THE FORMATION OF A “SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM” IN UPPER GERMANY: LEONHARD FRONSPERGER’S “ON THE PRAISE OF SELF-INTEREST”

In 1564, Leonhard Fronsperger, a military expert and citizen of the Free Imperial City Ulm in Upper Germany, publishes booklet “On Praise Self-Interest” (“Von dem Lob deß Eigen Nutzen”). Using form satirical poem, he demonstrates how individual pursuit self-interest can lead to common good. Writing long before Bernard Mandeville Adam Smith, Fronsperger presents thorough analysis all kinds self-interested social, political, economic relations. His praise how, over sixteenth century, interplay success (in particular major trading cities), more realistic conception human behavior, some aspects humanism Reformation led new understanding origins dynamics. This becomes basis for what Max Weber ([1904–05] 2009) would later term “the spirit capitalism.”