Le Capitalisme comme religion

by Walter Benjamin, Frédéric Joly (Translator), Karl Marx (Contributor)

"In God We Trust" : la formule orne les billets de banque américains. Mais qu'est-ce que l'argent a à voir avec Dieu ou la religion ? Le capitalisme comme religion, l'un des textes les plus célèbres de Walter Benjamin, soutient que l'investissement, la spéculation, les opérations financières, les manoeuvres boursières, l'achat et la vente de marchandises, sont les éléments d'un culte et que le capitalisme est une religion à part entière. Les textes qui composent se recueil sont suivis du "Caractère fétiche de la marchandise et son secret", de Marx.

Avec une préface de Baptiste Mylondo, philosophe et économiste, spécialiste de la décroissance et l'un des promoteurs du revenu minimum universel.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy

104 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

Reviews

[Jules]

rien bité sauf la préface 5/5

[Bybyberry]

Trois étoiles surtout à cause de la préface (qui fait quand même la moitié du livre) qui est ultra intéressante et accessible, ça m’a littéralement rappelé que j’ai adoré l’économie comme matière quand j’étais étudiante et que j’aimerais bien me replonger dedans. La préface challenge le modèle capitaliste, nous rappelle ses racines et ses défauts et offre des pistes de réflexion sur un avenir différent.

Pour la partie avec les essais de Benjamin, c’est plus complexe, ça s’approche plus de brides d’idées très courtes, et c’est beaucoup de références à d’autres œuvres, bref, difficile à saisir. L’essai final de Marx va bien thématiquement avec le reste du livre, mais a surtout eu le mérite de me montrer que malgré mon intérêt pour les théories marxistes, il fallait plutôt que je m’attaque à de la vulgarisation et non ses oeuvres directement (c’est tout simplement un poil trop compliqué comme porte d’entrée pour l’instant haha)

[aitana]

q ningún texto de walter benjamin envejezca es fuerte

[Zorua64]

honnête

[Gaspard]

D'une intelligence et d'une lucidité désespérée… à lire et relire en faisant attention de ne pas sombrer dans son pessimisme.

[Fernanda]

"O capitalismo deve ser visto como uma religião, isto é, o capitalismo está essencialmente a serviço da resolução das mesmas preocupações, aflições e inquietações a que outrora as assim chamadas religiões quiseram oferecer resposta."



Benjamin não está simplesmente dizendo que “as pessoas tratam dinheiro como Deus”. Isso seria até meio banal.

Ele está propondo algo muito mais perturbador: o capitalismo ocupa estruturalmente o lugar que a religião ocupava. Ele organiza aquilo que desejamos, aquilo que tememos, o que consideramos uma vida boa, nossos rituais cotidianos, nossas culpas, nossos sacrifícios, e até a maneira como imaginamos salvação.

Não há sábado. Não há domingo. Não há jubileu. O culto é permanente.

E aí vem uma das coisas que acho mais deliciosamente assustadoras no texto: ele diz que o capitalismo é uma religião de “culto sem dogma”. Você não precisa acreditar intelectualmente no capitalismo. Você nem precisa gostar dele.

Você só precisa participar.
Como nos tornamos hereges, então?

[maximevgt]

Je ne l’ai pas lu entièrement, c’est vraiment super dur à lire (heureusement qu’il y a la préface). De plus, les sujets sont traités très succinctement ce qui fait que n’éclaire pas du tout la pensée de l’auteur. Je penses que on peut lire ce livre quand on a un bagage philosophique et économique suffisant.

[Илья Дескулин]

This is just a set of unrelated buzzwords and a bit of fashionable namedropping. The only good thing about this "work" is that it has remained in the form of notes and never become a complete essay or even a book.

[Aurore]

Tout compris (non)

[Antonin Grimand]

Le livre est exceptionnel.

[xoubiña]

No chicos aunque mi intelecto aparente lo contrario, no lo leí en portugués…