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It is because the only logic we have left is Market Logic and the only ethical barrier we have left between us and violence is The Economy. The Economy is entir

It is because the only logic we have left is Market Logic and the only ethical barrier we have left between us and violence is The Economy. The Economy is entirely faith based. And our faith is waning, and among younger generations, is gone. To survive in Market Logic we must act as though we believe we are fully individuated and on our own with bootstraps tugged. But how we actually live is totally, globally interdependent. The pandemic, on top of this, insists on it. This is the source of cognitive dissonance. ( JP Dupuy The Economy and The Future)

voidhorse 5y ago
Quite a few theorists have stated things along the same lines, and I think the analysis is generally correct. After the “death of god”, man lost a common frame of reference and replaced highly spiritualized modes of existence for highly economic modes of existence. Well, now we are facing the “death of the market” and finally realizing that it is a destructive fiction and that it is not reasonable to reduce everything to exchange value and calculation insofar as it leads to the actual existential crisis that is climate cataclysm.
- yissp 5y ago
  What will we replace it with this time?
  - Animats 5y ago
    I don't know. We're running out of sources of trust. Lawyers? No. Bankers? No. Political leaders? No. Captains of industry? No. Journalists? Almost extinct. We hit bottom when the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts both turned out to have thousands of pedophiles in positions of authority.
    - mvc 5y ago
      > We hit bottom when the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts both turned out to have thousands of pedophiles in positions of authority. Of course prior to 1980, the church had never done anything to harm those it claimed to care for. Not sure why Catholics are singled out here.
    - state_less 5y ago
      We can trust in the earth if we pay our respects to her.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    A complex, accuracy-seeking metaphysical model of reality seems like a decent goal to aim for. It is a bit of a vague, hand wavy goal, but I think this is both a bug and a feature.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  The idea that a decline in religiousness is what lead to an increase in the valuation of the market is unsupported by any historical sequence I know of. You even have Weber's classic text, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, which more or less implied the opposite. Many very religious and very "pro-market" societies exist - the ex-USSR oppositely, was an officially godless, anti-market economy (and you can call that "a religion" but that degrades "religion" to strong belief). The only way to argue this is a "greed became dominant when man abandoned [our idea of] true worship" approach, which many religious people indeed argue but which is a pretty clear "no true Scotsman" type fallacy when held to the light of day.
  - voidhorse 5y ago
    You make good points, but my assertion isn’t necessarily to oppose god and capitalism, nor to say that returning to religion would solve all our problems, I’m just implying we’ve traded “god” for the “market” and that both have affinities insofar as they are both based on founding texts (bible, wealth of nations) that prescribe a belief system more based on faith (saving grace, invisible hand) than reason.
    - joe_the_user 5y ago
      There are almost no present day capitalists who have read The Wealth Of Nations. Indeed, the field known as Classical Political Economy is basically moribund and has been replaced by Economics. But the modern factory owner doesn't follow even economics on the basis of faith - indeed, they generally follow much abstract economics at all. I'm not all "pro-market" but it seems clear markets don't need faith - buy stuff, sell stuff, make money, lose money. The only thing akin to faith you have is confidence that X you buy today will be worth more tomorrow. But that's no equivalent to the unquestioned faith asked for by religion.
      - coliveira 5y ago
        But there is an element of faith in the market. If the capitalist read the Wealth of Nations or not, s/he believes in the invisible hand and that free markets are the right way to manage our lives. It is the ideological package that guides people who embrace capitalism as their way of life.

voidhorse 5y ago

Quite a few theorists have stated things along the same lines, and I think the analysis is generally correct. After the “death of god”, man lost a common frame of reference and replaced highly spiritualized modes of existence for highly economic modes of existence. Well, now we are facing the “death of the market” and finally realizing that it is a destructive fiction and that it is not reasonable to reduce everything to exchange value and calculation insofar as it leads to the actual existential crisis that is climate cataclysm.

yissp 5y ago
What will we replace it with this time?
- Animats 5y ago
  I don't know. We're running out of sources of trust. Lawyers? No. Bankers? No. Political leaders? No. Captains of industry? No. Journalists? Almost extinct. We hit bottom when the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts both turned out to have thousands of pedophiles in positions of authority.
  - mvc 5y ago
    > We hit bottom when the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts both turned out to have thousands of pedophiles in positions of authority. Of course prior to 1980, the church had never done anything to harm those it claimed to care for. Not sure why Catholics are singled out here.
  - state_less 5y ago
    We can trust in the earth if we pay our respects to her.
- mistermann 5y ago
  A complex, accuracy-seeking metaphysical model of reality seems like a decent goal to aim for. It is a bit of a vague, hand wavy goal, but I think this is both a bug and a feature.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
joe_the_user 5y ago
The idea that a decline in religiousness is what lead to an increase in the valuation of the market is unsupported by any historical sequence I know of. You even have Weber's classic text, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, which more or less implied the opposite. Many very religious and very "pro-market" societies exist - the ex-USSR oppositely, was an officially godless, anti-market economy (and you can call that "a religion" but that degrades "religion" to strong belief). The only way to argue this is a "greed became dominant when man abandoned [our idea of] true worship" approach, which many religious people indeed argue but which is a pretty clear "no true Scotsman" type fallacy when held to the light of day.
- voidhorse 5y ago
  You make good points, but my assertion isn’t necessarily to oppose god and capitalism, nor to say that returning to religion would solve all our problems, I’m just implying we’ve traded “god” for the “market” and that both have affinities insofar as they are both based on founding texts (bible, wealth of nations) that prescribe a belief system more based on faith (saving grace, invisible hand) than reason.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    There are almost no present day capitalists who have read The Wealth Of Nations. Indeed, the field known as Classical Political Economy is basically moribund and has been replaced by Economics. But the modern factory owner doesn't follow even economics on the basis of faith - indeed, they generally follow much abstract economics at all. I'm not all "pro-market" but it seems clear markets don't need faith - buy stuff, sell stuff, make money, lose money. The only thing akin to faith you have is confidence that X you buy today will be worth more tomorrow. But that's no equivalent to the unquestioned faith asked for by religion.
    - coliveira 5y ago
      But there is an element of faith in the market. If the capitalist read the Wealth of Nations or not, s/he believes in the invisible hand and that free markets are the right way to manage our lives. It is the ideological package that guides people who embrace capitalism as their way of life.