Binghamton Research Days Student Presentations
Alex Eckstein - Posterboard final edit.pdf
Has Capitalism Consumed the 10 Commandments?
Has Capitalism Consumed the 10 Commandments?
Alex Eckstein
Alex Eckstein
Source Project
Source Project
Arts and Humanities
Arts and Humanities
Mentor: Michael Kelly
Mentor: Michael Kelly
Abstract
Abstract
The research focuses on the effects of capitalism on society and the relationship of that to the covenant with God as expressed in the Ten Commandments. In particular, I explore how the Commandments represent core Judeo-Christian values and how one cannot be a faithful subject of these principles—a true Jew or a true Christian—while also unproblematically, uncritically operating in a capitalist society. My argument is broken into two complementing sections: The first, I explain at the institutional level how those in the marketplace and government use the theory of capitalism as it is elicited by Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, and Branko Milanović to make decision and influence society. Second, I examine capitalism at the individual level. The goal of this research is to educate individuals on how powerful capitalism is as ideology and how people who are religious should recognize the contradictions at play between Judeo-Christian values and the capitalist logical of surplus value, which sublimates all other beliefs into its singular aim of private profit.
The research focuses on the effects of capitalism on society and the relationship of that to the covenant with God as expressed in the Ten Commandments. In particular, I explore how the Commandments represent core Judeo-Christian values and how one cannot be a faithful subject of these principles—a true Jew or a true Christian—while also unproblematically, uncritically operating in a capitalist society. My argument is broken into two complementing sections: The first, I explain at the institutional level how those in the marketplace and government use the theory of capitalism as it is elicited by Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, and Branko Milanović to make decision and influence society. Second, I examine capitalism at the individual level. The goal of this research is to educate individuals on how powerful capitalism is as ideology and how people who are religious should recognize the contradictions at play between Judeo-Christian values and the capitalist logical of surplus value, which sublimates all other beliefs into its singular aim of private profit.