Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T15:14:56.403Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

NON-PROLETARIANIZATION THEORIES OF THE JEWISH WORKER (1902 TO 1939)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2022

Nicolas Vallois
Nicolas Vallois*
Affiliation:
Nicolas Vallois: CRIISEA, Université de Picardie Jules Verne. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, an economic doctrine known as “non-proletarianization theory” became influential among left-wing Zionists in Russia. According to this theory, Jewish workers were unable to “proletarianize”—that is, to integrate large-scale industry; hence, Jewish territorial autonomy was required, whether in Palestine or elsewhere. This article analyzes this theory’s historical development, focusing on the works of three authors: Haim Dov Horovitz, Yakov Leshchinsky, and Ber Borochov. I claim that discussions of Jewish non-proletarianization can be considered a specific and coherent intellectual tradition in the history of economic thought. I also discuss these theories’ relation to the anti-sweatshop campaign of the Progressive Era, particularly John R. Commons’s writings on Jewish immigrants that were recently debated in this journal.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 527 - 555
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Robert Brym, Gur Alroey, Gennady Estraikh, Axelle Neyrinck, Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, François Allisson, the two anonymous referees, and participants at the 2020 REhPERE seminar. Remaining errors are my own.

References

REFERENCES

Allisson, François, and Missemer, Antoine. 2020. “Some Historiographical Tools for the Study of Intellectual Legacies.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84: 132–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alroey, Gur. 2006. “Demographers in the Service of the Nation: Liebmann Hersch, Jacob Lestschinsky, and the Early Study of Jewish Migration.” Jewish History 20 (3–4): 265–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alroey, Gur. 2011. “‘Zionism without Zion’? Territorialist Ideology and the Zionist Movement, 1882–1956.” Jewish Social Studies 18 (1): 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aronson, Michael. 1990. Troubled Waters: Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Berg, Nicolas. 2008. ‘Luftmenschen’ Zur Geschichte einer Metapher. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Borochov, Ber. [1907] 1928. “Di role fun dem arbeter-klas in der realizirung funem teritorializm.” In Geklibene shriftn. New York: Yidish natsyonaler arbeter-farband, pp. 3–37. [Yiddish] [“The Role of the Working Class in the Realization of Territorialism”]Google Scholar
Borochov, Ber. [1916] 1919. Di ekonomishe entviklung fun yudishn folk. Warsaw: Arbeyter heym. [Yiddish] [The Economic Evolution of the Jewish People]Google Scholar
Borochov, Ber. [1916] 1923. Di yidishe arbeter bavegung in tsifern. Berlin: Farlag Ferdinand Ostertag. [Yiddish] [The Jewish Worker Movement in Figures]Google Scholar
Borochov, Ber. 1928. “Vos ken men ton kegn der aroyshtoysung?” In Geklibene shriftn. New York: Yidish natsyonaler arbeter-farband, pp. 179–186. [Yiddish] [“What Can We Do Against the Replacement?”]Google Scholar
Borochov, Ber. 1984. Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism. Edited by Cohen, Mitchell. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Bender, Daniel E. 2004. Sweated Work, Weak Bodies: Anti-sweatshop Campaigns and Languages of Labor. London: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Brym, Robert. 1978. Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism: A Sociological Study of Intellectual Radicalism and Ideological Divergence. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadiot, Juliette. 2004. “Le recensement de 1897. Les limites du contrôle impérial et la représentation des nationalités.” Cahiers du monde russe 45 (3–4): 441–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charney, Shmuel. 1906. Vos iz azoyns der yidisher arbeter? Vilna: Tsukunft. [Yiddish] [What Is the Jewish Worker?]Google Scholar
Chasse, J. Dennis. 2018. “What Does It Mean? A Comment on the Alleged Antisemitism of John R. Commons.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 40 (3): 419–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Mitchell. 1984. “Introduction.” In Ber Borochov, Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism . New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. 1901. “Immigration and Its Economic Effects.” In Reports of the U.S. Industrial Commission. Volume 15. Washington: Government Printing Office, pp. 293–743.Google Scholar
de Lagerie, Pauline Barraud. 2013. “The Wages of Sweat: A Social History Perspective on the Fight against Sweatshops.” Sociologie du travail 55 (1): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DellaPergola, Sergio. 1997. “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History.” Papers in Jewish Demography. Association for Jewish Demography and Statistics, pp. 11–33.Google Scholar
Estraikh, Gennady 2007. “Jacob Lestschinsky: A Yiddishist Dreamer and Social Scientist.” Science in Context 20 (2): 215–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estraikh, Gennady. 2009. “Changing Ideologies of Artisanal ‘Productivisation’: ORT in Late Imperial Russia.” East European Jewish Affairs 39 (1): 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorito, Luca, and Orsi, Cosma. 2016. “Anti-Semitism and Progressive Era Social Science: The Case of John R. Commons.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 38 (1): 55–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, Jonathan. 1984. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Glenn, Susan Anita. 1990. Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Eric L. 2006. The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity. Oxford: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gozhansky, Shmul. 1903. Der tsionizm . London: The Bund. [Yiddish] [Zionism]Google Scholar
Green, Nancy L. 1998. Du Sentier à la 7e Avenue: la confection et les immigrés, Paris–New York, 1880–1980. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.Google Scholar
Guterman, Alexander. 1985. Ha-miflagah ha-tsiyonit-sotsialistit be-rusya (S.S.) ba-shanim 1905–1906. Tel Aviv: Peretz. [Hebrew] [The Zionist-Socialist Party in Russia in the Years 1905–1906]Google Scholar
Gutwein, Daniel. 1990. “Proletarizatsiyah ve-politizatsiyah: Borochov u-megamot be-hitpathut shel teoriat ha-i-proletarizatsiyah.” Shvut 14: 141–186. [Hebrew] [“Proletarianization and Politicization: Borochov and Tendencies in the Development of Non-proletarianization Theory”]Google Scholar
Gutwein, Daniel. 1994. “Economics, Politics and Historiography: Hayyim D. Horowitz and the Interrelationship of Jews and Capitalism.” Jewish Social Studies 1 (1): 94–114.Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1899. “Ha-gorem ha-kalkali ve-hashpato be-toldot amenu.” Mi-mizrah u-mi maarav 4: 79–101. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Factor and Its Influence in the History of Our People”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902a. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 9: 17–32. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902b. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 9: 305–320. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902c. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 10: 57–72. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902d. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 10: 110–127. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902e. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 10: 328–337. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Horovitz, Haim Dov. 1902f. “Sheelat ha-kalkalah u-mekomah be-tenuatenu ha-leomit.” Hashiloah 10: 400–412. [Hebrew] [“The Economic Question and Its Place in Our National Movement”]Google Scholar
Jewish Colonization Association. [1904] 1906. Recueil de matériaux sur la situation économique des Israélites de Russie. Volume 1. Paris: Félix Alcan.Google Scholar
Karp, Jonathan. 2008. The Politics of Jewish Commerce. Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe, 1638–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Dovid. 2010. “Borokhov, Ber.” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Borokhov_Ber.Google Scholar
Kleiman, Ephraim. 1973. “An Early Modern Hebrew Textbook of Economics.” History of Political Economy 5 (2): 339–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klier, John Doyle, and Lambroza, Shlomo, eds. 1992. Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Linder, Menahem, and Szner, Hersch. 1938. “Yidishe arbet in yidishe industri-unternemungen.” Yidishe ekonomik 2 (5–6): 201–224. [Yiddish] [“Jewish Work in Jewish Industrial Companies”]Google Scholar
Lederhendler, Eli. 2009. Jewish Immigrants and American Capitalism, 1880–1920: From Caste to Class. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. [1903] 1960. “Statistikah shel a’yarah akhat.” In Ha-tefutsah ha-yehudit . Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, pp. 1–32. [Hebrew] [“Statistics of a Small Town”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1906. Der yidisher arbeter in rusland . Vilna: Tsukunft. [Yiddish] [The Jewish Worker in Russia ]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1907. Der yidisher arbeter in london . Vilna: Tsukunft. [Yiddish)] [The Jewish Worker in London ]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1912a. “Fun ekonomishen lebn.” Haynt, November 15, p. 4. [Yiddish] [“About Economic Life”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1912b. “Ha-yehudim be-germania.” Ha-olam, September 19, pp. 8–9. [Hebrew] [“The Jews in Germany”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1913. “Zur Psychologie des jüdischen Auswanderers.” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden 5: 75–80. [German] [“The Psychology of Jewish Migrants”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1916. “Fragen des ostjüdischen Wirtschaftslebens.” Der Jude 1(3): 160–165.Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1921. Dos yidishe ekonomishe lebn in der yidishe literatur . Warshaw: Kultur Lige. [Yiddish] [The Jewish Economic Life in Yiddish Literature]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1923. “Di oyfgaben fun der yidisher statistik.” Bleter far yidishe demografie, statistik un ekonomik 1: 1–4. [Yiddish] [“The Aims at Jewish Statistics”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1925a. “Di ekonomishe lage fun di yidn in mizreykh-eyrope.” Bleter far yidishe demografie, statistik un ekonomik 5: 81–103. [Yiddish] [“The Economic Situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1925b. Der emes vegn di yidn in rusland . Berlin: Lutze & Vagt. [Yiddish] [The Truth about the Jews in Russia]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. [1928] 2020. “The Development of the Jewish People over the Last 100 Years.” Translated by Brym, Robert. Eastern European Jewish Affairs 50 (1–2): 157–142.Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1931. Di ekonomishe lage fun yidn in poyln. Viktoria: Berlin. [Yiddish] [The Economic Situation of the Jews in Poland]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. [1931] 2020. The Economic Situation of the Jews in Interwar Poland . Translated by Brym, Robert. Lexington, KY: Kindle Direct Publishing.Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. [1933] 1947. Oyfn rand fun opgrund. Fun yidishn leben in poyln (1927–1933). Buenos Ayres: Tsentral farband fun poylishe yidn in Argentine. [Yiddish] [At the Edge of the Abyss: Jewish Life in Poland (1927–1933)]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1936. Di ekonomishe katastrofe fun yidn in daytshland un poyln. Paris: Committee of Jewish Delegations. [Yiddish] [The Economic Catastrophe of Jews in Germany and Poland]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1937. “Di yidn in varshe.” Yidishe ekonomik 1 (4–5): 158–176. [Yiddish] [“The Jews in Warsaw”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1938. “Di yidn in varshe un lodz.” Yidishe ekonomik 2 (3–4): 156–181. [Yiddish] [“The Jews in Warsaw and Lodz”]Google Scholar
Leshchinsky, Yakov. 1959. Ha-demut ha-leomit shel yahadut ha-golah . Tel Aviv: Y.L. Peretz. [Hebrew] [The National Profile of Diaspora Jewry]Google Scholar
Mahler, Raphael. 1967. “Yakov Leshchinsky: Der klasiker fun der yidisher statistik.” In Historiker un vegvayzer: eseyen. Tel Aviv: Israel-Book, pp. 184–195. [Yiddish] [“Yakov Leshchinsky: The Classic of Jewish Statistics”]Google Scholar
Manor, Alexander. 1961. Yakov Leshchinsky: ha-hogeh va-hahoker. Jerusalem: World Jewish Congress. [Hebrew] [Yakov Leshchinsky: The Man and His Work]Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, Ezra. 1970. Class Struggle in the Pale: The Formative Years of the Jewish Worker’s Movement in Tsarist Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mintz, Matityahu. 1976. Ber Borochov: ha-ma’agal ha-rishon (1900–1906). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. [Hebrew] [Ber Borochov: Circle One (1900–1906)]Google Scholar
Mintz, Matityahu. 2010. “Fareynikte.” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Fareynikte.Google Scholar
Nordau, Max. [1909] 1923. “V. Kongressrede.” In Max Nordau, Zionistische Schriften . Cologne: Zionistischen Aktionskommittee, pp. 112–139.Google Scholar
Norman, Theodore. 1985. An Outstretched Arm: A History of the Jewish Colonization Association. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul Books.Google Scholar
Orechov, S. 1957. “Dr. Ch. D, Horovitz, kalkalan ve-sofer.” Heavar (Quarterly for the Study of the History of Russian Jews): 149–151. [Hebrew] [“Dr. Ch. D. Horovitz, Economist and Writer”]Google Scholar
Peled, Yoav. 1989. Class and Ethnicity in the Pale: The Political Economy of Jewish Workers’ Nationalism in Late Imperial Russia. New York: St Martin’s Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penslar, Derek 2001. Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe . Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Presner, Todd. 2007. Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reder, Melvin. 2000. “The Antisemitism of Some Eminent Economists.” History of Political Economy 32 (4): 833–856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saß, Anne-Christin. 2012. Berliner Luftmenschen: Osteuropäisch-jüdische Migranten in der Weimarer Republik. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag.Google Scholar
Slutsky, Yehuda. 2007. “Horowitz, Hayyim Dov.” In Skolnik, Fred and Berenbaum, Michael, eds, Encyclopaedia Judaica. Volume 9. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, p. 534.Google Scholar
Stern, Eliyahu. 2018. Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tartakower, Arieh. 1972. Halutsei ha-historiografiah ha-yehudit ha-kalkalit lezeherem ha-mevurakh shel Yakov Leshchinsky ve-shel Ytzhak Shipper. Jerusalem: Newman. [Hebrew] [Pioneers in Jewish Economic Historiography, for the Blessed Memory of Yakov Leshchinsky and Ytzhak Shipper]Google Scholar
Trachtenberg, Barry. 2008. The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903–1917. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Trivellato, Francesca. 2019. The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Vallois, Nicolas. 2021. “Jewish Social Science and the Analysis of Jewish Statistics in the Early Twentieth Century.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 43 (1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallois, Nicolas. 2022. “Statistics, Race and Essentialism in the Debate over Jewish Employment Structure (1902–1939).” Jewish Social Studies 27 (1): 185–225.Google Scholar
Vallois, Nicolas, and Imhoff, Sarah. 2022. “‘Floating Jews’: the luftmentsh as an Economic Character.” Forthcoming in Oeconomia. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, Beatrice Potter. 1889. “The Jewish Community.” In Booth, Charles, ed., Life and Labour of the People in London. London and Edinburg: Williams & Norgate, pp. 564–590.Google Scholar
Wininger, Salomon. 1928. Große Jüdische National-Biographie . Czernowitz: Arta.Google Scholar