Risk in Timon's, Shakespeare's and Appadurai's Capitalism

Though some of the connections made by Arjun Appadurai during his speech were difficult to follow given the technological difficulties, I found some of his theories on capitalism and its successes and failures to be interesting.  The first of which I puzzled over was the citation of Protestantism as influential on the way the economy is structured. 
 

Protestantism entails uncertainty with regard to one’s fate in the afterlife; for example, even though John Calvin’s brand of religion centered around the understanding that one was already either condemned to hell or slotted for heaven, there was no way for Calvinists to know which fate awaited them.  This uncertainty of religion, Appadurai argued, can often translate to uncertainty in other areas of society, including the economy.  Consequentially, western societies feature unstable economies that require risk and uncertainty (the two terms most frequently referred to during this portion of the talk) to function properly.

This risk translates in many ways, making the economy of the United States one that is infused with uncertainty.  The stock market, for example, is considered a game of chance played with one’s finances.  The debts acquired through these and other forms of “gambling” are used to make profits both for businesses and private individuals.  As Appadurai stressed, we are creating these assets and profits from debt, which is an unstable system on which to build.

While I was listening to this talk, I also thought of Timon.  He is a clear example of the risk game, and played with disastrous results. In borrowing money, he perhaps hoped to make enough profit on these loans to pay his debts back, but instead gave all of the money away to his friends, later finding there was no hope of those gifts being repaid.  These defaults on debts reflects failures of the capitalist system, both in the past decade and in such events as the Great Depression.  Furthermore, the idea of risk and uncertainty, if Appadurai’s theory is to be applied, would imply Shakespeare is writing both from his own context and from Timon’s—both Athenians and Shakespeare’s contemporary Christians had a great amount of uncertainty in their religion, which was seen in their societies in the beliefs that amassing interest and great amounts of wealth were unnatural.  Furthermore, the Senators are believed to have used usury as a way of becoming so wealthy, which was a sin in the eyes of Christians at the time.  That their insistence on being repaid is immediately followed by Timon’s fleeing and death, and the defeat of Athens by Alcibaldes, is indicative of Shakespeare’s opinion on a society built on these principles, and also hints at Appadurai’s theories of why capitalism is unreliable.