{"title":"New Law for New Enterprises: Cooperative Law in Germany, 1867–1889","authors":"T. Guinnane","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The first modern German cooperatives began operations in the 1840s and faced, among other challenges, unfriendly legal rules. In Prussia, cooperatives experienced official harassment as allies of the then-oppositional Liberals. More importantly, cooperatives lacked the right to act as bodies, forcing them to engage in expensive legal workarounds for simple tasks such as contracting debts. The first German cooperatives law, Prussia’s 1867 Act, made clear the cooperatives had a right to exist and gave them the right to act as entities. Further development in the cooperative movement exposed flaws in the original act. The 1889 (Reich) Cooperatives Act legalized some organizational differences in the newer, rural cooperatives, and introduced compulsory external audits for cooperatives. Most famously, the 1889 Act first allowed cooperatives with limited liability, a step that made German cooperatives more similar to those elsewhere in Europe. The historical literature on cooperatives has neglected two important parts of this story: problems with the way unlimited liability operated under the 1867 Act, and the close connection between cooperative and company law.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124605839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Führen digitales Geld und digitale Bezahlsysteme zu finanzieller Inklusion und Wirtschaftswachstum?","authors":"Verena Pleitgen","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article discusses current proposals and developments in digital currencies and digital payment systems. The focus is on projects for the introduction of central bank digital currencies, cryptocurrencies, the experiences from the Unified Payments Interface in India, E-Wallets and similar offers from big technology companies and the Libra project. Against this background the article tried to shed light on the question of financial inclusion and economic growth as there are still a great number of people without access to bank accounts or internet access worldwide.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"210 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116449244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-frontmatter2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-frontmatter2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127897192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nachruf auf Toni Pierenkemper (17. Oktober 1944 bis 19. Juli 2019)","authors":"R. Tilly","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"116 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124343881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Sinn? Unternehmer zwischen Gottesfurcht und Marktglaube im modernen Kapitalismus","authors":"M. Lutz, B. Gehlen","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This issue takes a critical look at the secularity of the modern businessman as frequently postulated in research. For this purpose, the contributions examine the contingency management and interpretation of meaning on the part of both genuinely religious and non-religious businesspeople. How, and with which references, symbolisms and semantics, did businesspeople justify their actions and give them meaning? While some legitimised their actions by grounding these in religious belief, for others a belief in the market’s productive forces offered a preferable interpretation. In both cases, the actors constructed their respective \"promises of salvation\" in a similar way, attempting to give their actions meaning and eliminate self-doubt through ostentatious, ritualized and symbolic communication. This special issue ties in with current discussions in social science and history about the relationship between religion and the economy. By drawing on cultural historical approaches, it offers new insights into the legitimation of entrepreneurial action in modern capitalism.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114611794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Der Wirtschaftshistorische Ausschuss des Vereins für Socialpolitik","authors":"J. Hesse","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Economic History Committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik was founded 70 years ago as the first interest group for economic and social history in Germany. As did its five counterparts of other subfields in economics, the committee aimed at intensifying academic exchange in this field. Furthermore, it served as a lobby organisation for the discipline in the fast changing politics of higher education in Germany. It therefore can be considered as an important step in the discipline’s professionalization. The article gives a brief overview of the development of economic history in Germany starting with the Historical School at the end of the 19th century. The second part is dedicated to the institutional and academic history of the committee using archival documentation.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"71 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126214484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wettbewerb als „Glaubensbekenntnis“? „Religiöse“ Semantiken im Deutschen Handelstag (1861–1914)","authors":"B. Gehlen","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract On the basis of general discussions, the paper examines the “religious” functions of competition within the Deutsche Handelstag: firstly, the sensegiving function of “competition”, secondly, its relevance in questions of interest policy and thirdly, semantic change and ritualised communication. By referring to cultural studies approaches, the paper shows that institutions and market practices were discursively (or “religiously”) rationalised and legitimised even if they had nothing in common with competition anymore. The concept of competition remained undefined in content, was sometimes only ritualised rhetoric and changed semantically as was opportune. Nevertheless, given that interest politics are specific to space and time, an analysis cannot solely rely on abstract cultural studies approaches: The DHT's policy positions cannot be explained by “religious” belief in competition alone as pragmatism was strong. At the same time, a cultural studies perspective contributes to a better understanding of the logic of organisation because it focuses on the changes in semantics and (ritualised) acts of self-assurance.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"201 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127403635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"„Große Unternehmungen sind dringend zu widerraten“ – Die Wirtschaft der Deutschen Brüderunität zwischen Ideal und Reform","authors":"Susanne Kokel","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines the process of the fundamental reform undertaken by the Moravian Brethren in Germany at the end of the 19th century, building a separate and professionally managed business area within the church. An analysis of institutions, practices and semantics helps to explain this institutional change of a religious entrepreneur. Finally, the case of Sunday work in the church-owned companies illustrates the conditions set for corporate practices by the new institutional structure.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126293731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Polanyi und North","authors":"B. P. Priddat","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Douglass C. North developed his institutional economics in critical contrast to Polanyi’s reciprocity/exchange scheme. More precise analysis, however, allows North’s institutions to decode reciprocity, so that North’s theory appears not as a counterpoint to Polanyi, but as a further development – albeit with partially opposite consequences. This contrast is illustrated through the reconstruction of the ancient economy.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125175499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"„Wer befehlen soll, muß im Befehlen Seligkeit empfinden.“","authors":"Werner Plumpe","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2020-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2020-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract On the whole, the question as to the historical possibility of entrepreneurship has not been posed. Entrepreneurship has since Schumpeter simply been assumed; translated into a kind of mechanics of leadership in modern management literature in which individual characteristics rescind behind the role expectations for managers. This is logical insofar as a theory of the entrepreneur can at best only exist in a trivial form, such as in the sense of a theory of right or wrong decisions, while the entrepreneur as an individual eludes a theoretical approach in categorical terms. So while these theoretical restrictions make a theory of the entrepreneur unattainable, typological statements can still be made about the historical phenomenon of “entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour”. This is the starting point of the following article. Characteristics, behavioural patterns and lifestyle details are extracted from entrepreneurial careers of undisputed relevance in German economic and business history between roughly 1850 and 1930: these are then brought together and generalised into an “ideal type” entrepreneur. It will become apparent that entrepreneurship is ultimately based on circumstances, preconditions and attributes which economic or decision theories can only insufficiently grasp: in fact, specific aspects of each individual personality – some of which only fully develop in the course of entrepreneurial practice – determine behaviour and these are themselves again very individual. In a certain sense, entrepreneurship represents a kind of “doer type”, a quality which calls for a whole breadth of influences which in turn cannot be deduced in economic terms.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"82 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121795061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}