German Ideology

In this sequel to "From Mandeville to Marx", in which Dumont established the primacy of economic ideology in European society, the author turns to the different national forms of the modern ideology of economic individualism. By means of a detailed comparison between France and Germany, Dumont demonstrates that the French and German notions of individualism are far from equivalent. Dumont focuses on the question of whether personhood or national ideology is the defining character of the individual. He studies the development of German nationalism and individualism in the work of Troeltsch, Thomas Mann, Goethe and others, and compares this with the French ideas of equality and individualism formed during the Revolution. For the French, Dumont demonstrates, one is a person first and, by virtue of being a person, a Frenchman second. For the Germans, on the other hand, one is a member of the German nation above all, and only by virtue of being a German is one a person.