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.

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.

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.

A Guiding Light

I wish I'd had a book like this fifty years ago! This history of Capitalism in context of religious currents that pervaded and shaped the US sheds such an awakening light on dark pathways and corners, cul-de-sacs and deadends of US culture, society, religion, politics, and economics. Invitations for further research and discovery lurk in every chapter. Names of contributors to fashioning our way of living of whom I never heard have intrigued me to build my library even more!
I hope McCarraher will fill some gaps in future editions. For example, among contributors to the dominance of financial capitalism he omits the prominence of Jewish bankers and financiers. His discussion focuses primarily on influences of evangelical Christianity. How this version of Christianity with its embrace of the Old Testament's (Hebrew Bible's) and it materialism and regulatory strictures interacts with Jewish theology/philosophy is not explored.
Similarly, in discussing neoliberalism's destructive force in reshaping national economies, he omits mention of the US-led restructuring, financializing, and privatizing of the emerging Russian economy in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I am impatient to hear his take on these and other lacunae in what is even now a very long listen/read.
As it stand, McCarraher has given us a treasure that deserves more than one listen/read.
Mr. Boemher's performance of this edition is excellent. I'm looking forward to listening to more of his readings.

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.

Very interesting point of view.

McCarraher brings a lot of history into this book. I found it very engaging. The only drawback was the narrator switching into different accents. It was unexpected and distracting. I’m sure on my second or third time through, I probably won’t even notice it...

A world not disenchanted, but enchanted by capital.

Well done analysis of capitalist enchantment, less valuable suggestions for changing the world. Needs more explanation of imperialism and greater understanding of Debs. The artisanal world the author wants is, I think, the result Marx wanted. But it can’t be the answer to how we get there.

Painful narration

This work is wide and deep. But the American narrator’s British accent is so painful to listen to, it borders on the cringey. Otherwise excellent book by McCarreher.

Horrible narration

A laudable scholarly work marred in this audible version by a pretentious and inept narrator who uses the same / cadence on every / sentence and sounds like an incompetent actor attempting to mimic William Shatner acting serious as Captain Kirk; not to mention the narrator’s risible habit of pronouncing ever quote by a British person as if he were a middle school thespian trying on a London Shakespearean accent, including, for example, the Scottish Carlyle, and of pronouncing any name sounding vaguely French or Italian (no matter if the person was an American citizen) like Inspector Clousseau.
The narrator ought, out of shame, to donate his payment to an acting school and take a vow of silence. Any decent high school drama student could give a better reading.

We're Screwed

Most hope is lost and corporations won the day. Dont expect anything from anyone and society is a quaint idea, at best.
unfortunately the author missed the pandemic. although he is current up to Trump.
its not a waste of time to listen to it.