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Enslaved Imaginations: The [Pelagian] Heresy Of Market Fundamentalism And Christian Moral Discernment, Richard Crane

Biblical, Religious, & Philosophical Studies Educator Scholarship

In many respects, the US economy bears little resemblance to a genuine free market system. The economic policy-making process has been captured by powerful interests, resulting in regressive arrangements that redistribute wealth upward. The inequality generated is sanctioned in popular discourse by a confusing of ideal free markets with real world markets. “Market fundamentalism” imagines the market as self-regulating, governed by economic laws inscribed into the natural order, and thus a free and fair system. This rhetoric disguises how the system’s structure favors some at the expense of others.

Evaluating market fundamentalism with a theological lens reveals resemblances to the …