OVERVIEW
MANAGEMENT
PERFORMANCE
POSSIBILITIES
CAPITALS
ACTIVITIES
ACTORS
BURGESS
Society | ||
|
Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpOy3ZIuNgA Burgess COMMENTARY I can relate to a lot of what Professor Friedman has to say, but it does not answer my questions about the essential dysfunction of our modern socio-enviro-economic system very well, and specifically it does not explain why in the modern world there is such amazing material productivity that is not matched by anything like the social progress that might have been expceted. I studied engineering, economics and accountancy to prepare myself for a career in corporate management and transitioned to working on international economic development mid-career. I have seen first hand the rapid progress of productivity in the corporate arena, and the slow pace of change in the broader society. Corporate management has had a laser sharp focus on its goals, but the manner in which society is managed ... or manages itself ... is chaotic. This is not an easy problem to resolve. The problem manifested itself going back to the ancient Greeks, and the issues continue. I argue, however, that the productivity of modern engineering and technology and the availability of knowledge and education does give us in the modern world the opportunity to do far better than we are doing right now. There is hope ... and I don't believe this is unreasonable optimism. Peter Burgess | ||
|
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
1,665 views Mar 26, 2021 Harvard Divinity School 26.7K subscribers Where do our ideas about how the economy works, and our views on economic policy, come from? Critics of contemporary economics complain that belief in free markets, among economists as well as many ordinary citizens, is a form of religion. The foundational transition in thinking about what we now call economics, beginning in the eighteenth century, was decisively shaped by the hotly contended lines of religious thought at that time within the English-speaking Protestant world. Beliefs about God-given human character, about the afterlife, and about the purpose of our existence, were all under scrutiny in the world in which Adam Smith and his contemporaries lived. Even today, those long-ago religious debates go far in explaining the puzzling behavior of so many of our fellow citizens whose views about economic policies—and whose voting behavior—seems sharply at odds with what would be to their own economic benefit. This panel featured: Benjamin M. Friedman, the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. His newest book is 'Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,' a fundamental reassessment of the foundations of current-day economics showing how religious thinking has shaped economic thinking ever since the beginnings of modern Western economics and how this influence continues to be relevant today especially in the United States. His two other general interest books have been 'The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth' and 'Day of Reckoning: The Consequences of American Economic Policy Under Reagan and After.' Mr. Friedman has also written and/or edited fourteen other books, and more than 150 articles in professional journals, aimed primarily at economists and economic policymakers, largely focusing on economic policy and in particular on the role of the financial markets in shaping how monetary and fiscal policies affect overall economic activity. Michelle Sanchez, the Associate Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. Sanchez received her doctorate in the study of religion in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. Her first book, 'Calvin and the Resignification of the World: Creation, Incarnation, and the Problem of Political Theology,' was released by Cambridge University Press in 2019. It closely reads Calvin's 1559 Institutes with attention to how its genre and pedagogical strategies shape its doctrinal arguments in a material context and with an eye to embodied activity. It also places the text in conversation with contemporary theorists of religion, ritual, secularization and political theology. Devin Singh, the Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on modern religious thought in the West, philosophy of religion, and social ethics. He is also a faculty associate in Dartmouth’s Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality. He is the author of 'Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West' (Stanford 2018), as well as articles in journals such as Harvard Theological Review, Political Theology, and Journal of Religious Ethics, and in periodicals such as Time and The Washington Post. 5 Commen
| The text being discussed is available at | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpOy3ZIuNgA and |