The Market, Mammon, and the Multi Earth Pantheon of Deities

The Market is the supreme deity, a modern Zeus. Mount Wall Street is today’s Mount Olympus. Traits of The Market deity include being sovereign, unfettered, and omnipotent in power. The Market, with its mysterious, “invisible hand,” knows most and best, approaching omniscience. The logic of The Market has reasons of its own. It is self-regulating and knows what is good. When The Market expands, it is embodied as a Bull deity, a golden calf evoking dance and excited, cheering worship. But when The Market contracts, it behaves in the minds of investors like an untamed Bear. It’s best to be cautious with her; leave her alone in her bearish-ways lest she destroy you. 

Another deity of the pantheon, Mammon, is wealth — especially accumulated wealth, the amount one trusts in for security, or the family wealth of one or more previous generations which one is obligated to protect and expand so as to build a financial dynasty of whatever size. Returning it to strengthen the commonwealth, i.e., the economy of the great commons from which much of it came, is as rare as siting a mountain lion in the wild.

Devotion to Mammon extols maximizing profit and accumulating without limits. It is devotion to “More!” without any sense of “Enough!” The devotion often equals what we see in addictive behavior. Publicly-traded corporations have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to serve Mammon. It is within the global activities of The Market where Mammon’s worshippers are blessed or chastised. Loving Mammon motivates one toward “More!” and is a virtue in the marketplace.

Other important deities in the pantheon include Progress, Growth, Profit, Productivity, Consumption, Technology, and War. The divinity of each of these in economic religion becomes known through the unquestioning devotion they are given. In a Multi Earth economy, doubts that these deified entities are for the wellbeing of life or even the good of civilization are rarely heard. All these deities deeply stir the human spirit. We project upon them our own soul desires for more, better, and success. Even peace. As a result, spiritual energy inhabits them. The energy we give them builds and builds until they take on a life of their own.