Capitalism and Religion

Pope Francis is ruffling feathers within the church. For instance, can you believe he said this in an interview?

“Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.”

Or that politics:

“has its own field of action, which is not that of religion. Political institutions are secular by definition and operate in independent spheres.”

Imagine the implication on laws on homosexuality or abortions in the West!

And then the Pope criticized capitalism:

“The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose…(the absolute autonomy of the marketplace) reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.”

That criticism reminded me of this 1999 article by Harvey Cox, a professor of divinity at Harvard University, who compared religion (Christianity in particular) with capitalism. This line sums up his surprising finding:

“Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu.”

They were so similar! Upon reading the Wall Street Journal and business section of magazines:

“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. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets.”

In capitalism, he said, “(the) celestial pinnacle is occupied by The Market”. When things go wrong with capitalism, the typical analysis reads like this:

“They were practitioners of "crony capitalism," of "ethnocapitalism," of "statist capitalism," not of the one true faith.”

The Market demands that the other (false) gods be crushed:

“The Market is becoming more like the Yahweh of the Old Testament -- not just one superior deity contending with others but the Supreme Deity, the only true God, whose reign must now be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals.”

And like God, The Market knows best:

“Like Calvin's inscrutable deity, The Market may work in mysterious ways, "hid from our eyes," but ultimately it knows best.”

Imagine that!