The Body Of Christ In A Market Economy

The Body of Christ in a Market Economy explains how desire connects scripture, economics, theological anthropology, and soteriology.

Should Christians be for or against the free market? For or against globalization? How are we to live in a world of scarcity? William Cavanaugh uses Christian resources to incisively address basic economic matters -- the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity -- arguing that we should not just accept these as givens but should instead change the terms of the debate. Among other things, Cavanaugh discusses how God, in the Eucharist, forms us to consume and be consumed rightly. Examining pathologies of desire in contemporary "free market" economies, Being Consumed puts forth a positive and inspiring vision of how the body of Christ can engage in economic alternatives. At every turn, Cavanaugh illustrates his theological analysis with concrete examples of Christian economic practices.

The Russian Federation is struggling, since Perestroika and the Glasnost, in a futile attempt to become a â€~normal' member in the occidental family of market economies. The attempt largely fails because corporations do not live up to Western standards of behavior, and private contracts are often not respected. What is the cause of Russia's observed difficulties? It is commonly believed that these difficulties are an expected outcome of a rocky transition from a Marxist, centrally planned system, to a market based economy. This book challenges the accepted wisdom. In tracing the history of contract and the corporation in the West, it shows that the cultural infrastructure that gave rise to these patterns of economic behavior have never taken root on Russian soil. This deep divide between Russian and Western cultures is hundreds of years old, and has little, if anything to do with the brief, seventy-year-long experimentation with overtly Marxist ideology. The transformation of Russia into a veritable market economy requires much more than an expensive and difficult transition period: it mandates a radical change in her cultural underpinnings. The book's main thesis is supported by an in-depth comparison of Western and Russian theology, philosophy, literary and artistic achievements, musical and architectural idioms and folk culture.

This volume examines pastoral care in a market economy from a Caribbean perspective.

Peter Sedgwick explores the relation of a theology of justice to that of human identity in the context of the market economy, and engages with critics of capitalism and the market. He examines three aspects of the market economy: first, how does it shape personal identity, through consumption and the experience of paid employment in relation to the work ethic? Second, what impact does the global economy have on local cultures? Finally, as manufacturing changes out of all recognition through the impact of technology and global competition, what is the effect in terms of poverty? Drawing on the response of the Catholic Church, both in the United States and in papal encyclicals, to the market economy from 1985–1991, Sedgwick argues that its involvement deserves to be better known. Moreover, he recommends that the Churches remain part of the debate in reforming and humanizing the market economy.

The first book in the new Postcolonialism and Religions series offers a preview of the series focus on multireligious, indigenous, and transnational scholarly voices. In this book, the once arch enemies of Religious studies and Postcolonial theory become critical companions in shared analysis of major postcolonial themes.

Work Out Your Salvation demonstrates how participation in markets forms our moral character, perceptions, actions, and ideas. It argues that such formation varies based on market designs and our interactions within them. Undermining simplistic ideas about capitalism, Butler lays bare which features of markets make us better and which make us worse.

The Church and the Market is a vigorous and lively defense of the market economy and a withering attack on all forms of state intervention. It covers labor unions, monopoly, money and banking, business cycles, interest, usury, and much more. Although it makes a particular point of noting the moral arguments of the market economy and that Catholics are of course perfectly at liberty to support it, its audience is much broader than Catholics alone. Readers of all religious traditions and none at all have praised The Church and the Market, first-place winner in the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Awards, as one of the most compelling and persuasive defenses of capitalism against its critics ever written.