The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

by Eugene McCarraher

Several of the more popular exhibits displayed an unmistakable ambience of enchantment. General Electric’s House of Magic, for instance, focused on special effects rather than science, presenting radio waves and magnetism as corporate conjuring tricks. (As Nye observes, “visitors left no wiser about electricity than when they had entered.”) Outside the House of Magic, an enormous canvas painted by Rockwell Kent depicted a historical tale of progress from ignorance to enlightenment. Humanity, a brochure explained, traveled from “the superstition and misbeliefs of the Dark Ages” to “the more abundant life” enabled by science. Yet with its pervasive aura of magic, General Electric’s pavilion suggested the replacement of one form of enchantment with another, the new one sanctioned by its commodified fruits conjured by a new class of shamans.