Mammon’s Ecology Metaphysic of the Empty Sign Stan Goff FOREWORD BY Ched Myers MAMMON’S ECOLOGY Metaphysic of the Empty Sign Copyright © 2018 Stan Goff All rights reserved Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401 Cascade Books An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers 199 W th Ave., Suite Eugene, OR 97401 www.wipfandstock.com PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-5326-1768-3 HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-4982-4255-4 EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-4982-4254-7 Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Names: Goff, Stan, author | Myers, Ched, foreword Title: Mammon’s ecology : metaphysic of the empty sign / Stan Goff ; foreword by Ched Myers Description: Eugene, OR : Cascade Books, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references and index Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-5326-1768-3 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-4982-4255-4 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-4982-4254-7 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Economics—Religious aspects—Christianity | Money—Religious aspects—Christianity Classification: BR115.E3 G64 2018 (print) | BR115.E3 G64 (ebook) Manufactured in the U.S.A 04/16/18 Table of Contents Title Page Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Detectives Chapter 2: The Heat Chapter 3: Nature Chapter 4: Knowledge Chapter 5: Exchange Chapter 6: Technology Chapter 7: Money Chapter 8: Development Chapter 9: Case Study: Finance, Food, Force & Foreign Policy Chapter 10: Merged Understandings Chapter 11: Church Bibliography For Daddy, Mimi, and Glen, who beat me to the barn No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other You cannot serve God and mammon L — UKE 16:13 Foreword STAN GOFF, FOR THOSE unfamiliar with his growing body of work, is an extraordinary and conscientious organic intellectual He has traversed a fascinating life-journey, from Vietnam to West Point, from Special Forces operations in Haiti (where he began his radical transformation) to peace activist, and post-Marxist social analyst to Christian disciple In his quest to get to the roots of both public and personal pathologies, he has increasingly “followed the money.” This has led him to tackle, in this his sixth book, the unorthodox but compelling thesis that “general-purpose money” is the central ecological issue of our time Goff’s important study is a demanding read This is because he is, on one hand, trying to make a complicated thing simple enough to be intelligible to laypeople, thus summarizing and distilling a vast body of economic and philosophical thought; and on the other hand, trying to make that simple thing complicated again by challenging us to move beyond rhetorical sound bites to greater precision in our analysis and vocabulary of political economics This is a workbook, which invites us to become fellow “detectives” in discovering what we might call “the secret life of money.” I commend it to all who want to go deeper in their diagnosis of the dysfunction of our historical inheritance—especially if you chafe, as I do, at the popular current maxim that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (the provenance of which Goff correctly identifies) Goff chooses to frame this complicated terrain “simply” in terms of the ancient trope of Mammon We find this term in a key, if routinely mishandled, parable (and commentary) of Jesus as recorded in Luke 16:1–15 This teaching represents the heart of Luke’s theology of economic justice—and mirrors much of the argument of this book So it is worth exploring here as a portal into Goff’s project Jesus’ story begins: “There was a rich man who ” ( 16:1) Luke’s chapter will close with a second parable that repeats this phrase (16:19), revealing this narrative sequence as a carefully composed chiasm, in which the two parables bracket Jesus’ teaching concerning Mammon and the “love of money” (16:9–15) Both parables are poignant fables that illustrate, in different ways, a world caught between what Wendell Berry calls the “Two Economies”—one in which money is used to repair social and ecological relations, and one in which both are sacrificed to accumulate capital.1 Here I want to focus on the first parable which, as a tale about subverting a money system, both illumines and is illumined by Goff’s study To subtitle this as the “Parable of the Dishonest Steward” (as so many versions of the New Testament do) already biases how it is read Indeed, churches usually approach this text with an unconscious hermeneutic of capitalist moralism, implicitly taking the “side” of the boss while vilifying the worker—despite the fact that in the narrative, both the Master and Jesus commend the steward’s insubordinate initiatives!2 I prefer to think of the main character as a “defective manager, ” using the modern analogy of a mid-level bureaucrat in a large corporation Just as he is about to be sacked because of below-expected sales numbers, he improvises a desperate but ingenuous “fire sale” on credit that ingratiates him to his clients, in hopes they will reciprocate when he’s out on his ear In so doing he turns his allegiances toward an alternative, local, relational economy of mutual aid, one that ever persists just below the surface of the dominant market system In this reading, the manager is not the villain but the hero of the story He represents a sort of archetype for all of us who: (1) are captive to a toxic and oppressive economic system; (2) realize that we too are becoming disenfranchised; and (3) consequently try to “monkeywrench” whatever leverage we have to effect a modicum of redistributive justice The story gives dignity to such partial but meaningful efforts to “build a new world within the shell of the old,” as Dorothy Day famously put it Like so many of Jesus’ parables about the rich, this one acknowledges that the world is ruled by the “rentier” class (an important term that Goff defines in chapter 7) Luke’s Jesus has already made his attitude to the “1 percent” painfully clear in an earlier folktale about a wealthy farmer who knew only how to accumulate (12:16–21), and does so again in the parable that closes our sequence in which a self-indulgent Dives must face the cruel truth of the gulf between the opulent and the destitute from Lazarus’ vantage point (12:19–31) Interestingly, in both tales the elite come to terms with their contradictions only in death; the Bible is so much less equivocal in its judgment on wealth disparity than we are! The “steward” of 16:1 (Greek oikonomos, whence our word economics) belonged to what sociologist Gerhard Lenski called a dependent “retainer” class, literate bureaucrats whose job was to secure exorbitant profits for the master through merciless resourceextraction and labor exploitation, while at the same time maintaining working relations with peasant producers, competitive merchants, and customers Here the analogy with modern, middle-class, educated white-collar workers is fitting: we too are people who are privileged within, yet subservient to, an economic system that both benefits and victimizes us So whereas most of Jesus’ parables feature peasants as protagonists, this story uniquely calls us to discipleship “Charges were brought to the Master that this manager was wasting his goods” (16:1c).3 The resulting dismissal of the latter is summary, confirming the absolute authority of the former (16:2) The accused neither argues nor defends himself, knowing there is no due process in this system Instead, in a poignant internal dialogue, he focuses on the stark alternatives facing him (16:3) This soft-handed bureaucrat realizes he cannot physically endure the brutal lot of day-laborers, while resorting to alms would obliterate what remained of his “class” honor The story turns on the fired manager’s conclusion (16:4) Though his plan is not yet revealed, the hoped-for result is: he is going to whatever it takes to “cross-over” from the economy engineered by (and for) the rich to the remnant village economy of mutual aid By redistributing some of his Master’s wealth at his (temporary) disposal, he seeks to re-enter the traditional ethos of “generalized reciprocity,” by which the communities exploited by his Master manage to survive A key value of that older economy is hospitality, and the hope is that in return for his facilitation of debt-relief, “they will receive me into their homes ” Having been kicked out of the Great Household, he must now rely on what feminist economist Hazel Henderson calls the “love economy” for survival.4 It is precisely this older tradition of economic culture, Goff argues in his conclusion, that we must rehabilitate if we are to restore ecological and social equilibrium to a world plundered by our toxic and terminal money-system The rest of Luke’s story unfolds quickly ( 16:5–7) The defecting manager hurries to his place of business and—still acting as the Master’s agent before news of his termination is broadcast—summons his clients “Tell me how much you owe,” he barks, indicating that he no longer has the books; he does, however, ask for their signature on the revised bill to make the transaction official This represents a sort of “Jubilee” strategy, re-enacting the old biblical vision (Lev 25:36; Deut 15:1) that forever stands in tension with ruling economies, as Goff notes The next verse brings the “punchline” (after all, parables mean to turn the world upside down to crack open our political imaginations) Strangely, the Master commends his feral manager (Luke 16:8a) As in the more well-known (and equally misunderstood) parable of the Talents (Matt 25:26–29; Luke 19:22b), the Master here concedes that his system is corrupt, acknowledging the one he fired as a “manager of injustice.” Yet he “gives him credit for being shrewd.” In fact, the plutocrat has been outsmarted: since recipients of the debt amnesty would praise the patrón for presumably authorizing it, to save face he must begrudgingly honor the write-off, so as not to jeopardize the system with a “credibility” crisis Meanwhile, “Robin Hood’s” fate is in the hands of the villagers Luke now switches abruptly to Jesus’ “decoding” of the parable: “For the children of this age are shrewder than the children of light in dealing with their own generation” (16:8b) This aphorism has an apocalyptic tone, the traditional rhetoric of resistance in Jewish antiquity It conveys an indictment of the “filthy rotten system” (again, Dorothy Day) that must “pass away.” Yet also implied is an acknowledgment that as long as it persists, “shrewdness” (repeating the Master’s approbation) will be required to survive it.5 In this case, a manager has defected from his upwardly mobile track and linked his fate instead to the debtor class below him, helping them in order to help himself His Jubilary gesture gives hard-pressed peasants a measure of relief and secures “refuge” among them This brings us to the moral of the story, the crucial lesson for the “children of light.” It is here that Luke introduces the infamous trope Goff has invoked: “Make friends for yourselves, therefore, by means of the ‘Mammon of injustice’” (16:9a) Mamōnās, which only appears here in the New Testament (and its parallel in Matt 6:24), is an Aramaic word that probably stems from the Hebrew for “that in which one trusts.” Though not in the Hebrew Bible, the term does appear in later Jewish writings In the Mishnah it connotes property, often as contrasted with life; in the Targum it is an epithet for profit made through exploitation: “He destroys his house who gathers the mammon of injustice” (Targ Prov 15:27, italics added) A possible etymology could be from the Babylonian manman, connoting “filth of hell.” Mammon thus seems to be, for Jesus, a dark metaphor for the economic system of domination—or as Goff puts it (following Ellul and Stringfellow), money as deadly principality and power In the second part of his lesson we see clear resonance between Jesus’ exhortation and the manager’s strategy at the center of the parable: “in order that when I am put out of the economy they may receive me into their homes” (16:4); “in order that when it fails [Gk eklipē] they may receive you into the eternal tents” (16:9b) From Jesus’ perspective, the question is not whether the unsustainable Mammon system will be “eclipsed”; only when Significantly, the radical alternative for those displaced by the Mammon system is the hospitality of “eternal tents.” This suggests that healing lies in a return to Israel’s primal wilderness traditions, specifically regarding what I call “Sabbath Economics,” summarized in four principles narrated in Exodus 16: (1) creation is understood as a divine gift (symbolized by the mysterious Manna); (2) people are to gather that gift equitably (no one taking too much, everyone having enough); (3) the gift must not be turned into a possession to be accumulated privately; and (4) Sabbath practices of communal selflimitation must be observed.6 The only antidote to Mammon culture, in other words, is Manna culture But ideals are only made flesh in practices Jesus seems to acknowledge in this parable that in the real world, improvisational attempts to re-deploy Capital on behalf of Community will be necessarily partial and inevitably ambiguous—especially when initiated by those with privilege Still, all of us who are caught and complicit in the Mammon system must figure out ways to defect from it, while trying to rehabilitate traditional ways of Manna sharing If we so dare, we will be dismissed by our Masters as “defective,” and perhaps even punished—a prospect made explicit in Luke’s very last parable “of the ten pounds” (19:11–27) about a whistleblowing manager who is criminalized and executed (as the Teacher himself will be in this story) But according to Jesus, this “risky business” is the only way the managerial class can become “trustworthy,” as the following verses argue (16:10–12) It is an unsettling challenge Goff reiterates in this book So as not to be misunderstood as advocating incremental reformism or merely symbolic gestures, however, Jesus concludes with an unequivocal reiteration of the incompatibility of the Two Economies: “You cannot serve God and Mammon” ( 16:13) Such apocalyptic dualism provides rhetorical heat and is Jesus’ way of “politicizing” the issue As Wendell Berry paraphrases: “If we not serve what coheres and endures, we serve what disintegrates and destroys.”7 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ed Soviet Union: A Country Study Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1991 Index accumulation (economic), 23n38, 30, 61n41, 73, 82–90, 94, 103, 112–13n12, 118n29, 126, 133–34, 136–53, 163 adjustable interest rates, 109, 111 Adrian Dominican Sisters, xxiv Afghanistan, 23, 129n72, 131, 134 agribusiness/industrial agriculture, 7, 22, 98, 111–12, 123–45, 165, 168 agricultural dumping and ethanol, 126–29 Ahsan, Kamil, 137 Alexis-Baker, Nekeisha, 148–49 Allen, Benjamin S., 98 alternative agronomy, 168–69 alternative energy, 15, 18–19 Alvarez, Robert, 130 Alyattes, King of Lydia, 66 Amadeo, Kimberly, 109 anarchism, 159 Andreas, Dwayne, 125–27 Andrews, Robert, 153 Anthropocene, 23–24, 141 Antarctica, 5–6 Anti-Christ, 152–58 Apocalypse of John of Patmos (Revelation), 170 Appalachia, Aquinas, Thomas, 76n34, 161n28 Arab Oil Embargo, 106 Araghi, Farshad, 118 Arbesman, Samuel, 27 Archer Daniels Midland, 126–27 Aristide, Jean Bertrand, 131 Aristotle xvii, 35, 65–66, 77 Arnaud, Emilie, 8, 21 Arnow, Harriette, 53 Atlanta, 3, 19 automobile, 56–60 autotrophs, 11, 13 average speed of cars (3 miles an hour), 40 Balogh, Stephen B., 47 banana republic, 125 Bangladesh, Barth, Karl, xix, xxi, 68n16, 83, 153, 162 Beckel, Michael, 128 Benin, 23 Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika, 100 Bergson, Henri, 77 Berry Wendell, x, xiv Biddle, Wayne, 123 Biello, David, 19 biological determinism, 78, 150 Blas, Javier, 96 Bohannan, Paul, 71–72 Bolivia, 21, 29, 77 Bollman, Moritz, et al Boone, Peter, 135 Bosch, Carl, 122 Botswana, 51–52, 55, Bovard, James, 126 Bowlby, Chris, 123 Brazil, 51–52, 98, 99, 114, 121, 143, Bretton Woods Conference/Agreement/regime, 67–68, 116–17 Brower, Montgomery, 128 “bubble” (financial), xvii, 109–110n5, 113, 119–20, 137, 139 Burn-Callander, Rebecca, 66 Bush, George W., 126n61, 130–31 Caesar, xix, 63–65, 107–8 California, 7, 30, 80, 105 Campbell, John, 76 Camus, Albert, 152–3 Canada, 42, 67n14, 82 capitalism, ix, x n2, xviii, 23, 89–90, 92–101, 106, 109–10, 117, 124n50, 126n59, 129, 136–37, 140–49, 153–5, 162–5 Capitalocene, 24, 154 Carney, Dan, 125 Carter, Jimmy, 109, 127–28 Cartesian fallacies, 35, 146, 151 “cartoon law of gravity”, 113, 120, 137 “casino capitalism,” 117 causation categories, 77 Cayley, David, 156–57 Chakrabortty, Aditya, 57 Chase-Dunn, Christopher, 143 Chavez, Hugo, 131 Chile, 3–4, 52, 80, 94, 112n12, 123 China, 3, 6, 22n35, 23, 51, 52, 56, 66, 80, 84, 92–93, 98, 105, 112n12, 114, 120, 121, 129, 131, 145, 149 Christendom, 102, 155n16, 158 civil society, xxvi, 132 climate change, 7–8, 23–24, 60–61, 141, 152 clockwork determinism, 27 Cochabamba Water War, 21 Cold War, 114–15, 130 Collier, Charlie, xxiii Colombia, 29 Columbus, Christopher (Cristobal Colon), 102 commodification, 68, 82–83, 86n48, 89, 93n5, 103, 112–13n12, 117n26, 143 conditionalities, 111–12 Connecticut, 95 Conniff, Richard, 33 conquest triad (women, nature, colonies), xx n4 conspiracy of friendship, 169–70 conspiratio, 170 conspiratorial worldview (conspiracy theories), 133, 150n4 Constantine/Constantinian, 162 consumer/household debt, 134 Cooke, Kieran, 96 core-periphery dynamic, 94n8 Corradin, Camilla, Costa Rica, 51–52 coups d’etat, US-supported (Venezuela [attempted], Haiti, Honduras), 131 Crabtree, Steve, 24 crime fiction, xxvii–xxviii Culp, Scott, culture-nature dichotomy, xvii, 28–29, 46n5, 142, 146, 151n5 Cunliffe, Sydney, 106 Dale, Edwin L., 126 Daniélou, Jean-Guenolé-Marie, 149 Davis, Mike, 134 Dawkins, Richard, 75–77 Dawson, Christopher, 156 Day, Dorothy, x, xii, 159n25 Day, Keri, 93n5 De Certeau, Michel, 159n29 debtor imperialism, 120–21 “defense” contractors, 131–32 deforestation, 43, 49, 53, 55, 57, 97–98, 146–47 de-growth economy, 166–67 Democratic Republic of Congo, 51–53 Deng Xiaoping, 92, 112n12 dependency, 41, 61, 100, 103–5, 118, 121, 127, 128, 138–39, 142, 153, 167 Descartes, René, xviii, 35, 151 de-skilling, 35 Detroit, Michigan, 94 development (techno-economic), 17, 52, 54–56, 59, 60, 61n41, 90, 91–106, 108–9, 111, 123–24, 129, 133, 162 Dickens, Charles, xxvii Dietrich, Jeff, 167 disembedding, 82–83, 93, 99, 103, 133, 140 dispossession, 8, 118n29 dissipative structures, xvii, 16, 51, 83, 86, 123 “dog-waggery” (institutional), 160 Dollar-Wall Street Regime, 113–14 Dominican Republic, 23, 95, 97–98, 102 Donley, Arvin, 127 Dumaresq, Charles, 53 Dunbar, Robin (Dunbar’s number), 159 Durish, Pat, et al 132 Dutch Tulip craze, 119 economics, xi, xviii, xix, xxvi, 34–36, 43, 54, 57, 70, 74, 76, 83, 99, 114n18, 136–37, 163, 170 ecosemiotic, 8, 9, 150 ego cogito, ego conquiro, 151 Egypt, 98, 108, 133 Eisenhower, Dwight, 59, 114 El Salvador, 117–18 Ellul, Jacques, xiii, 32, 46–48, 54, 149–50, 167n36 enclosure, 100–103, 118, 124, 152, 155 encompassment, 32, 37, 66, 70n19, 79, 103, 146, 150n4, 151, 159 energy primer, 15–20 energy sink, 16–17, 47n7 energy slaves, 48 England, 33, 49 entropy, xviii, 11–14, 18, 51, 57–58, 81–83, 90, 134, 165 environmental load displacement, 50, 56, 86–87 epistemology (“way of knowing”/”way we know”), xviii, 27–28, 31, 32, 37, 55, 57, 60, 70–71, 151, 155, 166 EROEI/EROCI (energy return on energy invested/capital invested), 16, 20, 127n64 evolutionary linguistics, 76 “exchange detection,” 3–4 exchange (economic), forms of, 99 exchange-value (price), 40–42, 50, 54, 58, 61, 65–66, 68, 72n21, 79–80, 84, 136, 143 executive power, 160 exporting inflation, 114–5 externality (economic), 54, 87, 89, 106, 112–13n12 Fairlie, Simon, 100 Federal Reserve Bank (“the Fed”), 88, 109–110n5, 137 feminism/womanism, xii, xviii, xx, xxiii, 43n9, 93n5, 100, Ferdinand II of Aragon, 102 fetishism, 29, 93 fictional value, 90, 113, 120, 134 finance/financial capital, 89, 109–110n5, 111, 112–13n12, 126n59 financialization, 126n59, 137, 147, 166 fisheries, 7, 143 five characteristics of modern enclosure, 118n29 fixed currency exchange rates, 67–68, 115–17, 133 Flynn, Gillian, xxvii Food Price Index (UNFAO), 145 footprint (environmental/ecological), 25, 43, 146 Ford, Gerald, 127 Ford Motor Company, 123 fossil energy/fuel/hydrocarbons, 11, 14, 16–19, 41–42, 50, 53, 57, 90, 96, 98, 103, 123, 127, 130, 136, 165 Foster, John Bellamy, 123 “four cheaps” (labor, food, energy, raw materials), 89, 124, 126, 136 Fournier, Valérie, 166 France, 47, 115, 130 Frank, Andre Gunder, xvii Franklin, H Bruce, 154–55 French, Tana, xxvii frontiers, 99, 126n59, 144, 146–47 Gaud, William, 124 Gause, F Gregory, 87 Georgia (US state), 105 Germany, 47, 56, 99–100, 130 Ghawar oil field, 96 Ghizoni, Sandra Kollen, 67 Ghogomu, Mbiyimoh, 43 Gilson, Ronald J., 94 Girbaud, Franỗois and Marithé, 148 Glass-Steagall Act, 109–110n5, 119n30, 120 Glick, Reuven, 134 global warming See climate change Goff, Stan, xxiin6, 35n32, 78n40, 141n4 gold standard, 67, 71, 115–17, 133 golden goose, 126n59, 147 Goldenberg, Susanne, 128 Gowan, Peter, 110, 113, 117 Great Depression, 67, 119–20 Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 38n1 Greece, 23, 45 Green Revolution, 124–27, 134, 144 Greene, Graham, xxvii Greenland, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 42–43, 75 guano depletion, 123 Guccione, Bob, Jr., 97 Guimond, Marie-France, 134 Haber, Fritz, 122 Haiti, ix, 37, 86, 95, 97–98, 102, 125, 131, 168 half-life of knowledge, 27n4 Hall, Amy Laura, xix Hall, Bob, 59 Hall, Charles A S., 127 Hall, Thomas, 143 Hamburg, Steve, Hammer, Joshua, 8, 22 Hart, David Bentley, 150–51 Hartsock, Nancy C M., 43n9 Harvey, Chelsea, Harvey, David, 112–13 Hauerwas, Stanley, xix Hawaii, 38 Hayes, Jim, 158 Hazell, Peter B R., 124 Hedges, Chris, 140 Henderson, Hazel, x, xii Herr, Norman, 132 heterotrophs, 11, 13 Hill, Joshua S., 47 Hitler, Adloph/Third Reich, 99–100, 161 Hobbes, Thomas, xix Honduras, 23, 131, Hornborg, Alf, xvii–xviii, 8–9, 24n42, 31, 34, 41, 44, 47n9, 51, 53n25, 72, 74–75, 79, 85–87, 99, 165–66 “hot money”, 117–20 Hudson, Michael, xvii, 110n5, 115n19, 116, 120n35 human ecology, xviii Humphrey, Hubert, 125 Husserl, Edmund, 157 Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), 126n61 hydrogen energy, 15n16 I G Farben, 122 ideology, xviii, xxi, 8, 14, 23, 36, 46n5, 48, 89, 92–93n4, 130, 139–40, 151–52, 159n25 Illich, Ivan, 26, 28, 39–44, 46, 48, 61, 81n44, 93n5, 101–2, 108, 118, 129, 149, 155–59, 161, 170 imperial overstretch, 129 Incarnation, 102, 156–57, 170 India, 6, 102, 106n34, 130 Indian Wars, 89 Indonesia, 6, 42 –43, 50, 87 institutionalization, 101–2, 149, 156–62 intellectual property, 100, 147 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 111–12, 124n51 Iran, 126n61, 131 Iran-Iraq War, 131 Iraq, 128n72, 130–31, 134 Ireland, 121 iron famine (Great Britain), 49 Isabella of Castile, 102 James, P D., xxvii Jameson, Fred, 154 Japan, 6, 67n14, 121, 130 Jesus, ix –xiv, xix, 63–66, 72, 107–8, 118, 148, 156–59, 162, 167, 170 John the Baptist, xix Johnson, Lyndon, 116 Johnson, Simon, 135 Jones, Mark, xvii jubilee, xii, 62, 72–73 Kaminsky, Stuart, xxvii Kansas, 105 Karides, Marina, 118 Kee, Howard Clark, 63 Kenya, 23 Keynes, John Maynard (Keynesian economics), 114–15, 126n59, 137, 147 Kissinger, Henry, 127 Korean War, 114 labor, 105–6 laissez-faire capitalism, 89–90, 162 Lambert, Jessica J., 47 landscapes, 24–25, 41, 43, 56, 106, 143 Lansing, Kevin J., 134 Latin American debt crisis, 111–13 Le Carré, John, xxvii Lehren, Andrew W., 18 Lenski, Gerhard, xi Lippman, Laura, xxvii Liu, Henry C K., xvii, 111n9, 131 “long sixteenth century,” 143 Luddites, 33–34 Luxemburg, Rosa, 154 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 34–36, 37, 60n40, 93n5 Malick, Terrence, 155 Malthus, Thomas, 22 (and-or Malthusianism), 22–24 Mamōnās (Aramaic), xiii Manhattan, manman (Babylonian), xiii Marx, Karl (and-or Marxism), ix, 43n9, 65, 93–94, 143n5, 158 McDonalds, 79, 94, 98 McVeigh, Timothy, 121–22 mechanization, 47, 123–24, 129 Merchant, Carolyn, xx, xxiii, 26, 48 “metabolic rift” theory, 146 Mexican War, 89 Mexico, 3, 23, 51, 52, 89, 111–12, 123, 128–29, 133 Miami, 6, 95 Michigan, 3, 21, 28, 37, 75, 81 Flint, 75 Mies, Maria, xx, xxiii, 100, 129 Milhaupt, Curtis J., 94 military/militarism, xxiin6, xxv, 21, 63, 69, 96, 108, 112–13n12, 114–17, 129, 130–32, 134, 139, 144, 156, 160, 164 military-industrial complex, 114, 131, 160 Mina, Denise, xxvii Mississippi, 3, 95 modernity/postmodernity, 47, 75, 101–2, 142, 150–51n5, 155, 158, 163 modes of accumulation, 85–87 money, as abstraction, 31–36, 40, 50, 66–68, 75, 80, 88, 102–3n3 as communicative disorder, 75 as ecological phenomenon, xx, 20, 44, 70, 93, 146, 133, 162 as entitlement, 39, 84–85, 94, 104, 113 as idol, 161n27, 163 as sign, 29, 35, 61, 67, 68–80, 83–84, 90, 103, 113, 116, 142, 146, 165 as solvent, 80–83 general-purpose, xx, xxii, 8, 24, 29, 42, 48, 51, 53, 61n41, 62, 68, 72, 74, 79, 80–83, 86, 88, 90–93, 103, 106, 112, 118, 121, 133 , 142–43 , 146 , 150 n4 , 151 , 154 , 158 , 164–65 , 167 , 169 money-forms, specie-money, 66 banknotes, 66–67 specie-backed banknotes, 67 fiat banknotes, 67 electronic (fiat) money, 68 monoculture, 112, 124–25, 147 Moore, Jason W., xviii, xix n2, xxii, 20n30, 25, 29, 35, 49, 51–52, 86–88, 89, 92, 99, 106, 114n15, 121, 124, 126n59, 129n71, 136 , 137 n2 , 143–47 “moral equivalent of war”, 127–28 Morales, Evo, 21 More, Sir Thomas, 100n27 Murphy, David J., 127 Muzeum, Deri, 63 Myanmar, Myers, Ched, ix –xv, xiin6, xxiii, 64, 73 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Nader, Ralph, 134 Nash, June, 29 national security state, 114 “natural law” (Catholic), 161 Nebrija, Elio Antonio de, 102 negentropy, 12–16, 24, 41, 47, 51–52, 57–58, 81–83, 96, 130 neoliberal(ism), 92n3, 93n5, 112–35, 146–47, 153 nested obligations, 138–40 Netherlands, New Deal, 114n18, 120, 125 New Orleans, New York (city), 18, 45, 80 Nicaragua, 23 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 150 Nigeria, 41n6, 71 Nike Corporation, 42 Nixon, Richard, 68n15, 116–17, 120, 123–27, 133 “nodes and flows,” 1–3 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 128 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 114 North Carolina, 59–60, 80, 105 North Dakota, 21 nuclear power, 19n27 Obama, Barack, 109–110n5, 126n61, 131, 160 ocean acidification, 6, 8, 38 oikeios, 124 O’Neil, Dennis, 113 ontology, 35n32 “orders of creation” (Protestant), 161 organophosphates, 123 “out of sight and out of mind,” 30–31, 37–39, 44, 53–54, 56, 85, 92–93, 108, 167 overproduction, 125, 135–36n1 Ovetz, Robert, 100 Oweiss, Ibrahim M., 109 Paarlberg, Don, 125 Pakistan, 123 Palestine and the State of Israel, 8, 21, 133 Pandora’s box, 45–46 Parable of the Samaritan, 149, 157, 161, 170 Parable of the Steward, ix –xiii Parable of the Talents, xi Parry, Robert, 132 Peck, Emily, 43 Pence, Mike, 137 per capita energy consumption, 23–24, 52 perception management, 132, 140 Peru, 37, 51, 52 Petras, James, 125 petrodollars, 109, 133 Pettinger, Tejvan, 118 Phelps, Glenn, 24 Philippines, 6, 51–52, 123 photosynthesis, 11–13, 16n19, 50 Pierce, Charles, 69 Pine Island Glacier, Pinochet, Augosto, 94 Poland, 114n15, 143, 149 Polanyi, Karl, x, 73, 99–100, 117, 130 political economy, ix, xxi, xxii, 8, 70 political ecology, 70, 102 political science, 70 Ponting, Clive, 49–50 population, 17, 22–25, 122, 124–25, 128 Potlatch, powers (and principalities), xix –xxi, 68n16, 142, 152, 162, 167 Powers, Bobby, 127 Powhatan Confederacy, 91–92 Prather, Scott Thomas, xix –xxii, 68n16, 83, 152, 161–63 Price, David, 11 Prigogine, Ilya, xvii, 11n2, 51 privatization, 21, 79, 83, 100, 118n29, 135, 140, 155 productive capital, 126n59 progress (myth of, narrative), 19, 54–55, 91n1, 93–94, 101, 150, 161–62, 170 racism, 22n35, 32, 56, 93n5, 134, 142, 155–56 Rademacher, Lexi, 24 ramification (techno-economic), 58–61 Rankin, Ian, xxvii Ravenscroft, Simon, 158 Reagan, Ronald, 111–12, 127–28 Reich, Robert, 132 Reid, Carlton, 40–41 Reign of Christ, 152 relocalization, 164, 166, 169 “render unto Caesar”, 63 rentier capitalism, x, 86, 109–10, 115–18, 134 Rivera, Mayra, 151 Robinson, Jerry, 109 Rockefeller Foundation, 123 Rome, 49, 72, 98, 149 Roosevelt, Franklin, 119 Rosenthal, Elizabeth, 18 Ruggiero, Gregory, 111 Rumsfeld, Donald, 11n2 “runaway warming,” Russia, xvii, 23, 24, 55, 129 sabbath economics, xiii Sachs, Jeffrey D., 131 San Jose, California, 19 Sanders, Bernie, 166 Santa-Cruz, Arturo, 112 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 97 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 152 Saudi Arabia (oil, water, and weapons), 95–96 scarcity, 21n32, 22, 48, 49, 81–82, 152, 169 Schaefer, Kevin, Schneider, Keith, 125 Schultz, George, 21 sea-level rise, 6–7 Second Law of Thermodynamics, 11–20 self-organization, 2n3, 58, 133, 138–40, 150n4, 160 Selg, Peter, 77 semiosphere, xxvi, 69–70, 78, 101, 157 semiotics, 68–69, 73, 75–80, 101, 102–3n33 Semuels, Alana, 59 seven responsibilities of the capitalist state, 89 sexism, xx, xix n2, xxii, 43n9, 43, 46n5, 48n12, 134, 141, 142 Shah, Anup, 112 Shanghai, Shaughnessy, Larry, 134 Shiva, Vandana, xxiii, 100 Siberian Shelf, signal crises, 124 Silber, William L., 111 Silberglitt, Richard, 145 Simpson, Sarah, Slade, Kara, xix slavery, 48, 73, 86, 89, 90n55, 97, 143 social reproduction/”shadow work,” 43n9 Social Security, 112n12, 139 socialism, 21, 23n38, 61n41, 92, 114, 140, 153–54, 162, 163 Somalia, 37 South Africa, 51–52 Sovacool, Benjamin K., 19 Soviet trade with OECD nations, 92 Soviet Union (USSR), xvii, 92, 93n5, 114, 125–27, 130, 153 Spanish-American War, 89 specialization, 35, 104, 140, 155, 170 speculation (speculative capital), 109–10n5, 111n9, 113, 117n27, 119–20, 134, 137 stagflation, 109–10 Standing Rock pipeline protest, 21 state, the, xix, xxvi, 64–65, 88–90, 92, 102–3, 109n5, 114n15, 130, 151, 161, 164–66 Steiner, Rudolph, 76–77 Strange, Susan, 110, 117 Stringfellow, William, xiii, 161n27 Strauss, Benjamin, Strother, Emma, 21 structural adjustment program (SAP), 112, 134 subject-object duality, 27–28, 32n24, 150n4, 151, 164 subsistence, war on, 41, 71, 73, 91–92, 99–101, 103–4, 123–24, 129, 163, 166, 168–69 Sweden, 55–56 Swift, Jaimee A., 56 Sydow, Momme von, 76 Syrian Civil War, 8, 21, 168 Taibbi, Matt, 120 Tainter, Joseph, 14 Tang Dynasty (China), 66 Tanner, Kathryn, xxi, 153 Taussig, Michael, 29–30, 77 technique (Ellul), 46–8 television, 44, 132 Temple, Katharine, 91, 167 Tencer, Daniel, 20 Tennessee, 105 Texas, 3, 105 Thailand, Thatcher, Margaret, 112n12 thermodynamics, xviii, 8, 11–20, 24, 41, 43–44, 51, 81, 90, 93n5, 97, 136, 165 Tiberius, 64 Tiv (Nigeria), 71–72 Toledo, Ohio, 94 Tolkien, J R R., 80 Tonnies, Ferdinand, x “too big to fail,” 109–10n5, 135 Tracy, Jared M., 132 trade deficit, 126 trade surplus, 114 traffic-transit-transport distinction, 39 Troxell, Ted, 159n25 Truman, Harry, 114 Trump, Donald, xx, xxi, 25, 129n72, 134, 137, 141–42, 155, 160, 166 Turgeon, Andrew, 38 Uexküll, Jakob von, 68 Umwelt, xxvi, 69, 142, 157 underproduction, 136–37, unequal exchange, 44, 50, 52–56, 86, 113, 144, 163, 165 United Kingdom (UK, Great Britain, Britain), 49, 56, 100, 112n2, 129 United Nations, 116n21, 123–24 United States Navy, 88, 130 United States Treasury Bonds, 117, 120–21 universal Darwinism, 75–79 urbanization/suburbanization, 19, 22, 30, 46, 96, 99, 118n29, 124, 125, 128, 129 use-value, 41, 65–66, 73, 93n6, 118, 143 velocity (exchange), 37–44, 47–50, 53, 61, 80, 84, 88, 90, 103, 106, 117 Venezuela, 37, 131 Vermont, 100, 105 Vidal, John, 98 Viera-Gallo, José Antonio, 153 Vietnam (US occupation), ix, 109–110n5, 114–16, 125 Virginia, 91, 105 Volker, Paul (“Volcker Shock”), 110–11 von Liebig, Justus, xvii Vulliamy, Ed, 131 Wagner, Stephen C., 122 Waldman, Scott, Wall Street, 109–14, 117, 121, 127, 134–35, 148, 160 war (“defense”) spending, 129–30 waste, 106 water politics, 20–22 Watergate hearings, 125 watersheds, 2, 21, 32, 164–66 “wealth gospel”, 148 Wehrey, Frederic, 96 Weisbrot, Mark, 131 Weisz, Helga, 95, 145 West Virginia, 3, 19, 29, 142 Williams, Michael, 98 Wise, Jeff, 15 Wise, Timothy A., 127–28 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 77–79 Woolley, Suzanne, 147 World Bank, 21, 52, 112, 124 world-ecology, 124n50 world system, xvii, 17, 43n9, 61n41, 85, 88, 92–93, 98, 145, 153 World Trade Organization (WTO), 112 Wyoming, 3, 84 Xanthos, Nicolas, 78 Yoder, John Howard, xix Yom Kippur War, 108 Youngquist, Walter, 18–20 Zhou, Moming, 126 Zickel, Raymond E., 114 Žižek, Slavoj, 154 Biblical citations Leviticus 25:8–13 62 25 :36 xii Deuteronomy 15:1 xii Job 12:7–10 10 Psalm 107:33–34 Proverbs 22:22 Isaiah 5:8 91 Jeremiah 4:23–26 45 Baruch 3:16–19 107 Ezekiel 28:16 148 Matthew 6:24 xiii 10 :16 xiin5 , xxv 10 :35 156 16 :9 xiii 25 :26–29 xii Mark 2:27 157 12 :13–17 63 , 107–8 Luke 1:51 xin3 :53 37 16 ix – xiii 18–19 xivn8 Corinthians :19–20 26 Ephesians 5:15–16 136 Timothy :10 xv John :1 163 ...Mammon’s Ecology Metaphysic of the Empty Sign Stan Goff FOREWORD BY Ched Myers MAMMON’S ECOLOGY Metaphysic of the Empty Sign Copyright © 2018 Stan Goff All rights reserved Except... sneak up on these things, circle around them, get hold of them, stroke them, touch them with the tip of the tongue, knock them against a tree, hold them up to the light, sniff them, bounce them like... by extension Yoder’s study of another Reformed theologian, Hendrik Berkhof These theologians, writes Prather, “name the great opponent of God who the Gospel of Matthew calls ‘Mammon’ as both