What is truly new today is that there is indeed a new global religion, with its particular rituals, festivals, worshipping false idols, prophets, and gods, its highly “educated”, but not necessarily “wise” priests, giving sermons on subjects such as: …And now all shall worship money, growth and possessions!
Yes, it is true: In a secular age, economics has become the new religion and the economists its high priests, and together they have given the world a very bitter and poisonous harvest.I was prompted- not for the first time- to write this blog after reading the excellent article “A Point of View: And all shall worship money” by Will Self, BBC Magazine, 21 December 2012, and others before him.
Self begins by asking us this very important question:
“If money is now society's religion, does it then follow that economists are the clergy of the modern age?”
Yes. I agree. It is true: today, economics has become the modern religion, complete with a priest-hood (economists), a sacred text (Samuelson's "Economics") and a plan of salvation, (material progress will solve the problem of mankind, including the problem of sin).
Over the top, you say? Read the article and find out for yourself.
“In her classic work on the social function of taboos, Purity and Danger, the anthropologist Mary Douglas wrote this:
"Money mediates transactions; ritual mediates experience, including social experience. Money provides a standard for evaluating worth; ritual standardises situations, and so helps to evaluate them. Money makes a link between the present and the future, so does ritual. The more we reflect on the richness of the metaphor, the more it becomes clear that this is no metaphor. Money is only an extreme and specialised type of ritual."…
…”I think I know - and I expect you do too. We may appear to live in an overwhelmingly secular society, but nonetheless we have a large and wealthy priesthood, many of whose members occupy positions of power - power in politics, in business, education, and especially banking. In the past, the children of the British establishment were earmarked early on for careers in the military or the church - and in the case of the latter this remains true to this day; however, the nature of the church has changed.”…
Read the article:
A Point of View: And all shall worship money
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20756888
And now a word of caution:
please do not accept a word the modern, neo-liberal economists tell you about the positive correlation between increased material possession and higher levels of happiness. Believe me, this is a pack of lies and we would be far better off, if we would admit to this, as the path to happiness lies elsewhere!
As I have written many times before: As long as the foundations of our socio-economic and political systems and philosophy is built upon greed, envy, fear, competition and inequality, and as long as the measurement of “happiness” and “success” is based mainly on how much money one makes or how much one consumes and owns, then, it becomes impossible to find the path to happiness, contentment and well-being.
And what a false philosophy this is: all is shattered when one discovers that their friends, neighbours, fellow-workers...are earning more, spending more, possessing more...more and more!
Perhaps the answer is to debate this issue at our universities, the business schools and departments of economics and more, indeed everywhere in the community. Maybe we should have courses and debates on “What is Happiness?” What is it that gives us a more lasting happiness, rather than the transient ones: money, power, position and possession? As it stands we are obsessed with unbridled growth, “more and more is better” philosophy. Can we not engage with each other and start to think more deeply about when we have sufficient – sufficient money, sufficient stuff – and whether we really need the things we think we do need, beyond what we already have?” Can we not see that we should look less at what our next-door neighbours have, and more at what the rest of the planet dreams of having? Then, we should try to learn to be content where we are and who we are, instead of wishing to be somewhere different or be somebody else.
In a world running out of resources, the most important ethical and political and ecological idea can be summed up in one simple word: "enough".
A fact that modern/neo-liberal economics, the most pious religion, cannot understand and appreciate, given its falsehood, and its audaciously to disguise itself not only as “secular” but a science. Not just a science but the only one of the social sciences ―”hard” enough to have its own Nobel prize!
I propose- as I have been saying for the last fifteen years and more- that the first step to killing this false religion and freeing the Earth from its thrall is to unmask it, to name it, to say it like it is, whilst returning the “dismal science” to its true position: a subject of beauty, wisdom and virtue, as it once was. Economics, once again, must reground itself in moral philosophy amid the deeper broader questions of human existence, meaning, and happiness, while mindful that humanity is a member of a larger community of multiple species and elements, necessary for our survival and health.
Let us remember that, ”Living happily is “the desire of us all, but our minds is blinded to a clear vision of just what it is that makes life happy”. The root of happiness is ethical behaviour, and thus the ancient idea of moral education and cultivation, is essential to ideal of joyfulness”...
If you are interested to read more, I wish to offer the following:
So, only a few days to go until Christmas!
http://gcgi.info/blog/328-so-only-a-few-days-days-to-go-until-christmas
Our Crises are not merely Economic but Spiritual: A Time for Awakening
http://gcgi.info/news/136-our-crises-are-not-merely-economic-but-spiritual-a-time-for-awakening
Why Happiness should be taught at our Universities?
http://gcgi.info/news/118-why-happiness-should-be-taught-at-our-universities