The Ghost in the Financial Machine - Arjun Appadurai

Marcel Mauss, motivated by his interest in the morality behind the contract, questions the force behind the obligation to return. The responsibility within the thing given provides a powerful connection between the giver and the receiver, something I have never thought about. I couldn’t quite understand this aspect though: “his sociological strategy is to induce the spirit not from the device but form some other nonmechanical source.”

“Key elements of the ‘spirit’ of capitalism… somehow anterior… this anterior ‘ethos’ begins to anticipate Boudieu’s use of the term habitus… If we look at spirit in this way, as a matter of disposition rather than of worldview, it comes closer to an embodied moral sensibility, which precedes action or organization and amounts to a collective psycho-moral disposition.”

^I enjoyed the second part of this excerpt.

Weber advocates that all varieties of avarice (extreme greed for wealth or material gain), of adventurism, of reckless pursuit of profit, are not part of the Benjamin Franklin ethos. Instead, Weber turns to Werner Sombart who argued the most plausible answer to what inspired true capitalist discipline, stating that the “spirit of modern capitalism lay in the gradual emergence of rationalization”.

Although Weber acknowledges this idea, he combats with the idea that rationalization itself could not encourage the extreme level of commitment to moneymaking in modern day. Instead, Weber focuses on the idea that the spirit of capitalism is quite “irrational”, a concept that leads to the Protestant notion of adhering to a “calling”. Furthermore, he relates it back to Martin Luther’s idea of a calling which proves too traditionalistic (cautious) to be compared appropriately with Benjamin Franklin’s spirit concept. Thus Weber turns to Calvin in an attempt to explain a key element critical to the spirit of modern capitalism: the spirit of methodicality.

At this point I became confused with the Weber’s inclusion of religion. He points out that the “…plight of Calvin’s believer is that as a consequence of his belief in God’s power, grace, and foreordained plan for man’s salvation, there is no way whatsoever for man to intercede in God’s decision about who is saved and who is not. Furthermore, there is no way to distinguish by their behavior or by any other sign those who are saved from those who are not.” Does this give one freedom from the consequences of their actions? Later stated, it is a gamble on a gamble. If one wishes to accumulate enough wealth to resemble the life that can enhance God’s glory, the gambler is not gambling on the outcome but rather on the possibility of being one of the predetermined elect. So is one truly enhancing the glory of God in this decision by acting as if they are elected? By “dedicating my wordly life to a methodical ethical plan” will it truly change anything in the world or within yourself? Uncertainty can be terrifying but does ascetical rationality even make sense?

I am quite confused but I also don’t have a religious background. Gambling on a gamble seems risky. Yet nowhere in Weber’s account on ascetical capitalism does it mention risk?

*Later mentioned: “Risk is now part and parcel of the machinery of contemporary capitalism, and the ‘devices’ that measure, model, and forecast risks are central to the financialization of modern capitalism.”

Defined:

ascetical = organized study of spiritual teaching found in Christian culture

(sorry if this was too summary based- I haven't decided how I feel about it and still pretty confused)