Review: Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-philosophy-religion/james-g-chappel-bad-romance

by zdw • 7 years ago

25 25 7 years ago

It's not a religion, because it is not based on faith. It consistently delivers results whether its practitioners believe in it or not.

ktaylora• 7 years ago

The faith part comes from interpreting the economic results of capitalism. Do you accept it as a useful economic system given all the problems you see with it? Are you willing to entertain the possibility of alternatives? If not, why?

eeZah7Ux2• 7 years ago

It takes a lot of faith to overlook the many impending environmental disasters.

Many also cling to the false dichotomy between capitalism and "soviet russia / north korea / venezuela"

WalterBright9• 7 years ago

The faith part comes from interpreting the economic results of capitalism

Interpreting results comes from evidence, not faith. One constructs a theory based on evidence. One tests the theory by seeing if future evidence behaves like the theory suggests.

Religion isn't like that, it does not predict things in a way that is testable. Creationism, for example, makes zero predictions and so is not at all testable, making it a faith, not science.

Do you accept it as a useful economic system given all the problems you see with it?

Yes. Without question. Look around you - all the goodies you have were created by capitalism.

Are you willing to entertain the possibility of alternatives? If not, why?

All the alternatives proposed have a historical record of being worse, often far worse.

Gibbon13• 7 years ago

It would appear that the 40 year experiment in the west has failed completely though.

rcoveson2• 7 years ago

This comment is deeply insulting to everybody in history who has lived in a society that has in fact completely failed. Respect your relative paradise.

I guarantee you won't discover anything superior to "the west" unless you acknowledge the many things it has gotten right.

megaman8212• 7 years ago

Let's say it has failed you personally. You are probably not the only person that feels that way. What in a capitalist society is stopping you from forming a community that is far more socialist? All the companies in your community can be employee-owned. You are free to tax yourselves to provide social services above and beyond the baseline. Why not show the capitalists how your system is superior?

narrator• 7 years ago

Capitalism solves things with a good enough neural net. Socialism says that it can solve problems analytically, but it just uses a smaller inferior neural net of centralized bureaucracy with access to less data, and a slower learning rate.

WalterBright9• 7 years ago

Conditions always change, and central planning has consistently shown a relative inability to adapt to change, meaning it just falls further behind.

This is also why corporations don't grow without limit - they become constricted by bureaucracy and unable to adapt, and smaller, nimbler outfits pick them off.

tempguy99993• 7 years ago

It consistently delivers results

Perhaps. Whether those are the results intended are another matter qv. Enron and many more.

Edit: Then again, it depends on what you mean by capitalism. If you mean as generally practiced my criticism stands but if you mean pricing that reflects all aspects inc. externalities rather than ignoring them (as with fossil fuel use) then I'd agree. Which do you mean?

WalterBright9• 7 years ago

Perhaps.

No doubt about it. Look around you, all the stuff in your dwelling, etc., all from capitalism.

Enron

Enron made its hay from taking advantage of California's regulation of consumer electricity prices, and the inability of the regulators to adapt.

Review: Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

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