In the book Sapiens it builds on this idea for myths lots of people believe in, or "shared fictions" or artificial truths or whatever you want to call it. Like

In the book Sapiens it builds on this idea for myths lots of people believe in, or "shared fictions" or artificial truths or whatever you want to call it. Like money for example, it's only worth anything as long as people believe it has purchasing power, even if really it's just collections of 0s and 1s or symbols printed on textiles. Extrapolate that idea to many other things people collectively believe in, and that let's us build stable societies.