The current God is the Market: the Market-God

For several authors of the philosophy and science of religion, we live in a world in which the Market is seen as an Absolute endowed with characteristics of omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent divinity, with inherent rites, priests, dogmas and messages of salvation.

Introduction

For twenty years, Mo Sung, other philosophers and scientists of religion took the trade of the sacred as an object of analysis. This resumption of the sacred by postmodern thought is necessary because of the call to return to what would be the essential statute of religions: to announce the transcendence of God, so that, then, human beings do not forget their condition , do not absolutize social institutions – including the market – realizing their limits, both limits of action and creative power (since the human capacity to create chaos and destroy is unlimited).

The objective of this text is to expose this discussion about the domination and deification of the Market, as well as the impacts of this new religion on the Other, that is, on the victimized and excluded man who is sacrificed for the benefit of this new God.

The Market and the Other: the relationship between the new God and his victims

Through the absolutization of the market, taken as something external to the religious experience and as something human, one can explain the use of religion as an economic instrument. This is the opinion defended by the Catholic theologian and religious scientist Jung Mo Sung, who sees the market as transcendentalized, above the human condition, as it is seen as an absolute condition. This author’s perspective culminates in the explanation of the fact that the religion of the Market is and remains in fashion, both in the personal, subjective scope and in the business, macroeconomic scope.

The fundamentalism of the God-Market, as a producer of meanings, must be scrutinized by philosophical thought, given that it has become a Fetish, an Absolute endowed with characteristics of an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent divinity, with inherent rites, priests, dogmas and a message of salvation . In this same line of thought we find authors such as Frei Betto and Harvey Cox.

Cox is an American theologian and his work focuses on the theological development of Christianity in the world, including Liberation Theology and Christianity in Latin America. in your text The Market as God: Living in the New Dispensation (1990), Cox explains that he was advised by a friend to read economics and business magazines to update himself on the reality of the world.

When faced with economics magazines, he notices a similarity between the economic vocabulary presented in Genesis, in Epistle to the Romans is at the city of god, by Augustine. Underlying the descriptions of the reforms that took place in the market, the monetary policy, the convulsions of the Dow, the author concatenates the pieces and discovers a narrative that takes place on the intrinsic meaning of human history, then finding the reasons why things go wrong and the way to correct them.

Theologians call this attitude a narrative about the meaning of human history, the depths of humanity, since the narratives about the reasons why things go wrong are taken as myths of origin, such as the narratives of the fall and the doctrines of sin and death. Redemption. However, for the author, these narratives were disguised, referring then to the creation of value, to the seductive temptations of statism, to submission to the unfathomable economic cycles of secret characteristics, to salvation through the rise of free markets.

For economists, the turmoil in Asian economies is the result of deviating from this free-market orthodoxy. Even with the crises – which we can see in Asia, the Russian default or the Brazilian economic turmoil – faith continues to fortify the God-Market. Nevertheless, the Market becomes a postmodern deity, believed in even with all the evidence to the contrary. As there is no more proof of God’s existence, something must take that empty place, giving meaning to man’s life, dominating it invisibly, also conferring Salvation through the rise of free market, creating values.

The free market can be understood as a single, true faith that must be followed by all. In the upheavals that occurred in the Market, this Market-God emerges renewed from the trials, which is possible through financial contagion. This is the market fair. Cox parallels faith with St. Paul’s assertion that true faith is evidence of things not seen.

The author therefore speaks of a Theology of Business, which has sacraments, a calendar of “saints”, in addition to an eschatology.

Due to his curiosity with the doctrines related to the market, the author began to catalog them and noticed in them a complete theology which, in the scope of studies, reaches a theology like that of Thomas Aquinas or Karl Bath. However, there is a need to be systematized to build a new Summa.

The Market God

As the basis of any and all theological system, we have God as a principle. In this new theology, this place is occupied by the Market, written with an “M” to highlight the mystery that encompasses it, and to expose the reverence that It provokes in businessmen.

There are several beliefs and different points of view about the attributes of God. In Christianity, God is generally defined as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. But theologies are not free from ambiguities, since they point to the inaccessibility of divine attributes to human eyes – being hidden from man due to original sin and due to the very transcendence of the Divine. Establishing the parallel between Mercado and God, the first has divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence which are not completely evident to men, although they must be believed and confirmed through faith.

Cox, following the explanations and arguments of the economist-theologians – which justified the paths of the Market to men -, noticed the same rhetoric present in his considerations about the Thomists, the Calvinists and the various schools of religious thought of Modernity. This rhetoric found in the explanations of economist-theologians, that is, economic rhetoric, is compared to “process theology”.

Influenced by the philosophy of Alfred Whitehead, processual theology proposes that God wants to have the classical attributes, but he does not yet have them in their entirety, although he is moving in this direction in an indisputable way. This theology responds to the problem posed by theodicy and seems to comfort market theologians by helping to understand the disturbance, suffering and disorientation resulting from changes from economic heterodoxy to free markets.

In the beginning of humanity, there were markets, however, these markets were not considered gods, as there were other significant core values, other gods. Thus, the market was limited by other institutions. Polanyi claims that it is only in the last two centuries that the Market has been placed above these demigods, supernatural spirits, becoming the First Cause of the days of men.

The first moments of Mercado’s rise are compared to the rise of Zeus: the rise above other deities of the ancient Greek Pantheon was not very safe, Zeus had to keep strong, rumbling, in order to stifle threats to his sovereignty. However, the Market today can be compared to the Jehovah of the Old Testament, since he is considered as the supreme deity, the only true God, who has a kingdom that must be accepted universally and without opposition.

God’s omnipotence exposes His ability to define what is real and His power capacity to make something out of nothing or nothing out of something. The Market’s omnipotence is desired but not yet achieved, meaning there are no conceivable limits to the Market’s ability to convert Creation into commodities. Cox makes use of another analogy between Catholic theology and Market theology: he affirms the notion of transubstantiation of bread and wine as vehicles of the sacred.

However, in the Market the reverse process takes place: things understood until then as sacred are transmuted into interchangeable, salable articles. The earth can be a good example of this change in the vision of Creation: its desacralization alters its relationship with man, which also happens with water, with the sea, with space, and in the future with the celestial bodies, since the body of man already suffered such desacralization, and may have its parts commercialized.

The Liturgy of the Market was limited by the old religions which may prove insufficient in the convention of this new devotion of the God-Market.

When analyzing the German case of the sale of the village of Liebenberg, Cox concludes that the will of the God-Market must be carried out with ever fewer limitations. Currently, notes the author, all creation is converted into merchandise. The problem raised with the reflection on Liebenberg’s case was: what is the value of human life in the Theology of the Market?

According to the law of the Market, everything is for sale and, consequently, nothing is sacred. The Market has not yet fully reached the attribute of omnipotence, as well as the God of progressive religion, but it is heading towards it.

Having reached the end of the analysis of the omnipotence of the Market, Cox analyzes the attribute of omniscience in relation to it. For him, possibly, the Market has already reached omniscience, but he is unable to apply his knowledge until his kingdom and power arise in all its glory. Current thinking attributes to the Market a wisdom that was only known by the ancient gods. Therefore, the Market is conceived with the ability to determine human needs, the cost of things and services.

Here lies the problem of the possibility of determining the will of the market. In the past, seers, prophets were mediators to speak to supplicants about the mood of the gods. Currently, the will of the Market, which is unstable, is clarified through daily reports coming from Wall Street and other “sensitive” financial bodies. These revelations about the state of the Market, its will, serve as a basis for supporters regarding decisions about buying or selling something.

The Market is embodied in the image of a bull or a bear. Like a voracious god of old, it must be kept content, must be fed under any circumstances. The seers, prophets, and diviners of the Market’s mood are seen as the high priests of the mystery of the deity. To act against their warnings is to risk excommunication and possibly eternal damnation.

As an example, any government policy that disturbs the state of the market will pay for irreverence. The Market doesn’t care about the growing concentration of American income, or the excitement over rising cigarette sales. The Market is then considered as an unfathomable deity, which can operate in a mysterious way, invisible to human eyes, but its knowledge, in…