Social Graces: Christianity and Globalization
Max Stackhouse Saturday, 1 September 2007
Two prominent perspectives on globalization today, the first emanating from the academy and the second from the church, are in my view highly problematic. First, I am concerned about an increasingly influential perspective on globalization espoused by certain economists. These economists, believing that every field of human endeavor is explainable in economistic terms, have developed a sub-discipline that interprets all human motivations and relations, including family life and religion, in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. That individual interests influence our decision-making, I have no doubt; but this school of thought is based in a radicalized version of "rational choice" theory. It treats religion as a subjective preference that functions by market forces and which can best be understood as a consumer commodity. Consequently religion is no longer viewed as an independent ethical basis that could generate, sustain, guide, or reform any political, economic, or social policy or any institutional formation.
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