Introduction: Rhenish capitalism and business history

Abstract

This article examines the emergence and development of the comparative analysis of capitalism and recent debates about Varieties of Capitalism (VoC). We argue that the VoC-approach should pay more attention to change over time, and only claim to put the firm in the centre of analysis. Hence, we propose another, more historical, analytic framework, which is based on the VoC-approach and historical institutionalism, and which fits better to an analysis of Rhenish Capitalism, i.e. the German case, from a business history perspective. Keeping in mind this research agenda, we outline the history of the German economy in the second half of the 20th century.