Eastern European Jews formed a middle class without productive functions
Evidence
This position of the stranger stands out more sharply if, instead of leaving the place of his activity, he settles down there. In innumerable cases even this is possible only if he can live by trade as a middleman. Any closed economic group where land and handicrafts have been apportioned in a way that satisfies local demands will still support a livelihood for the trader. For trade alone makes possible unlimited combinations, and through it intelligence is constantly extended and applied in new areas, something that is much harder for the primary producer with his more limited mobility and his dependence on a circle of customers that can be expanded only very slowly. Trade can always absorb more men than can primary production. … The classic example of this is the history of European Jews. The stranger is by his very nature no owner of land—land not only in the physical sense but also metaphorically as a vital substance which is fixed, if not in space, then at least in an ideal position within the social environment. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 391 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Jews existed between social classes rather than within any one of them.; Rich Jews financed ventures but abstained from industrial ownership and power.; Jews formed a state-defined group outside the class system (+4 more)
Related
- Trade is the stranger’s natural occupation, exemplified by European Jews (similarity 0.88)
- Historically the trader role was filled by strangers (similarity 0.80)
- Eastern European Jews formed a parasitic seeming middle class that blocked capitalist development (similarity 0.79)
- Jewish cultural productivity derived from their inter-European non-national role. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Trade is the stranger’s natural occupation, exemplified by European Jews
#complicates(0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 391