In the article “The market as God,” which was published in March 1999 in The Atlantic, the US-American theologian Harvey Cox compares the market with God. He recognizes: The “religion” around The Market has its own mysteries, rituals and holidays.
As the Christian God today the market seems to be omnipotent (possessing all power), omniscient (having all knowledge), and omnipresent (existing everywhere). Economists, businessmen and politicians give him a corresponding reverence, because the “Invisible Hand,” as Adam Smith the self regulating market called, is feeding them and could hit them every time with all its power.
Gurus of the stock exchange are analyzing the sensitivities of the market with the same vocabulary, as once people wanted to predict the mood of gods. The news of the Wall Street reports about the fickle will of the market. Thus we can learn on a day-to-day basis that The Market is “apprehensive,” “relieved,” “nervous,” or even at times “jubilant.”
On the basis of this revelation awed adepts make critical decisions about whether to buy or sell. Like one of the devouring gods of old, The Market – aptly embodied in a bull or a bear – must be fed and kept happy under all circumstances.
The diviners and seers of The Market's moods are the high priests of its mysteries. To act against their admonitions is to risk excommunication and possibly damnation. If any government's policy vexes The Market, those responsible for the irreverence will be made to suffer. The Market threatens with downsizing, unemployment or a growing income gap. Nobody is allowed to question its ultimate omniscience.
Middlemen, trained in psychology as new ”science of the soul,” use attitude surveys to find out hidden fantasies, insecurities, and hopes of the populace. The Market already knows the deepest secrets and darkest desires of our hearts – or at least would like to know them.
The Market is omnipresent. He informs people about their sense and feelings. There seems to be nowhere left to flee from its untiring quest. Like the Hound of Heaven, it pursues us home from the mall and into the nursery and the bedroom.
It used to be thought, that at least the “spiritual“ dimension of life was resistant to The Market. But as the markets for material goods become increasingly glutted, such previously unmarketable states of grace as serenity and tranquillity are now appearing in the catalogues. All can now handily be bought without an unrealistic demand on one's time, in a weekend workshop at a Caribbean resort with a sensitive psychological consultant replacing the crotchety retreat master.
Disagreements among the traditional religions become picayune in comparison with the fundamental differences they all have with the religion of The Market. Most of them seem content to become its acolytes or to be absorbed into its pantheon, much as the old Nordic deities, after putting up a game fight, eventually settled for a diminished but secure status as Christian saints. Hindu temples, Buddhist festivals, and Catholic saints' shrines can look forward to new incarnations. Along with native costumes and spicy food, they will be allowed to provide local color and authenticity in what could otherwise turn out to be an extremely bland Beulah Land.
The traditional religions and the religion of the global market hold radically different views of nature. In Christianity and Judaism, for example, “the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein.“ The Creator appoints human beings as stewards and gardeners but, as it were, retains title to the earth. But in The Market's eyes people, better those with money, own everything, they can buy.
There is one contradiction between the religion of The Market and the traditional religions that seems to be insurmountable. All of the traditional religions teach that human beings are finite creatures and that there are limits to any earthly enterprise. A Japanese Zen master once said to his disciples as he was dying, “I have learned only one thing in life: how much is enough.“ He would find no niche in the chapel of The Market, for whom the First Commandment is “There is never enough.“
