John Ruskin in the TV series "Desperate Romantics"
While John Ruskin has been recognized as one of the 19th century’s most trenchant critics of capitalism, the religious character of his criticism is often ignored, and its contemporary significance is either dismissed or unappreciated. But Ruskin’s opposition to capitalism was rooted in a (heterodox) Christian understanding of creation and humanity, a sacramental conception of reality that is urgently relevant as we veer - with economic and ecological despoliation looming - toward some sort of post-capitalist world. Ruskin’s notion of “the economy of heaven” enables us to envision a world after capitalism that is more humane, generous, and ecological sensitive than we can achieve by relying on political and technological solutions alone.
An associate professor of humanities and history at Villanova since 2000, Eugene McCarraher’s research has focused on social thought, capitalism, and religion in the United States. He is the author of The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019).