Dear readers, TikTok has a great feature that allows you to repost videos from last year “on this day.” This was one of my stronger posts from last year so I thought I would share it here as well. I hope you enjoy…
Free market capitalism is a false religion. And like any religion, it depends on clergy to maintain the faith. This priestly class doesn't wear cassocks or Roman collars - but they do play the same role that clergy have always played in maintaining the existing class structure.
The theology of capitalism was not handed down on stone tablets. The language of capitalism’s theology is science. The priestly classes of this new religion study the science of economics. It is up to this academic clergy to understand the complicated mathematical equations they use to support their beliefs. That same calculus is a wall used to keep the uninitiated from perceiving the Talmudic mysteries of their faith. Like writer John Rapley says, just as you can’t work at the Vatican without speaking Latin – any economist who might be illiterate in the language of complex mathematical theory is ignored. The revelations of economics are not for the uninitiated. Just as it takes years of training and education to become a Catholic priest, no one becomes an economist without following the correct path of learning and indoctrination. The authority of this priestly class on economic matters will not be questioned.
An anthropologist might recognize that this priestly class plays the same role clergy have always played. According to Rapley, popular anthropology explains that “priestly castes grew up alongside ruling classes, justifying the privileges of both and socializing the masses into passive acceptance of their leaders’ superiority.” Is it a coincidence that historically the clergy were made up of wealthy classes, third and fourth sons unlikely to benefit from the laws of primogeniture?
The wealthy Borgia family, Italian nobles, perfected this idea by winning the papal throne twice. Says Rapley, “much as medieval religions offered an organic conception to justify a society stratified between aristocrats and the rest, so too did the new economic faith say our own stratification was natural…” Today’s inequality is supposedly proof that society’s winners getting what they deserve. The reality is that servants to power are working overtime to justify the existing status quo. It has always been thus. Today is no different. If there is one change it is that the modern religion, Free-Market Capitalism, does not advertise itself as a religion. Nor do its clerics perceive themselves in this way. Capitalism’s clergy are academics and professors. We don’t call them “father” or “bishop,” we call them “doctor,” out of respect for their learning and education.
But, just as in the past, it is the economic clergy’s job to justify the existing class structure. Instead of the old explanations that the aristocracy was blessed by God, here to exercise His will on earth, high priests like Milton Friedman proclaim that today’s aristocratic rich deserve everything they have because they worked hardest for it. To put it another way we all might be familiar with, the rich are the “makers,” everyone else are the “takers.” Without lavish rewards, we are told, the rich maker class would have no incentive to create the new things that make our lives better and make them so much money. It was nothing new when former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said those things during the Obama years. It's just about the oldest trick in human civilization.
Now, I am no expert in theology, but Harvard divinity professor Harvey Cox is. Cox too sees the similarities between the Free Market faith and the religions of old. He writes that he experienced a sense of déjà vu reading the financial press:
“The lexicon of the Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine’s City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption.”
Just as these modern theologians interpret capitalism’s sacred texts for guidance about living your best life, there are also spiritualists probing at the mysteries of the faith. Financial expert John Mauldin sees this phenomenon at work, writing
“In the not too distant human past, shamans and soothsayers conjured theories about how the world worked and how to predict the future. Some examined the entrails of sheep, while others read meaning into the positions of the stars… In today’s world, economists serve exactly the same function. They skry their data sets – a latter-day version of throwing the bones – and then, based on the theory by which they believe the data should be interpreted, they confirm the orthodox policy choices of their political masters.”
Like ancient alchemists, modern wizards of Wall Street work similiar magic, converting imaginary derivatives and credit default swaps into huge (sacred?) cash cows. Who needs to convert lead into gold when it’s so much easier to log into an online brokerage account and convert $200,000 into $2,000,000?
This is part 3 of my series... be sure to check out parts ONEand TWOand subscribe so you can follow along.
Next up we'll look at an extremely important figure in the rise of the Free Market faith, British Lord John Meynard Keynes, and how he brought about a second coming of capitalism. In the meantime, please like, comment, restack, and share so that other people can find me here on Substack.
Let's make them pay.
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