THE FORMATION OF A “SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM” IN UPPER GERMANY: LEONHARD FRONSPERGER’S (1564) “ON THE PRAISE OF SELF-INTEREST”

Rainer Klump, Lars Pilz and Jhet Assistant

No 4ztvd, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: In 1564 Leonhard Fronsperger, a military expert and citizen of the Free Imperial City of Ulm in Upper Germany, publishes a booklet “On the Praise of Self-Interest” (“Von dem Lob deß Eigen Nutzen”). Using the form of a satirical poem, he demonstrates how the individual pursuit of self-interest can lead to the common good. Writing long before Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith, Fronsperger presents a thorough analysis of all kinds of self-interested social, political and economic relations. His praise of self-interest demonstrates how over the sixteenth century the interplay of economic success (in particular in major trading cities), a more realistic conception of human behavior and some aspects of Humanism and the Reformation led to a new understanding of the origins of economic dynamics. This became the basis for what Weber (1904-05/2009) would later term “the spirit of capitalism”.

Date: 2020-08-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme and nep-hpe
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:4ztvd

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/4ztvd

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