“Be the change you wish to see in the world”: Anthroposophy, Sustainability, and Money among Middle-Class Argentines

FUNES, MARÍA EUGENIA

Journal of Ecumenical Studies

University of Pennsylvania Press

Año: 2022 vol. 57 p. 250 - 266

0022-0558

In this essay, I study the socialization of an economic ethic in Argentina’s middle classes by describing the attempts to shape economic behavior in Waldorf schools located in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. I analyze this influence on economic subjectivity in two empirical dimensions: individual consumption and sustainable practices; and communal decision-making. I focus both on the attempts to instill and practice specific economic principles and on the practical and structural limits actors and communities face when trying to change the principles that guide their behavior. Drawing from a qualitative research strategy, this essay shows that, even if this economic ethic is lived as countercultural, it is aligned with neoliberal principles and often fails to address the economic inequalities and injustices within its own domain.