released 4/12/2024

As a companion to the interview with Kyle Williams on Volume 161 about his book, Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation, we present an interview from our archives with theologian William Cavanaugh. On Volume 95 (2009), Cavanaugh talked about his book, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. In the book’s four essays, Cavanaugh examined four themes common in economic discussions: the free market, consumerism, globalization, and scarcity, all parsed within an unabashedly theological framework.

37 minutes

PREVIEW

The player for the full version of this Feature is only available to current members. If you have an active membership, log in here. If you’d like to become a member — with access to all our audio programs — sign up here.

Related reading and listening

  1. When is a market “free”? — William T. Cavanaugh argues for a richer conception of freedom than the reductionist one promoted by economist Milton Friedman. (44 minutes)
  2. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
  3. Cavanaugh, William T. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: William T. Cavanaugh is Professor of Catholic Studies and Director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University.
  4. Distributist & sustainable economics — Two interview from 2010: John C. Médaille summarizes how distributist economics differs from both capitalism and socialism. Then Herman Daly discusses the danger of economic theory abstracted from the actual stuff of Creation. (44 minutes)
  5. Why economists need meta-economics — Joseph Pearce on the key insight of E. F. Schumacher
  6. Before Church and State — Andrew Willard Jones challenges some of the conventional paradigms of thinking about political order, arguing that modern assumptions of the relationship between Church and state color how we understand history. (54 minutes
  7. The restless vanity of the untrammeled self — Sociologist Daniel Bell on the rise of “the idea that experience in and of itself was the supreme value”
  8. The legitimizing role of hedonism — Daniel Bell on what replaced the Protestant Ethic
  9. The obligation of prodigality — Daniel Bell on the hedonistic logic of the “new capitalism”
  10. Our commerce, our selves — Thomas Frank argues that the anti-establishment ethos of the counterculture was not a new phenomenon in the 1960s but was already present in corporate America long before the Beatles showed up. (23 minutes)
  11. Post-liberalism of an earlier generation — Allan C. Carlson discusses an anthology of articles from Free America, a magazine published between 1937 and 1947 whose writers believed that political democracy could only survive if coupled with decentralized economic democracy. (26 minutes)
  12. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 147 — FEATURED GUESTS: R. Jared Staudt, Jason Peters, D. C. Schindler, Craig Gay, Mary Hirschfeld, and Patrick Samway
  13. Loving your neighbor during a pandemic — Brad Littlejohn reflects on how best to ask and answer some of the questions raised by our current disease-ravaged circumstances, particularly questions related to Christian freedom and love of neighbor. (29 minutes)
  14. The nature of freedom reconsidered — In anticipation of this Fall’s Areopagus Lecture entitled “‘For Freedom Set Free’: Retrieving Genuine Religious Liberty,” we present selections from interviews with three MARS HILL AUDIO guests who have raised questions about the modern understanding of freedom. (27 minutes)
  15. Christopher Lasch: “Conservatism against Itself” — In this early article from First Things, historian Christopher Lasch poses the question of whether cultural conservatism is compatible with capitalism. (42 minutes)
  16. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 134 — FEATURED GUESTS: Chris Armstrong, Grevel Lindop, Michael Martin, William T. Cavanaugh, Philip Turner, and Gisela Kreglinger
  17. Not just other-worldly concerns — William Cavanaugh on the “religionization” of Christianity
  18. Doing business: selfishly or generously? — David L. Schindler on Adam Smith’s big mistake
  19. The Church as a public reality — William Cavanaugh on how we must be disciples in public, not just citizens
  20. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 118 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, Ron Highfield, Mark Mitchell, Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Helen Rhee, and Peter Brown
  21. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 115 — FEATURED GUESTS: Arlie Russell Hochschild, Andrew Davison, Adrian Pabst, Gary Colledge, Linda Lewis, and Thomas Bergler
  22. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 109 — FEATURED GUESTS: Douglas Coupland, Charles Mathewes, William T. Cavanaugh, William Dyrness, Steven Guthrie, and Susannah Clements
  23. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 106 — FEATURED GUESTS: Adam Briggle, John C. Médaille, Christopher Page, Christian Smith, Herman Daly, and Thomas Hibbs
  24. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 102 — FEATURED GUESTS: Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Lew Daly, Adam K. Webb, Stratford Caldecott, James Matthew Wilson, and Thomas Hibbs
  25. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 101 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Davison Hunter, Paul Spears, Steven Loomis, James K. A. Smith, Thomas Long, and William T. Cavanaugh
  26. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 100 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jennifer Burns, Christian Smith, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, P. D. James, James Davison Hunter, Paul McHugh, Ted Prescott, Ed Knippers, Martha Bayles, Dominic Aquila, Gilbert Meilaender, Neil Postman, and Alan Jacobs
  27. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 96 — FEATURED GUESTS: David A. Smith, Kiku Adatto, Elvin T. Lim, David Naugle, Richard Stivers, and John Betz
  28. Before and after economics — Mark Mitchell: “The ideology of economics is a way of seeing the world. It forces reality into a preconceived structure and subsequently deigns to rule this truncated world with all the authority of science.”
  29. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 95 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stewart Davenport, William T. Cavanaugh, J. Matthew Bonzo, Michael R. Stevens, Craig Gay, Eugene Peterson, and Barry Hankins
  30. A devilish temptation — Wendell Berry explains how the modern Western ideal of the sovereign self enshrines a story of the abandonment of restrictions and restraints in the name of human freedom.
  31. Liberalism and limits — On his blog, What I Saw in America, political theorist Patrick Deneen often questions some of the fundamental assumptions of classic liberalism, assumptions which contradict the wisdom of premodern political thinkers.
  32. Joshua P. Hochschild: “Globalization: Ancient and Modern” — Joshua P. Hochschild examines the effects of globalization on local communities and argues for the need for reflection on the ends of politics given the ends of human beings. (36 minutes)
  33. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 71 — FEATURED GUESTS: Peter Augustine Lawler, David Koyzis, Roger Lundin, Craig Gay, Steven Rhoads, and R. Larry Todd
  34. Re-imagining economic obedience: lessons from Wendell Berry — The order of Creation, says Wendell Berry, is closer to that of a drama than that of a market. That quality should inform how we imagine economic life to be well-ordered.
  35. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 48 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jon Butler, Gary Cross, Zygmunt Bauman, Pico Iyer, Richard Stivers, Larry Woiwode, Alan Jacobs, and James Trott
  36. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 40 — FEATURED GUESTS: Joseph Epstein, John Gray, Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr., William T. Pizzi, Pamela Walker Laird, Albert Borgmann, Neal Stephenson, and Alan Jacobs
Tags: