Protestant Ghosts and Spirits of Capitalism: Ecology,Economy, and the Reformation Tradition

This essay analyzes current Protestant perspectives on the relationship between this tradition and capitalism from the perspective of social and ecological concerns. Rather than deciding between the tradition's purity or culpability in the rise of capitalism, this essay suggests that those concerned with both the future of the tradition and social/eco‐justice must acknowledge both the tradition's congruence with global capitalism and the tradition's prophetic ability to critique and propose alternatives.     

Individuals and their environments

While affirming Craig Martin's analysis of how the language of spiritual freedom celebrates individual agency in a way that deflects attention from the institutional conditions that produce individuals, this essay wonders whether there are useful distinctions to be made among people who Martin reads as sharing uncritical appraisals of capitalist individualism. On the question of the relationship between individuals and social contexts, for example, William James's assessment of the role played by social and natural environments might distinguish him from contemporary subjects who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and who seek to transcend institutional constraints to gain personal freedom. Different responses to alienation suggest that there might be some role for individual creativity and criticism as resources for imagining institutional change.     

Conceptual Constructs and Social Classes: A Review of Capitalizing Religion

Capitalizing Religion is a good addition to the growing number of works in the last decade that examine the intertwinings of religion, spirituality, and capitalism in the neoliberal present. Through an examination of scholarly discourses on modern religion and contemporary fiction and spirituality manuals, Martin demonstrates how, within the consumer capitalist present, the ideologies of individualism, consumption, quietism, and productivity shape conversations, habits, relationships, and fantasies. Martin tells us that the goal of social theory should be to account for how individuals and their choices are propelled by the material, historical, and structural forces that constitute them. He is a writer who has long been particularly attentive to the fact that “religion” is not some particular entity that exists “out there” that can be examined, but rather a bounded construct whose definition – through processes of inclusion and exclusion – performs works of distinction that benefit some interests, groups, and individuals to the detriment of others. Capitalizing Religion reminds us that the choices that many sociologists of religion make in dividing social formations into categories such as “religious,” “spiritual,” “institutional,” “individual,” or “paranormal” don’t just describe the world, but rather attempt to constitute it through taxonomies that are anything but natural and given.     

The Refusal of Work in Christian Ethics and Theology

Reviewing major accounts in Christian ethics and theology concerning work reveals a set of assumptions that together form the field's current “common sense” regarding this central human activity: work is part of what it fundamentally means to be a human; there is an aspect of work that is intrinsically good, because it reflects God's work; and work that is degrading can be transformed into this intrinsic good. An emerging body of social thought, however, interrogates work from an anti‐work perspective, rejecting capitalism's demand that people be integrated as fully as possible into the profit‐generating modern‐day work structure. After exploring core tenets of the anti‐work perspective, this essay reconsiders the assumptions often made about work in Christian ethics and theology and delineates some contours of anti‐work Christian normative interpretations of work.     

Academic Capitalism as a Key Challenge and the Emergence of the New Economy Scenario

What are the evolutionary scenarios of academic capitalism, able to deliver an ever more strategic knowledge, with a high added value within the global society? Under the current system of knowledge economy, characterized, at the beginning of this third millennium, by strong hyper-complexity, the challenge for the society evolution toward a sustainable world, full of varieties and opportunities, is the development of a form of capitalism able to guide and facilitate the reshaping of society through self-organizing systems (Lazslo 2011 Lazslo, E. 2011. “Prefazione”. In Teoria sistemica e complessità morfogenetica del capitalismo, Edited by: Pitasi, A. Rome: Aracne.  [Google Scholar]) the academic capitalism as a form of functional capitalism, the difference that makes the knowledge considered at a systemic level.     

The Turning of the Tide: Theology,Religion, and Economics1

Abstract : Although capitalist free market economics is in crisis, its assumptions continue to shape not only how we do business or politics but also how we think and feel, and even what we believe. For theologians and scholars of religion this means that we can no longer do our work without taking into consideration what is happening in the economy and how it affects us; before religion can become part of the solution we need to understand how it has become part of the problem. This article investigates how economics has shaped religion and theology and develops alternative perspectives.     

技术与重商主义医学的鬼魅性与后生命科学时代的信仰

技术主体化与资本主体化都与医学人道主义相悖,要格外警惕拜金主义和纯技术论对医学的伤害,特别是富人医学和腐败的制度伦理是当下卫生资源配置企划以及卫生改革的障碍。要批判重商主义医学和医学中的败德主义,重建中国医药卫生秩序,就必须找回或重建汉语医学文化精神,寻觅后生命科学时代的信仰。     

Our neoliberal fantasies? A preliminary test of research trends in leading journals in work and organizational psychology

Prior to engaging in a substantive discussion on the supposed influence of neoliberalism on research in work and organizational psychology (WOP), it is important to verify the empirical basis of the trends advanced by Bal and Dóci (Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology [Online First Publication, 2018]). To this end, we content analysed 745 abstracts of empirical studies published in leading WOP journals during the years 2006–2007 and 2016–2017. Results of our content analysis do not support the hypothesized trends towards more instrumentality and individualism in WOP research, suggesting that Bal and Dóci’s (2018) portrayal of the WOP literature does not provide a solid basis for discussion. On the basis of our findings, we conclude with recommendations to broaden the scope of WOP research to also include macro-level, societal issues.     

Flexibility and security? ‘Flexicurity’ and its implications for lifelong guidance

This article sets out to trigger research and policy attention among the career guidance community to the increasingly important notion of ‘flexicurity’. It first explores the different meanings of the term, particularly as these have evolved in discussions across the European Union. It then goes on to consider why ‘flexicurity’ has attracted so much policy interest, particularly in its promise to both support labour market competitiveness and increase economic efficiency on the one hand, while protecting the interests of workers on the other. Next, the article documents some of the key debates around the notion of flexicurity, highlighting the fact that any consideration of ‘flexicure’ arrangements needs to be empirically grounded in time and space, and carefully contextualised. The article concludes by making a series of critical reflections on the need to ‘insert’ career guidance in the European discourse on ‘flexicurity’.