Capitalism - the Ultimate Religion

[Existentialist]

You do know what religion is, right?

I know exactly what religion is. Capitalism fits the definition perfectly. 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.

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.