Rebrov S.A. Werner Sombart as a Critic of Modernization Concepts. Russian Sociological Review. 2025. Vol. 24. No. 2. Pp. 190-204.

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Abstract

The analysis of modernization theory in contemporary sociology presents significant difficulties. If we analyze a number of contemporary publications on modernization, we can conclude that there is an attempt to return to the provisions of the classical modernization theory of the times of Talcott Parsons and Samuel Huntington in Russia. Several modern publications, whose authors criticize later versions of modernization theory from the position of universality of the development of the country of Western Europe, as a rule, contain calls for a return to their own roots, which actually means a break with the approach of Shmuel Eisenstadt. If we present various versions of criticism of this interpretation, one of the classical theorists whose teachings contradict the very idea of universal development as such was Werner Sombart (1863-1941). Analyzing the influence of the needs of the ruling elites in the countries of New Age Europe, the German sociologist described the unpredictable role of various factors in the complex process of economic transformation, not the least of which was the desire for luxury. Thus, it is Sombart who can now be seen as the key theorist of historical arbitrariness of western modern development, within which the desires and needs of elites become one of the fundamental determinants of social development.