“One must see capitalism as a religion”: The Politics of Economic Theology in Postsecularity

This paper introduces the necessity of a postsecular conception of capitalism as religion as an intervention into the discourse of postsecularity and its tendency to reduce the significance of capitalism and its concrete material and social processes in its analysis of religion, culture, and politics. Taking William E. Connolly's project in Capitalism and Christianity as a postsecular framework that tackles this question, I point to the limitations of Connolly's analysis in his reformist conclusions and the relative autonomy he gives to cultural theological formations. Instead, I argue that a synthesis of Benjamin's and Marx's conceptions of capitalism as religion is necessary to an adequate postsecular analysis of capitalist assemblages. I then address the three political options of re-enchantment, disenchantment, and what I term counter-enchantment in the context of this analysis of capitalism as religion.