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PAlUISAN REVIEW
happened after the Waldheim affair. Shortly thereafter, there was a big con–
ference in Vienna on "Vertriebene Vernunft." Although attendance was
relatively poor, a dialogue began. I also noticed, again in a very subjective
way, that before then, when people asked me "why do you speak such
good German," I answered that I was born in Vienna. Before, that would
end the conversation, now it no longer does. Also, there is much more
interest in that past. And academics are doing studies about their emigres,
for the most part the refugees. Things have changed.
Speaker:
Is there some kind of historical relationship between attitudes
about commerce, striving for wealth, and so on, so that attitudes about cap–
italism ultimately emerge as anti-Semitic?
Robert Wistrich:
Historically speaking, ever since about the mid-nine–
teenth century, one of the most important motifs of modern
anti-Semitism has been the identification of Jews with capitalism. On the
Left and on the Right there was the notion that Jews are the driving force
of high finance, that capitalism itself is a manifestation of the "Jewish spir–
it"; that Jews are by nature exploitative and created capitalism for their
own benefit as part of their striving towards world domination. This idea
can be found in Marx, Bakunin, Fourier, and Proudhon and on the con–
servative Right. Of course, it became one of the major foundations of Nazi
ideology. It persisted in certain disguised forms under Stalinist
Communism and it is still around today. It strikes me that this anti-capi–
talist hostility to Jews has less resonance in the world of today than it did
fifty or one hundred years ago and it is an interesting question why this
should be the case. I might suggest that as
laissez -faire
capitalism has
become more acceptable in so many different parts of the world-we see
the response of the post-communist sQcieties where everyone wants to
jump onto the free market capitalism bandwagon-anti-capitalism itself is
no longer the force that it once used to be. Therefore tarring Jews with
this particular brush is not a particularly effective weapon against them.
This anti-capitalist idea is still around in Russia, where it might have a bit
n10re resonance.
Walter Laqueur:
I agree. But it is also true that in those countries where
anti-Semitism was most rampant there was little capitalism, and Jews were
poor-mainly in Russia, Poland, and Romania. This means that while cap–
italism, to a certain extent, might exp lain the rise of modern
anti-Semitism, I don't think it is a main factor. Certainly not in countries
with the largest concentration of Jews.
But let me come back to a question that was raised before: is there a
historical parallel with another group of people who have this equal
