The Travails and Tragedies of a Market Civilization: A Psychology of Faith Perspective

In this article, I consider how the emergence of a market society, dominated by a neoliberal capitalist ethos, fosters a market faith and entrepreneurial subjects. More particularly, I argue that market faith is contractual and accompanies a calculative, reifying rationality that contrasts with social-communal faith that is ideally unconditional, covenantal, and personalizing. Since faith is inextricably linked to subjectivity, I contend and describe two subjectivities associated with a market society’s disciplinary regimes and faith. The first subject of a market society is a neoliberal subject with sociopathic tendencies. The second subject that a market society fosters is a depleted subject—a depleted homo oeconomicus—forced to live beyond his/her psychological means.