Security, Reason, and Economic Theology: Late Capitalism as Cradle and Grave of Gods

Abstract

Crisis moments in history are often marked by the “death of old gods” (disenchantment), the “birth of new gods” (theogony), and the resurrection of dormant sacred forms. This chapter reviews theoretical writings of Emile Durkheim, Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber, Max Horkheimer, T. W. Adorno, and Jurgen Habermas as they relate to economic theology. Economic theology traces the mutual determinations of sacred social values and profane economic value, especially in late capitalism. These social theorists were noted for their conceptions of capitalism’s erosion of sacred values (shrinking collective consciousness, disenchantment, rationalization, instrumental reason, colonization of the lifeworld). Their writings also presented deeper, more ambivalent views of the relationship between capitalism and the sacred that can be recovered and assembled into a coherent economic theology. Contrary to famed concepts of one-sided secularization, these theorists view gods and the sacred values associated with them as remarkably resilient. Late capitalism is both cradle and grave of warring gods reflecting worldly struggles over the totality of instrumental reason and the erosion of security.