The Market Totem: Mana, Money and Morality in Late Modernity

Authors

  • James F. Cosgrave Trent University Oshawa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs19013

Keywords:

Markets, Totems, Wealth, Morality, Sacred

Abstract

Durkheim was concerned with the anomie generated by a social order too strongly oriented to economic activity and the pursuit of wealth. His last book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, is an exploration of the social basis of knowledge and moral authority, but also prospectively links economic life to its religious sources and to “mana.” Despite his sociological-moral concerns with diminished moral authority in an emerging industrial, market society, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life provides an analytical framework from which to analyze the totemic nature of stock and financial markets. While contemporary financial markets reveal dangers for solidarity, and demonstrate the continuing relevance of Durkheim’s sociological-moral concerns, the analysis of “the market” offers an opportunity to extend the Durkheimian interest in emerging totemic entities and forms of the sacred.

Author Biography

James F. Cosgrave, Trent University Oshawa

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Sociology Trent University

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Published

2014-12-30

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 4 (2014): Special Issue: Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Contemporary Engagements

Section

Group II: Creative Deployments and Contemporary Analyses

License

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