Raised some definite questions as to the ethical coherence and proper application of Yoder's stance; nevertheless, a powerful and persuasive read. Shatters the stereotype of Yoder/Hauerwas as disengaged, sectarian, unable to speak relevantly to the state, etc.
The characterization of the traditional ethical models for relating Christianity to politics (Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Niebuhrian) was especially helpful and illuminating. ]]>
Very thorough exposition of the laws, but very thin on original reflection or interesting application. Also suffers from an annoying accommodation to the Documentary Hypothesis, though it is tame by the standards of OT scholarship.
In any case, an invaluable reference resource. ]]>
Very sophisticated, fascinating argument. Tends to get a little bit over-the-top toward the end, as the author gets rather excited about his conclusion and starts piling on more and more words with less and less meaning.
But fabulous food for thought here, all throughout. Will be a cornerstone of my paper on Gift-Ethics. ]]>
"Pages of dense and turgid argument spill forth in brilliant and breathtaking crescendos of insight."
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by Hernando de Soto
Hey,
Interestingly, we just talked about this book in class today. Funny how books seem to crop up in multiple places at the same time.
Helpful review. Last week, I read Hilaire Belloc's The Servile State; it was interesting to learn how private property, supposedly the great gift that capitalism is safeguarding, was actually that which capitalism destroyed--or rather, concentrated in the hands of the few and then legally protected it for those few.
It's been interesting for me to see how in Torah economics (which I've been studying recently), private property is tremendously important; in fact, it's so important that property rights cannot be absolute--property must be redistributed from time to time to make sure that everyone still has their piece of property. Cuts sharply against both the socialist communalization of property and the capitalist absolutization of the right to accumulate property. ]]>
Brad Littlejohn
read and liked
Doug Jones's
review of The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else:
"More than most conservatives, Hernando De Soto understands that, even with the death of Cold War socialism, the “advocates for capitalism are intellectually on the retreat” (209). “The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its hour of cris...more "
"More than most conservatives, Hernando De Soto understands that, even with the death of Cold War socialism, the “advocates for capitalism are intellectually on the retreat” (209). “The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its hour of cris...more "
I had to toss this book aside about a third of the way through, because the argument was so slipshod and the writing so poor I couldn't handle it anymore.
I was literally forced to read at a glacial pace simply in order to try to decode what the poorly phrased and punctuated sentences were trying to say; it felt like reading sophomore research papers. Particularly reminiscent of the undergraduate writing style was the tendency to use words that sounded scholarly when the author clearly did not really know what they meant; such as when, in spelling out an argument by John Locke, he said, "Each war of the bourgeoisie is therefore a priori a just war." If something is "therefore" the case, as in, the consequence of an earlier step in the argument, then it is true a posteriori, the opposite of a priori. "Therefore a priori" is like saying "afterwards at the beginning." A bit later, the author equated a "deductive argument" with a "tautology." Even Derrida would have trouble cooking up something like that.
My favorite sample of the slipshod argument was when the author claimed that the combination of the Black Death and of firearms, which allowed people to kill at a distance, led to an increased tolerance of mass death and killing, as was justified in the Crusades, and by the conquistadors. That is to say, a 14th-century event, coupled with a 16th-century phenomenon, combined to encourage a 12th-century event and an early 16th-century event.
Of course, it didn't help that the authors started things out on such a terrible footing, with a laughably fairy-tale account of Old Testament history, which destroyed any of the potentially rich value that the authors might glean from the OT economic laws. Theories about the dates of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy which are at best highly-debated hypotheses, increasingly rejected even by liberal scholars, were put forth as simple facts, upon the basis of which other claims might be argued. That made me so skeptical that I read everything that came afterward even more critically than I otherwise would have. Hence chucking the book a third of the way through. But apparently that was a good decision, since Doug Jones made it all the way through and gave it just one star as well.
This is the kind of book that makes anti-capitalists and ecumenists (this was published by the World Council of Churches) so painfully easy to mock and dismiss. Gosh, capitalism isn't that hard to critique...justice and mercy aren't that hard to argue for...why do people have to do such an awful job of it?
(I apologize that this review is so poorly written...the writing style of whatever I read tends to rub off on me.) ]]>
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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