Conceptual history of “capitalism”

Abstract

This article presents the philosophical reconstruction of the concept of «capitalism». The key thesis is that K. Marx was not the creator of the concept «capitalism», he used the term «capitalist mode of production». This text introduces the consistent philosophical reflection on the emergence and formation the concept of «capitalism» from the very beginning of its first references in the political literature in Germany and France and completing the introduction of the concept into the academic discourse as a stable term. The article shows the significance of Shaeffle’s work as earlier and important for the development of the concept «capitalism» in contrast to steady concept that Sombart was the first popularizer of the concept and introduced it into the academic use. Shaeffle’s work has been shown to be important in receiving a neutral meaning of the concept of «capitalism» through it convergences with the concept of «liberalism», having lost its negative political connotations, that prepared the ground for the start of its academic history. In this text, Sombart and Weber are represented not only as the pioneers of the concept of «capitalism» as the part of academic discourse, but also as the scholars who made the capitalism one type of ideology connecting it with the concept of «spirit», embodying the specific type of capitalist rationality. The particular philosophical reconstruction of the generation of the concept of «capitalism» shown how the dynamic, developing, unstable concept of «capitalism» became firstly the ideological concept and then the main basis for the formation of rational/calculative New Time subject.   

Keywords:

philosophy of capitalism, capitalist rationality, liberalism, socialism, A. Shaeffle, K. Marx