The Soul of the Service Economy: Wal-Mart and the Making of Christian Free Enterprise, 1929–1994

"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 an analysis of Wal-Mart's world—the interconnected commercial, religious, and educational institutions which both produced the world's largest company and then depended upon its patronage. This culture united Southwestern entrepreneurs, service providers, middle managers, students, missionaries, and even waged employees in an ethos of Christian free enterprise. On the basis of 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, gender relations, education, and geography.