The purpose of this article is to analyse Adam Smith’s view of death in The Theory of Moral Sentiments for commercial society to determine whether the current commodification of goods (e.g. pharmaceuticals) and services (e.g. cryogenics) to assist people to deal with the fear of death was what Smith envisioned for meaningful existence and to find out what he proposed as a means to manage the fear of death in existence. The investigation revealed that Smith’s book contains many references to (...) death as a source of anxiety that negatively influences the lives of people, their happiness and meaning in life, and ignites fear and anxiety. The cultural measure of Smith’s time to manage the fear of death are magnanimity (e.g. war and suffering), the comfort of wealth, posthumous happiness (e.g. duty and sacrifice) and philosophy (e.g. Stoicism). The problem for Smith is that wealth and commodities, as is the case with the other means to deal with the fear of death, do not result in being-for-itself without the assistance of the impartial spectator which is a cognitive mechanism for self-awareness and socially located meaning-creation in the world with others. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to challenge the criticism of capitalism by biblical scholars that is based on references to the prophetic tradition in the Old Testament and specifically the Book of Amos. In many of these reflections, capitalism is viewed as a corrupt and morally dysfunctional system that perpetuates economic injustice. In order to challenge these perspectives, the prophet Amos and Adam Smith will be compared in terms of their understanding of corruption as an economic phenomenon and pressing (...) problem in South Africa. This will be done to argue that both Amos and Smith, although from two distinct theoretical and historical perspectives, use similar analytic criteria to study corruption. Smith and Amos followed a dual view of corruption in which convictional decline took place. For Amos, the convictional dimension was represented specifically by a decline in belief in God and for Smith, by a decline in the values of the Enlightenment, such as liberty and equality; and at the same time, the moral dimension was represented by moral failure in terms of non-compliance with the law of God and corrupt practices by citizen and government officials. Amos notes that there is a theological deficit at the root of economic injustice that results in the selling of the righteous, the needy or beggar and the dependent or weak for private gain. Law in the context of Amos is not only viewed as a moral imperative but the foundational principle of the structure of society. Therefore, a general criticism of capitalism based on moral failure and lack of conviction from Amos cannot be convincingly argued because Smith uses the same criteria. Criticism of capitalism should be more precise in terms of the loss of conviction and moral failures that Smith highlighted.Contribution: The comparative analysis of corruption in the Book of Amos and the philosophy of Adam Smith highlights that both use similar criteria, namely: conviction and morality. Therefore, a more nuanced critique of Capitalism is by biblical scholars is crucial for meaningful dialogue between biblical scholarship and economics. (shrink)

Panopticism is Michel Foucault’s term for the internalisation of surveillance and cultural control that is closely linked to the panopticon or surveillance architecture (associated with prisons) of Jeremy Bentham during the 18th and 19th centuries. The purpose of this article is to argue that Adam Smith’s concept of the impartial spectator provides an alternative perspective of internal surveillance that may enhance moral development and resistance to oppressive forms of control. For Smith, this is established through analogical imagination that is used (...) for self-observation to enhance prudent behaviour. The impartial spectator and its resistance to totalitarian behaviour is specifically relevant in contemporary society because of the dominant role of digital technology and scandals that have exposed digital media as participating in digital forms of surveillance, digital personae, artificial intelligence and control. It will also be highlighted that digital surveillance is closely connected to the capitalism that has infiltrated all domains of society, from socio-personal relationships to the workplace. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to investigate the potential that the labour and subjective theory of value in the agricultural context may have for the interpretation of Matthew 20:1–16. This investigation highlighted the divergence in wages between workers, the exuberant remuneration strategy of the landowner, his generosity, the indignation of the labourers hired first and the landowner’s reluctance to reimburse them. I argued that the classic labour theory of value provides an explanation of why the indignant labourers were angry (...) and felt unjustly treated. However, it fails to account for the divergence in remuneration more appropriately addressed by subjective theory of value that focuses on the use value of goods and marginal utility. Finally, the agrarian theory provides perspective on the unwillingness of the landowner to reimburse the indignant labourers and the mystery of meaningful labour in agriculture that serves as a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven.Contribution: In the article, labour and subjective theory of value were introduced from an agrarian perspective to enlighten the hermeneutics of the parable. (shrink)