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The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity
Far from displacing religions, as has been supposed, capitalism became one, with money as its deity. Eugene McCarraher reveals how mammon ensnared us and how we can find a more humane, sacramental way of being in the world.
If socialists and Wall Street bankers can agree on anything, it is the extreme rationalism of capital. At least since Max Weber, capitalism has been understood as part of the "disenchantment" of the world, stripping material objects and social relationships of their mystery and sacredness. Ignoring the motive force of the spirit, capitalism rejects the awe-inspiring divine for the economics of supply and demand.
Eugene McCarraher challenges this conventional view. Capitalism, he argues, is full of sacrament, whether or not it is acknowledged. Capitalist enchantment first flowered in the fields and factories of England and was brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit. Later, the corporation was mystically animated with human personhood, to preside over the Fordist endeavor to build a heavenly city of mechanized production and communion. By the twenty-first century, capitalism has become thoroughly enchanted by the neoliberal deification of "the market."
Informed by cultural history and theology as well as economics, management theory, and marketing, The Enchantments of Mammon looks not to Marx and progressivism but to nineteenth-century Romantics for salvation. The Romantic imagination favors craft, the commons, and sensitivity to natural wonder. It promotes labor that, for the sake of the person, combines reason, creativity, and mutual aid. In this impassioned challenge, McCarraher makes the case that capitalism has hijacked and redirected our intrinsic longing for divinity--and urges us to break its hold on our souls.
If socialists and Wall Street bankers can agree on anything, it is the extreme rationalism of capital. At least since Max Weber, capitalism has been understood as part of the "disenchantment" of the world, stripping material objects and social relationships of their mystery and sacredness. Ignoring the motive force of the spirit, capitalism rejects the awe-inspiring divine for the economics of supply and demand.
Eugene McCarraher challenges this conventional view. Capitalism, he argues, is full of sacrament, whether or not it is acknowledged. Capitalist enchantment first flowered in the fields and factories of England and was brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit. Later, the corporation was mystically animated with human personhood, to preside over the Fordist endeavor to build a heavenly city of mechanized production and communion. By the twenty-first century, capitalism has become thoroughly enchanted by the neoliberal deification of "the market."
Informed by cultural history and theology as well as economics, management theory, and marketing, The Enchantments of Mammon looks not to Marx and progressivism but to nineteenth-century Romantics for salvation. The Romantic imagination favors craft, the commons, and sensitivity to natural wonder. It promotes labor that, for the sake of the person, combines reason, creativity, and mutual aid. In this impassioned challenge, McCarraher makes the case that capitalism has hijacked and redirected our intrinsic longing for divinity--and urges us to break its hold on our souls.
794 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 12, 2019
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2483 people want to read
About the author
Eugene McCarraher
15 books26 followersEugene McCarraher is Associate Professor of Humanities at Villanova University and the author of Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought. He has written for Dissent and The Nation and contributes regularly to Commonweal, The Hedgehog Review, and Raritan. His work on The Enchantments of Mammon was supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.
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October 22, 2021
Absolutely amazing.
Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age is a brilliant story of how the western world moved from a premodern age of enchantment to our current secular age. Refuting the commonly told subtraction story (we learned science and got rid of religion), Taylor told a fuller and more nuanced and detailed story. In his telling, to live in a secular age is to live in an age of disenchantment: the cosmos was once enlivened with spirits and power, but now it is just a brute natural world (an immanent frame). At the same time, it is an age of authenticity in which many beliefs are possible: the religious person and the skeptic both recognize there are other options for belief or non belief.
Yeah, you should read Taylor’s book too. McCarraher begins this book by arguing that one spot Taylor was wrong in saying our culture has moved from one described as enchanted to one of disenchantment. Instead, McCarraher argues, we have become a culture enchanted by money, greed, business: capitalism (hence the title). He spends the next 600 pages demonstrating this shift, telling a story that covers the same ground as Taylor’s.
Perhaps its wrong to say McCarraher simply thinks Taylor is wrong. Taylor’s book was more covering philosophy and religion, this one is focused more on economics and religion. In other words, they cover the same historical time period but focus on different people (at least, I don’t remember many of the people McCarraher talks about appearing in Taylor’s book...but I do feel I’ve become a bit more well-read since then and maybe they are in there).
McCarraher begins with the Puritans and there are some chilling passages in there about their views on not just money, but on African and Native Americans. If you are at all familiar with the “health and wealth” gospel today, you can see its roots in how he describes the Puritans understanding of money as a blessing. From there he moves through the time period describing rise of Fordism and assembly lines and more, as well as the theories behind all this, the advertising that promoted it, and those who futilely resisted it. By the time he talks about Disney’ place in a culture enchanted by consumerism and advertising needing to tell a story to create a need, you’re both convinced and depressed.
I suppose I should say, I was essentially convinced going in. As a Christian, I remember Jesus’ words, “you cannot serve both God and money.” Young Christians, as I was once, are warned to beware pursuing money and wealth. Of course, we also demonstrated our Christian commitment in the late 90s by buying: Christian CDs, Christian t-shirts, Christian concerts, etc. Capitalism tamed Christianity.
Ultimately, capitalism has triumphed over Christianity. Most Christians in America see capitalism as a blessing from God and anything that even hints of socialism (or, 1950s era capitalism) is deemed Marxist and vigorously opposed. The Epilogue is worth the price of the book, as in these 15 pages he brings the story up to the present (the final chapter ends around 1975). The election of Trump reflects the lauding of businessmen as near gods and the unfettered marketplace of neoliberalism has so enchanted us that we cannot imagine any alternative.
Of course, McCarraher does speculate on what the future may hold. This is kind of grim, but he also ends on a hopeful note, referencing the imagination of a better world in someone like St. Francis as an ideal we may grasp on to. It was disturbing to finish this book up on the same weekend that protest has spread throughout our country. From the beginning of the story when McCarraher writes about slavery to the epilogue where he talks of the ever widening gap between rich or poor, it is clear that though capitalism has enchanted us it is not good for all of us. These wealth inequalities and the racism that goes along with them are one part, a large part, of the history that has brought us to today. I don’t know if reading the news has made me more or less convinced that McCarraher was right, but I do hope we can imagine something more beautiful and beneficial than neoliberal capitalism.
All that to say, if you are into history or economics, read this book. It would be nice if there was a shorter version as it is quite tedious. Hopefully, like with Taylor’s work, smart people will come along to distill this for more of us. For now though, its a feast of history and economic history that is well worth it.
Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age is a brilliant story of how the western world moved from a premodern age of enchantment to our current secular age. Refuting the commonly told subtraction story (we learned science and got rid of religion), Taylor told a fuller and more nuanced and detailed story. In his telling, to live in a secular age is to live in an age of disenchantment: the cosmos was once enlivened with spirits and power, but now it is just a brute natural world (an immanent frame). At the same time, it is an age of authenticity in which many beliefs are possible: the religious person and the skeptic both recognize there are other options for belief or non belief.
Yeah, you should read Taylor’s book too. McCarraher begins this book by arguing that one spot Taylor was wrong in saying our culture has moved from one described as enchanted to one of disenchantment. Instead, McCarraher argues, we have become a culture enchanted by money, greed, business: capitalism (hence the title). He spends the next 600 pages demonstrating this shift, telling a story that covers the same ground as Taylor’s.
Perhaps its wrong to say McCarraher simply thinks Taylor is wrong. Taylor’s book was more covering philosophy and religion, this one is focused more on economics and religion. In other words, they cover the same historical time period but focus on different people (at least, I don’t remember many of the people McCarraher talks about appearing in Taylor’s book...but I do feel I’ve become a bit more well-read since then and maybe they are in there).
McCarraher begins with the Puritans and there are some chilling passages in there about their views on not just money, but on African and Native Americans. If you are at all familiar with the “health and wealth” gospel today, you can see its roots in how he describes the Puritans understanding of money as a blessing. From there he moves through the time period describing rise of Fordism and assembly lines and more, as well as the theories behind all this, the advertising that promoted it, and those who futilely resisted it. By the time he talks about Disney’ place in a culture enchanted by consumerism and advertising needing to tell a story to create a need, you’re both convinced and depressed.
I suppose I should say, I was essentially convinced going in. As a Christian, I remember Jesus’ words, “you cannot serve both God and money.” Young Christians, as I was once, are warned to beware pursuing money and wealth. Of course, we also demonstrated our Christian commitment in the late 90s by buying: Christian CDs, Christian t-shirts, Christian concerts, etc. Capitalism tamed Christianity.
Ultimately, capitalism has triumphed over Christianity. Most Christians in America see capitalism as a blessing from God and anything that even hints of socialism (or, 1950s era capitalism) is deemed Marxist and vigorously opposed. The Epilogue is worth the price of the book, as in these 15 pages he brings the story up to the present (the final chapter ends around 1975). The election of Trump reflects the lauding of businessmen as near gods and the unfettered marketplace of neoliberalism has so enchanted us that we cannot imagine any alternative.
Of course, McCarraher does speculate on what the future may hold. This is kind of grim, but he also ends on a hopeful note, referencing the imagination of a better world in someone like St. Francis as an ideal we may grasp on to. It was disturbing to finish this book up on the same weekend that protest has spread throughout our country. From the beginning of the story when McCarraher writes about slavery to the epilogue where he talks of the ever widening gap between rich or poor, it is clear that though capitalism has enchanted us it is not good for all of us. These wealth inequalities and the racism that goes along with them are one part, a large part, of the history that has brought us to today. I don’t know if reading the news has made me more or less convinced that McCarraher was right, but I do hope we can imagine something more beautiful and beneficial than neoliberal capitalism.
All that to say, if you are into history or economics, read this book. It would be nice if there was a shorter version as it is quite tedious. Hopefully, like with Taylor’s work, smart people will come along to distill this for more of us. For now though, its a feast of history and economic history that is well worth it.
Read
December 3, 2020A world that is enchanted can never be disenchanted, to refute a popular belief put forward by Max Weber, but it can be misenchanted. This is the world we live today contends Eugene McCarraher, a world in which the enchantment of the world has been misdirected through the mirrored hallways of capitalism. There is an innate human tendency to search for meaning and to identify with unseen great forces. Instead of looking to spirituality or God, or some other indefinable term, we have transmuted that need for an unseen world into a driving faith in a future of paradisiacal material accumulation. Worse, this new deity has developed an entire theology around itself as glittering as anything that the Catholic Church ever built to legitimate its grandeur. There are high priests in the form of managerial experts, grand aesthetics in television commercials and a thousand minor gurus ready to fulfill every need of the soul. There are all the ingredients of a fully self-defining worldview here.
The problem, as McCarraher argues, is that the heart of this whole system is entirely vacant. People are not solely material-economic beings seeking to maximize value. Moreover this ideology that denudes the physical objects of the world of enchantment, rendering them mere matter, is fundamentally destructive to the planet and to human beings themselves. He identifies the root of this
anti-metaphysical worldview in in a Protestant dismissal of the physical sacraments of Catholicism, which somehow radicalized over time into a dismissal of the sanctity of all worldly things. It's an interesting thesis that in modified form dovetails with Weber's idea of Protestantism as being at the root of capitalism. We think we live in the iron cage of pecuniary reason that Weber described, but in another way that is simply impossible. The world is enchanted whether we can see the layers of falsehood about it or not.
This book could've mean three or four different books, or maybe half the size while still conveying its main point effectively. You can tell however that the author put a life's work into it and wanted to cover their argument from every possible angle. However he really beats you over the head after making the main point again and again. As such its hard to recommend this book to the ordinary reader, although in fairness to McCarraher the case he's making requires a lot of time. One can expect secondary literature from this tome to be created and help the basic argument filter down to others, its as vital as it gets.
The problem, as McCarraher argues, is that the heart of this whole system is entirely vacant. People are not solely material-economic beings seeking to maximize value. Moreover this ideology that denudes the physical objects of the world of enchantment, rendering them mere matter, is fundamentally destructive to the planet and to human beings themselves. He identifies the root of this
anti-metaphysical worldview in in a Protestant dismissal of the physical sacraments of Catholicism, which somehow radicalized over time into a dismissal of the sanctity of all worldly things. It's an interesting thesis that in modified form dovetails with Weber's idea of Protestantism as being at the root of capitalism. We think we live in the iron cage of pecuniary reason that Weber described, but in another way that is simply impossible. The world is enchanted whether we can see the layers of falsehood about it or not.
This book could've mean three or four different books, or maybe half the size while still conveying its main point effectively. You can tell however that the author put a life's work into it and wanted to cover their argument from every possible angle. However he really beats you over the head after making the main point again and again. As such its hard to recommend this book to the ordinary reader, although in fairness to McCarraher the case he's making requires a lot of time. One can expect secondary literature from this tome to be created and help the basic argument filter down to others, its as vital as it gets.
March 5, 2020
Down the line, future readers will benefit from a “director’s cut” of this book, the way some people tell you which parts of Hamlet or their favorite TV show can be safely skipped. In the meantime, the whole slog is a powerful, convincing work of religio-historical hedgehoggery. And it sticks the landing.
September 23, 2020
I went back and forth on this until the fires sweeping across the west coast made it click into place. The world is dying and it’s man’s greatest creation, it’s conquering colossus, that is plunging the knife. Capitalism and it’s cleanest theology yet, neoliberalism, is an energy that is so obviously destructive, so much so that it’s killing the planet right in front of its adherents. If it has any chance it needs to be shot through with enchantment, magic, and the promise of redemption to keep us shuffling towards apocalypse.
There’s always been a tension in the argument that secular capitalism is actually a religion. At its heart, the argument could imply that systems revel a theological nature when they produce negative ends, and as such theological pursuits are inherently negative for human flourishing. McCarraher’s attempts to square that circle with this tome where he both succeeds and fails.
He fails in his very brisk evaluation of pre-capitalist medieval labor relationships when Christendom was comparatively intact and the heart of meaning for workers. He notes the standards proscribed at the time and very briefly obliges their failures to live up to those creeds then rushes to define capitalism. This is the weakest part of the book and since it’s at the beginning, colors the rest of the experience.
What McCarraher gets right is that looking for meaning, the sense of a self in connection with unseen forces, is part of the human condition and cannot be shrugged off for a disenchanted, sanitized world of reason and growth. It’s a fantasy or really-a spectacle; the visualization of capitalist accumulation. And we have to wake up from this fiction and point our spirits in a direction away from the road we've laid down. Because we have pitted ourselves in opposition to creation, and now there's no need for prophecy for some long-off day of wrath- it’s the fire this time, today.
There’s always been a tension in the argument that secular capitalism is actually a religion. At its heart, the argument could imply that systems revel a theological nature when they produce negative ends, and as such theological pursuits are inherently negative for human flourishing. McCarraher’s attempts to square that circle with this tome where he both succeeds and fails.
He fails in his very brisk evaluation of pre-capitalist medieval labor relationships when Christendom was comparatively intact and the heart of meaning for workers. He notes the standards proscribed at the time and very briefly obliges their failures to live up to those creeds then rushes to define capitalism. This is the weakest part of the book and since it’s at the beginning, colors the rest of the experience.
What McCarraher gets right is that looking for meaning, the sense of a self in connection with unseen forces, is part of the human condition and cannot be shrugged off for a disenchanted, sanitized world of reason and growth. It’s a fantasy or really-a spectacle; the visualization of capitalist accumulation. And we have to wake up from this fiction and point our spirits in a direction away from the road we've laid down. Because we have pitted ourselves in opposition to creation, and now there's no need for prophecy for some long-off day of wrath- it’s the fire this time, today.
October 3, 2024
McCarraher sets out to examine how the capitalist economic system has become a de facto religion in the West, providing its own versions of enchantment and sacrament. In a display of astonishing erudition, he discusses history, economics, theology, and the arts from the Puritans of New England to the Neoliberalism of the present.
This extensive historical survey, if not completely exhaustive, may at times border on exhausting. The massive reading list required to compile this analysis is staggering. Its broadness in scope is reminiscent of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.
He makes a compelling case that capitalism has become a substitute religion for much of the US populace, and also shows how this religion can adversely affect our society and our souls. Of course, this could have easily been accomplished in significantly fewer than 800 pages. The proverbial horse had already died after the first few chapters. The corrosive effects of a consumerist culture are readily apparent to most of us.
Unfortunately, for a book this substantial, it was weak on conclusions and weaker still on solutions. Any ideas for alternative economic systems turn out to be disappointingly meager and frustratingly vague. He dutifully recounts the experiences of various failed historical experiments that rejected the dominant paradigm such as communes and the Arts and Crafts movement, but tacitly admits that these are not realistic options today.
It’s pretty easy to snipe at the negative aspects of capitalism and bemoan certain consequences of a capitalist society in general and the American version in particular. And I’m not suggesting that these grievances are illegitimate or unimportant. Indeed, the striving for financial success that our capitalist system often promotes can too easily morph into a type of idolatry. Sadly, much of our culture worships and bows to the god of Mammon. But what is to be done about it on this side of the eschaton? Maybe he’s got an 800-page sequel on the way?
I’ve long thought that the besetting sin of capitalism is greed. Whereas for socialism/communism the besetting sin is envy. Sometimes I despair and conclude that one will just have to pick their poison. But perhaps this is a false choice. Maybe there are other viable options? Anarchism? Proprietism? Chesterton favored distributism. Whatever that is.
Anyway, despite the predominantly negative tone of my review there is still much to appreciate in this rather high-brow, hefty tome.
This extensive historical survey, if not completely exhaustive, may at times border on exhausting. The massive reading list required to compile this analysis is staggering. Its broadness in scope is reminiscent of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.
He makes a compelling case that capitalism has become a substitute religion for much of the US populace, and also shows how this religion can adversely affect our society and our souls. Of course, this could have easily been accomplished in significantly fewer than 800 pages. The proverbial horse had already died after the first few chapters. The corrosive effects of a consumerist culture are readily apparent to most of us.
Unfortunately, for a book this substantial, it was weak on conclusions and weaker still on solutions. Any ideas for alternative economic systems turn out to be disappointingly meager and frustratingly vague. He dutifully recounts the experiences of various failed historical experiments that rejected the dominant paradigm such as communes and the Arts and Crafts movement, but tacitly admits that these are not realistic options today.
It’s pretty easy to snipe at the negative aspects of capitalism and bemoan certain consequences of a capitalist society in general and the American version in particular. And I’m not suggesting that these grievances are illegitimate or unimportant. Indeed, the striving for financial success that our capitalist system often promotes can too easily morph into a type of idolatry. Sadly, much of our culture worships and bows to the god of Mammon. But what is to be done about it on this side of the eschaton? Maybe he’s got an 800-page sequel on the way?
I’ve long thought that the besetting sin of capitalism is greed. Whereas for socialism/communism the besetting sin is envy. Sometimes I despair and conclude that one will just have to pick their poison. But perhaps this is a false choice. Maybe there are other viable options? Anarchism? Proprietism? Chesterton favored distributism. Whatever that is.
Anyway, despite the predominantly negative tone of my review there is still much to appreciate in this rather high-brow, hefty tome.
June 21, 2021
The book is premised on an examination of Max Weber’s hypothesis of the growth of disenchantment with the world. In response, the author, Eugene McCarraher, who is a professor at Villanova, undertakes a broad historical survey of the relationship between capitalism and religion since the American Revolution. The title suggests that such a survey can be productively understood in terms of the worship of Mammon and how religion in the US has come to adopt a frame that sees the realization of religious values and expectations as coming in this world rather than the next, as might have been expected in thinking of traditional Calvinist religion or even more mainline institutional faiths like Roman Catholicism. The result is a monumental dive into a wider range of American theologians and writers than I knew existed. This includes representatives from the different “Great Awakenings” along with variants of the “Gospel of Success”. I must grant that religious takes on the immanence of religion experience and the dynamics of realizing God’s wonders in the present without waiting for death have been extremely common in America. Related to this is the extensive history of small splinter group communities and movements that sought to incorporate community oriented business activities with deep religious experiences. These communities persist today although not to the extent they once did.
But it is not just various religious sects. McCarraher goes into popular statements about and justifications for business life and capitalism in general to show that what has become commonplace in discussions of economic life can be seen very clear as quasi-religious announcements, such that the businessman becomes the new representative of the priesthood and that one’s success in the world, such as by becoming a robber baron, is fully justified on its own terms and constitutes evidence of merit and even virtue. This immanent view of salvation has echoes in Marxist views of human fulfillment that will follow from the realization of Communism. …ok, so that did not work out as planned by McCarraher incorporates a number of Marxist (Marxian?) perspectives outside of the Soviet experience, such as from the Frankfurt School, with the work of Adorno, Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse.
Then there are the journalists, muckrakers, and political hacks that push religious story lines to move governments and voters. In this sense, the recent experiences of evangelicals in the electoral marketplace is a continuation of long term trends.
These is much more in the book and each of the thirty chapters or so has an extensive discussion of the key works of the key writers who are reviewed. The book reads like a textbook for a semester long class on US religious history - not the only one, of course, but certainly a start. The chapters are related and the analysis develops in a general linear fashion. The chapters are substantial so I would not recommend skimming through this. I was familiar with some of this material but it fits together well and the author appears to have done his homework. (Being published on Harvard Univ. press also suggests that it has been well reviewed and well crafted.)
The is much more to say but that is what the book is for. I recommend it if you have the time.
But it is not just various religious sects. McCarraher goes into popular statements about and justifications for business life and capitalism in general to show that what has become commonplace in discussions of economic life can be seen very clear as quasi-religious announcements, such that the businessman becomes the new representative of the priesthood and that one’s success in the world, such as by becoming a robber baron, is fully justified on its own terms and constitutes evidence of merit and even virtue. This immanent view of salvation has echoes in Marxist views of human fulfillment that will follow from the realization of Communism. …ok, so that did not work out as planned by McCarraher incorporates a number of Marxist (Marxian?) perspectives outside of the Soviet experience, such as from the Frankfurt School, with the work of Adorno, Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse.
Then there are the journalists, muckrakers, and political hacks that push religious story lines to move governments and voters. In this sense, the recent experiences of evangelicals in the electoral marketplace is a continuation of long term trends.
These is much more in the book and each of the thirty chapters or so has an extensive discussion of the key works of the key writers who are reviewed. The book reads like a textbook for a semester long class on US religious history - not the only one, of course, but certainly a start. The chapters are related and the analysis develops in a general linear fashion. The chapters are substantial so I would not recommend skimming through this. I was familiar with some of this material but it fits together well and the author appears to have done his homework. (Being published on Harvard Univ. press also suggests that it has been well reviewed and well crafted.)
The is much more to say but that is what the book is for. I recommend it if you have the time.
November 14, 2023
While in the midst of reading (listening) to this book, I had a chance to hear Paul Kingsnorth speak a couple times. There is a thread woven through most of his work: The Machine of our technological age, which dominates, dehumanizes, and requires devotion - and is able to do so because of our disenchantment to the truly sublime Creator and his world which is "charged with the grandeur of God".
This book is about the capitalist economy, but it's also so much more. This book belongs in the kaleidoscope of those which tease out their own unique emphasis on the making of our modern experience. (Many of which I have yet to read) :
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age"
Andrew Wilson's "Remaking The World"
Carl Trueman's "The Rise And Triumph Of The Modern Self"
Alan Noble's "You Are Not Your Own"
Jacques Ellul's "The Technological Society"
Joseph Henrich's "The WEIRDest People In The World"
Joseph Minich's "Bulwarks Of Unbelief"
This book, of course, has a focus on the capitalist economy. And there are plenty of people teasing out the particulars of that economic side of things. (There's much to learn of the Catholic emphasis on the economic model of Distributism, as opposed to Socialism, for starters.) But where I think this one shines is in the combination of history, sociology, and theology. The confluence of factors that have come together are not able to be separated or parceled out neatly.
What changed in the last few hundred years to bring us to our point in time in thinking about the ways in which wealth is acquired, especially as Christians?
What motivated people, especially the religious?
What were the rationales?
What effect does disenchantment with God and value of the non-measurable things of his world have on a society?
During the course of this 30-hour audiobook, I kept hearing the term "disenchantment" everywhere, it seemed - in talks, essays, reviews of other books, etc. (This is where reading and learning broadly comes into play. You make connections everywhere!) The modern world is marked by this phenomenon in more ways than I had realized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRXad...
This conversation cleared up a LOT of straightforward questions I had during the course of the (quite academic-feeling and sometimes over-my-head) book. Particularly a definition of what he means by the term capitalism — and what that does and does not include. Super helpful.
And I agree with another reviewer that we could benefit from an abbreviated version of this work in the future!
This book is about the capitalist economy, but it's also so much more. This book belongs in the kaleidoscope of those which tease out their own unique emphasis on the making of our modern experience. (Many of which I have yet to read) :
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age"
Andrew Wilson's "Remaking The World"
Carl Trueman's "The Rise And Triumph Of The Modern Self"
Alan Noble's "You Are Not Your Own"
Jacques Ellul's "The Technological Society"
Joseph Henrich's "The WEIRDest People In The World"
Joseph Minich's "Bulwarks Of Unbelief"
This book, of course, has a focus on the capitalist economy. And there are plenty of people teasing out the particulars of that economic side of things. (There's much to learn of the Catholic emphasis on the economic model of Distributism, as opposed to Socialism, for starters.) But where I think this one shines is in the combination of history, sociology, and theology. The confluence of factors that have come together are not able to be separated or parceled out neatly.
What changed in the last few hundred years to bring us to our point in time in thinking about the ways in which wealth is acquired, especially as Christians?
What motivated people, especially the religious?
What were the rationales?
What effect does disenchantment with God and value of the non-measurable things of his world have on a society?
During the course of this 30-hour audiobook, I kept hearing the term "disenchantment" everywhere, it seemed - in talks, essays, reviews of other books, etc. (This is where reading and learning broadly comes into play. You make connections everywhere!) The modern world is marked by this phenomenon in more ways than I had realized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRXad...
This conversation cleared up a LOT of straightforward questions I had during the course of the (quite academic-feeling and sometimes over-my-head) book. Particularly a definition of what he means by the term capitalism — and what that does and does not include. Super helpful.
And I agree with another reviewer that we could benefit from an abbreviated version of this work in the future!
January 11, 2020
I found this book fascinating but also frustrating as I grew up in a community very much as he envisions. The Protestant sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses. This book made me appreciate what they are trying to do more than I did growing up. I’m sure the author would find the theology repulsive but from what I can see they are a successfully doing much of what he seems to want more of in the world. But because they don’t vote, are poor and think the world is going to end any day they are called crazy and ignored(not by the author, by everyone) They are “worthless” by choice.
Interesting book.
Interesting book.
Want to read
February 6, 20202/6/20 Found it through Lapham's Quaterly podcast, Episode 53, Dec 6 2019. Sounds interesting..sprituality and affirmation of 19th C Romantic values of the human experience as more enriching than capitalism.
June 17, 2024
The mark of the best books is that they continue to haunt your thoughts well after you read them, because if they’re right, it changes everything. This is one of those books.
I’m not sure that I’m 100% convinced of every bit of the argument, and I was actually quite disappointed by the conclusion, but despite that, this is still a book worth tackling. Because if McCarraher’s thesis is right, that mammon has co-opted nearly every bit of public discourse in its various forms at least since the reformations, we have a lot of repenting to do. And even if he’s not right, I still think it’s worth wrestling through to see the way that our talk about money, the economy, and market capitalism has shifted over time.
As a friend of mine often remarks, we need to tell the stories of our histories, because if we know that there was a “before” to our ideas, perhaps we can imagine an after. I think this book helps us to do just that.
I’m not sure that I’m 100% convinced of every bit of the argument, and I was actually quite disappointed by the conclusion, but despite that, this is still a book worth tackling. Because if McCarraher’s thesis is right, that mammon has co-opted nearly every bit of public discourse in its various forms at least since the reformations, we have a lot of repenting to do. And even if he’s not right, I still think it’s worth wrestling through to see the way that our talk about money, the economy, and market capitalism has shifted over time.
As a friend of mine often remarks, we need to tell the stories of our histories, because if we know that there was a “before” to our ideas, perhaps we can imagine an after. I think this book helps us to do just that.
April 22, 2020
There is a steep cost to reading this book: you will never be able to look at Disney or Laura Ingalls Wilder the same way again. I found it a particularly liberating read, particularly in regards to the question of how the arts in a capitalist technocracy function. It prompted lots of excellent questions about the role of arts in democracy, and what the political function is for art once its liberated from simply being monetary investment or entertainment that turns a profit. Lots of questions whose answers still remain to be seen. On the whole, I am left after reading this book thinking, much like the plaid elephant meme: everything is ruined forever.
How to move forward? To his credit (I guess, it’s good writing but not very soothing), McCarraher doesn’t offer many prescriptions to the endemic malaise (I’m kind of eyes emoji at his suggestions who all seem like very eccentric white male hippies. Is this my inner capitalist talking?!?). There isn’t much religion or theology outside the worship of Mammon in this book, which is why I think sometimes in the middle of a chapter about the fifteenth detestable ad executive waxing insufferably sentimental about the mythic nature of his work (a direct ancestor of president 45, who believes his “business sense” is universally—or at least politically—applicable wisdom), it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed and depressed.
Obviously, there are clues forward. I would resist some of the ones McCarraher offers, but absolutely assent to his elevation of Dorothy Day. There…is simply no greater American saint. As he writes, about Merton, which is even more true of Day, “yet the saintly ideal was itself a form of social protest, a statement both about capitalist iniquity and about the possibility of a more cooperative social order. Withdrawal is not necessarily an expression of indifference or hopelessness; it may mark a strategic refusal to deal with a society on its own corrupt terms.”
Essentially, McCarraher is erecting the first line of defense against the “war on imagination” a barricade against the ‘blitzkrieg against utopian speculation, a mission to sabotage the capacity to even dream of a world beyond capitalism.”
He gestures at the end to a “new—doubtless very different—St. Francis, who can reawaken a new ontological wonder in our society. I wonder, however.
The two most compelling visions he puts forth before Francis are women: Dorothy Day and Rebecca Solnit’s excellent, excellent, excellent study: A Paradise Built in Hell. Perhaps what we need, more than a return to his vague recommendation—Romanticism— is something more concrete and more distinct. The societies that Solnit journals erupting after disaster are distinctly matriarchal. They are local, populist, and led by care and concern, the nurturers of the society—both the men and women—lead the society. Perhaps in order to break capitalisms hold, power must shift out of the hands of the men in the grey flannel suits and into the hands of teachers, of homemakers, and the local baker. Perhaps what we await is, indeed, another Clare.
How to move forward? To his credit (I guess, it’s good writing but not very soothing), McCarraher doesn’t offer many prescriptions to the endemic malaise (I’m kind of eyes emoji at his suggestions who all seem like very eccentric white male hippies. Is this my inner capitalist talking?!?). There isn’t much religion or theology outside the worship of Mammon in this book, which is why I think sometimes in the middle of a chapter about the fifteenth detestable ad executive waxing insufferably sentimental about the mythic nature of his work (a direct ancestor of president 45, who believes his “business sense” is universally—or at least politically—applicable wisdom), it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed and depressed.
Obviously, there are clues forward. I would resist some of the ones McCarraher offers, but absolutely assent to his elevation of Dorothy Day. There…is simply no greater American saint. As he writes, about Merton, which is even more true of Day, “yet the saintly ideal was itself a form of social protest, a statement both about capitalist iniquity and about the possibility of a more cooperative social order. Withdrawal is not necessarily an expression of indifference or hopelessness; it may mark a strategic refusal to deal with a society on its own corrupt terms.”
Essentially, McCarraher is erecting the first line of defense against the “war on imagination” a barricade against the ‘blitzkrieg against utopian speculation, a mission to sabotage the capacity to even dream of a world beyond capitalism.”
He gestures at the end to a “new—doubtless very different—St. Francis, who can reawaken a new ontological wonder in our society. I wonder, however.
The two most compelling visions he puts forth before Francis are women: Dorothy Day and Rebecca Solnit’s excellent, excellent, excellent study: A Paradise Built in Hell. Perhaps what we need, more than a return to his vague recommendation—Romanticism— is something more concrete and more distinct. The societies that Solnit journals erupting after disaster are distinctly matriarchal. They are local, populist, and led by care and concern, the nurturers of the society—both the men and women—lead the society. Perhaps in order to break capitalisms hold, power must shift out of the hands of the men in the grey flannel suits and into the hands of teachers, of homemakers, and the local baker. Perhaps what we await is, indeed, another Clare.
February 12, 2020
Brilliant and thoroughly researched. A massive and important volume for our time and a point of view rarely given such a masterful voice. Thought-provoking.
July 24, 2020
Epic book and an absolute bear to read.
McCarraher argues against the popular idea (Charles Taylor and others) that The Enlightenment started the dis-enchantment Of western culture. Instead, he says Captialism shifted the object of our enchantment from the natural world (sacramental worldview) toward The Market, technological progress, money.
He makes his case through a grinding, steady survey of prominent theologians, advertisers, and economists from the 1700’s to the 1970’s. There are so so many names and references.
2 highlights:
1) McCarraher points out resistance movements that tried to stand against the current of industrialization/liberalism/neoliberalism through time and shows the Market’s capacity to incorporate “radicalism” for profit and so de-fang these radical movements. Super interesting.
2) He consistency shows (and argues in the conclusion) that any fresh construal of new ways of imagining political economy necessitates a new relationship between humanity and creation that is reciprocal and non-extractive. I really like this Romantic stance
In a few years there’s going to be an abridged, concise version of this book and that book will be awesome.
McCarraher argues against the popular idea (Charles Taylor and others) that The Enlightenment started the dis-enchantment Of western culture. Instead, he says Captialism shifted the object of our enchantment from the natural world (sacramental worldview) toward The Market, technological progress, money.
He makes his case through a grinding, steady survey of prominent theologians, advertisers, and economists from the 1700’s to the 1970’s. There are so so many names and references.
2 highlights:
1) McCarraher points out resistance movements that tried to stand against the current of industrialization/liberalism/neoliberalism through time and shows the Market’s capacity to incorporate “radicalism” for profit and so de-fang these radical movements. Super interesting.
2) He consistency shows (and argues in the conclusion) that any fresh construal of new ways of imagining political economy necessitates a new relationship between humanity and creation that is reciprocal and non-extractive. I really like this Romantic stance
In a few years there’s going to be an abridged, concise version of this book and that book will be awesome.
November 9, 2020
Magnificent. A book 800 pages long and without a single fault.
January 28, 2023
So, I finally got around to reading this enormous book and was thoroughly impressed by Eugene McCarraher's plunge into the history of capitalism and his attempt to recover the romantic anti-capitalist tradition. McCarraher's work is both dense and immense. He journeys across centuries and weaves a thread between different movements. It's one of those books that takes a while and fundamentally should take a while because you're Googling people, movements, and ideas the author mentions. It's a brilliant magnum opus, whether you agree with the author's position or not. He argues, contra many scholars, that capitalism did not disenchant society but that it instead replaced a sort of religious wonder about the world with its own pecuniary faith. Like Steve Fraser, but more effectively, McCarraher walks through the history (on both sides of the Atlantic) of how capitalism morphed over time, all the while sustained by a re-enchantment under its own auspices.
But it's not all gloomy; this author's history is peppered with romantic resisters, a heterogenous group advocating (in varied ways) for "Romantic, sacramental radicalism." McCarraher suggests his brand of anti-capitalism requires God, remarking that a visionary commonwealth requires a "firmer ontological ground than a vague sense of transcendence." (657) McCarraher uncovers this devotion to a different path among arts and crafts anarchists, the faith of the enslaved, Christian socialists, Catholic Workers, radical unionists (Southern Tenant Farmer's Union), tech skeptics, rogue monastic types, and more. In terms of anti-capitalism, McCarraher's socialist vision is far more human and humane than that of Marx or Lenin, both of whom he criticizes for their positive appraisals of technocracy, centralization, and industrialism. Instead, McCarraher wants to push back against what Lewis Mumford called the Machine, to fight for an ideal that "could claim truth as well as poetic inspiration." (655) It's captivating to see how he weaves together such disparate people and movements into the cloth of a broadly shared aim.
Of course, all of this resistance took place in the fact of prevailing trends in the market's evolution. From the Puritan covenant vision to the Mormon vision to the Protestant proprietary one, McCarraher begins by scrutinizing how various religious backgrounds blessed prosperity and acquisitiveness, creating a niche for capitalism within America's spiritual landscape. He distinguishes this mentality from a more medieval Catholic vision of economics and enchantment, one that seems to guide many of his resisters.
McCarraher notices how even some supposed critics of capitalism recycle its own mythologies, such as the populists of the late 1800s. This group he criticizes for their jeremiad tradition based fundamentally on fair competition among people with private property. Oddly, he is more approving of distributists who ended up revising this same American populist tradition. I disagree with McCarraher on this, possibly due to the fact that I just don't share his deep anti-capitalism. I side more with Lawrence Goodwyn, who argued that the populists were concerned with smallholders but driven by a captivating vision of solidarity. McCarraher's later analysis of how corporate capital stole the New Left's bohemian thunder is far stronger in my opinion, and it dovetails nicely with his earlier investigation of Emerson and Whitman's relationship to budding corporate capitalism.
Anyway, back to the early 20th century... McCarraher chronicles the rise of the corporate form as the "soulful vessel of American communion" for corporate liberals and the elite more generally. (244) Eventually, in his telling, corporate capitalism took on the characteristics of an enchanted faith, seen through the rise of advertising and the co-opting of beauty, the prominence of Taylorism and Fordism, the direction of imagination (Disney), and an uncritical approach towards technological advances.
After the Great Depression and World War II, this corporate capitalism was channeled into a quasi-progressive arrangement centered on consumerism as the "enjoyment of commodified pleasures" became associated with individualism. (463) No longer did the capitalist credo revolve around the ownership of productive property; products became the name of the game, as reflected in cultural trends such as pop art. In the 1960s, the counterculture became "the corporate counterculture." (537) In this period, the US also experienced rapid technological progress. Through this, automation became especially charged with spiritual symbolism, as we moved ever closer to the "transfiguration of all things into the venal image and likeness of capital." (542) McCarraher claims that this process reached its peak with neoliberalism, which "served to divinize market forces and exalt the entrepreneurial self, affirming the most complete apotheosis of pecuniary metaphysics." (587)
I don't agree with all of McCarraher's criticisms, but I appreciate his level-headed approach to various historical figures and stand in awe of the amount of research that went into this book. I depart from McCarraher in believing that an attachment to private property must inherently be capitalistic. In addition, he could have spent more time analyzing post-1970s trends; there are a number of stones left unturned in the modern era. Then again, perhaps that would have added a few hundred pages to an already immense work. Ideological and strategic disagreements aside, "The Enchantments of Mammon" is an incredible read for anybody who thinks seriously about religion, economics, and culture.
But it's not all gloomy; this author's history is peppered with romantic resisters, a heterogenous group advocating (in varied ways) for "Romantic, sacramental radicalism." McCarraher suggests his brand of anti-capitalism requires God, remarking that a visionary commonwealth requires a "firmer ontological ground than a vague sense of transcendence." (657) McCarraher uncovers this devotion to a different path among arts and crafts anarchists, the faith of the enslaved, Christian socialists, Catholic Workers, radical unionists (Southern Tenant Farmer's Union), tech skeptics, rogue monastic types, and more. In terms of anti-capitalism, McCarraher's socialist vision is far more human and humane than that of Marx or Lenin, both of whom he criticizes for their positive appraisals of technocracy, centralization, and industrialism. Instead, McCarraher wants to push back against what Lewis Mumford called the Machine, to fight for an ideal that "could claim truth as well as poetic inspiration." (655) It's captivating to see how he weaves together such disparate people and movements into the cloth of a broadly shared aim.
Of course, all of this resistance took place in the fact of prevailing trends in the market's evolution. From the Puritan covenant vision to the Mormon vision to the Protestant proprietary one, McCarraher begins by scrutinizing how various religious backgrounds blessed prosperity and acquisitiveness, creating a niche for capitalism within America's spiritual landscape. He distinguishes this mentality from a more medieval Catholic vision of economics and enchantment, one that seems to guide many of his resisters.
McCarraher notices how even some supposed critics of capitalism recycle its own mythologies, such as the populists of the late 1800s. This group he criticizes for their jeremiad tradition based fundamentally on fair competition among people with private property. Oddly, he is more approving of distributists who ended up revising this same American populist tradition. I disagree with McCarraher on this, possibly due to the fact that I just don't share his deep anti-capitalism. I side more with Lawrence Goodwyn, who argued that the populists were concerned with smallholders but driven by a captivating vision of solidarity. McCarraher's later analysis of how corporate capital stole the New Left's bohemian thunder is far stronger in my opinion, and it dovetails nicely with his earlier investigation of Emerson and Whitman's relationship to budding corporate capitalism.
Anyway, back to the early 20th century... McCarraher chronicles the rise of the corporate form as the "soulful vessel of American communion" for corporate liberals and the elite more generally. (244) Eventually, in his telling, corporate capitalism took on the characteristics of an enchanted faith, seen through the rise of advertising and the co-opting of beauty, the prominence of Taylorism and Fordism, the direction of imagination (Disney), and an uncritical approach towards technological advances.
After the Great Depression and World War II, this corporate capitalism was channeled into a quasi-progressive arrangement centered on consumerism as the "enjoyment of commodified pleasures" became associated with individualism. (463) No longer did the capitalist credo revolve around the ownership of productive property; products became the name of the game, as reflected in cultural trends such as pop art. In the 1960s, the counterculture became "the corporate counterculture." (537) In this period, the US also experienced rapid technological progress. Through this, automation became especially charged with spiritual symbolism, as we moved ever closer to the "transfiguration of all things into the venal image and likeness of capital." (542) McCarraher claims that this process reached its peak with neoliberalism, which "served to divinize market forces and exalt the entrepreneurial self, affirming the most complete apotheosis of pecuniary metaphysics." (587)
I don't agree with all of McCarraher's criticisms, but I appreciate his level-headed approach to various historical figures and stand in awe of the amount of research that went into this book. I depart from McCarraher in believing that an attachment to private property must inherently be capitalistic. In addition, he could have spent more time analyzing post-1970s trends; there are a number of stones left unturned in the modern era. Then again, perhaps that would have added a few hundred pages to an already immense work. Ideological and strategic disagreements aside, "The Enchantments of Mammon" is an incredible read for anybody who thinks seriously about religion, economics, and culture.
February 17, 2024
A life changing book- but it has left me adrift with how to proceed in my life. As a cog of the corporate technocracy which McCarraher exposes as a modern temple of idolatry and Mammon-worship, I end McCarraher’s epilogue vindicated in my constant unease with both corporate America’s cult-like behavior and mammon worship and Protestantism’s stale platitudes concerning money, yet now find myself unsure of how to proceed. This is, of course, on the heels of reading Basil of Caesarea’s poignant sermons on the subject.
Where to from here? McCarraher’s hope for a restoration of Romantic sensibility is nice and all, but the numerous examples throughout the book of the failures of the Arts and Crafts movement or anarchism leave me wondering if this will ever really make a difference. How do we return to the medieval communalism of old, a community of craftsmanship and enchanted living?
Wendell Berry might point to the restoration of small-scale, organic farming, though I don’t think McCarraher would be too pleased that to farm in this way requires the ownership of Property. Yet perhaps we need not take McCarraher at this his most radical point. Berry proposes property ownership not as a means towards mammon worship and wealth creation (as popular American Protestant wisdom, a-la a Dave Ramsey often does). Rather, property ownership is always oriented at health (as Berry says at the end of the Unsettling of America). Health not only in terms of physical human health, but health of the whole totality of the human, the soul-body composite, the human nephesh, if you will. Yet this care for human health necessitates the health of the creation- for as the Early Christians also recognized, the salvation and deification of the human necessitates the salvation of the cosmos, when God would be all-in-all.
Yet McCarraher provides countless examples of communities over the last 200 years who have caught this very vision of agriculture and healing, of having “enough” and rejecting Mammon, yet which have each in turn ultimately failed to create societal change. I am left uncertain how to proceed, how to break free of society’s mammon-worship and caustic individualism without stumbling into idyllic communalist visions which never truly work. In the end- it seems the best thing one can do is to simply pray: “let your kingdom come, and your will be done” as we try and figure this mess out.
Would highly recommend this book to all
Where to from here? McCarraher’s hope for a restoration of Romantic sensibility is nice and all, but the numerous examples throughout the book of the failures of the Arts and Crafts movement or anarchism leave me wondering if this will ever really make a difference. How do we return to the medieval communalism of old, a community of craftsmanship and enchanted living?
Wendell Berry might point to the restoration of small-scale, organic farming, though I don’t think McCarraher would be too pleased that to farm in this way requires the ownership of Property. Yet perhaps we need not take McCarraher at this his most radical point. Berry proposes property ownership not as a means towards mammon worship and wealth creation (as popular American Protestant wisdom, a-la a Dave Ramsey often does). Rather, property ownership is always oriented at health (as Berry says at the end of the Unsettling of America). Health not only in terms of physical human health, but health of the whole totality of the human, the soul-body composite, the human nephesh, if you will. Yet this care for human health necessitates the health of the creation- for as the Early Christians also recognized, the salvation and deification of the human necessitates the salvation of the cosmos, when God would be all-in-all.
Yet McCarraher provides countless examples of communities over the last 200 years who have caught this very vision of agriculture and healing, of having “enough” and rejecting Mammon, yet which have each in turn ultimately failed to create societal change. I am left uncertain how to proceed, how to break free of society’s mammon-worship and caustic individualism without stumbling into idyllic communalist visions which never truly work. In the end- it seems the best thing one can do is to simply pray: “let your kingdom come, and your will be done” as we try and figure this mess out.
Would highly recommend this book to all
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2022
A necessary rejoinder to the disenchantment modernity thesis found in places like Weber and Charles Taylor. McCarraher demonstrates over the course of 700 pages and 400 years of history (beginning in 1600 and ending right around 1975) that Capitalism is anything but a secular, technical, disenchanted project. Instead it has its own myths, high priests, and sacred texts. A wonderful history book, Part 1 on the Romantic anti-capitalist imagination and Part 7 on the prehistory of neoliberalism are particular highlights of the book.
Read this all the way back in the summer of COVID 2020 with Neal, Ethan, and Cameron. Fun material for a reading group.
Read this all the way back in the summer of COVID 2020 with Neal, Ethan, and Cameron. Fun material for a reading group.
April 10, 2021
This is a very long book and deals mainly with the effects of greed on American history and society but still well worth the investment of your time. The beginning deals with the English struggle against class oppression which is a hidden aspect of English histroy. George Orwell advocated for an English democratic socialism, born in English soil. England has a long, interesting history of working class struggle pre-dating Marx by centuries. Don't be surprised if it reasserts itself although that aspect of English history is systematically buried under the stories of kings and queens.
May 20, 2022
Frankly, a disaster of a book. Starts with an interesting premise, but quickly abandons it. Never gets clear on any of its terms or theoretical frames. Can't distinguish between religious metaphors and religion, for itself or the people it's talking about. Eventually offers a frenetic and reductionistic history that, at its best, amounts to disconnected stories, and at its worst seems like name-association. Should have been sent back for revision.
November 5, 2020
This is a fantastic work of sizable proportions: I do not recommend reading it quickly. There’s a lot of information to trudge through, but it’s important and useful information.
October 23, 2024
Really enjoyed reading this book. It was super comprehensive and helpful in seeing just how entrenched western societies are with a mindset bent toward the pecuniary.
November 6, 2024
Humbling in its scope and depth. Not easy, but a must-read book.
July 17, 2021
Lots of good information, but such a slog to get through.
Read
August 24, 2020An absolutely magisterial work! McCarraher's thesis, that we ought not listen to Weber when he says the world has become disenchanted, is compelling and substantially documented. The historical anecdotes are numerous and the writing is excellent. McCarraher is a bit repetitive in his use of "sacramental" analogies, and just as in all intellectual histories, one is left to decide if the thinkers discussed ever really had that much influence. The book could've used a discussion of the Evangelical connection to the Prosperity Gospel, which seems like an obvious fit for the work. However, I would guess that the book was already long as is and McCarraher didn't want to make it longer.
Anyone who's sickened by consumer culture today would do well to read this book - it will give you a comprehensive framework for understanding America's money-sickness.
Anyone who's sickened by consumer culture today would do well to read this book - it will give you a comprehensive framework for understanding America's money-sickness.
December 13, 2020
Although, at the end, I am left unconvinced of the thesis, the book is more than worth the time for its compelling and insightful analysis. It is near encyclopedic and the editing is great! Beyond American corporate history, McCarraher dives into art history, philosophy, and psychology. I am left with a better understanding of the pervasive nature "Mammon" has had throughout liberalism's regnancy. From disparate movements like pop-art, American pragmatism, and humanistic psychology the author pens a convincing (and somewhat dark) view of institutional and individual acquiescence to the god of greed. The ease of reading is also a plus, McCarraher writes in an enjoyable and forceful tone that I could sit with for long stretches.
I believe one of the ways the thesis could be made stronger is to unchain it from the deadweight of marxist vocabulary - more specifically from the language of "commodity fetishism." It appears that McCarraher wants to show the capitalist system is still "enchanted" in the Weberian sense by way of showing that institutions and products are "fetishized." However, this requires a slight shifting of the language of "enchantment" that is never made explicit in the book. To me, the difference between the early puritan enchantment of production and the secular neoliberal version are too different to contain within the same umbrella of fetishized enchantment - it diminishes the former and elevates the later. Although the end goal is the same, it is due to the subtle redefinition of enchantment.
That being said, I was much more convinced, almost completely, in the later chapters in the book. The middle of the book is the hardest to get through because it is talking about the distant industrial revolutions of England. My advice for someone who starts this book for the first time is read the first chapters on Marx then move to the last couple chapters on neoliberalism. That way you get a clearer idea of what "enchantment" means in McCarahher's terminology and it is made more concrete than first applying it to distant Europe.
I highly recommend this book for its concrete, honest, perceptive, and insightful criticism and its compelling thesis.
I believe one of the ways the thesis could be made stronger is to unchain it from the deadweight of marxist vocabulary - more specifically from the language of "commodity fetishism." It appears that McCarraher wants to show the capitalist system is still "enchanted" in the Weberian sense by way of showing that institutions and products are "fetishized." However, this requires a slight shifting of the language of "enchantment" that is never made explicit in the book. To me, the difference between the early puritan enchantment of production and the secular neoliberal version are too different to contain within the same umbrella of fetishized enchantment - it diminishes the former and elevates the later. Although the end goal is the same, it is due to the subtle redefinition of enchantment.
That being said, I was much more convinced, almost completely, in the later chapters in the book. The middle of the book is the hardest to get through because it is talking about the distant industrial revolutions of England. My advice for someone who starts this book for the first time is read the first chapters on Marx then move to the last couple chapters on neoliberalism. That way you get a clearer idea of what "enchantment" means in McCarahher's terminology and it is made more concrete than first applying it to distant Europe.
I highly recommend this book for its concrete, honest, perceptive, and insightful criticism and its compelling thesis.
June 26, 2024
Permit me to observe at the outset that I recognize that I face a considerable – perhaps insurmountable – problem in attempting to adequately review a book that runs to 679 pages of text and another 106 pages of detailed footnotes!
Moreover, its presentation, lucidly argued, is admittedly “dense” in good part because McCarraher not only comments at some length about hundreds of persons whose opinions and actions are part of the story about how capitalism became the religion of modernity, but also fills each chapter with multiple quotations from such notables.
Because of this, I deeply wish that the author had also provided us with an additional volume of much shorter length that would have allowed more people to grasp his essential argument without attempting to wade through several hundred pages of denser stuff that probably will defeat most intelligent men and women who attempt to read all of the original.
Since he has not done so, I will do my best to provide you with an overview of what struck me as his most important points.
This book is yet another piece of evidence of how the processes – intellectual, as well as political, economic, and cultural – set in motion by the upheavals caused by the Enlightenment and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions continue to keep us off balance in many fundamental ways. While McCarraher is not alone is showing how these have served to undermine so many ideas and institutions once beyond question in the West, he takes special care to investigate how the religious upheavals begun 300 years ago are central to the many problems of our time because:
1. The Enlightenment gave us false hope of believing not only that we humans were primarily thinking creatures – and, therefore, usually rational – but also that through scientific progress we could ultimately understand – and perhaps control – all that impacted us. This, of course, included the eventual mastering of economic forces.
2. Both the scientific revolution and the increase of modern biblical scholarship served to undermine many traditional beliefs of both how things came to be as well as why thing are the way they are now. Inevitably, questions about long-standing ideas that proved to be based upon pious myths or from a literal reading of the Bible morphed into challenges to those instruments and institutions of authority which had taught or relied upon them. The problem increasingly became whom do we now trust and for which reasons?
3. With traditional religious institutions steadily losing credibility (and membership, as we see so well in our own time), people naturally began to turn to other places and persons for insights into ultimate meaning, the kinds of questions that had for most of human history been answered by various agents and interpreters of “the divine” (whether understood as “fate,” gods and goddesses, or one supreme god).
4. The cumulative effect was a desacralization of our world. The “holy” or “sacred” that used to be believed to reside in sacraments, churches, synagogues, and temples – and/or as well in certain places on our planet – seemingly vanished.
5. The central argument of McCarraher’s book is that increasingly “the answer” to these and related questions has been found in the economy, especially those technological and human innovations and innovators who are believed responsible for progress and material prosperity.
Throughout his book, McCarraher attempts to show how all of this both came about, understood, preached and accepted.
It is a rich, and often heart-breaking, tale. Since most people are not historians, most of what the author relates here might be eye-opening. For he shows how many often portrayed as “Luddites” and others simply “against any and all progress” were usually people who vainly tried to retain their human individuality as expressed in their work. They foresaw and understandably feared the reduction in the value of the work produced by individuals because of industrial capitalism’s ruthless pressure to simplify, standardize, and commodify work and the products of work. What the “captains of industry” celebrated as progress towards greater efficiency and a more widespread sharing of manufactured goods, was correctly seen by many skilled workers – and too few observers – as the reduction of human beings to also becoming the same and effectively interchangeable.
Moreover, in a world in which “the sacred” no longer existed – at least, as had been traditionally understood to have – the cheerleaders of industrialism celebrated the inventiveness and creativity of these innovative captains of industry who manifested the necessary talent and skills to “lead the people into a new land of unparalleled riches.
And, if there were some who weren’t as able as others to compete, well, the new theory bastardized from Darwin’s work called the survival of the fittest also explained that, too. If it was no longer “the will of God” that explained why some “succeeded” and others “failed,” while some struggled in poverty and others enjoyed extraordinary riches, it could be absolutely understood now as a law of nature, a nature about and over which human beings were increasingly asserting their control!
The 19th century bathed in the discovery of new “natural” or “historical laws”: Marx’s theory was essentially as “scientific” and “rigid” as were those proposing the “inevitable triumph of capitalism” and boasting of the “wisdom and beneficence of marketplace free from the ‘meddling’ of government.”
While there have been times – in retrospective, rather brief ones – in which some people managed to push back against these prevailing “natural law” ideas for a while – such as the New Deal in the ‘30s and ‘40s and the brief period of widespread flourishing that followed WW II in the US – time and again the proponents for, and the managers of, unfettered capitalism have fought their way back to the top, all the while insisting that they understand the proper operation of the marketplace since they, apparently, have become the new Delphic oracles for our time.
Just as in previous centuries regular folks had to keep their hands off messing with the gods or their priests, so also now must the rest of us keep our hands off the economic system – which is, after all, the best of all possible worlds – as well as to remain respectful of our new priesthood of betters: the very wealthy and their well-paid servants.
McCarraher pleads with us to rediscover the sacredness that resides in the world and, therefore, in each other. This is the only way we are going to succeed in returning to the idea that life and, indeed, our world are sacred.
As people of old were repeatedly summoned to stop relying on their false gods if they were to be free and fully human, so are we also challenged to recognize and walk away from blind followship of the true False God of our time: the right to wealth for those who are “worthy” rather than the right to flourish that is the true inheritance of all!
Moreover, its presentation, lucidly argued, is admittedly “dense” in good part because McCarraher not only comments at some length about hundreds of persons whose opinions and actions are part of the story about how capitalism became the religion of modernity, but also fills each chapter with multiple quotations from such notables.
Because of this, I deeply wish that the author had also provided us with an additional volume of much shorter length that would have allowed more people to grasp his essential argument without attempting to wade through several hundred pages of denser stuff that probably will defeat most intelligent men and women who attempt to read all of the original.
Since he has not done so, I will do my best to provide you with an overview of what struck me as his most important points.
This book is yet another piece of evidence of how the processes – intellectual, as well as political, economic, and cultural – set in motion by the upheavals caused by the Enlightenment and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions continue to keep us off balance in many fundamental ways. While McCarraher is not alone is showing how these have served to undermine so many ideas and institutions once beyond question in the West, he takes special care to investigate how the religious upheavals begun 300 years ago are central to the many problems of our time because:
1. The Enlightenment gave us false hope of believing not only that we humans were primarily thinking creatures – and, therefore, usually rational – but also that through scientific progress we could ultimately understand – and perhaps control – all that impacted us. This, of course, included the eventual mastering of economic forces.
2. Both the scientific revolution and the increase of modern biblical scholarship served to undermine many traditional beliefs of both how things came to be as well as why thing are the way they are now. Inevitably, questions about long-standing ideas that proved to be based upon pious myths or from a literal reading of the Bible morphed into challenges to those instruments and institutions of authority which had taught or relied upon them. The problem increasingly became whom do we now trust and for which reasons?
3. With traditional religious institutions steadily losing credibility (and membership, as we see so well in our own time), people naturally began to turn to other places and persons for insights into ultimate meaning, the kinds of questions that had for most of human history been answered by various agents and interpreters of “the divine” (whether understood as “fate,” gods and goddesses, or one supreme god).
4. The cumulative effect was a desacralization of our world. The “holy” or “sacred” that used to be believed to reside in sacraments, churches, synagogues, and temples – and/or as well in certain places on our planet – seemingly vanished.
5. The central argument of McCarraher’s book is that increasingly “the answer” to these and related questions has been found in the economy, especially those technological and human innovations and innovators who are believed responsible for progress and material prosperity.
Throughout his book, McCarraher attempts to show how all of this both came about, understood, preached and accepted.
It is a rich, and often heart-breaking, tale. Since most people are not historians, most of what the author relates here might be eye-opening. For he shows how many often portrayed as “Luddites” and others simply “against any and all progress” were usually people who vainly tried to retain their human individuality as expressed in their work. They foresaw and understandably feared the reduction in the value of the work produced by individuals because of industrial capitalism’s ruthless pressure to simplify, standardize, and commodify work and the products of work. What the “captains of industry” celebrated as progress towards greater efficiency and a more widespread sharing of manufactured goods, was correctly seen by many skilled workers – and too few observers – as the reduction of human beings to also becoming the same and effectively interchangeable.
Moreover, in a world in which “the sacred” no longer existed – at least, as had been traditionally understood to have – the cheerleaders of industrialism celebrated the inventiveness and creativity of these innovative captains of industry who manifested the necessary talent and skills to “lead the people into a new land of unparalleled riches.
And, if there were some who weren’t as able as others to compete, well, the new theory bastardized from Darwin’s work called the survival of the fittest also explained that, too. If it was no longer “the will of God” that explained why some “succeeded” and others “failed,” while some struggled in poverty and others enjoyed extraordinary riches, it could be absolutely understood now as a law of nature, a nature about and over which human beings were increasingly asserting their control!
The 19th century bathed in the discovery of new “natural” or “historical laws”: Marx’s theory was essentially as “scientific” and “rigid” as were those proposing the “inevitable triumph of capitalism” and boasting of the “wisdom and beneficence of marketplace free from the ‘meddling’ of government.”
While there have been times – in retrospective, rather brief ones – in which some people managed to push back against these prevailing “natural law” ideas for a while – such as the New Deal in the ‘30s and ‘40s and the brief period of widespread flourishing that followed WW II in the US – time and again the proponents for, and the managers of, unfettered capitalism have fought their way back to the top, all the while insisting that they understand the proper operation of the marketplace since they, apparently, have become the new Delphic oracles for our time.
Just as in previous centuries regular folks had to keep their hands off messing with the gods or their priests, so also now must the rest of us keep our hands off the economic system – which is, after all, the best of all possible worlds – as well as to remain respectful of our new priesthood of betters: the very wealthy and their well-paid servants.
McCarraher pleads with us to rediscover the sacredness that resides in the world and, therefore, in each other. This is the only way we are going to succeed in returning to the idea that life and, indeed, our world are sacred.
As people of old were repeatedly summoned to stop relying on their false gods if they were to be free and fully human, so are we also challenged to recognize and walk away from blind followship of the true False God of our time: the right to wealth for those who are “worthy” rather than the right to flourish that is the true inheritance of all!
Read
February 13, 2021DNF - Not sure how many of the reviewers listened intently to each of the 35 hours with rapt attention. Rarely do books lend themselves more to needing a decent editor. The few hours I spent with it were just very tedious - not disagreeing wholeheartedly with the content but.... so.... heavy handed and dull.
December 18, 2020
A big, brilliant book - the sort of wide-ranging intellectual history that takes me off in a dozen fascinating directions. And while it's no light read, it's written with passion and wit. One of the best books I read in 2020.
Want to read
July 6, 2020Alan Jacobs' review: https://blog.ayjay.org/mammon/
December 17, 2020
We live in a time of new polytheism. Zeus the almighty dollar, gods go by names such as Apple, Uber, Google and marketers are our oracles filling the temples with burnt offerings.
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