Imperial Germany And The Industrial Revolution

by Thorstein Veblen

Overview

IMPERIAL GERMANY AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. PREFACE: Some apology may seem due on offering at this season so unwarlike a study as what here follows on the case of Imperial Germany and its place in modern civilisation. The essay was projected before the current war came on, though the complexion of subsequent events has also doubtless had its effect o the particular direction taken by the argument at more than one point in the inquiry. The inquiry in hand, therefore, is concerhedeittjer with the controverted merits of the internationaTquarrel nor with the comparative force and probable success of either belligerent. Its aim is the less polemical one of a comparison and correlation between the German case on the one hand and the English speaking peoples on the other hand, considered as two distinct and somewhat divergent lines of the cultural development in modern times and the ground on which the inquiry runs is that afforded by the economic, chiefly the industrial, cir cumstances that have shaped the outcome in either case. It aims to account for Germanys industrial advance and high efficiency by natural causes, without drawing on the logic of manifest destiny, Providential nepotism, national genius, and the like. It is believed to be the first attempt yet made at an explanation, as distinct from description or eulogy, of this episode in modern economic history unless Professor Sombarts Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im Jahrhundert may be so regarded. Apart from Professor Sombarts study of this period, it is believed, nothing of consequence has appeared in the way of a theoretical inquiry into this Imperial era and the run of its industrial affairs, although many scholarly and workmanlike studies have presented the run of the facts from one point of view and another. There is of course no intention here to impart information on the history of this period, whether political or economic 5 and the historical information made use of as material for argument is of the commonplace kind familiar by common notoriety or from the standard manuals accessible to all readers. Anything like a comprehensive citation of sources and authorities has accordingly been dispensed with, though citations and references covering given points have been brought in where special occasion appeared to call for it. The argument runs between the lines of the histories, as conventionally written, and does not lean on recondite mate rial or niceties of detail. To English readers, it is true, the chapter on the Old Order may appear in part to rest on recondite information. The argument bearing on this topic presumes a degree of familiarity with the archseology of the Baltic region, to gether with a fairly exhaustive firsthand acquaintance with what there is extant of literary remains in the Old Icelandic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781443723343
Publisher:	Hesperides Press
Publication date:	11/04/2008
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

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CHAPTER III The Dynastic State What befell the Germanic peoples through the ages '',, that lie between prehistoric paganism and the late-modern period, whether within their ancient habitat on the Baltic seaboard, or abroad in those seats of conquest and immigration that have since come to be spoken of as the Fatherland, — all that does not concern this inquiry. Just as the particular fortunes of these peoples in prehistoric antiquity have also no interest in this connection, except as the recital may serve to show what is the hereditary racial bent of this population that so lived and thrived under that archaic state of culture. That they did so live and thrive goes to prove that that archaic culture, and the state of the industrial arts in which it was grounded, were suited to their temperamental bent. This hereditary type of human nature, so shown in the working-out of this characteristic culture of pagan antiquity, is of interest in this connection because it is the same human nature with which these peoples today go to their work of getting a living under the conditions offered by the technology of today. A summary paragraph in the way of a conspectus may therefore be in place. By and large, all these north- European peoples that live within the climatic region of the Baltic-North Sea littoral are of one racial complexion, irrespective of language or nationality. They are all of a composite derivation, a hybrid population made up of some three (or more) racial stocks, with minor contingents thrown in sporadically; the composition of this population varying only by negligible differences from west to east, and varying north and south after a systematic fashion, in respectof the relative proportion in which the several racial constituents enter in the hybrid mixture,—...