Jerry Z. Muller

On his book Capitalism and the Jews

Cover Interview of June 13, 2010

Lastly

Capitalism and the Jews tries to make historical and social scientific sense of patterns in modern history that for a variety of reasons tend to be neglected by social scientists.

I draw upon a range of social sciences, and try to bring together the work of many historians who have dealt with one or another of the history of the economic, social, political and cultural histories of the Jews. Yet I deliberately wrote so that the book would be accessible to a broad educated public.

In a brief book, Capitalism and the Jews covers a great deal of historical ground—ranging from medieval Europe, to contemporary America and Israel.

polemics / justice / social mobility / politics / capitalism / money / equality / economic history / communism / jewish heritage /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009