The Economy of Desire: Christianity and Capitalism in a Postmodern World

In this addition to the award-winning Church and Postmodern Culture series, Daniel Bell compares and contrasts capitalism and Christianity, showing how Christianity provides resources for faithfully navigating the postmodern global economy. He approaches capitalism and Christianity as alternative visions of humanity, God, and the good life. Considering faith and economics in terms of how desire is shaped, he casts the conflict as one between different disciplines of desire.

Bell engages the work of two important postmodern philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, to illuminate the nature of the postmodern world that the church currently inhabits. He considers how the global economy deforms desire in a manner that distorts human relations with God and one another. In contrast, he presents Christianity and the tradition of the works of mercy as a way beyond capitalism and socialism, beyond philanthropy and welfare. Christianity heals desire, renewing human relations and enabling communion with God. This book will work well for courses in theology and ethics, philosophical theology, discipleship, and Christianity and culture. Pastors and church leaders will also find it enlightening.

• Contents
• Introduction: What Has Paris to Do with Jerusalem?
• 1. The Multitude: The Micropolitics of Desire
• 2. Capital Desire: Capitalism as an Economy of Desire
• 3. What Is Wrong with Capitalism?
• 4. Capitalist Theology: The Agony of Capitalist Desire
• 5. Is Another Economy Possible? The Church as an Economy of Desire
• 6. The Economy of Salvation
• 7. Christian Economics
• 8. The Work of Mercy
• Conclusion: Dishonest Wealth, Friends, and Eternal Homes
• Index