ABSTRACT
The introduction starts with a preliminary explication of the concept of ‘economic theology’, which is understood here not in the conventional sense of a theological ethic of economic action, but in that of a manifest or latent presence of theological thought in economic analysis. After recapitulating the approaches of Adam Smith, Friedrich August von Hayek, and German ordoliberalism from this viewpoint, and discussing the controversies surrounding the concept of ‘secularisation’ (in particular as expressed by Karl Löwith and Charles Taylor), I will present the key questions of this study. The book aims to understand the latent proximity between theology and economic theory from the perspectives of economic sociology and social theory. Beyond a mere historiography of ideas, such an analysis has to focus first on the relevant historical changes of the socio-economic context. Karl Polanyi’s studies of the ‘disembedding’ of markets, that is, the expansion of markets across given territorial and social confines underlying the rise of modern capitalism in the nineteenth century, are chosen as a starting point for such an analysis. The introduction concludes with a brief overview of the following chapters.
