Friedrich Lenger – författare

Over the last 500 years, capitalism has produced a world that is highly interdependent and at the same time highly asymmetrical. These asymmetries were often established by violent means and are in many cases vigorously defended to this day. In his ambitious global history of capitalism, Friedrich Lenger charts the course of these developments, which have left no one unaffected – from the indigenous people of America to the silk weavers of Bengal. This is a story of flagrant wealth and extreme poverty, of violence and oppression, and of the relentless exploitation both of labour and of our planet, for which we are now paying the price.Among the global inequalities produced by capitalism are the unequal consumption of fossil fuels and the environmental degradation that affects different parts of the world in different ways and to different extents. The indifference capitalists display towards the natural world resembles their past indifference to human suffering. The millions of slaves forced to work on American plantations until well into the nineteenth century are just one example of how oppressive labour and a capitalist economy go hand in hand.This brilliant and wide-ranging book tells the story of the rise and triumph of capitalism from the fifteenth century to the present day and lays bare its fundamental dynamic: capitalism will never place limits on itself, underlining the fact that any restrictions have to be imposed from outside. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the modern world, the fundamental problems we face today, and the economic solutions upon which our survival as a species will depend.

For many people, urbanization and the growth of big cities promised new lives, employment opportunities and increased prosperity. And in the long run this fundamental process of social change witnessed the spread of a new urban way of life. In the short run, however, the rapid urbanization of German society brought a range of pressing social, political and environmental concerns. Rapidly expanding cities meant overcrowding, sickness, pollution and growing inequality between the rich and poor. While some of these problems were largely overcome in the course of the twentieth century, German cities faced new challenges due to the Nazi dictatorship, the bombing of World War II, and the interventions of city planners in both the GDR and the Federal Republic.This book explores the nature and impact of Germany's urbanization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and emphasizes the range of solutions and reforms, both private and governmental, introduced to address these issues. What did these new cities look like? How did they develop? Who ran them? How were cities perceived by their inhabitants?Exploring these and other key questions, this book makes a vital new contribution to studies of urbanization, one of the most fundamental factors in the creation of the modern era.

Friedrich Lenger demonstriert anhand dreier unterschiedlich ausführlicher Beiträge exemplarisch, auf welchen Feldern die mit diesem Band eröffnete Reihe der Studien zur Geschichte und Theorie des Kapitalismus (GTK) unser Verständnis des Kapitalismus befördern will. Zunächst bietet er einen Forschungsbericht, der vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Kapitalismusdiskussion die Hauptlinien der wirtschaftsgeschichtlichen Forschungsentwicklung der letzten Jahre nachzeichnet und insbesondere herausarbeitet, welche neuen Perspektiven sich aus der globalgeschichtlichen Wende ergeben haben und welche Probleme ungelöst geblieben sind. Darauf folgt eine theoriegeschichtliche Arbeit zu Adam Smith, der den Kapitalismusbegriff zwar noch nicht kannte, der aber gleichwohl bis heute ein zentraler Referenzautor der Debatte geblieben ist. Am umfangreichsten fällt schließlich eine aus den Quellen gearbeitete wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Abhandlung zum Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik aus. Edgar Jaffé, Werner Sombart und Max Weber hatten 1903/04, als sie die Herausgeberschaft übernahmen, die Erforschung der Kulturbedeutung des Kapitalismus zur Aufgabe dieser wichtigsten sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift des ersten Jahrhundertdrittels gemacht, doch gingen die dort erscheinenden Beiträge thematisch weit darüber hinaus, und das nicht erst seit Joseph Schumpeter und dann vor allem Emil Lederer als Herausgeber fungierten.