SOME COMMENTS ON PROFESSOR RÄDEL'S “PROFIT MAXIMIZATION—CAN IT BE JUSTIFIED?”*

In the confrontation of the principle of acquisition with the principle of self-sufficiency, Professor Rädel's suggestive and penetrating paper condenses Werner Sombart's work on modern capitalism. As is well known, Sombart characterized the economic objective of medieval man, as one of meeting needs, and that of modern man as one of seeking profits. To quote Rädel: “The principle of self-sufficiency (‘Bedarfsdeckungsprinzip’), the characteristic basic objective of economic activity of the middle ages, is replaced by the principle of acquisition, as much as ‘traditionalism’ is replaced by ‘rationality’ as formal principles of economic operations. It is the essential characteristic of the principle of acquisition that the primary aim of economic activity is no longer the satisfaction of the requirements of man, which are relatively limited and personal in nature, but rather the acquisition of wealth represented by a sum of money, which is entirely unlimited and of a more impersonal anonymous nature.”¹ Rädel also mentions the linkage, drawn by Sombart, between the “development of the modern democratic state, modern technology and the discovery of new continents” and the growth of capitalism, together with the formation of a “spirit of wordliness… and of lust for power.”²