The Enchantments of Mammon by Eugene McCarraher review – an epic blend of history, prophecy and polemic
This monumental labour of love traces mankind’s ruinous fall for wealth, and argues for the revival of a sacramental order
It would not cross the mind of many critics of neoliberalism to call on the testimony of the angel Raphael in Milton’s Paradise Lost. But if the case you wish to make is as ambitious as Eugene McCarraher’s, then a witness to prelapsarian times comes in extremely handy. When Raphael explains to Adam the lie of the land in the garden of Eden, he tells him: “God hath here/Varied his bounty so with new delights/As may compare with Heaven.” The paradisiacal economy obliges “no more toil than sufficed/To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease/More easy”. Abundance reigns. But once Satan finds his way in, writes McCarraher, “this earthly beatitude ends, and the sinful regime of toil and accumulation commences”. All the way to Donald Trump.
It is almost impossible to categorise Enchantments of Mammon. This monumental labour of love took two decades to write. There have been marvellous studies of contemporary capitalism published in recent years, for example Wolfgang Streeck’s How Will Capitalism End? But this is an extraordinary work of intellectual history as well as a scholarly tour de force, a bracing polemic and a work of Christian prophecy. It perhaps should have been at least three books. But it is beautifully written and a magnificent read, whether or not one follows the author all the way to his final destination in this journey of the pilgrim soul in the capitalist wilderness.