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Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism
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.
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.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 8, 2019
35 people are currently reading
339 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Tanner
25 books38 followersProfessor Tanner joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 2010 after teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School for sixteen years and in Yale’s Department of Religious Studies for ten. Her research relates the history of Christian thought to contemporary issues of theological concern using social, cultural, and feminist theory. She is the author of God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Blackwell, 1988); The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice (Fortress, 1992); Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Fortress, 1997); Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Fortress, 2001); Economy of Grace (Fortress, 2005); Christ the Key (Cambridge, 2010); and scores of scholarly articles and chapters in books that include The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, which she edited with John Webster and Iain Torrance. She serves on the editorial boards of Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and Scottish Journal of Theology, and is a former coeditor of the Journal of Religion. Active in many professional societies, Professor Tanner is a past president of the American Theological Society, the oldest theological society in the United States. For eight years she has been a member of the Theology Committee that advises the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. In the academic year 2010–11, she had a Luce Fellowship to research financial markets and the critical perspectives that Christian theology can bring to bear on them. In 2015–16, she will deliver the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
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May 19, 2022
I have a friend, lots of friends, who think that the capitalist system we live in is biblical. That is, they believe it is divinely ordained by God; if you study the Bible to discern what economic system a society ought to have, you’d end up with capitalism.
It’s the air we breath. We are formed into this system from our earliest years. This system enchants our imagination, to borrow from Eugene McCarraher’s brilliant book The Enchantment of Mammon. That is one book that has helped break the spell of capitalism in my own mind. I can think of others - Daniel Bell’s Economy of Desire, James KA Smith’s You Are What You Love, The Half has not Been Told by Edward Baptist.
Another book to add this list is Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism. Tanner offers a fantastic critique of finance capitalism. In the beginning of capitalism, Max Weber showed how Christian beliefs could be used to shape people in line with what capitalism needed. Once people were shaped in this way, Christianity was no longer needed. Tanner agrees with Weber that religious beliefs, specifically Christianity, do have power to shape economic behavior “whether intentionally or not” (4).
“Capitalism has cultural concomitants - beliefs, values, and norms - that direct conduct, that get people to do willingly what capitalism requires of them by encouraging them to see what they are doing - what they must do to get ahead - as meaningful, valuable, or simply inevitable” (9)
Her goal is “to show how Christian beliefs. . . Might undermine rather than support the new spirit of capitalism” (7).
To do this she tells a story, paints a picture, of life under finance capitalism. This is where a bit of an economic background may be helpful, for though she explains how finance capitalism is different then past capitalisms, it was still tough to get my mind around this. This book is certainly targeted at people like me who are not academics or specialists. But it is still a dense book. Her picture of finance capitalism tends to stay in the general. There are few illustrations or specific stories of what this looks like.
Industrial capitalism is when money is invested in equipment so companies can produce things people will buy. Under this form of capitalism, the money is made by selling more - more cars for example. Finance capitalism is when the big money made is from investments and loans. Under finance capitalism, car companies make more money from loaning out money to people to buy cars rather than the actual sale of cars. Tanner says the amount of money and frequency of transactions in finance dwarfs other economic activities. She goes into detail on this - for example, how investors buy and sell loans in such a way that even if individuals default on their loans, investors can still make money.
Finance capitalism even affects government spending:
“One might think, to the contrary, that government policy encouraging economic growth - for example, government investment in education, in roads and bridges, and government efforts to keep interest rates low to encourage corporate investment in equipment - would attract investors to one’s bonds; a healthy economy which brings with it greater tax revenues, and those might also be expected to increase the likelihood that funds wil be available to pay back government debt. But a number of these government measures would cut into the profit of investors in government bonds: low interest rates, for example” (23)
This is makes sense. Why can’t we get funding to fix roads or improve schools or pretty much anything that helps ordinary people? Because, “Government policy is disciplined against, in other words, the interests of the majority of its citizens” (24).
That’s all basically the introduction. Wrapping up this introduction, Tanner writes:
“What I, as a Christian theologian, attempt to do here is provide a Protestant anti-work ethic, by coming up with what I believe are good religious reasons for (1) breaking the link between a right to well-being and work; (2) breaking one’s identification with one’s ‘productive’ self; and (3) breaking the time continuity, the time collapse, that constrains imaginative possibility under th current configuration of capitalism” (30)
As I said, every chapter paints a picture of life under finance capitalism. The picture she paints is quite depressing. I wrote “this sucks” next to one paragraph, but I could have made that same note over and over. Here is the paragraph, to give you a taste:
“One spends longer hours at work trying to complete tasks on time; it’s after hours, one should be at home but one stays at work instead until the wee hours of the morning in an attempt to meet a deadline. And time away from the office, no nights and weekends, is increasingly dedicated to completing what simply couldn’t be finished there, try as one might. The extreme pressures of past demands on future performance in this way come to colonize every waking moment” (50).
The second half of each chapter is focused on showing how Christian belief and discipline runs against finance-based capitalism. Where capitalism tells us we need more and more, Christianity tells us that in Christ we already have all we need. Capitalism tells us to work hard and earn, Christianity tells us grace is free. A Christian worldview places God at the center; God takes the place of money which is at the center of capitalism.
This is why it is ironic, even sad, when Christians see capitalism as some sort of God-ordained system. Jesus said you cannot serve both God and Mammon. Capitalism puts money at the center as a sort of God (Mammon) and around this god all else takes on meaning. Christianity returns God to the center.
How is this different?
Capitalism is about individuals working on competition:
“The structure of markets in finance-dominated capitalism prevents people from profiting together: within finance-dominated markets, one person’s gain has to mean another person’s loss” (177). In capitalism any dependence on others only lasts as long as it is to your own advantage. A Christian view sees (or, ought to see) humans as working together for the common good.
Capitalism cannot help but be about winners and losers. With the god Mammon at the center, this view shapes how we see salvation:
“Indeed, the more I think salvation a private property secured by excluding others from it the more I have reason to worry about my ever attaining it. The more God has turned it into a kind of exclusive possession for some, by, say, setting conditions on eligibility, the more I have reason to worry too” (204).
Tanner does not get into it, but this ties into everything from politics and Christian nationalism to hell and the afterlife. If your view of salvation, of what it means to be a Christian, is shaped by capitalism than you are already shaped into a view that excludes people you do not think are worthy. You will see some other people or group of people as less-deserving - perhaps you think they did not work hard enough. Why are they poor? Why are they going to burn in hell forever? Because, you say, they did not do something.
If only Jesus had told a parable about people who think their hard work makes them better than others?
Not to mention, if only God’s grace shaped how we see other people.
Tanner’s final chapter presents her anti-work ethic. She argues that:
“God’s purpose in creating and saving them is not for them to engage in some sort of productive activity; a work ethic could therefore have no part in that purpose” (206).
And,
“God simply wants to share God’s life, so that the fullness of that life is reflected in something not God” (207).
I resonate with this, yet I do need to think more. I have often argued that salvation is not about being part of a special group, that we are saved for the purpose of doing good. My foil in this has been Christians who see salvation (or more specifically, election) as God choosing some portion of humanity to save and the rest to damn. Yet God’s people in scripture are always chosen/elect/saved for the benefit of others - from God choosing Abraham to bless the nations, to Israel being a kingdom of priests that would be a light to the nations, the temple being a place where all nations would come, to Paul saying Christians are saved to do good works.
I don’t think Tanner would disagree. As she said, God wants to share God’s life. But not in some individualistic way, where I am happy to be with God. She presents a very communal view. We might say we are saved not to then be a cog in some capitalist machine, but we are saved to do good for others in the community. My goal in producing something is not (or, ought not be) how I can profit but how I can help others.
I see this in her vision for Christian community, which she contrasts with acts of resistance against capitalism that do not really work:
“What is to replace such acts of resistance, along the Christian lines developed here, is a community forged according to very different assumptions about how relations to oneself bear on relations with others This anti-work ethic has its own social presuppositions and implications, with the capacity to form a whole alternative world. Recognition of dependence on God is what informs this Foucault-styled ethic, which is dissociated from the need for hard work. . . Because one depends on God rather than on oneself in this most fundamental of relations with oneself, one should be willing to recognize dependence on other people too” (210).
Overall, this is a great book. The only negative is that I wish she had presented more practical examples or actions. Capitalism is in the air we breath, it has enchanted us from birth. We may be part of a church community that teaches the sort of Christianity Tanner would endorse, but the rest of our week we are being discipled into the gospel of mammon. This is why even most Christians have formed a capitalist form of belief - the one hour in church cannot compete with countless hours other voices disciple us.
What does the sort of alternative world she describes in the final chapter actually look like? How is one formed?
I suppose it is those of us who desire such a community who must figure this out. I can’t fault Tanner, a theologian, too much for not being more practical.
It’s the air we breath. We are formed into this system from our earliest years. This system enchants our imagination, to borrow from Eugene McCarraher’s brilliant book The Enchantment of Mammon. That is one book that has helped break the spell of capitalism in my own mind. I can think of others - Daniel Bell’s Economy of Desire, James KA Smith’s You Are What You Love, The Half has not Been Told by Edward Baptist.
Another book to add this list is Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism. Tanner offers a fantastic critique of finance capitalism. In the beginning of capitalism, Max Weber showed how Christian beliefs could be used to shape people in line with what capitalism needed. Once people were shaped in this way, Christianity was no longer needed. Tanner agrees with Weber that religious beliefs, specifically Christianity, do have power to shape economic behavior “whether intentionally or not” (4).
“Capitalism has cultural concomitants - beliefs, values, and norms - that direct conduct, that get people to do willingly what capitalism requires of them by encouraging them to see what they are doing - what they must do to get ahead - as meaningful, valuable, or simply inevitable” (9)
Her goal is “to show how Christian beliefs. . . Might undermine rather than support the new spirit of capitalism” (7).
To do this she tells a story, paints a picture, of life under finance capitalism. This is where a bit of an economic background may be helpful, for though she explains how finance capitalism is different then past capitalisms, it was still tough to get my mind around this. This book is certainly targeted at people like me who are not academics or specialists. But it is still a dense book. Her picture of finance capitalism tends to stay in the general. There are few illustrations or specific stories of what this looks like.
Industrial capitalism is when money is invested in equipment so companies can produce things people will buy. Under this form of capitalism, the money is made by selling more - more cars for example. Finance capitalism is when the big money made is from investments and loans. Under finance capitalism, car companies make more money from loaning out money to people to buy cars rather than the actual sale of cars. Tanner says the amount of money and frequency of transactions in finance dwarfs other economic activities. She goes into detail on this - for example, how investors buy and sell loans in such a way that even if individuals default on their loans, investors can still make money.
Finance capitalism even affects government spending:
“One might think, to the contrary, that government policy encouraging economic growth - for example, government investment in education, in roads and bridges, and government efforts to keep interest rates low to encourage corporate investment in equipment - would attract investors to one’s bonds; a healthy economy which brings with it greater tax revenues, and those might also be expected to increase the likelihood that funds wil be available to pay back government debt. But a number of these government measures would cut into the profit of investors in government bonds: low interest rates, for example” (23)
This is makes sense. Why can’t we get funding to fix roads or improve schools or pretty much anything that helps ordinary people? Because, “Government policy is disciplined against, in other words, the interests of the majority of its citizens” (24).
That’s all basically the introduction. Wrapping up this introduction, Tanner writes:
“What I, as a Christian theologian, attempt to do here is provide a Protestant anti-work ethic, by coming up with what I believe are good religious reasons for (1) breaking the link between a right to well-being and work; (2) breaking one’s identification with one’s ‘productive’ self; and (3) breaking the time continuity, the time collapse, that constrains imaginative possibility under th current configuration of capitalism” (30)
As I said, every chapter paints a picture of life under finance capitalism. The picture she paints is quite depressing. I wrote “this sucks” next to one paragraph, but I could have made that same note over and over. Here is the paragraph, to give you a taste:
“One spends longer hours at work trying to complete tasks on time; it’s after hours, one should be at home but one stays at work instead until the wee hours of the morning in an attempt to meet a deadline. And time away from the office, no nights and weekends, is increasingly dedicated to completing what simply couldn’t be finished there, try as one might. The extreme pressures of past demands on future performance in this way come to colonize every waking moment” (50).
The second half of each chapter is focused on showing how Christian belief and discipline runs against finance-based capitalism. Where capitalism tells us we need more and more, Christianity tells us that in Christ we already have all we need. Capitalism tells us to work hard and earn, Christianity tells us grace is free. A Christian worldview places God at the center; God takes the place of money which is at the center of capitalism.
This is why it is ironic, even sad, when Christians see capitalism as some sort of God-ordained system. Jesus said you cannot serve both God and Mammon. Capitalism puts money at the center as a sort of God (Mammon) and around this god all else takes on meaning. Christianity returns God to the center.
How is this different?
Capitalism is about individuals working on competition:
“The structure of markets in finance-dominated capitalism prevents people from profiting together: within finance-dominated markets, one person’s gain has to mean another person’s loss” (177). In capitalism any dependence on others only lasts as long as it is to your own advantage. A Christian view sees (or, ought to see) humans as working together for the common good.
Capitalism cannot help but be about winners and losers. With the god Mammon at the center, this view shapes how we see salvation:
“Indeed, the more I think salvation a private property secured by excluding others from it the more I have reason to worry about my ever attaining it. The more God has turned it into a kind of exclusive possession for some, by, say, setting conditions on eligibility, the more I have reason to worry too” (204).
Tanner does not get into it, but this ties into everything from politics and Christian nationalism to hell and the afterlife. If your view of salvation, of what it means to be a Christian, is shaped by capitalism than you are already shaped into a view that excludes people you do not think are worthy. You will see some other people or group of people as less-deserving - perhaps you think they did not work hard enough. Why are they poor? Why are they going to burn in hell forever? Because, you say, they did not do something.
If only Jesus had told a parable about people who think their hard work makes them better than others?
Not to mention, if only God’s grace shaped how we see other people.
Tanner’s final chapter presents her anti-work ethic. She argues that:
“God’s purpose in creating and saving them is not for them to engage in some sort of productive activity; a work ethic could therefore have no part in that purpose” (206).
And,
“God simply wants to share God’s life, so that the fullness of that life is reflected in something not God” (207).
I resonate with this, yet I do need to think more. I have often argued that salvation is not about being part of a special group, that we are saved for the purpose of doing good. My foil in this has been Christians who see salvation (or more specifically, election) as God choosing some portion of humanity to save and the rest to damn. Yet God’s people in scripture are always chosen/elect/saved for the benefit of others - from God choosing Abraham to bless the nations, to Israel being a kingdom of priests that would be a light to the nations, the temple being a place where all nations would come, to Paul saying Christians are saved to do good works.
I don’t think Tanner would disagree. As she said, God wants to share God’s life. But not in some individualistic way, where I am happy to be with God. She presents a very communal view. We might say we are saved not to then be a cog in some capitalist machine, but we are saved to do good for others in the community. My goal in producing something is not (or, ought not be) how I can profit but how I can help others.
I see this in her vision for Christian community, which she contrasts with acts of resistance against capitalism that do not really work:
“What is to replace such acts of resistance, along the Christian lines developed here, is a community forged according to very different assumptions about how relations to oneself bear on relations with others This anti-work ethic has its own social presuppositions and implications, with the capacity to form a whole alternative world. Recognition of dependence on God is what informs this Foucault-styled ethic, which is dissociated from the need for hard work. . . Because one depends on God rather than on oneself in this most fundamental of relations with oneself, one should be willing to recognize dependence on other people too” (210).
Overall, this is a great book. The only negative is that I wish she had presented more practical examples or actions. Capitalism is in the air we breath, it has enchanted us from birth. We may be part of a church community that teaches the sort of Christianity Tanner would endorse, but the rest of our week we are being discipled into the gospel of mammon. This is why even most Christians have formed a capitalist form of belief - the one hour in church cannot compete with countless hours other voices disciple us.
What does the sort of alternative world she describes in the final chapter actually look like? How is one formed?
I suppose it is those of us who desire such a community who must figure this out. I can’t fault Tanner, a theologian, too much for not being more practical.
April 25, 2022
My comprehension of the content of this book could not be described as particularly high, but what I did understand, I really appreciated.
July 11, 2025
Really underwhelming book, especially for the notoriety it gained after its release. The first and last chapters are fine, but everything in the middle is pretty blasé. Tanner may have successfully demonstrated that finance-dominated capitalism and Christianity are at odds, but that’s a fairly straightforward task IMO. This book lacks the punch that makes it something worth sitting with for any longer than it takes to read it.
May 26, 2019
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?
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?
September 24, 2021
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.
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.
June 29, 2022
3.5 stars. This is a fascinating little book that asks the reader to grapple with how finance driven capitalism shapes our lives and the way we think about work, business and profit. It also offers, as the title suggests, a critique of that worldview from a Christian perspective that attempts to put work and profit in their proper place in light of the teachings of and implications of Christ and his life/death/resurrection. I can very much see a lazy person reading this (let’s be honest, probably not really reading it) and assuming it is a round rejection of capitalism in all forms, but I felt she is making a more specific argument about the hyperfinancialization of our economy and what that means. I think this will pair well with a book I want to read about how Jack Welch changed American business and drove the changes Tanner discusses. I gave it 3.5 not because I disagree with the arguments of the book–I do agree with them–but because the way it is written makes them unnecessarily difficult to understand. But I’m a layman reading a philosophy book so I won’t cry about that too much.
May 24, 2021
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.
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.
July 2, 2022
A very helpful little book looking at contemporary financial capitalism and a theological response. The thesis of Tanner's book is quite simple: That Max Weber is methodologically right about "religion's practical efficacy," religion's ability to shape believer's conduct in everyday life, and religion's ability to shape actor's economic behavior. (see p. 4-5). Taking this methodological claim as her starting point (Tanner is not interested in the material points of Weber's original argument, only his methodology), Tanner argues that Christian faith might still become a "counter-spirit" of similar power to the spirit of capitalism that blinds people's to the faults of capital (p. 7-8). In our culture there are few alternative outlooks to capitalism that still might have the power to shape large swaths of the population's lives and outlooks. For Tanner, Christianity might still become this "critical force."
Through the next five chapters Tanner looks at the mechanisms of finance dominated capitalism (in quite minute details- Tanner gets into the mechanisms of debt, derivatives, and more) through the lenses of the past (ch. 2), the present (ch. 3-4), and the future (ch. 5-6). Each chapter is arranged with the first half looking at the mechanisms of finance capital and the second half looking at a theological response. Good theology- basically just Cappadocian/Barthian/Apocalyptic theology at work.
I've become much more sympathetic to religious responses to capitalism in the last year. I don't think material responses are enough, thinking and ideology- the "spirit of capitalism" - has to be dealt with and is dialectically related to material conditions (i.e. changing the material conditions will not magically change the way people think- see Boltanski and Chiapello's work on this...who Tanner draws on throughout the notes). This book develops that critical spirit very well. A few reasons for four stars instead of five:
1. There is little to no interaction with Marx. Tanner stresses the novelty of "finance capitalism" and fails to situate it in the laws, dynamics, and tendencies of Capital. Interaction with the three volumes of Capital would have helped the books argument enormously.
2. There are very little remarks on the necessary material changes for overcoming finance capitalism. Perhaps that is another work but that seems necessary in detailing a critical force against FC, in that regard the book's positive project is certainly too idealist.
All in all a great book that I would recommend to just about anyone. One of the funny things about reading this book is it is one of the most detailed books on the mechanisms of finance- and I never expected that from a book written by a theologian.
Read with Ethan and Cameron, certainly makes for great discussion.
Through the next five chapters Tanner looks at the mechanisms of finance dominated capitalism (in quite minute details- Tanner gets into the mechanisms of debt, derivatives, and more) through the lenses of the past (ch. 2), the present (ch. 3-4), and the future (ch. 5-6). Each chapter is arranged with the first half looking at the mechanisms of finance capital and the second half looking at a theological response. Good theology- basically just Cappadocian/Barthian/Apocalyptic theology at work.
I've become much more sympathetic to religious responses to capitalism in the last year. I don't think material responses are enough, thinking and ideology- the "spirit of capitalism" - has to be dealt with and is dialectically related to material conditions (i.e. changing the material conditions will not magically change the way people think- see Boltanski and Chiapello's work on this...who Tanner draws on throughout the notes). This book develops that critical spirit very well. A few reasons for four stars instead of five:
1. There is little to no interaction with Marx. Tanner stresses the novelty of "finance capitalism" and fails to situate it in the laws, dynamics, and tendencies of Capital. Interaction with the three volumes of Capital would have helped the books argument enormously.
2. There are very little remarks on the necessary material changes for overcoming finance capitalism. Perhaps that is another work but that seems necessary in detailing a critical force against FC, in that regard the book's positive project is certainly too idealist.
All in all a great book that I would recommend to just about anyone. One of the funny things about reading this book is it is one of the most detailed books on the mechanisms of finance- and I never expected that from a book written by a theologian.
Read with Ethan and Cameron, certainly makes for great discussion.
February 13, 2022
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
September 4, 2021
Dang. Tanner is brilliant.
This is a really thoughtful depiction of the conflict between Christian theology and the “new spirit” of capitalism which she also calls “finance-dominated capitalism”.
It’s somewhat trite to say that “unbridled” capitalism increases inequality or to argue for unionization, so one of the most impressive things about her work is that these critiques are unique and specifically Christian in character. The conflict she points to are on the level of philosophy, metaphysics. For example:
Debt forces people to adhere to ethics determined by their pasts: “you must be the kind of person you promised you’d be when you look out that student loan/that mortgage/etc. in order to repay the debt.” But Christians believe that conversion/God’s intervention establishes a decisive break between past and present after which the engine of personal transformation is the in-breaking of Gods own life. 😳 the debts we can’t pay are paid no matter our work ethic.
Or this:
Derivative markets collapse future value into discounted expected value and.. somehow.. vice versa. But Christians claim that the coming future is unpredictable, radically different, and not to be brought by human capabilities.
Not sure if those count as spoilers, but they’ll wet your whistle.
This is a great book. The only thing that keeps it from being required reading for Christians is that it is more theoretical than practical. Tanner is dope tho.
"The kind of person that finance dominated capitalism requires is not the kind of person a christian can be" - David Luy's summary of Tanner's argument
This is a really thoughtful depiction of the conflict between Christian theology and the “new spirit” of capitalism which she also calls “finance-dominated capitalism”.
It’s somewhat trite to say that “unbridled” capitalism increases inequality or to argue for unionization, so one of the most impressive things about her work is that these critiques are unique and specifically Christian in character. The conflict she points to are on the level of philosophy, metaphysics. For example:
Debt forces people to adhere to ethics determined by their pasts: “you must be the kind of person you promised you’d be when you look out that student loan/that mortgage/etc. in order to repay the debt.” But Christians believe that conversion/God’s intervention establishes a decisive break between past and present after which the engine of personal transformation is the in-breaking of Gods own life. 😳 the debts we can’t pay are paid no matter our work ethic.
Or this:
Derivative markets collapse future value into discounted expected value and.. somehow.. vice versa. But Christians claim that the coming future is unpredictable, radically different, and not to be brought by human capabilities.
Not sure if those count as spoilers, but they’ll wet your whistle.
This is a great book. The only thing that keeps it from being required reading for Christians is that it is more theoretical than practical. Tanner is dope tho.
"The kind of person that finance dominated capitalism requires is not the kind of person a christian can be" - David Luy's summary of Tanner's argument
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 14, 2020
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.
... 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.
December 24, 2021
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.
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.
August 15, 2020
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).
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).
July 2, 2019
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 shark like behaviour (although that is unfair to sharks) is promoted. Companies can be bought for a undervalued prize so that the it is worth less than its goods or machines are worth, which means that those can be sold with a profit. Also Tanner explains very well why it is profitable with subcontractors in companies and why the state wants to privatise markets. I am very convinced about her argumentation here and were it only a book about economy then I would give it a higher rating. But I find it less convincing in how the economical analysis is connected with theology. At times there are strange similarities between the life of the Christian and life in a finance driven economy that are not quite explained, for example, the fact that the present becomes all important, but also validated by the future. I know that she makes some distinctions here, but I find them a bit unclear and not very convincing.
Also, the anti-work ethic in the last chapter turns out to be a fairly collectivist view of the church to my mind - if not even individualistic. She counters this with some examples in the end of the book, but I have to think further if they are enough. Tanner is really attempting to counter a whole tradition of "lutheran work ethics" so maybe there needs to be more books like this in order to undermine that very established idea.
Also, the anti-work ethic in the last chapter turns out to be a fairly collectivist view of the church to my mind - if not even individualistic. She counters this with some examples in the end of the book, but I have to think further if they are enough. Tanner is really attempting to counter a whole tradition of "lutheran work ethics" so maybe there needs to be more books like this in order to undermine that very established idea.
November 19, 2020
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.
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.
June 30, 2019
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.
April 7, 2023
Tanner brings a profound Christian critique to current finance-based capitalism. And it's not at the points where such a critique would be most obvious (such as exploitation of workers or the Earth). Rather, she takes issue with fundamental ideas that underpin contemporary capitalism--how it marks time, how it views the past and the future, how it views individuals and their relationships to the whole--and in each case demonstrates how contemporary capitalism runs counter to what Christianity believes on each of these points. A worthy read that will prompt deep thought.
July 2, 2021
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.
December 14, 2024
'It is hard to see how the complete exhaustion that comes from spending 24 hours a day working could contribute in a positive way to one's religious life'
Religion and economics team up to make a book that is great but golly has 200 pages ever taken me so long? TLDR Capitalism is bad for us, we shouldn't have to work so hard and the stock market is for losers.
Religion and economics team up to make a book that is great but golly has 200 pages ever taken me so long? TLDR Capitalism is bad for us, we shouldn't have to work so hard and the stock market is for losers.
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May 11, 2020You can’t give half stars on this. 3.5 for me. It lacked a lot I wanted from it, the theology and thought (when it coalesced) was brilliant and challenging but at points I was left hanging for analysis.
February 14, 2021
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.
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.
April 11, 2022
A good look at disconnecting Capitalism with Theology and pointing out how the values of market driven economy does not match up with Scripture.
The book lacks in offering a clear alternative to how we should think about and shape our view of economies as Christians.
The book lacks in offering a clear alternative to how we should think about and shape our view of economies as Christians.
April 29, 2023
The author seems to intend that a Christian kingdom economy can somehow be mapped onto America’s current finance-based mode of capitalism as a sort of resistance to its destructiveness. Unfortunately, the book uses extreme and unbalanced examples to try to bolster an impractical solution.
May 9, 2024
This is a really interesting book. It shed a lot of light on the flaws of capitalism as it relates to Christianity. I wish she would’ve spent some more time giving us some practical advice for circumventing the system.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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May 16, 2025Tanner makes too much of the difference between financial capital and earlier forms, and many of her critiques are those that any reader on the left already knows, but her articulation of Christian responses is good.
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February 9, 2019Don't do as I do: with a passing familiarity of Weber's Protestant work ethic and next to no economic training, I wasn't able to follow some of her arguments. Those that I could, though, presented huge challenges to my capitalist-modernist worldview, pointedly showing where they don't align with the Christian worldview and challenging us to replace them with a fuller sense of what salvation and life with God means.
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