Book Review: Send Lazarus: Catholicism and the Crises of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This is a book that sketches a politics of mercy, intended to open ‘a great chasm’ between the life of Christians and the brutality of the reigning ideology of our age, which the authors dub neoliberalism. Delving deep into the teachings of the last three popes, Eggemeier and Fritz make a compelling argument that the ‘inability to feel mercy’ (p. 55) for those in need—as explored in the parable from Luke 16 from which the book draws its title—is a damning state of affairs. Their proposed remedy—the works of mercy—is misunderstood if construed as simply an individual pursuit for those who feel particularly called in that direction. What they propose is the pursuit of those charitable goods ‘out of a visceral commitment to Christ’ so as to achieve ‘a recalibration of the works of mercy as structural’ (p. 159). The Introduction of the book tackles the thorniest question likely to arise among readers: What exactly is neoliberalism? Relying heavily on the work of the American political theorist, Wendy Brown, they helpfully avoid the common pitfalls around the concept. Commonly dismissed by sceptics as a meaningless term—even a slur—neoliberalism in fact names a diffuse force that has profound influence on our culture. It is hard to summarize because it is a many-tentacled beast. But all complex ideas resist simple summation. Everyone knows what democracy is, but few of us can compose a comprehensive sentence-long definition. They define neoliberalism as ‘a politicized mutation of capitalism, where the state’s primary function is to foster market processes, each person’s freedom in civil society is defined in terms of market logics of investment . . . and the needs of people and the earth are secondary to those of capital’ (p. 3). This is not short and it is not complete, but it more than addresses the objections of those who think they can dismiss the concept as being too vague to serve a useful purpose. It is worth pausing to reflect on what is included in this definition. What they are arguing is that neoliberalism has not emerged from some underground lab staffed by malicious economists. It is a political project to divert social democratic capitalisms through the deformation of the state. Where we once 1065650 ITQ0010.1177/00211400211065650Irish Theological QuarterlyBook Reviews book-review2021