ABSTRACT
This methodological introduction to the text of The Jews and Modern Capitalism has two main sections. The first is an inquiry into the way Sombart believed one should construct a social theory, in general, and then into the way he constructed a theory of capitalist economic relations, in particular. The second is Sombart's analysis of the role of the Jewish geist, or spirit, in the emergence of a capitalist economy. The idealist cultural scientist resists conceptualizing social reality by means of general laws based on variability in the values of abstracted attributes. The capitalist cultural configuration emerges in the encounter between the contrasting Jewish and European spirits. The spirits of national groupings, which are also natural groupings, may interact. German, English, and other European spirits interacted with the Jewish spirit in the formation of capitalism. When the sexuality of a nation is freely expressed, wealth accumulates.
