The Religion of the Marketplace
NONJUDGMENTALISM, COMPETITION & THE PRIMACY OF DESIRE
The “marketplace” is the central image of a new religion, rising out of the ruins of a century marked by devastating war and by a remarkable run of insane rulers and intrusive bureaucracies that have destroyed the faith in politics as capable of producing a just and happy human order. The time is ripe for the emergence of a nonpolitical, an anti-political, salvation creed and, lo! — it has emerged. It is the Religion of the Marketplace — universal in its appeal, easily intelligible, and militant, sending out its missionaries, in the guise of agents of the International Monetary Fund, to keep the fainthearted from straying from the new Tao.
The Faith has three basic dogmas: the primacy of desire; the creative and saving energy of competition; and the tolerant inclusiveness of “nonjudgmentalism.”
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Recently I went with two of my sons to Nicaragua, where we spent time visiting schools, hospitals, clinics, a number of Managua’s barrio homes, and those of other cities.
The average Catholic will ask himself, “What can I and my parish do for economic justice? How should my spiritual life affect my social behavior and my habits of consumption?”
We are blind to the vast and real poverty of our own country, which may only become apparent upon encountering spiritual wealth.