Spirituality, Corporate Culture, and American Business: The Neoliberal Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capital

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By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that ones job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the spiritual health of individuals and society alike. While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce spirituality in the workplace as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth and undermine the power of working people. LoRusso traces how this new moral language of business emerged as part of the larger shift away from the post-New Deal welfare state towards todays global market-oriented social order. Building on other studies that emphasize the link between American religious conservatism and the rise of global capitalism, LoRusso shows how progressive spirituality remains a vital part of this story as well. Drawing on cultural history as well as case studies from New York City and San Francisco of businesses and leading advocates of workplace spirituality, this book argues that religion reveals much about work, corporate culture, and business in contemporary America.

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LoRusso performs a valuable service in his encyclopedic yet brisk treatment of a wide and varied set of movements and figures that forge links between religious language and the workplace. * Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society *
In Spirituality, Corporate Culture and American Business, James Dennis LoRusso argues that contemporary business culture's spiritual turn is actually complicit with neoliberalism as a distinct market form invested in the central cultural authority of business and the laissez-faire structuring of human ends. With admirable historical depth and precision, LoRusso contextualizes todays corporate interests in spirituality within entwined social histories too often obscured by both the champions of workplace spirituality and its critics. This excellent book will be of interest to a general and specialized readership alike. -- George Gonzalez, Professor of Religious Studies, Monmouth University, USA
LoRusso adds a valuable contribution to the evolving understanding of the Faith at Work movement and its many manifestations. While we do not always share the same scholarly presuppositions or perspectives, his voice enriches the conversation and needs to be heard. -- David W. Miller, Director, Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative, USA

Author Bio

James Dennis LoRusso is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, USA.