Wal-Mart and the Making of Christian Free Enterprise 1929–1994

Abstract

“The Soul of the Service Economy” explains the rise of Christian corporate globalism in the twentieth century—that always unfinished task of sanctifying capitalism and consumption under Christianity. As the biography of the Sunbelt service sector’s “free enterprise” ideology, “The Soul of the Service Economy” is not an examination of Wal-Mart itself but rather an analysis of Wal-Mart’s world—the network of business, religious, and educational institutions out of which Wal-Mart developed and that it came to support and sponsor. This culture united Southwestern entrepreneurs, service providers, middle managers, students, missionaries, and even waged employees in an ethos of Christian free enterprise. Based upon archival research in local and ephemeral sources, “The Soul of the Service Economy” uses the stories of people linked through Wal- Mart and its philanthropies to understand the shift to post-Fordist regimes in work, in gender relations, in education, and in geography.