The Spirit of French Capitalism by Charly Coleman - 9781503608436

The Spirit of French CapitalismEconomic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment\nAuthor(s): Charly Coleman\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Stanford University Press, United States\nImprint: Stanford University Press\nISBN-13: 9781503608436, 978-1503608436\nSynopsis\nHow did the economy become bound up with faith in infinite wealth creation and obsessive consumption? Drawing on the economic writings of eighteenth-century French theologians, historian Charly Coleman uncovers the surprising influence of the Catholic Church on the development of capitalism. Even during the Enlightenment, a sense of the miraculous did not wither under the cold light of calculation. Scarcity, long regarded as the inescapable fate of a fallen world, gradually gave way to a new belief in heavenly as well as worldly affluence.\n\n Animating this spiritual imperative of the French economy was a distinctly Catholic ethic thatin contrast to Weber's famous \""Protestant ethic\""privileged the marvelous over the mundane,.