Of myths and markets

Of Myths and Markets:
An Inquiry into the Intersections of Capitalism and Christianity
Robyn J. Morrison
California Institute of Integral Studies

[This article posted in May 2024 is available on the Internet, http://www.academia.edu.]

Abstract
Much has been written regarding the relationship between Christianity and Capitalism. The
history of human myths and markets can be traced as far back as the Axial Age. As human
consciousness shifted, religious beliefs changed and economic relationships were affected.
Rather than propose purely secular theories, inquiring into the mythical dimension of economic
justice opens the imagination and deepens human consciousness. This paper begins with a brief overview of the historical relationships between Christianity and market systems, as a means of identifying the dance between myth and markets that has occurred for over two thousand years.

An additional integral overview from thought leaders representing multiple disciplines
adds important advances and expands the analysis of the underlying causes of economic
injustice. Conservatives (labeled Evangelicals) and liberals (labeled progressives) are polarized; creating divisiveness and enmity rather than collaboration. Are there levers that might increase the compassion, understanding, and compassion between and within these polarities?

This paper does not form conclusions, but hopes to provoke new ideas and additional dialogues to address urgent economic justice issues threatening people and our planet.
keywords: Christianity, Capital, inequality, Capitalism, economic justice, Jonathan Haidt, Karen
Armstrong, Iris Young, Pope Francis, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Adam Smith.

“With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this
faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony
of brotherhood.” (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963)

Religious witnesses have been essential to the success of movements for justice throughout
American history. While religion in the United States has always shown its progressive and
conservative sides (and has sometimes been an uneasy combination of the two), the country’s
faith communities have been able at critical moments to speak to “the jangling discords of our
nation” with prophetic power. At a time of deep mistrust of politics, government and collective
action, religious Americans engaged in public life have both an opportunity and an obligation –
to challenge, to inspire, and to heal. (Dionne, Galston, Davis, and Tilchin, 2014)

The intersections between faith and economics, religion and market practices, and Christianity
and Capitalism have fascinated me for a long time. The journey has taken me from Helena,
Montana to Berkeley, California and on to faraway places including Uganda, Rwanda, Honduras, and El Salvador. It has been an open inquiry – seeking wisdom – the more I understand the more complex the subject becomes. A previous paper, “Confronting the Absolutes of Economic and Theological Doctrines” (Morrison, December, 2007), was primarily a theological exploration of the connection between absolute beliefs about a Christian God with absolute power, and absolute beliefs in free market Capitalism. Another paper, “Christian Economies: Towards a More Compassionate Capitalism” (Morrison, April, 2007), explored Christian history and significant shifts in economic systems and theological paradigms.

The following paper reflects an expanded perspective, in part shaped by the author’s
studies with the California Institute of Integral Studies Master of Transformative Leadership
program. This paper is a creative inquiry that intends to provoke the imagination and hopefully
generate new ideas for action in addressing economic injustice. An underlying motivation is a
search for levers or methods that might be useful in accelerating a movement towards a more
equitable and sustainable global economy – an economy that works for all people and our planet.

A Brief Historical Perspective
Axial Age (800 BCE to 200 BCE) - seeds of capitalism

The seeds of modern capitalism were planted in the Axial Age (800 BCE to 200 BCE).
As human society evolved, gradually it was possible to produce a surplus of food. Markets were
created to exchange surplus goods; creating the need for merchants, artisans, and coins. With the discovery of Iron, weapons were invented and warfare increased. As people congregated in
urban areas, power concentrated in hierarchies. Kings, priest, merchants, and landlords exploited their power, and inequality became more apparent (Armstrong, 2005).

During the Axial Age human consciousness of inequality and compassion for the poor
increased and super virtuous prophets and sages emerged — creating new religions (Judaism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism). As people became more independent and self-sufficient, their
experience of god(s) became more distant and removed from their daily life (Armstrong, 2005).
Religious myths shifted from stories about gods to legends of extraordinary individuals (with
divine and human attributes) who served as role models for succeeding generations.

Christianity is rooted in the Axial Age Jewish prophetic tradition. Jesus was a Jewish
prophet. Based on the life and teachings of Jesus, early followers of Jesus (pre-Constantine
Christians) practiced generosity within their households and engaged in their market places in
radically different ways. By the late 2nd Century, Church Father Clement of Alexandria, taught
that the love of mammon was evil, not wealth itself. Although dominant Christianity did not
practice many communitarian economic principles for most of the past two thousand years, there has always been a powerful minority within the faith who continued to model their economic lives after the early movement (Morrison, April, 2007).

Middle Ages (5th to 15th Century) - feudalism and mercantilism
The fall of the Roman Empire plunged myths and markets into dark ages, human
consciousness devolved; warfare, plagues, and famine were the human experience. The Pope
and Church’s power declined, and monasticism became a powerful counter-cultural force.
Monasticism offered an alternate economic and spiritual community, which attempted to more
fully integrate human production/work and spirituality. In medieval times, theologians such as
Thomas Aquinas argued that it was a moral obligation of businesses to sell goods at a just price.

The emergence of kingdoms and early nation states, resulted in increased warfare, and
necessitated the development of new military technologies. Mercantilism developed out of the
need to gather riches into the treasuries of kings to finance mercenary armies and navies. This
emphasis on commerce produced a new social hierarchy, elevated the status of merchants, and changed philosophers’ and theologians’ thoughts about the importance of profit making.
Mercantilism produced an educated and wealthy class, which in turn generated the Renaissance. During the Renaissance humans became increasingly individualistic and confident.

Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution
According to Armstrong, a second Axial Age began in the 16th and 17th centuries. “The
economic changes of the last four hundred years have been accompanied by immense social,
political, and intellectual revolutions, with the development of an entirely different scientific and
rational concept of the nature of truth. But despite the cult of rationality, modern history has been punctuated by witch hunts and world wars, which have been explosions of unreason (Armstrong, Of Myths and Markets 6 interview with Adishakti).

The dialogue regarding the relationship between capitalism and Christianity is even older
than the term capitalism (first used in 1854). The term ‘capitalism’ has been divisive for over
two centuries and continues to be divisive today. Adam Smith (1723 - 1790), considered by
many to be the father of modern Economics, actually did not use the term capitalism. Karl Marx
(1818 - 1883) used the term capitalism largely as a polemic against the disciples and teachings of Adam Smith. Comparing Marx and Smith is interesting because each has had a significant
influence on shaping economic ethos or ideologies.

Following several decades after Marx, Max Weber made his mark on capitalist ideologies
through his essays, compiled into the book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(Weber, 1958). Weber’s argument forged a historical and conceptual link between Protestant
Christianity and forms of disciplined individualism and entrepreneurialism associated with early
capitalism that sociologists are still unraveling (Guest, 2010). Weber’s emphasis on Protestant
Christianity as the primary source behind the advancements and economic growth attributed to
capitalism, while a powerful argument, missed the lengthy and complex development of
capitalism (the seeds of which were planted before Christianity, and definitely before the
Protestant reformation). An undue emphasis on the role of Protestantism as the fuel for the
beneficial influences of Capitalism, fails to acknowledge centuries of influence on market
economics from Roman Catholicism and Judaism.

A Variety of Current Perspectives
Over the past few decades thought leaders from a variety of disciplines have researched,
written, and wrestled with issues related to religions (or ideologies), economics, justice, and
morality. In 2008, William Connolly coined the phrase, “evangelical-capitalist resonance
machine” (Connolly, 2008). Connolly wrote about a worldview or ‘ethos’ shared primarily by
fundamentalist/evangelical Christians, and how that ethos contributes to inequality, greed, and
injustice.

However, there are actually fundamentalists on both sides of the polarity; those who
adamantly support, and those who vehemently oppose, the evangelical-capitalist resonance
machine. The divisiveness and enmity creates and sustains an ‘otherness’ or ‘us versus them’
mentality that restricts us from collaboratively imagining myths and markets endowed with
justice, mutuality, responsibility, and compassion.

Theological perspective of Pope Francis
The relationship between Christianity and Capitalism continues to evolve and shift. Pope
Francis has been transforming the very meaning of the word ‘evangelism’ and Roman
Catholicism’s participation in Connolly’s ‘evangelical-capitalist resonance machine.’ Pope
Francis has confronted two powerful absolutes; the ideologies and greed of unfettered capitalism, and centralized authoritarian leadership (Pope Francis, 2013).

"While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is
crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies, which uphold the absolute autonomy
of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which
are charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual,
tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws
and rules.” Pope Francis, address to new Vatican ambassadors, May 16, 2013.

Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
As part of a thorough literature and research review, Jost, et al. (Jost, et al., 2003)
concluded two primary motivational concerns form the foundation for conservative ideologies:
(1) the psychological management of uncertainty and fear results in resistance to change - they
perceive the world as generally threatening; (2) the endorsement of inequality - they perceive the world as inevitably hierarchical. Although these two are distinguishable, they are often related.

“In part, this is because of the historical fact that traditional social arrangements have
generally been more hierarchical and less egalitarian compared with nontraditional
arrangements. Therefore, to resist change in general has often meant resisting increased
efforts at egalitarianism (Jost et al., 2003, 343).”

Social Psychology and Moral Foundations
The two primary motivational concerns identified by Jost, et al. (2003), can be compared
and contrasted to ideas promoted by Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind (Haidt, 2013). Haidt proposed six moral foundations as a means of understanding the conservative-liberal divide.

Two of the six can be compared to Jost et al.’s two foundations – (1) sanctity/degradation, and
(2) authority/subversion. Haidt traced the origins of the sanctity/degradation foundation to
ancient history and human evolution as part of our natural response to “pathogens and parasites” (Haidt, 179); it is part of our behavioral immune system. Our senses of sanctity/degradation began with ancient survival adaptations. Our fears of the unknown, the other, of change, are natural instincts formed by myths, traditions, and experiences. Embracing hierarchies, or subverting hierarchies, are competing impulses. If we are fearful of uncertainty and ambiguity, then we may fear what will happen if we do not respond appropriately to those who have power over us. Human authority and dominance also is a means of securing order, and authoritarian power can be perceived as positive protection from outsiders.
Haidt (2013) described the “Grand Narratives” of liberalism and conservatism, a term that
invokes the mythical dimension. These mythical narratives (beliefs) interact with religious
practices to create religious communities. To understand the interrelationship between religion
and capitalism, one needs to understand the integration of believing, belonging, and doing.

Haidt (2013) described the ‘hivishness’ of human beings as a conditional (not dominant) motivation. The hivish impulse draws people into communities, including faith communities, workplaces, clubs, teams, etc. Our hivish tendencies help us evolve (collectively we can accomplish so much more than as individuals). According to Haidt, our hivishness (desire to belong to a group) combines with shared moral foundations (ethos or beliefs), and then we engage in shared practices (being) with our group. The shadow side of our hivishness is that it results in ‘us versus them’ behaviors that justify violence and economic inequalities. Haidt’s analysis failed to fully analyze the relationships between religion, politics, and capitalism. His personal ethos and myths about the sanctity of free-market capitalism appear to have prevented him from adequately deconstructing the negative aspects of the ‘evangelical-capitalist resonance machine’.

Political Science and Public Policy
Iris M. Young’s posthumous book, Responsibility for Justice, offered a significant
contribution towards deconstructing the systems that perpetuate economic injustice (Young,
2010). Young promoted a concept of shared political responsibility. Haidt indicated that
conservatives place more emphasis on the moral foundation of fairness as a system of rewards
and consequences; the poor are poor because they are lazy. Young suggested we consider shared social responsibility as well as personal responsibility. There are systemic social inequities that create unfair obstacles and undermine individual initiative. Young recommended a both/and approach. Christianity has supported both perspectives making any analysis of the
interrelationship between Christianity and capitalism highly complex and ambiguous.

The strategies agents use to avoid shared political responsibilities was one of the more
compelling ideas advanced by Young (2010). The four strategies were: (1) reification; (2) the
denial of connection; (3) the demands of immediacy; and (4) the claim that none of one’s roles
calls for correcting injustice. The first two strategies can be connected to Haidt’s thoughts and
the work of Jost et al. Young defined reification as, “Actor’s treating products of human action in particular social relations as though they are things or natural forces (Young, 2010, Kindle location 2757 of 3874). “Market relations are not the only socially produced processes that we tend to reify” (Young, Kindle location 2760).

I propose that Capitalism is an ideological system whereby market relations have actually
been deified. Young did not make this connection between the human tendency towards
reification and a human tendency to create grand narratives, myths, and religions. Many
capitalists deify ‘capital’ and ‘markets’. Our culture tends to worship wealthy entrepreneurs,
athletes, and actors. Like religion, full participation in Capitalist systems requires beliefs in
abstracts of money, markets, and economics as fundamental guiding principles for life.
Young (2010) described reification as the first of four strategies that allow people to shirk
their shared responsibility to intervene when systems are not just or fair. When people believe
abstracts like scarcity, supply and demand, the value of a dollar (or any currency), and the myth
of the ‘self-made-entrepreneur’, then they assume there is nothing that they can do, things simply are they way they are, and economic inequality is inevitable. These are not only common excuses for not working for economic justice; they are lenses through which the more
conservative members of our society perceive reality.

Young recommended that we de-reify systems (Young, 2010, Kindle location 2806). If
we consider reification as a close kin to deification, and acknowledge that throughout history
human beings have deified the more abstract and mysterious aspects of our lived experiences, we might conclude that de-reification is nearly impossible. Although humans will probably always deify or make sacred many important aspects of our lives, history demonstrates that what we make real (reify) is constantly changing as we gain understanding or deeper consciousness.

History also demonstrates the relationship between market economies and religious beliefs are
constantly changing. Change is already happening. Christianity (both the liberal and
conservative varieties) is declining in numbers (of members) and influence in the United States.
Increasing numbers of people are self-proclaimed ‘spiritual but not religious’ in part because they are rejecting authoritarian and dogmatic traditions.

Young (2010) listed the denial of connection as the second strategy agents use to avoid
responsibility. According to Haidt (2013), the human desire for belonging (hivishness) also
leads to the creation of insiders and outsiders, which leads to denial of connection. People who
have strong affinities with religious communities, including liberal or conservative Christians,
may be particularly susceptible to hivish tendencies. In addition, the motivation underlying
many charitable actions of liberal and conservative ‘charitable’ Christians is often an ‘us for
them’ mentality that creates disempowering dependencies. Dismantling or deconstructing the
systemic causes of economic inequality will require a deeper consciousness – finding a middle
space where individual responsibility is empowered, and shared responsibility is acted upon, not denied.

Summary and Further Inquiry

Absolute beliefs support allegiance to religious, social, economic, and political absolutes.
These foundational beliefs form powerful “grand narratives” (Haidt, 2013) which bind
individuals into groups with like-minded people. There is a considerable body of research
indicating that today’s conservatives are motivated to reduce the discomfort they feel about
change, ambiguity, and outsiders. Conservatives prefer authoritarian leaders, and economic and social hierarchies, because they prefer the known to the unknown. They believe the only way to maintain a safe and ordered society is to submit to authority.

Social and economic liberals tend to over emphasize individualism, intellectualizing, and
freedom from responsibility. Liberals may discount the importance of a shared ethos and the
attraction of belonging (hivishness). Both may avoid responsibility for changing the systems that
perpetuate economic justice because of reification, and denial of connection.

Christianity, Capitalism, religions, market relations, liberals, conservatives are evolving
phenomena, not static realities. Abstract experiences and ideas are reified (made out to be real or reality) and deified (made sacred). This is the nature of being human. Christianity and
Capitalism have contributed many positive benefits for the evolution of humanity; and they have
also caused harm to people and the planet. Economic justice is complex and constantly
changing.

However, there are alarming elements challenging all of us today that threaten the well-
being of people, creatures, and creation. We have abused our planet allowing Capitalism and
market relations to exploit the commons (water, air, and the earth) to produce profits for a few.
The advancement of democracy and freedom is threatened by the reification of Corporations –
making a legally formed abstract into a person (a real person with the same legal rights as a
human being). Unemployment and underemployment are global challenges, preventing
responsible individuals from being able to make a living and a life.

This inquiry is of utmost importance. How do we align our myths and our markets in
responsible ways? How do we open minds that are closed by fear and discomfort? What Truths
need to be deconstructed? What have we sanctified that does not serve the common good?
When is the next Axial Age – the age of deepening human consciousness? Is it now? Is it in
time?