Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism Hardcover – 12 February 2019
by Kathryn Tanner (Author)
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One of the world’s most celebrated theologians argues for a Protestant anti-work ethic
In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber’s work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism.
Exploring the cultural forms typical of the current finance–dominated system of capitalism, Tanner shows how they can be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person–shaping capacity. Addressing head–on the issues of economic inequality, structural under- and unemployment, and capitalism’s unstable boom/bust cycles, she draws deeply on the theological resources within Christianity to imagine anew a world of human flourishing. This book promises to be one of the most important theological books in recent years.
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Review
“A stunning reworking of the financial metaphors that have become a standard feature of Western theology.”—Amy Plantinga Pauw, Christian Century
“In this book, Kathryn Tanner exposes the vacuity of current capitalist mythologies and offers an alternative way of imagining human well-being, grounded in a sophisticated and provocative theological vision. A hugely important essay in strengthening resistance to the subtle tyrannies of financial fundamentalism.”—Rowan Williams, Cambridge
“Kathryn Tanner is a distinguished Christian theologian of the highest order whose prophetic critique of financial capitalism is powerful and persuasive. She moves through Max Weber’s classic book, then subtly turns his work on its head with a great relevance to our present moment.”—Cornel West
“Once again, Kathryn Tanner has reshaped the field. Her 'Protestant anti-work ethic' shows the deep incompatibility between basic Christian beliefs and contemporary capitalism in a way that is at once fresh, clear, and utterly compelling.”—Ian A. McFarland, University of Cambridge
“With her usual precision and clarity, Kathryn Tanner shows how we have a choice today between equally worn paths: we can live a life defined by a 'spirit of capitalism' or one in conformity with the God of Jesus Christ. Her book suggests the way to a better future.”— Kelly Brown Douglas, Union Theological Seminary
“In our time, capitalism is dominated by the financial sector, repels nearly all encroachments on its sovereignty and reach, and impels us toward eco-catastrophe. Kathryn Tanner makes a wonderfully astute, learned, and compelling case that Christian theology has something important to say about this situation.”—Gary Dorrien, author of Social Democracy in the Making
About the Author
Kathryn Tanner is Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. She is the author of Christ the Key and Economy of Grace, among other books.
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Publisher : *Yale University Press; 1st edition (12 February 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 256 pages
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Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism
by Kathryn Tanner
3.54 · Rating details · 67 ratings · 15 reviews
One of the world’s most celebrated theologians argues for a Protestant anti-work ethic
In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber’s work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism.
Exploring the cultural forms typical of the current finance‑dominated system of capitalism, Tanner shows how they can be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person‑shaping capacity. Addressing head‑on the issues of economic inequality, structural under- and unemployment, and capitalism’s unstable boom/bust cycles, she draws deeply on the theological resources within Christianity to imagine anew a world of human flourishing. This book promises to be one of the most important theological books in recent years. (less)
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May 24, 2019Steve rated it liked it
Shelves: books-of-2019, society-politics, technology-business
Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism
by Kathryn Tanner
Summary
Tanner takes Weber's famous book as a queue and re-spins the protestant work ethic as a critique of capitalism. Her criticisms of big business, financial capitalism, often ring true. She questions the morality of spinning up value based on risk and market confidence, rather than on the value of real production. She highlights the individualism and the self-promoting motivation that can drive different social and economic orders. A market driven by selfishness cannot survive a Christian critique, and rightly so.
The format Tanner uses is to expound the nature of the current work ethic, and then answer it with a theological critique.
“In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber’s work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism.”
Here are some of the points she makes:
1. The mechanisation of business and of people and work has changed how employers view workers, often as "human resources" to be worked and made more efficient. It has also changed our view of work. Efficiency and productivity trump all else. Hence mass production and mass consumerism.
SH: At the same time Tanner neglects the immense emphasis on "people" in business, work-life balance and the development of the person.
2. Total commitment. Modern businesses require total commitment. Hence, pressure. The pressure of work and schedules and deadlines appear to be greater than in the past. Whether, as modern people, we work harder is debatable, but the levels of stress and pressure are probably more. At the same time, we have more flexibility and freedom, but that can be a subtle way to blur the distinctions between work and life. However, for the Christian our character is being continuously changed (sanctification). But the move towards becoming is already complete in Christ. It is not a pressured striving.
This leads to a culture of conformity and leaves little room for creativity and input from the employee as to how the work is to be performed. Loyalty, company men…
SH: However, recent approaches emphasise autonomy – e.g. certain software development practices.
3. Our wills are subsumed by the will of the market. Our value is that of the market and is, therefore, largely financial. The company wants to conform the employee to the goals of the company - a kind of corporate sanctification. Thus, our commitment to God drives a wedge between this commitment to the "brand" and the goals of the market.
As Christians are desire is not subsumed into the mundane, we are lifted to higher goals that frame our ordinary lives and responsibilities.
4. The market is both present-centred and future-centred. Immediate gains and profits drive behaviour now, often sacrificing the future. The present-oriented nature of work as thus conceived, pushes out the future. Hence, we might borrow against the future, to gain now. Short-term returns. Short-term investments. Not building for the longer term and the future.
The Christian is also present-oriented because oriented to God now. Grace is enough.
5. At the same time the market pushes us to anticipate the future, managing our risks. This could, she complains, bound our views of the future. We might live by probabilities.
The Christian future will wrench us from our sinful self, and radically disrupt us. But the Christian future, by which I think she means the post-resurrection world, will be radically different to the present order.
6. Which world? Discusses competitive relationships in world over collaboration. Where is responsibility without individualism and selfishness? Competition for jobs, roles and rewards. SH: how can one avoid this in a company? Maybe a small business avoids some of this? Maybe the scale of modern business fosters this? Shared objects of desire become competitive goals.
Criticisms.
1. There is very little scriptural interaction, general doctrines and themes of marshalled, but little by way of what scripture says about economic matters.
2. The disjunctions between the capitalist present and the future, are often set up as contrasts with the eternal order. The problem with this is that the post-resurrection order is inevitably different to the present, whatever the social order is now. The contrast is between two different arrangements, and therefore the contrast inevitably disadvantages the present one.
3. Tanner’s defaults include the goodness of the welfare system, as a given. There is little by way of theological challenge to that system, or its own adverse effects on people, and even on whole classes in our society.
4. Tanner (198) says there is not much of a work ethic in the bible -or not one recommended! Her points are that devotion to God is our motivation, rather than effort. Extreme effort is a result of the fall. We are not called to produce anything (207) apart from our conformity to Christ!
SH: but I assume the former produces the latter, or ought?
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Ben Thurley
Sep 24, 2021Ben Thurley rated it it was ok
As an economic analyst, Tanner makes a great theologian.
Although the work was published in 2019, Tanner's reference to "finance dominated capitalism" already sounds old-fashioned – a critique born out of the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago– and is built on an Econ 101 style analysis of trade, investment, profit and employment that scarcely engages with the particularities of any given religious-political-economic regime in which neoliberal capitalism is ascendant.
Tanner is not wrong to say that capitalism as experienced in much of the West inextricably binds people through debt, posits an eternal present of successive 'moments' each no different from the one before it, and demands total commitment. Zygmunt Bauman has said the same, with considerably more panache.
Written with an almost stifling dryness, the work proceeds at such a high level of generality and abstraction in both its economic critique and its theological claims that it is hard to credit it as analysis nor as meaningful description of an alternative mode of being posed, Tanner claims, by Christianity. (less)
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Joe Arrendale
Feb 12, 2022Joe Arrendale rated it it was amazing
It’s pretty wild how someone who is an expert in primarily theology is knowledgeable enough to be able to teach an undergraduate course in finance with ease
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Daniel Saunders
May 08, 2021Daniel Saunders rated it liked it
Shelves: religion
2.5 / 5 — As a socialist Christian reader, I thought this book had some good insights on finance capitalism, but it is ultimately inadequate in its analysis of capitalism and unconvincing/unclear in its articulation of an alternative.
This is a thoughtful if frequently exasperating book in which Tanner makes the inverse argument of Max Weber’s famous thesis – that Protestantism, instead of evincing an “elective affinity” with the spirit of capitalism, instead presents a supposedly withering challenge to it. Tanner locates the “new spirit” of capitalism in its neoliberal, finance-dominated iteration, and perhaps the greatest moments of this book are those in which Tanner elucidates in great detail the life-and-subjectivity-shaping mechanisms of this spirit.
But this initial strong footing is quickly compromised as the reader gets tangled in Tanner’s analysis. There is little here by way of a serious engagement with the underlying questions of political economy, class structure, or the historical development of capitalism, and it is evident that this book cannot be called “anti-capitalist” in any meaningful sense. Capitalism is presented not so much as a system, structure, or specific configuration of the relations of production (the Marxist argument) as it is an intention or character which might be swayed to go one way or another through moral persuasion. For these reasons, any who approach this book from a leftist, and especially Marxist perspective, will find much to be critical of and perhaps little to be gained from this kind of analysis.
That leaves the Christianity component. Here Tanner attempts to position Christianity as an alternative or competing spirit to the economic, one that owes its existence and force to allegiances that lie wholly outside the scope and control of capitalism. But Tanner’s tactic here is simply to state, in the driest of terms, the contours of any given Christian doctrine that happens to prioritize different values than the corresponding capitalist values. At worst, this kind of comparison often comes off obstinately trite; at best it does not offer much by way of a substantive material and economic critique of capitalism. After all, no matter what Christianity says in its doctrine, we all have to go on living and working and sustaining ourselves, often desperately, under capitalism.
Does this truly constitute an “alternative spirit” to capitalism? The Christianity presented in this book instead appears more akin to a self-help scheme, a mental exercise that might help us get by a little better under overarching conditions that can’t be changed – at least not now, not by us. Little of the liberative aspects of the anti-fetishistic, anti-Mammon faith that caused Jesus to drive money changers from the temple make it into this vision. Had Tanner engaged with any kind of anti-capitalist or liberation theology, instead of a bland, apolitical Calvinism, there might have been some way out of the doctrinal / theoretical to a practical, socialist alternative, but this is simply not in the scope or interest of this book.
I suspect that Christians of a leftist bent will be too frustrated with this book's lack of socialist analysis, while Christians who defend or are tolerant of the ambiguities of capitalism may agree that capitalism’s “unbridled excesses” need to be curbed, but will either be unconvinced of Christianity’s role in this endeavor or will fall on the side of Tanner’s bourgeois apolitical moral reformism. Still, for some insights on the nature of finance capitalism, this book was worth a read for me. (less)
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Christopher Gow
Jun 04, 2020Christopher Gow rated it it was amazing
Shelves: theology, ethics
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Luke Hillier
Dec 24, 2021Luke Hillier rated it liked it
Shelves: academic-religion, christianity, theology, seminary
This is a thoughtful consideration of how Weber's "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" has evolved in our 21st Century context overrun by finance-dominated capitalism. Whereas he saw Christianity functioning to help fuel and foster capitalism, Tanner recognizes that in modern times, capitalism is so powerful and entrenched that it no longer needs a sacred canopy to inspire our devotion to it, and argues that instead Christianity poses a countering imagination and logic (or spirit) to the one spurred on by this iteration of capitalism. This is certainly a premise that I agree with, and Tanner goes on to ground it convincingly in her articulation of finance-dominated capitalism (FDC) but I found some chapters far superior than others and the writing at times a bit dry and redundant (I think I likely didn't pick up on nuance, but it felt like she'd be reiterating the same notion three or four times over at some points).
I think the most successful chapters and concepts focused on the three dimensions of time. Tanner argues that capitalism thrives by enslaving people to a past of indebtedness that sets the terms for their present labor (work as hard as one can to pay off the debt) and limits what they can dream of for the future (because it is just a continued attempt to pay off one's debt). She also offers a chilling analysis of how, unlike previous forms of capitalism that really depended on a robust buyer's market, FDC primarily profits at the abstract level via trading and in fact makes some of its biggest profits off of debt, which only incentivizes widespread indebtedness across the population. In contrast, a central message of Christianity is that one is set free from their past and welcomed into a process of transformation into genuine newness. Building on the implications for the present, she argues that the capitalism collapses past and future into an eternal present where, driven by scarcity, one works to essentially tread water without vision beyond the immediate moment. The contrasting idea from Christianity is that the present moment out to be consumed with attempts to maximize one's devotion to God rather than efforts to improve their financial standing. And in her consideration of the future, she borrows from Fredric Jameson's notion that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, exploring the ways that capitalism has so thoroughly colonized our sense of reality and possibility that it has suffocated our capacity to imagine a future that is radically new and not just an ongoing continuation of the current status quo. And this, of course, runs counter to the Christian notion of futurity that is completely beyond our comprehension and totally upends the markers of value and wealth under capitalism.
I found these concepts to be simultaneously insightful and intuitive, and genuinely helpful in identifying the ways that capitalism has reshaped our experience far beyond materialism alone. I was just a bit underwhelmed with the lack of application. I'm guessing this is in part because I diverge from Tanner theologically (she reads quite Calvinist here), but also I'm skeptical of a solution that seems to essentially be as individualistic as "go to the Church and foster these contrasting perspectives within yourself." Of course, the book does a good job detailing how virulent a beast FDC has come to be, and maybe all we really can do is cede material defeat while tending to our spiritual reserves. I'm just not sure if that's the implication Tanner was hoping for readers to leave with, and I have a feeling it wasn't. (less)
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Rasmus Tillander
Aug 15, 2020Rasmus Tillander rated it really liked it
Shelves: tieto, filosofia
Kathryn Tannerin Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism oli monella tapaa hämmentävä kirja: se oli oikeasti kovaa analyysia finanssikapitalismin valuvioista, mutta samaan aikaan puolustuspuhe Kristus-keskeiselle kristinuskolle.
Tanner, joka on siis Yalen yliopiston systemaattisen teologian professori, asettaa tavoitteensa suhteessa Max Weberin analyysiin protestanttisesta työetiikasta: Tannerin tavoite on luoda finanssikapitalismin hengen vasta-henki ja protestanttinen anti-työetiikka. Tämän etiikan taustalla on kolme prosessia: "(1) Sen linkin murtaminen joka vallitsee oikeuden hyvinvointiin ja työnteon välillä; (2) Sen murtaminen, että ihminen identifioi itseänsä "tuottavaan" itseensä; (3) Niiden ajan jatkuvuuden, ajan romahtamisen murtaminen, jotka nykyisen kapitalismin muodossa rajoittavat kuviteltavia mahdollisuuksia."
Suurimman osan kirjasta Tanner käyttääkin osoittamaan, että nämä kolme murrettavaa asiaa muodostava modernin finanssikapitalismin hengen ja sitä kautta ihmiskuvan. Erityisesti Tanner loistaa analysoidessaan kapitalismin aikaan liittyviä ulottuvuuksia. On häkellettyvää lukea teologin kirjoittavan syvällistä analyysiä joukkovelkakirjojen ja futuurien olemuksista, Tannerin tekstistä huokuu massiivinen akateeminen itseluottamus.
Toisen osan kirjan luvuista muodostavat kristinopilliset segmentit, joissa Tanner esittää miten kristinusko voi toimia vastavoimana sielunmurskaavalle kapitalismille. Ja nämä osiot olivat itselleni hyvin kummallista luettavaa: ne selvästi nojaavat sellaiselle tulkinalle kristinuskosta, joka on itselleni hyvin vieras ja jolle olen ollut vasemmistolaisena hyvin kriittinen. Tanner on barthilainen episkopaali, hyvin perinteinen teisti, joille Kristus muodostaa kaiken keskiön. Pähkinänkuoressa Tanner esittää, että koska meissä todella "tuottava osa" on Kristus meissä, emme voi omilla teoillamme parantaa "itseämme sijoituksena", koska sen tuottomarginaali on kiinni ikuisessa Jumalassa. Huolimatta omasta vastustuksestani on ainakin myönnettävä, että tämä oli viehättävimpiä puolustuksia tämän kaltaisella kristinuskolle.
Kirja oli kuitenkin kokonaisuutena hyvin mielenkiintoinen. Kritiikkiä voisi antaa lähinnä siitä, että käytännön etiikkaa (esim. Jeesuksen talousetiikkaa) ei käsitelty, eikä myöskään oikeita konkreettisia toimia tämän anti-työetiikan sisällä. Mutta ehkä Tanner ajatteli systemaatikkona pysyvänsä lestissään kun kirjoitti huomattavasti opillisemmalla tasolla. Kirjasta myös näkyi ehkä välillä vähän liikaa, että se perustui Tannerin pitämään Gifford-luentosarjaan (joiden pitäminen on suurimpia kunniatehtäviä, joita teologi voinee saada).
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Joseph Sverker
Jul 02, 2019Joseph Sverker rated it liked it
Shelves: social-sciences-theory, theology
A very interesting and timely book. I am very impressed by the way Tanner presents finance economical market and its implications for the ordinary person. The first chapter might be the best in that respect where Tanner shows how the shift towards speculation instead of production punishes the ordinary worker to the benefit of stock holders. The companies' "real" value (I know there is no such thing, I am not a marxist) have next to no impact on the stock value which means that speculation and s ...more
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John Lucy
Nov 19, 2020John Lucy rated it it was ok
Tanner does an excellent and thorough job explaining the "spirit" of capitalism as it is expressed in today's world. She also does a good job contrasting that to the "spirit" of Christianity. The two don't mix. Even those Christians who adamantly support and defend capitalism, perhaps even as an extension of Christianity itself, will find Tanner's exposition of both spirits as persuasive. There are few holes in the argument.
Unfortunately, as the book progresses, the exposition and arguments become repetitive with little in the way of prophecy. The final chapter is meant to chart a Christian's way forward but the argument essentially boils down to, "A Christian should separate oneself from the spirit of capitalism." Since the two spirits don't mix, that was obvious from the start. What else might a Christian do? What are the practical means by which a Christian might separate? Is there another form of market or production that a Christian should advocate for? These questions are either not addressed or barely. Therefore, what could have been a promising work detailing a Christian economy simply becomes an effort in compare and contrast.
With that said, Tanner has also written a work called, "Economy of Grace," that I have not read and which might serve to answer the unanswered questions here. Perhaps that will be a companion piece to this one. If it is, then I shouldn't be so harsh with Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism. If it isn't, then while this book is entirely effective in one way, it falls short for anyone expecting (as I was) some alternative vision for living, given that the two spirits don't mix. (less)
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Roger Green
Jun 30, 2019Roger Green rated it really liked it
After some initially very good descriptions of congruences between the development of finance capitalism and Christian theology, Tanner expresses a rein vocation of Christian ethics to confront the problems of greed and hyper-competative system by returning to Christ's grace. So, the world will be saved if everyone becomes a Christian and sees they're all in it together, which would deplete the social injustice and victim-blaming that debt society foists on poor individuals. Nothing is said of those who aren't Christians, nor of the ways that the congruences between Christianity and capitalism in the very evangelical colonizing forms eradicate other peoples and the environment. Rather, having not morally progressed, Christians are to return to Augustinian-informed notions of grace because "we're all sinners" and strive to live in God's temporality, where apparently everything is abundant and infinite. In this view, Christianity remains unapologetically a "civilizing" force tempering neoliberalism by bringing about the kingdom through the softly-forced submission of all into their conversion narratives. (less)
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Peter Rapp
Jun 13, 2020Peter Rapp rated it it was ok
One wants very much to like this book, but one becomes so befuddled by the convoluted sentence structure and abstruse deployment of pronouns that disappointment instead comes to one.
... Tanner's entire book is written in the preceding format, making it exceptionally difficult to read. I was preinclined to agree with some of Tanner's arguments. However, most of the chapters amount to extensive qualitative paranoia about negative possibilities within finance-dominated capitalism. Ultimately, I think the book fails to be convincing. (less)
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Scott Holstad
Jul 02, 2021Scott Holstad rated it it was ok
Shelves: business, economics-finance, cultural-social, non-fiction, religion
Huh. Well, some interesting, even decent ideas at times, but not super impressed and I was left more importantly feeling like a read merely a portion of a book. It was in sufficient. Needed to be fleshed out quite a bit more. So, not necessarily a terrible book, but there are tons better on this and similar topics these days, so not recommended.
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Gordon Fowler
Feb 13, 2021Gordon Fowler rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Needs work on understanding of political economy
This books starts with a fairly rigid and monochromatic view of how the worlds political economy works. It’s clear that the authors understanding of corporate economy is rather shallow.
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Rasmus Tillander
Aug 15, 2020Rasmus Tillander rated it really liked it
Shelves: tieto, filosofia
Kathryn Tannerin Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism oli monella tapaa hämmentävä kirja: se oli oikeasti kovaa analyysia finanssikapitalismin valuvioista, mutta samaan aikaan puolustuspuhe Kristus-keskeiselle kristinuskolle.
Tanner, joka on siis Yalen yliopiston systemaattisen teologian professori, asettaa tavoitteensa suhteessa Max Weberin analyysiin protestanttisesta työetiikasta: Tannerin tavoite on luoda finanssikapitalismin hengen vasta-henki ja protestanttinen anti-työetiikka. Tämän etiikan taustalla on kolme prosessia: "(1) Sen linkin murtaminen joka vallitsee oikeuden hyvinvointiin ja työnteon välillä; (2) Sen murtaminen, että ihminen identifioi itseänsä "tuottavaan" itseensä; (3) Niiden ajan jatkuvuuden, ajan romahtamisen murtaminen, jotka nykyisen kapitalismin muodossa rajoittavat kuviteltavia mahdollisuuksia."
Suurimman osan kirjasta Tanner käyttääkin osoittamaan, että nämä kolme murrettavaa asiaa muodostava modernin finanssikapitalismin hengen ja sitä kautta ihmiskuvan. Erityisesti Tanner loistaa analysoidessaan kapitalismin aikaan liittyviä ulottuvuuksia. On häkellettyvää lukea teologin kirjoittavan syvällistä analyysiä joukkovelkakirjojen ja futuurien olemuksista, Tannerin tekstistä huokuu massiivinen akateeminen itseluottamus.
Toisen osan kirjan luvuista muodostavat kristinopilliset segmentit, joissa Tanner esittää miten kristinusko voi toimia vastavoimana sielunmurskaavalle kapitalismille. Ja nämä osiot olivat itselleni hyvin kummallista luettavaa: ne selvästi nojaavat sellaiselle tulkinalle kristinuskosta, joka on itselleni hyvin vieras ja jolle olen ollut vasemmistolaisena hyvin kriittinen. Tanner on barthilainen episkopaali, hyvin perinteinen teisti, joille Kristus muodostaa kaiken keskiön. Pähkinänkuoressa Tanner esittää, että koska meissä todella "tuottava osa" on Kristus meissä, emme voi omilla teoillamme parantaa "itseämme sijoituksena", koska sen tuottomarginaali on kiinni ikuisessa Jumalassa. Huolimatta omasta vastustuksestani on ainakin myönnettävä, että tämä oli viehättävimpiä puolustuksia tämän kaltaisella kristinuskolle.
Kirja oli kuitenkin kokonaisuutena hyvin mielenkiintoinen. Kritiikkiä voisi antaa lähinnä siitä, että käytännön etiikkaa (esim. Jeesuksen talousetiikkaa) ei käsitelty, eikä myöskään oikeita konkreettisia toimia tämän anti-työetiikan sisällä. Mutta ehkä Tanner ajatteli systemaatikkona pysyvänsä lestissään kun kirjoitti huomattavasti opillisemmalla tasolla. Kirjasta myös näkyi ehkä välillä vähän liikaa, että se perustui Tannerin pitämään Gifford-luentosarjaan (joiden pitäminen on suurimpia kunniatehtäviä, joita teologi voinee saada).
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Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism was in many ways a confusing book: it was really a harsh analysis of the casting flaws of financial capitalism, but at the same time a defensive speech for Christ-centered Christianity. Thus, Tanner, a professor of systematic theology at Yale University, sets his goal in relation to Max Weber’s analysis of Protestant work ethic: Tanner’s goal is to create a counter-spirit to the spirit of financial capitalism and a Protestant anti-work ethic.
There are three processes behind this ethic: "(1) Breaking the link between the right to well-being and work; (2) Breaking one's identification with the" productive "self; (3) Breaking the continuity of time, the collapse of time that in the form of capitalism limit imaginable possibilities. "
Indeed, most of the book is used by Tanner to show that these three things that break down form the spirit of modern financial capitalism and thus the image of man. Tanner, in particular, excels in his analysis of the dimensions associated with the age of capitalism. It’s embarrassing to read a theologian writing an in-depth analysis of the essence of bonds and futures, Tanner’s text exudes massive academic self-confidence.
The second part of the book’s chapters are Christian segments in which Tanner shows how Christianity can act as a counterweight to soul-crushing capitalism. And these sections were very strange to me to read: they clearly lean on an interpretation of Christianity that is very foreign to me and to which I have been very critical as a leftist.
Tanner is a Barth episcopal, a very traditional theist, for whom Christ forms the center of everything. In a nutshell, Tanner argues that because the truly “productive part” of us is Christ in us, we cannot, by our own actions, heal “ourselves as an investment,” because its profit margin is attached to the eternal God.
Despite my own opposition, it must at least be admitted that this was one of the most attractive defenses for Christianity like this. However, the book as a whole was very interesting. Criticism could be given mainly for the fact that practical ethics (e.g., Jesus ’economic ethics) were not addressed, nor for the right concrete actions within this anti-work ethic.
But perhaps Tanner thought, as a systematist, that he would remain at his last when writing at a much more doctrinal level. The book also sometimes showed a little too much that it was based on a series of Gifford lectures given by Tanner (which are one of the greatest honors the theologian can hold).
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Joseph Sverker
Jul 02, 2019Joseph Sverker rated it liked it
Shelves: social-sciences-theory, theology
A very interesting and timely book. I am very impressed by the way Tanner presents finance economical market and its implications for the ordinary person. The first chapter might be the best in that respect where Tanner shows how the shift towards speculation instead of production punishes the ordinary worker to the benefit of stock holders. The companies' "real" value (I know there is no such thing, I am not a marxist) have next to no impact on the stock value which means that speculation and s ...more
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John Lucy
Nov 19, 2020John Lucy rated it it was ok
Tanner does an excellent and thorough job explaining the "spirit" of capitalism as it is expressed in today's world. She also does a good job contrasting that to the "spirit" of Christianity. The two don't mix. Even those Christians who adamantly support and defend capitalism, perhaps even as an extension of Christianity itself, will find Tanner's exposition of both spirits as persuasive. There are few holes in the argument.
Unfortunately, as the book progresses, the exposition and arguments become repetitive with little in the way of prophecy. The final chapter is meant to chart a Christian's way forward but the argument essentially boils down to, "A Christian should separate oneself from the spirit of capitalism." Since the two spirits don't mix, that was obvious from the start. What else might a Christian do? What are the practical means by which a Christian might separate? Is there another form of market or production that a Christian should advocate for? These questions are either not addressed or barely. Therefore, what could have been a promising work detailing a Christian economy simply becomes an effort in compare and contrast.
With that said, Tanner has also written a work called, "Economy of Grace," that I have not read and which might serve to answer the unanswered questions here. Perhaps that will be a companion piece to this one. If it is, then I shouldn't be so harsh with Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism. If it isn't, then while this book is entirely effective in one way, it falls short for anyone expecting (as I was) some alternative vision for living, given that the two spirits don't mix. (less)
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Roger Green
Jun 30, 2019Roger Green rated it really liked it
After some initially very good descriptions of congruences between the development of finance capitalism and Christian theology, Tanner expresses a rein vocation of Christian ethics to confront the problems of greed and hyper-competative system by returning to Christ's grace. So, the world will be saved if everyone becomes a Christian and sees they're all in it together, which would deplete the social injustice and victim-blaming that debt society foists on poor individuals. Nothing is said of those who aren't Christians, nor of the ways that the congruences between Christianity and capitalism in the very evangelical colonizing forms eradicate other peoples and the environment. Rather, having not morally progressed, Christians are to return to Augustinian-informed notions of grace because "we're all sinners" and strive to live in God's temporality, where apparently everything is abundant and infinite. In this view, Christianity remains unapologetically a "civilizing" force tempering neoliberalism by bringing about the kingdom through the softly-forced submission of all into their conversion narratives. (less)
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Peter Rapp
Jun 13, 2020Peter Rapp rated it it was ok
One wants very much to like this book, but one becomes so befuddled by the convoluted sentence structure and abstruse deployment of pronouns that disappointment instead comes to one.
... Tanner's entire book is written in the preceding format, making it exceptionally difficult to read. I was preinclined to agree with some of Tanner's arguments. However, most of the chapters amount to extensive qualitative paranoia about negative possibilities within finance-dominated capitalism. Ultimately, I think the book fails to be convincing. (less)
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Scott Holstad
Jul 02, 2021Scott Holstad rated it it was ok
Shelves: business, economics-finance, cultural-social, non-fiction, religion
Huh. Well, some interesting, even decent ideas at times, but not super impressed and I was left more importantly feeling like a read merely a portion of a book. It was in sufficient. Needed to be fleshed out quite a bit more. So, not necessarily a terrible book, but there are tons better on this and similar topics these days, so not recommended.
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Gordon Fowler
Feb 13, 2021Gordon Fowler rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Needs work on understanding of political economy
This books starts with a fairly rigid and monochromatic view of how the worlds political economy works. It’s clear that the authors understanding of corporate economy is rather shallow.
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