Abstract
With modern rationalisation we subject life to quantification, generating evidence and models, and the more we subject life to codification, generating systems, regulations and procedures, the less we understand who we are and what we do. We plunge headlong into illusion, blinded by the clarity of our own newly-found rationality and the solidity of the evidence. We experience an eclipse of reason, no longer understanding what it is to formulate concepts and ideals, nor understanding what it is to offer our lives, time and attention in an appropriate ratio or distribution.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Thus:
If life has taken your riches away from you - - - you will also be freed from wasting your time and your days and your thought on that with which you can occupy yourself only selfishly - - - if life has taken your worldly reputation and influence away from you - - - you are also freed from using your time and your thought on keeping or enjoying that with which one can only occupy oneself only selfishly - - - if you are as if cast out from human society, if no one seeks your company, if no invitations disturb you - - - then you are also freed from wasting your time and your thought on chatter about futility and vanity, emptily engaged in killing time in order to escape boredom or in wasting it in meaningless pastimes. (Kierkegaard 1997 p. 121)
- 2.
A Christian philosophy expressed in terms of goods of appropriation, participation and offering has been developed in Goodchild (2020a).
- 3.
This is the model for Kant’s ethics, extended to the social domain through Hegel’s idea of the State, and to the economic domain through Marx’s idea of communism.
- 4.
Gorz actually makes this point in his discussion of prostitution as a servant-master relationship where one person’s work is another person’s pleasure – there is no reason behind a client’s desire for a particular sexual service apart from preference (Gorz 1989 p 147). It may be generalised more widely to markets for consumption.
- 5.
- 6.
Every financial asset is balanced by a corresponding liability (Wray 2012 p. 1).
- 7.
An expanded version of the argument presented in this chapter can be found in Goodchild (2020b).
References
Bank of England. 2014. Money creation in the modern economy. Quarterly Bulletin Q1.
Goodchild, P. 2002. Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety. London: Routledge.
———. 2009. Theology of Money. Durham: Duke University Press.
———. 2020a. Credit and Faith. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
———. 2020b. Economic Theology: Credit and Faith II. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Gorz, A. 1989. Critique of Economic Reason. London: Verso.
Graeber, D. 2011. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville.
Hayek, F.V. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Jackson, A., and B. Dyson. 2012. Modernising Money. London: Positive Money.
Keen, S. 2011. Debunking Economics. London: Zed Books.
Kierkegaard, S. 1997. Christian Discourses, in H V Hong & E H Hong (ed. and trans). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
MacIntyre, A. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals. London: Duckworth.
New Economics Foundation. 2011. Where Does Money Come From? London: Nef.
Oxfam. 2020. Time to Care. Oxfam Report (20 January 2020).
Pérez-Álvarez, E. 2011. A Vexing Gadfly: The Late Kierkegaard on Economic Matters. Cambridge: James Clark & Co.
Sandel, M. 2012. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. London: Allen Lane.
Smith, A. 1970. The Wealth of Nations. London: Penguin.
Tanner, K. 2005. Economy of Grace. MN: Fortress, Minneapolis.
Werner, R.A. 2005. A New Paradigm in Macroeconomics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wray, L.R. 2012. Modern Money Theory: A Primer. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goodchild, P. (2023). Theology of Money: Rationalisation and Spiritual Goods. In: Kærgård, N. (eds) Market, Ethics and Religion. Ethical Economy, vol 62. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08462-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08462-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08461-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08462-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)