Capitalism - the Ultimate Religion

[Existentialist]

You have no case in making capitalism (or any economic system) being a full-blown religion in any sense of the term.

But capitalism is only an economic system in the way that our daily meals are only a source of energy. There is a vast cultural and culinary infrastructure, and a vast range of emotional reactions to them - and without them, we could soon sink into chaos. The fact that capitalism is an economic system doesn't prevent it from being a social and political system, or a regulator of all our interactions. As Marx put it, "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society."

Read my posts through properly. You say yourself "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god". Capital has all the characterics of a god, capitalism has all the characteristics of a religion. Of course you want to do the denial thing - keep the debate nice and small, nice and controlled, limited to the pointless backwater of attacking abrahamic organisations and belief systems which are dying out anyway. Capitalism - the dominant religion - doesn't need them any more.

You're the one making the case for capitalism being a religion but you're not making an actual case for it except through your word and connections that aren't. I'm fully aware of what you're talking about and the only thing you seem to be actually saying is that you either don't know what religion is, you don't know what capitalism is, or you are simply completely ignorant of how things in the world work.

I apologise if I gave the impression I did not know what capitalism is. I have since posted more on this but by all means come back to me if you think I need to provide better explanations. Capitalism clearly is the economic system (which, being so dominant, extends to all human relations) characterised by the formation and augmentation of capital. Religion is a theistic system of thought, activity and ideas. My argument is that because capital has assumed God-like status, capitalism has become a religion - the ultimate, all-embracing, dominant one.

Funnily enough when you talked about capitalism failing when dominated by one business monopolising the system I thought you were going to say Banking. To give the oil industry as an example is completely off the wall. Either way, I know what people are trying to say when they talk about "pure capitalism" - yes its the intellectual concept of unregulated laissez-faire markets. My point is, that is a bad definition of "pure capitalism". Capitalism co-opts the State into its strategy. That's why the State has been blackmailed into bailing out the banks. The bail-out is part of the system. We're living pure capitalism as we speak. My point was that the liberals need to conceptualise pure capitalism as unregulated laissez-faire market forces, so they can congratulate themselves when they have to step in with state regulation to mitigate the most damaging aspects of the system. But what I'm saying is, they've been duped. They are acting completely within the bounds of capitalism at its most cynical, most brutal and most self-sustaining. The liberals have been hypnotised into this position in the same way that a religious believer has been hypnotised by his clergy. That's why you, Ace, DeistPaladin and no doubt plenty of others keep coming out with this liberal stuff about needing to control pure capitalism. But people can only be hypnotised if they want to be. You judge your interests to be on the side of preserving the system, assuaging your consciences with the reassurance that the state is wisely regulating the worst excesses of capitalism. It's an act of faith on your part, but being bad faith it causes emotional tension which needs an outlet. The lesser religions therefore become your target instead. But scapegoating others is also a strategy of the great religion, capitalism. Which ever way you turn, you can't get away from its all-pervasive doctrines, propaganda and mechanisms of social control. That's all I meant.

Yes, yes, this tin-foil hat conpiracy thing is cute. Utterly wrong, but adorable.

Well I'm aware of the phrase tin-foil hat conspiracy. Could you elaborate on how you think it relates to my paragraph quoted here, I see no connection at all.