Debatten über die Gestaltbarkeit des Kapitalismus 1900-1933

The article offers an historical reconstruction of the intellectual sources out of which criticism of capitalism emerged before World War I. While being marginal first, the war and its consequences after 1918 moved these ideas into the center of the debates about whether and how capitalism could be shaped. Already for the period before 1914, one can distinguish four argumentations which either pointed into the direction of a social modification of capitalism as it was later on realized by the ...Rheinish Capitalism" of the Federal Republic; or which aimed at the radical revision of capitalist structures by a strong state or a dictatorship of the proletariat. These ideas were extremely influential in the 1920s and 1930s, but did not lead to sustainable historical arrangements. It is remarkable that these reformist and revisionist ideas were not only entangled, but also had common roots in the period before 1914. It is also remarkable that in the interwar period all these programs of change heavily counted on the role of the state as a decisive factor in shaping the economy. Whereas civil society based potentials and currents had been present before 1914, they paled under the impact of the huge economic problems of the interwar period before they regained importance since the 1950s, though in clearly modified forms.