Market Logic: Greed Is Really Self-interest; Net Worth Makes for Self-worth

The Market teaches that it is our nature as humans to rationally seek the highest value for the lowest cost. Also, that we seek convenience and self-improvement above all else. Our capacities to care, share, and cooperate, though important, are trumped by our greed, selfishness, and competitiveness. In fact, what appears to many as greed is actually better reframed as acting in self-interest. The Market works with self-interest to bring forth salvation and human welfare, thus transforming greed and acquisitiveness into virtues. 

The worth of individuals is pervasively assessed by the symbols of wealth accumulation that they can display. Self-worth intertwines with net worth and can be determined by it. In the case of accidental death, families can be compensated according to the worth of the deceased. The worth of a person can be calculated by some formula such as what their earning capacity would have been over their lifetime.

How MultiEarth Religion Distorts Nature's True Purpose

In the MultiEarth worldview, the evolutionary processes of creation reached their climax with the advent of the human being. We humans are the apex, and all of creation is there to serve us. Whatever parts of creation do not serve The Market and its corporations have little value. “Usefulness” is the operative word when deciding the value of nature. No matter how beautiful a natural setting may be, unless it can be developed, mined, or somehow improved for human use, it has no value. Rock formations are just rocks unless they contain seams of coal or hold uranium, copper, oil, natural gas, or gold.

The wildness of nature is a foe of civilization and Progress unless it can be tamed for use by humans. Conservation of nature and species is handled through parks, preserves, and other protected areas so that the rest is freed for development and use by the agencies of The Market.

In MultiEarth economic religion, the most important legacy of human civilization belongs to Progress, improving what nature has given us. The Market makes Earth’s evolutionary creation story secondary and subservient to the ascent of humans and the advance of human history. The creation story functions as a backdrop to the civilization story which is front and center. Creation is not regarded as the significant story shaping the present and future; it is not the primary story that reshapes, limits, and finally decides what civilization can do. Instead, we humans became the premiere creators as we allied with the powers of The Market.

What other distortions are you aware of?

A Table Contrasting Multi Earth and One Earth Worldviews (Part 2)

Sometimes it just helps to see contrasts put into a table. So here’s a table contrasting how religion and the sacred function in both the Multi Earth Worldview and the One Earth Worldview. It adds to the overall contrast posted earlier as Part 1.

For readers who shy away from words like “God,” “religion,” and “sacred,” you will likely still recognize the significance of these contrasts and have your own preferred language to talk about them as you engage in practices expressing one or the other worldview. Please join in and tell me other contrasts that you’d add to this table. You know the saying, “There’s always room for one more at the table.”

Multi Earth Worldview                                                One Earth Worldview

God is believed in, usually as the God or deities of a religious tradition, is restricted to the private sphere; is invoked to address personal needs and bless human endeavors	God is the experience of The One – beyond and behind all religious traditions – inherent in and beyond the evolutionary processes of Earth and Cosmos and seeks co-creativity from all life
Gods of civilization receive daily devotion and are the deities of functional religion	Gods of civilization are relativized to the cosmic God of continuing Creation
Sacred and secular have separate realms; sacred reduced to religious sphere and absent as a living Spirit or Mystery from economics, politics, business, and elsewhere	A deep sense of the sacred so infuses everything, everywhere that even the term “secular” loses meaning; no realm is separate from sacred presence
Religious power of nationalism and economics goes unrecognized and functions uncontained when sacred is confined to realm of religion	Religious power of nationalism and economics is recognized and contained within the greater sacred wonders
The primary revelation of the sacred comes through sacred texts, temples, and priesthoods or teachers	The primary revelation of the sacred comes through the natural world, the interactive, evolutionary processes of continuing Creation
Having more than enough materially is considered a sign of divine blessing; giving back to the community in some ways an act of generosity and, perhaps, spiritual practice	Having more than enough materially is seen as a violation of the creational order, taking what rightfully belongs to others or the entire community of life

Holidays "Invaded" Our Schedules; Facilitated Break from Blogs

Today I feel ready to return to this blog. I was surprised to see that Dec. 17 was my last post here. I hadn’t really planned on taking a break. That I did so, speaks to the wonderful powers of Solstice, Advent, Channukah, Christmas, Christmastide, New Years, Epiphany, Kwanzaa, or whatever other themes and days you may have marked. How sacredly interrupting they are, these seasons! I’m grateful that they impact me as strongly as they do, even though not every moment is comfortable for me. Not by any means.

As we begin 2013, new consciousness is growing even as old consciousness digs in. Nielsen ratings show Fox News losing audience; Rachel Maddow gaining. Indigenous Peoples are rising up in Canada with the “Idle No More” movement, adding to Indigenous witness showing up in Mexico, Australia, and elsewhere. More people are daring to believe that an economy other than the global one is possible. Extreme weather is changing consciousness as well, raising up One Earth living as a standard on which people are agreeing. Earth will not be endlessly violated by rapacious economics.

Because of all the bubbling and roiling underway in the huge cauldron of human consciousness, the seasons just past have been stronger than usual days of remembering and changing. Earth is sending clear messages on where she is heading. They’re dark messages for the global economic paradigm of the moment, but I’m loving the possibilities for living interdependently with all life on our planet. 

So as I log and blog into 2013, I anticipate reading your comments.

What's the Wholeness & Salvation Economic Religion Offers?

Because I mostly say what’s wrong with market logic, it’s good for me to put myself inside that logic and make the most compelling case for it that I can. That’s what I’m doing as I continue to describe the economy as religion. I think about how the economic institutions and rituals serve religious purposes, not merely financial ones; how market logic has a theology all its own. Here, for example, is how I see economic religion offering us wholeness and salvation.

The path to wholeness and salvation in market logic is wealth accumulation. Without accumulating enough to participate in The Market’s activities, one is doomed. To follow any path other than wealth accumulation is heresy, and inevitably, means falling into sin. One testifies to their salvation through their assets and habits such as car, home, smart phone, clothing, investments, and up-to-date technologies; also where we travel, vacation, eat out and with whom. All of these bear witness to being saved. Nevertheless, the path is an anxious one because, unless one has accumulated a lot, working for more is unending. Even after one has been to the altar and been saved, the feelings of insufficiency return. Salvation becomes an unending quest, heavy in effort, light in grace.

Thought Teaser: What's Sin in Market Logic?

When we yield to the temptation to outsmart The Market, believing to know more than The Market, we fall into sin. Then, instead of trusting The Market, we doubt it. Regulating The Market is an example of not trusting The Market. When we intervene in market logic with regulations, we play god. Countries who regulate too much or refuse to open their economy to the rich nations that design the global economy, suffer economic hardship for their heresy of believing they can do it better than The Market.

Conversely, economic success results from following orthodox market logic. Therefore, rich countries rightfully have the authority to arrange the rules for global economic engagement. Their righteousness, conferred by The Market, is displayed by their wealth.

All actions that stray from trusting The Market’s sovereignty to know best are sinful. Disobeying The Market has consequences, as the example above of regulating The Market shows. It triggers economic hardship and loss — the curse of falling from the Edenic state of trust and harmony. Sin leads to social marginalization, even banishment from groups of the faithful. Putting faith in any economic model other than The Market trusts heresy instead of the true way. Poor people and poor countries do not have the right to say what are the best practices to follow because they have strayed from the true way and have become habitual sinners.

How well are you doing with the logic of The Market?

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.