The reading for class today by David Loy discussed Weber’s arguments about religion and capitalism. Weber claims that economic success became a “demonstration of God’s favor” making god’s blessing and salvation the motivation for surplus and economic success. But as god has become more distant, the original motivation for economic success has fallen away while the universal striving for success has remained. Meaning that we are all striving for economic success with no clear motive. He states “We no longer give our surplus to God; the process of producing an ever- expanding surplus is in itself our God”(261). This is a really important point to raise, because it forces us to truly assess our motives. If not for salvation, why are we still striving for success?
Loy poked at this question when he says that we have fallen into a need for growth to achieve a “never- satisfied desire for an ever- higher “standard of living””(281). This makes sense to me, we were aspiring for success with hopes of salvation, now we are not so sure about God and salvation, but we have this habit of chasing success so we continue to engage in the practice. But what caught my eye was Loy’s use of quotations around the term “standard of living”. That threw me for a second.
After some thought I came to the conclusion that Loy added that punctuation to highlight that the idea of “a high standard of living” is totally subjective concept. And I internalized those quotation marks as a stab at the capitalist based perception of a “high standard of living” which is based in chasing after material goods that deplete the earth’s resources, further the dichotomy of global wealth distribution, and among other faults, fail to bring happiness to the consumer.
Our current practices are based in a never-ending chase for surplus that if left unchanged will lead to the complete depletion of the earth’s resources. I think editing our definition of “high standard of living” would be a good place to start in creating a more sustainable lifestyle.
Nice point Zoe, it seems these days we put all of our economic surplus away for ourselves as sort of a false idol. I think the larger problem is an increasingly apathetic population in regards to spiritual issues. No one wants to have that conversation anymore, it’s simply all about pleasing ourselves in a very physical world. Nice thought and good points!