Kathryn Tanner’s anti-work ethic
The theologian doesn’t want finance capitalism to determine what we’re worth.
capitalism
“Religious vocation sits very uneasily with individual self-advancement.”
The fall of Sears reflects larger problems with how corporations are run.
Pastoral care in a neoliberal age
Bruce Rogers-Vaughn believes that modern capitalism isn't simply anti-government. It's also anti-human and anti-church.
The resentment that capitalist modernity leaves in its wake
What do terrorists and populist nationalists have in common? They're fueled by inequality.
There’s nothing subtle about Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Marxist critique of life in postcolonial Kenya.
Wine is a good gift from God. Coca-Cola is not. (But is it really that simple?)
The joy of things and the trap of excess
An ethicist and an anthropologist ask: How much is too much?
Christianity isn’t inherently white supremacist. But Christian faith in America has been interpreted in a way that upholds the tenets of white supremacy, which is built on 18th and 19th century Western hegemonic values. These cultural values, which have been intertwined into mainline American Christianity, protect and uphold the system of white supremacy. “All men are created equal,” claims the Declaration of Independence.
Capitalism and faith: A tangled history
Why have American Christians so readily baptized the idea of free-market capitalism? Kevin Kruse illuminates the long, tangled history.
The Age of Acquiescence, by Steve Fraser
Why was the first Gilded Age a time of sometimes violent resistance, while ours is an age of acquiescence? Steve Fraser's answer is twofold: capitalism has changed, and so has the social imaginary that enfolds it.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty
Income disparity is likely to keep getting worse, eventually undermining the viability of democratic capitalism. This stark message has made Thomas Piketty's book the object of much scrutiny.
As a kid I loved to play Monopoly. Loved it. Friends and I would have marathon games, fighting over close readings of the rules, bargaining for half an hour while the dice and younger siblings sat idle, the whole deal. My sisters still talk about the time I prematurely ended a game I was losing by flipping the board over and scattering the pieces everywhere.
Two similar pieces are getting a lot of play this week: James Whittaker’s blog post about why he left Google and Greg Smith’s op-ed about why he left Goldman Sachs. Both talk of their high level of company loyalty and enthusiasm in the past. Both bemoan the changes in their respective corporate cultures that led them to leave. Neither seems all that hopeful about his company’s future. What neither of them does, however, is demonstrate that the problem is that Google/Goldman Sachs used to care about more than just making money but doesn’t anymore.