
Review: Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity - zdw
http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-philosophy-religion/james-g-chappel-bad-romance
======
WalterBright
It's not a religion, because it is not based on faith. It consistently
delivers results whether its practitioners believe in it or not.

~~~
ktaylora
The faith part comes from interpreting the economic results of capitalism. Do
you accept it as a useful economic system given all the problems you see with
it? Are you willing to entertain the possibility of alternatives? If not, why?

~~~
eeZah7Ux
It takes a lot of faith to overlook the many impending environmental
disasters.

Many also cling to the false dichotomy between capitalism and "soviet russia /
north korea / venezuela"

~~~
WalterBright
> It takes a lot of faith to overlook the many impending environmental
> disasters.

Capitalism is the only hope of fending off environmental disaster, because it
is the only system capable of producing the surplus needed to deal with it.
When people are starving, they lose all interest in anything but their next
meal, regardless of how they get it.

For example, the US was the first to clean up its waterways, and this is
because the surplus generated by capitalism made it fairly easy.

~~~
dieterrams2
You’re crediting capitalism with solving the very problems it created.

~~~
WalterBright
All human societies produce pollution, going back to the very beginning. In
fact, archaeologists love to study ancient trash heaps.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
The amount of pollution per person varies wildly. Some societies were
perfectly sustainable.

Among the most capitalistic and consumerist societies (e.g. US) the pollution
is staggering.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption)

