Sublime

Pour le sociologue Frédéric Lebaron, les banquiers centraux sont des personnages particuliers, des « agents qui combinent le credo en une doctrine économique, parfois dérivée de principes philosophiques voire religieux (…) et une pratique politico-administrative réformatrice néolibérale13 ».

Weber believed that it was only in the West that knowledge came to have “universal significance and validity.” The overarching theme of Weber’s historical sociology was to trace the long history of the rationalizing process which culminated in modern Western civilization.

Finally, it gave him the comforting assurance that the unequal distribution of the goods of this world was a special dispensation of Divine Providence, which in these differences, as in particular grace, pursued secret ends unknown to men.

Obviously Reich’s influence went way beyond just me. Alongside other authors such as Anthony Giddens[411] and Jeremy Rifkin[412], he was instrumental in crafting the message of a new generation of progressive leaders that the era of the steady, lifelong job was over. In a more global and unstable world, lifelong education was the new key to providi

In spite of the great significance of self-evident feeling, righteous conduct according to the law was thus naturally also adhered to. Whenever Wesley attacked the emphasis on works of his time, it was only to revive the old Puritan doctrine that works are not the cause, but only the means of knowing one’s state of grace, and even this only when th

One of Adam Smith’s most intelligent and penetrating readers was the German economist Karl Marx. Marx agreed entirely with Smith’s analysis: specialization had indeed transformed the world and possessed a revolutionary power to enrich individuals and nations. But where he differed from Smith was in his assessment of how desirable this development m

as the institution of marriage is not an institution of freedom unless it grants the legal possibility of divorce, democratic socialism as an institution of freedom must grant us the practical possibility of refusing to participate in a given form of life—otherwise our participation will not be free but a matter of material need.

Now naturally the whole ascetic literature of almost all denominations is saturated with the idea that faithful labour, even at low wages, on the part of those whom life offers no other opportunities, is highly pleasing to God. In this respect Protestant Asceticism added in itself nothing new. But it not only deepened this idea most powerfully, it