On religiosity and commercial life: Toward a critique of cultural economy and posthumanist value theory

Abstract

Revolutionary developments in the social organization of capitalism give birth to revolutionary developments in ideas about the economy and value. Just as the industrial revolution in England in the late eighteenth century saw the emergence of political economy and the labor theory of value, and the age of imperialism in the late nineteenth century saw the emergence of economics and the marginal utility theory of value, so the age of globalization in the late twentiethand early twenty-first centuries has seen the emergence of cultural economy and a new posthumanist theory of value that attributes agency to things. What are the assumptions that inform this new posthuman theory of value? Does it dehumanize anthropology, or does it pave the way for an anthropology of the future based on a radically new ethics of possibility? Whatever, the provocations of cultural economy demand a robust debate.