Romanticism and economics

Several economic theories of the first half of the 19th century were influenced by Romanticism, most notably those developed by Adam Müller, Simonde de Sismondi, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Thomas Carlyle. Michael Löwy and Robert Sayre first formulated their thesis about Romanticism as an anti-capitalist and anti-modernist worldview in a 1984 article called "Figures of Romantic Anti-capitalism".[1] Romantic anti-capitalism was a wide spectrum of opposition to capitalism, ultimately tracing its roots back to the Romantic movement of the early 19th century, but acquiring a new impetus in the latter part of the 19th century.[1]

Vladimir Lenin had written already in 1897 that "the wishes of the romanticists are very good (as are those of the Narodniks). Their recognition of the contradictions of capitalism places them above the blind optimists who deny the existence of these contradictions."[2]

Karl Marx in 1868 also considered Romanticism to have been the first historical trend of opposition to capitalism, to be followed by the trend of socialism: "The first reaction against the French Revolution and the period of Enlightenment bound up with it was naturally to see everything as mediaeval and Romantic, even people like Grimm are not free from this. The second reaction is to look beyond the Middle Ages into the primitive age of each nation, and that corresponds to the socialist tendency, although these learned men have no idea that the two have any connection."[3][4]

Considering Romanticism as a reflection of the age beginning after the French Revolution and its inherent social contradictions, Marx and Engels distinguished between "revolutionary Romanticism", which rejected capitalism and was striving towards the future, and Romantic criticism of capitalism from the point of view of the past. They also differentiated between the Romantic writers who idealized the feudal social system: they valued those whose works concealed democratic and critical elements under a veneer of reactionary utopias, and criticized the "reactionary Romantics", whose sympathies for the past amounted to a defense of the interests of the nobility. Marx and Engels were especially fond of the works of such revolutionary romantics as Byron and Shelley.[5]

  1. ^ a b Löwy, Michael & Sayre, Robert (1984). "Figures of Romantic Anti-Capitalism". New German Critique. New York: Duke University Press for the Cornell University Department of German Studies. pp. 42–92. doi:10.2307/488156. JSTOR 488156.
  2. ^ Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (1972) [1897]. "The Reactionary Character of Romanticism, in: A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism (Sismondi and Our Native Sismondists)" (PDF). Collected Works, Volume 2. Translated by Sdobnikov, Yuri & Hanna, George. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
  3. ^ Marx, Karl (1942) [1868]. "Letter from Marx to Engels In Manchester". Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868, in: Collected Works of Marx and Engels. London: Progress Publishers.
  4. ^ Vishnevsky, A. (1941). "Романтизм". Great Soviet Encyclopedia, ed. 1, vol. 49. Moscow.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich (1976). "Preface". Marx and Engels On Literature and Art. Moscow: Progress Publishers.