Charly Coleman

The Spirit of French Capitalism

Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"This book offers a new take on why, in the West, the economy has become synonymous with a belief in the creation of infinite wealth. It does so by turning to the long-suppressed role played by the Catholic Church in the development of capitalism in 18th-century France. Then a dominant and highly influential power, France was rocked by intellectual tumult and confessional clashes, as well as consumer and political revolutions. The church functioned as a de facto state bank, and its clerics thought deeply and extensively about financial matters. Charly Coleman argues that these theologians' long neglected writings show a convergence of economic thought grounded in theological concepts --- what he terms "economic theology" --- whether in managing the debt of sin or marshaling the infinite wealth of divine grace. A counterpart of sorts to Max Weber's famous thesis on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the case here is made for a distinctly Catholic ethic, one that has animated the spirit of capitalism from its inception. The influence of sacramental theory demonstrates that at its core modern economic understanding does not adhere neatly to rational action or disenchanted designs, and in ways that scholars have yet to apprehend fully. Even during the Enlightenment, a sense of the miraculous did not wither away in the cold light of calculation. Rather, it emerged anew as a faith invested in the limitless, endlessly creative expansion of the economic realm"--

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 392
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. März 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 226mm x 150mm x 28mm
• Gewicht: 544g
• ISBN-13: 9781503614826
• ISBN-10: 1503614824
• Artikelnr.: 60159446

Autorenporträt

Charly Coleman is Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment (Stanford, 2014), which was awarded the 2016 Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
Against assertions of Anglo-American exceptionalism, this book shifts
attention to the economic writings of theologians in France, the most
powerful Catholic kingdom in eighteenth-century Europe. In so doing, it
argues that Catholic economic theology prepared the ground in which the
master-ideas of Enlightenment political economy took root. Beyond wielding
enormous financial power, the church administered an infinitely
reproducible treasure of grace through the sacraments. In contrast to Max
Weber's thesis in The Protestant Ethic, I make the case for a distinctly
Catholic ethic that animated the spirit of capitalism by valorizing the
enjoyment of consumption over delayed gratification. Only by engaging with
Catholic economic theology can we begin to understand how the
quintessential capitalist fantasy of unbridled consumption first
coalesced-in ruminations on the mystery of the Eucharist, the generative
faculties of money, the legality of usury, the allure of commodities, and
the limits of luxury.
1The Economy of the Mysteries
chapter abstract
In response to Protestant challenges, the Catholic Church avowed that the
Eucharist operated as a sign that brought the body and blood it signified
into being. Yet the prelates at the Council of Trent did not merely
reiterate ancient teachings; rather, their deliberations marked a shift in
emphasis from the visceral or fleshly aspect of the rite to its economic
valence. Reverence for the host surged among the thousands who enlisted in
religious and lay confraternities. Members incurred devotional as well as
financial obligations, the fulfillment of which made one eligible to
receive indulgences granted by the pope. Their liturgies articulated a new
Christian variant of materialism, with the Eucharist as its venerable base.
Professional theologians defended transubstantiation by justifying the
doctrine as a means of spiritual enrichment that assured consolation in
this life and eternal beatitude in the next.
2Perpetual Penance and Frequent Communion
chapter abstract
The value of frequent communion remained a source of deep controversy
throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the 1640s, Antoine
Arnauld challenged abuses in the administration of the Eucharist and
penance, drawing the lines of a protracted theological battle between the
Jansenist militants of Port-Royal and the Society of Jesus. A century
later, the Jesuit Jean Pichon's defense of frequent communion elicited a
response no less violent than had Arnauld's criticism of the practice.
During the same decade, it fell to the French crown to adjudicate between
the parlement of Paris and the Gallican episcopate in cases involving the
refusal of the sacraments to Jansenists. This dispute carried sweeping
implications for the limits of royal as well as clerical authority, and
even compelled ruminations over whether subjects had a right to communion
akin to that of property.
3The Spirit of Speculation
chapter abstract
Sacramental theology exerted a surprising influence on the reception of
John Law's System, proponents of which depicted banknotes and company
shares as yielding previously unfathomable riches. A Eucharistic-alchemical
complex lent itself to describing these instruments and their myriad
effects. Priests-cum-alchemists explicitly likened the philosopher's stone
to the consecrated host. Cartesians such as Jean Terrasson justified the
infinite extension of matter with direct references to the sacrament. In
defending Law's reforms, he went so far as to transpose his metaphysical
doctrines into an economic theology of money. He held that, like the
Eucharist, paper's efficacy followed from its dual nature as both visible
and transparent-that is, as a means of exchange that not only passively
reflected but also brought into being the very existence of wealth. The
spiritual ideal of boundlessness drove participation in Law's System,
emboldening investors to place their faith in accumulation without limit.
4Usury Redeemed
chapter abstract
The eighteenth century offered novel answers to the perennial question of
usury, which the church formally banned but in practice permitted. Pope
Benedict XIV's 1745 encyclical on the legitimacy of interest-bearing
contracts prompted soul-searching among clergy and laity alike. The
archbishop of Paris commissioned lengthy compendia on how priests and
parishioners should conduct themselves in commercial transactions.
Theologians who favored interest-including Turgot, an
ex-seminarian-highlighted the peculiar character of money as a substance
that could maintain and even augment itself. Defenders of tradition denied
that financial instruments could share in the representational productivity
of the sacraments, thereby implicitly confirming the association. Even as
credit relations grew more impersonal, the French economy could not subsist
without faith in money's capacity to breathe life and value into matter.
5The Cult of Consumption
chapter abstract
Devotional objects such as crucifixes, rosaries, and religious images, the
market for which escaladed after Trent, served as an incitement to spending
for pleasure. Instruments of piety possessed value not only as productions
of artisanal labor authorized by church and state but also as keys
unlocking spiritual treasures. Like the Eucharist, the rosary in particular
attracted mass devotion on the part of the laity. Once established as a
remunerative observance, the demand for prayer beads set an entire economy
in motion. Confraternities were founded with the ideal of saying the rosary
in perpetuity. Trade corporations and religious orders sold the necklaces
in shops and along pilgrimage routes. Successive popes actively encouraged
the market by issuing indulgences for little more than the donning of an
accessory. Huguenot skeptics like Jean-Frédéric Bernard and Bernard Picart
took note of the church's permissiveness as proof of its spiritual
venality.
6Luxury and the Origins of the Fetish
chapter abstract
Eighteenth-century luxury debates remained fertile ground for economic
theologians. Priests led the charge in condemning luxury as the symptom of
a deep-seated spiritual illness, with women as its most dangerous vector.
Those afflicted fell prey to a delusion that worldly idols could bring the
fulfillment that only celestial riches promised. Theological appraisals of
feminized luxury acquired new force in the middle decades of the eighteenth
century, as French subjects immersed themselves in a glittering market for
goods. Like their clerical contemporaries, philosophes sought to
distinguish legitimate sources of wealth from wasteful profligacy. Rousseau
joined the Physiocrats not only in elevating agriculture as nation's
material base but also in avowing jouissance as the guiding virtue of
economic activity. Turgot supplemented the landed theory of value with his
observation that proprietors were motivated less by pastoral virtue than
the pleasures that money could buy.
Epilogue: Encounters with Economic Theology
chapter abstract
Although the idea of the commodity fetish is often attributed to Karl Marx,
ecclesiastics had long denounced luxury as idolatrous while, at the same
time, inscribing profusion in the very materials of the sacrament. Marx
drew on this tradition in Capital, a text that employs Catholic terms, even
transubstantiation, to account for the allure of manufactured goods and
belief in the power of money to reproduce itself through mere circulation.
Walter Benjamin would further develop these insights in his work on
nineteenth-century sites of consumption, especially the Parisian arcades.
Émile Zola would do the same for department stores. Even today, French
fashions remain deeply indebted not only to religion, but especially to the
rich history of Catholic devotion. Designers such as Coco Chanel, herself
raised by nuns, further exemplify the associations between France and
luxury in the popular imagination.