The Enchantments of Mammon

How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

By: Eugene McCarraher

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

If socialists and Wall Street bankers can agree on anything, it is the extreme rationalism of capital. Ignoring the motive force of the spirit, capitalism rejects the awe-inspiring divine for the economics of supply and demand.

Eugene McCarraher challenges this conventional view. Capitalism, he argues, is full of sacrament, whether or not it is acknowledged. Capitalist enchantment first flowered in the fields and factories of England and was brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit. Later, the corporation was mystically animated with human personhood, to preside over the Fordist endeavor to build a heavenly city of mechanized production and communion. By the 21st century, capitalism has become thoroughly enchanted by the neoliberal deification of "the market".

The Enchantments of Mammon looks not to Marx and progressivism but to 19th-century Romantics for salvation. The Romantic imagination favors craft, the commons, and sensitivity to natural wonder. It promotes labor that, for the sake of the person, combines reason, creativity, and mutual aid. In this impassioned challenge, McCarraher makes the case that capitalism has hijacked and redirected our intrinsic longing for divinity - and urges us to break its hold on our souls.

©2019 Eugene McCarraher (P)2020 Tantor

Depth

An odyssey of historical research into the permanent sacramental structure ineffaceable in all systems, you will be richer for listening even if you cannot see past capitalism.

A new view of capitalism

It was amazingly well researched and detailed. Highly recommend this book if you are interested in politics, religion, economy or related field.

A call to love

Great book. It’s based on the idea that we need to abandon the disenchantment narrative in order to save ourselves and return to a more loving society. I can buy that.

Really amazing concept

I found the premise that we are living in an illusory world of capitalism as a religion fascinating. The focus on the historical evolution of the enchanting siren song of material wealth and it's relationship to divinity is both well researched and well presented.

Few works strive so hard to redefine the current turmoil of humanity and the causes of imminent catastrophe. I believe the author, if not able to truly provide a remedy for our maladies, has created a correcting lense in which we can view our prejudices with more clarity.

Must Read, but Audiobook has Poor Narration

McCarraher should have done the narration himself or at least hand picked someone to do it. God bless Paul Boehmer, but this is not the book for him to be narrating. Boehmer likes to do funny voices, foreign accents and play around but that just makes things absurd with this content. I often had the impression that the narrator was just glancing at the text, vocalizing without thought, which of course makes it very difficult for the listener to track.