This week I am back at Douai Abbey finishing off my PhD. Today I am reading Philip Goodchild’s Theology of Money. In it he argues that money is more powerful than God. This is because money, through credit, naturally multiplies, endlessly and exponentially, in order to keep repaying the debts it incurs en route, like restless air seeking a vacuum. The implication is that God, or religion, is not programmed for growth in the same way. I like Goodchild’s use of money as a metaphor and his recognition that money is essentially an article of faith. However, he does not develop his argument far enough. Read More
Currently I am addicted to The Wire. When I last saw Dominic West in action, he was Edward Voysey in Barker’s The Voysey Inheritance at The National. Both are essentially about economics. The Voysey Inheritance is the story of a son finding out that his father, a much-respected solicitor, has been speculating with his clients’ capital, paying them an ordinary rate of interest and pocketing the difference. Written in Home Counties 1905, the world it portrays is vastly different from the world of The Wire, which is about drugs and corruption in modern-day Baltimore. Read More
