Seminar "Religious Belief and Mutual Obligation in the Age of Capital"

Frances Nethercott (University of St. Andrews) presented the paper "Religious Belief and Mutual Obligation in the Age of Capital. Some Observations on Carlyle’s ‘Gospel of Work’, Old Believer Merchants and Slavophile Entrepreneurs" on February 8, 2024.

Abstract: 

This ‘work-in-progress’ topic forms parts of a bigger project on the Russian reception of Thomas Carlyle (1850s–1910s). I highlight some incidental similarities between Carlyle’s socio-economic commentary which he developed as part of the ‘Condition of England’ question and aspects of Old Believer labour practices that were taken up in ‘Slavophile capitalism’ (Thomas C. Owen’s term). The underlying problematic here is not one of influence. Rather, I am interested in the phenomenon of a shared ethos of work and its articulation in vastly different social-cultural and political-economic settings. What might we learn from this?