ABSTRACT
Man is the result of his fortunes, the term ‘fortune’ meaning both ‘wealth’ and ‘a hypothetical force unpredictably influencing events’. This proposition becomes especially meaningful when referred to men living in a capitalist society. There is no special insight in the idea that human nature cannot be defined by abstracting it from history and that rather it is the result of an unpredictable evolutionary process. More incisive, though, is the observation that history has led to a cultural and institutional setting in which human behaviour is conditioned by the economic dimension of life to the point where human substance is reduced to the accumulation of wealth and power. Certainly this observation is useful in an investigation focusing on the institutions of capitalism and their influences on individual behaviour.
