Monsters and Morals: Reviewing David Jenkins, Market Whys and Human Wherefores. Thinking again about Markets, Politics and People, 2000 (2002)

Abstract

David Jenkins has written a noble book about the moral, social and political consequences of the obsession with the market as an allembracing institution for all aspects of the human condition, the overriding ideology of the past 30 years or so.† The book arose in part from the four lectures he gave at the end of February 1996 when he was the 1995–96 Samuel Ferguson Lecturer at the University of Manchester. The lectures were on the theme of Ideology, Exploitation or Inevitability? – Theological Reflections on the Market and Providence (vii). Jenkins is, of course, a learned, thoughtful and committed Christian (he is a former Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Leeds University and was, until 1994, Bishop of Durham), but having told us of his faith and philosophy, he virtually banishes his specific beliefs from most of the arguments of the book. They underlie the arguments for him but the book may be read independently of them.

Originaly published in Soundings, 2003.From ‘Monsters and Morals’, Soundings, 21, Autumn, 2002, 65–68.