Petty bourgeois resentment blamed Jews for the competitive system that displaced them

Evidence

The lower middle classes, or petty bourgeoisie, were the descendants of the guilds of artisans and tradesmen who for centuries had been protected against the hazards of life by a closed system which outlawed competition and was in the last instance under the protection of the state. They consequently blamed their misfortune upon the Manchester system, which had exposed them to the hardships of a competitive society and deprived them of all special protection and privileges granted by public authorities. They were, therefore, the first to clamor for the “welfare state,” which they expected not only to shield them against emergencies but to keep them in the professions and callings they had inherited from their families. Since an outstanding characteristic of the century of free trade was the access of the Jews to all professions, it was almost a matter of course to think of the Jews as the representatives of the “applied system of Manchester carried out to the extreme,” even though nothing was farther from the truth. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 142

Categorization

• XREF: This explains a mechanism of scapegoating class grievance onto Jews, a precursor to the ‘Jews as invisible force’ trope Arendt develops later — connects to how colonized peoples were similarly blamed for abstract systems. — connects to: Jews drew hatred because they carried capitalism into pre-capitalist economies — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132; Jewish economic roles made them appear as capitalism’s aggressive face to oppressed masses; Jews’ economic roles made them scapegoats for capitalist misery. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1539 (+1 more)