The Church of Capitalism

 A fundamental reason for the "success" of capitalism is that it is a religion.  It is a success as a religion because it delivers: it satisfies the need for an object of faith, it provides spiritual comfort and meaning, it offers community, support, organization and rewards.  It is a religion along the lines of Christianity which is exclusive, hierarchical, authoritarian, opportunistic and evangelistic. 

Because it is exclusive and authoritarian, believers in the religion of Capitalism cannot tolerate heresy in what its acolytes believe are views opposed to their beliefs.  Capitalism on the ground, in practice, as a lived experience of people is not as important as ideological purity and implementation of that ideology through the law of the land. 

The Church of Capitalism is tolerant of other ideas so long as those ideas do not conflict with or hinder the achievement of the goals of the Church.

The Church of Capitalism is, perhaps, an outgrowth of humanism, which in part, prioritizes the primacy of the individual as distinct from society, to the extent of elevating the individual above society.  This can have the effect of alienating the individual from society, allowing the alienated individual to treat society and its members as "the other" and thus less than human.  It concentrates the mind of the believer to focus primarily or solely on the interests of the believer, blinding him to the effects of his actions on those around him.  Such focus can result in vast rewards to the believer if he is willing or able to ignore the harm it does to others.

Human society is based on trust, or faith in the trustworthiness of others.  Trust is earned or developed by interaction with others -- through personal interactions, one proves oneself to be trustworthy.  As the number of people in a community grows, the ability to establish trust with each individual diminishes and so conventions stand in for personal contact develop to extend trust.  These conventions eventually develop into a system of laws, which seek to mitigate or facilitate the most fraught interactions -- thus rules of interaction replace personal knowledge.

The rewards of Capitalism are wealth, esteem and power.  These rewards are mutually reinforcing and can be used to increase these rewards.  These rewards are based in abstract social constructs and therefore have no physical limits to their accumulation -- one cannot have too much wealth, esteem or power.  This means that striving for these things is limited only by one's ambition -- what one is willing to do and how hard one is willing to work to achieve these things.

Wealth, esteem and power are not necessarily social goods, things that benefit society as a whole; their rewards can accrue to only one person, with the rest of society left poorer as a result.  Like every other human endeavor, the Church of Capitalism has had to adjust or adapt to the rest of society.  In the past, it was free to exploit others and the world with impunity.  But as society objected to human exploitation, the Church was able to shift its exploitation to the world and pay off society for permission to do so, while still retaining the majority of benefits for the Church.

The Church of Capitalism has gained preeminent power by formalizing its ideology in law, thus enabling it to use state power to implement its agenda.  Acolytes of various sects of the Church unabashedly control all three branches of the US government, and seek to implement the will of the Church hierarchy.

Structurally, the Church of Capitalism is organizationally like the Protestant sect of Christianity in that there is no single person in authority.  Like Christianity, it has saints in the persons of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Adam Smith as preeminent.  Adam Smith's writings, like the Bible, are more esteemed in what others think they say than what is actually said.  

In the US, Christianity is tolerated by the Church of Capitalism only so far as Christianity supports the agenda of the Church of Capitalism and can be used to further its aims.

An example of the decreasing power of Christianity in the US is the increasing presence of other religions and the mandate that they must be tolerated.  It is far less likely now than in the past that Mormons can be run out of towns.  This does not mean that other religions are welcomed in the US, but the law says that they must at least be tolerated.  This condition of toleration is not a condition under which the Church of Capitalism operates.  State power does not oppose intolerance of churches whose doctrines are contrary to the Church of Capitalism, and in practice supports such opposition, even to the extent of using state power to suppress those who hold views contrary to the Church of Capitalism.

Even so, the Church of Capitalism, like Christianity, is not a unitary body:  factions and sects exist in both.  Sects like the Westboro Baptist Church which preaches a broad spectrum of hate and intolerance have their counterparts in Church of Capitalism's Heritage Foundation and its acolytes.

 Capitalism, like Christianity, does satisfy certain human needs, but like other religions which become large and attain secular power, the religion often becomes more a means to personal power than as a way to meet human needs.  Capitalism has been hijacked by the greedy.