic stereotype.” This is certainly true in modern, western secularised societies.
Marxism and anti-Semitism
Of course, there are anti-Semites whose hatred of Jews is not motivated by anti-capitalism (but by religion, for example) and many anti-capitalists are not anti-Semites. But it is equally clear that there is a notable connection between antisemitism and anti-capitalism. Karl Marx was himself Jewish, but he was undoubtedly anti-Semitic. He wrote to a friend that the Jewish religion was “repugnant” to him. The reason was that Marx accused the Jews of having made money their true god, as he wrote in an essay On the Jewish Question: “What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.”
The strong connection between anti-capitalism and antisemitism is evident here: the criticism is directed at perceived egoism and materialism, traits that Marx associated with both Judaism and capitalism.
These statements from Marx are by no means isolated lapses; there are plenty of other similar examples. At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that there were also numerous socialists who staunchly opposed racism and antisemitism.
Anti-Semitism in the West
Of course, not every anti-capitalist is also an anti-Semite. But it is striking how often the two seem to crop up together. The left-wing politician Klaus Lederer from the German Die Linke party recently said that he was surprised at the widespread prevalence of anti-Semitism within leftist circles: “People use anti-Semitism to make the world easier to understand. All of the perceived ills of capitalism are projected onto one group: the Jews.” This sentiment is particularly evident in universities, where anti-capitalists frequently espouse anti-Israel rhetoric. Lederer was surprised. I wasn’t, because I was well aware of this tradition. For example, on the 31st anniversary of the November pogrom of 1938, the left-wing extremist group “Tupamaros West Berlin” attempted to bomb the Jewish Community Centre. Members of the German RAF (Red Army Faction) terrorist organisation trained with left-wing Palestinian groups and worked together with the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). PFLP terrorists hijacked an airplane in October 1977 to free RAF terrorists. Horst Mahler was a lifelong anti-Semite and anti-capitalist. His path led him from the Marxist RAF to the neo-Nazi Party NPD.
Anti-Semitism under socialist regimes
The persecution of Jews under Stalin was not an isolated incident. The historian Michael Wolffsohn has shown that Jews were persecuted in socialist East Germany (GDR) and other socialist countries from 1949 to 1953. In the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, some Jews were even executed. Their only “offence,” according to Wolffsohn, was their Jewish heritage. As in other socialist states, officials in the GDR compiled “Jewish lists” in the early 1950s and 1967. “There is hardly any doubt that these were deportation lists,” says Wolffsohn. In Poland, the Communist Party spearheaded anti-Jewish campaigns, particularly in 1956 and 1968, which led to the majority of Holocaust survivors leaving Poland.
The commonality: conspiratorial thinking
Anti-capitalists and anti-Semites share one key trait: a strong tendency towards conspiracy thinking. While this is widely recognized in relation to anti-Semites, the same is not true in relation to anti-capitalists. I commissioned the world’s most detailed survey on anti-capitalism, the results of which were published in the journal Economic Affairs: in 34 out of 35 countries, anti-capitalists were more inclined to conspiracy thinking than pro-capitalists. The perceived enemies of anti-Semites and anti-capitalists frequently overlap, with both groups targeting wealthy individuals such as the Rothschilds and George Soros, whom they label “financial Jews.” In the eyes of anti-capitalists and anti-Semites alike, the super-rich are to blame for the world’s problems and are always lurking behind the scenes, secretly pulling the strings.
Findings from modern prejudice research
According to the “model of (often mixed) stereotype content,” which plays a major role in scientific prejudice research, the emotional perception of other social groups is determined by two dimensions. The first is “warmth”: groups can be stereotyped as warm and friendly, or as cold and unfriendly. The second dimension is competence, i.e. ability and proficiency. Groups that are perceived as competent but not warm are therefore met with mixed feelings of admiration and envy. According to researchers, these groups include Jews, the rich, and Asians.
Anti-capitalism and antisemitism both have an important motive: envy. For anti-capitalists, envy relates to the rich. I have also conducted studies on this and published them in the book The Rich In Public Opinion. Envy also plays a role for many anti-Semites. In their view, Jews are “overrepresented” in the financial sector in particular. By the mid-19th century, descriptions of Jewish wealth were already common: “They parade around, adorned with golden and silver pieces, with exquisite pearls and precious stones; at their weddings they dine from silver vessels and cover the table with so many bowls and confit, and finally they arrive in such splendid carriages with a postilion and large entourage.”
Anti-capitalism on the rise
There is no doubt that anti-capitalism is more prevalent in today’s society than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the world stage was dominated by influential figures such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Leszek Balcerowicz, and Deng Xiaoping. After the collapse of the socialist planned economies, people were convinced that capitalism was clearly the better system. However, the lessons learned from that era seem to have been forgotten and anti-capitalism now holds sway in many countries. The fact that anti-Semitism is also growing stronger again is also due to the fact that Islamism is gaining ground worldwide. This trend is particularly evident in the formation of a united front between Islamists and anti-capitalists at universities and demonstrations, fuelled by their shared animosity towards America and Israel. This is no coincidence.
The early 20th century
Werner Sombart’s 1911 book Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (“The Jews and Modern Capitalism”) was very influential. Sombart argued that as a “nomadic people,” Jews did not have a strong connection to the land. According to Sombart, they developed a unique affinity for the abstract concept of money, which gave them a distinct advantage in the realm of capitalism.
The late 19th century
The founder of the French Anti-Semitic League (Ligue antisémitique), Édouard Drumont, wrote in 1890: “The Semite is mercantile, covetous, scheming, subtle and cunning … The Semite is earthbound, with scarcely any concern for the life hereafter … The Semite is a businessman by instinct; he’s a born trader, dealing in everything imaginable, seizing every opportunity to get the better of the next man”. Such quotations highlight the intertwined nature of antisemitism, hatred of the rich, and anti-capitalist sentiments. Drumont was one of the founders of modern anti-Semitism, as was the socialist Eugen Dühring.
National Socialism
Hitler’s animosity towards Jews was not religiously motivated, but anti-capitalist. This was clearly articulated in his early speeches, such as the one delivered on August 13, 1920, on the topic “Why are we anti-Semites?”, in which he attacked the “international stock market and loan capital,” whose sponsors, he alleged, were the Jews: “Therefore this capital grew and today rules practically the whole world, immeasurable as to the amounts, inconceivable in its gigantic relationships, uncannily growing and – the worst part – completely corrupting all honest work, because that is the horrible part, that the normal human being who today has to bear the burden of the interest on this capital has to stand by and see how despite diligence, industry, thrift, despite real work, hardly anything is left to him with which only to feed himself, and even less to clothe himself, at the same time as this international capital devours billions in interest alone which he has to help pay, at the same time in which a racial class is spreading itself out in the state which does not do any other work than to collect interest for itself and to cut coupons.“ More recently, the political scientist Jürgen W. Falter has analysed what motivated people to join the NSDAP and found that anti-Semitic and anti-capitalist attitudes often went hand in hand.
The chimera of “Jewish Bolshevism”
Initially, Hitler believed in the thesis of “Jewish Bolshevism.” But in the Second Book, he wrote: “Indeed, it would be conceivable that in Russia itself an inner change could occur within the Bolshevik world, such that the Jewish element could perhaps be displaced by a more or less Russian nationalist element.“ What started as an assumption in 1928 became a certainty for Hitler in the 1940s. We know from his monologues at the Führer’s headquarters that he increasingly admired Stalin. According to Hitler, Stalin had made no secret of the fact to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop “that he was only waiting for the moment of maturity of their own intelligentsia in the USSR in order to make an end of the Jewry he still needed as a ruling class.” This, and above all the planned economy in the Soviet Union, which in Hitler’s opinion was far superior to that of the capitalist USA, were the reasons why he so admired Stalin.
This article is based on an interview with the author in the September edition of the Jüdische Rundschau, a German-Jewish monthly review. Dr Zitelmann is the author of the book Hitler’s National Socialism, previously reviewed on the IEA blog.
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