Go back and read Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He posits that bible beating and money making were joined at birth.
--- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Out of sheer curiosity, I have a question: Is there
> something
> essential to the nature of capitalism that breeds
> religious
> fundamentalism -- a brand of religious
> fundamentalism capitalism can't
> necessarily assimilate? (I.e. it is easy to see why
> a wishy-washy
> "lifestyle" Christianity -- with its Christian
> self-help books and so
> forth -- is perfectly compatible with capitalism,
> but what about this
> really nasty Christofascism/"Jesus is the King of
> America" stuff?
> Enough of that ought to make the markets nervous --
> and this is to say
> nothing about Islamic fundamentalism...).
>
> I am well aware of how religious beliefs play into
> the bosses' hands,
> and I understand the "historically contingent" facts
> concerning how
> the U.S. has long been a magnet for Christian
> fundamentalists, or how
> various governments have financed jihadist
> organizations to achieve
> various short-term political goals (e.g. fighting
> the Soviets or
> Fatah). And certainly post-war U.S. economic growth
> has given various
> fundamentalist groups the resources to send
> missionaries all over the
> world to spread a very illiberal version of the
> faith.
>
> What I wonder, though, is if there is a deeper
> process at work here --
> something that explains why illiberal religious
> fundamentalism has
> spread across the world alongside the supposedly
> liberalizing forces
> of capitalism. I am somewhat familiar with Adorno's
> work on
> irrational culture (e.g. astrology and occultism)
> and capitalism, but
> Christofascism and Jihadism seem to be qualitatively
> distinct from the
> L.A. Times astrology columns.
>
> OTOH, maybe I'm just looking for a "deep" answer
> where none is necessary.
>
> -WD
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