Feet Of Clay

Every civilisation has had (I can't use 'enjoyed') organised religion. Since civilisations evolve, it would be fair to say that, as in biological organisms, unnecessary functions and appendages would eventually atrophe and disappear. This implies that religion serves some purpose necessary for civilisation to function.

I think the real function of organised religion is to legitimise the existence of the ruling elite and justify their actions.

Unsurprisingly, Industrial civilisation has its own religion. It has a diety to be worshipped, a founding prophet and a collection of saints, a priesthood (of which some of the aforementioned saints were once members), a number of (sometimes antagonistic) sects, elaborate private rituals,  and of course places of worship for the laity. It even has a name;

Economics.

The diety of course, is money. Money has a number of aliases - Dollar, Euro, Yen, Pound, Franc and so on.  Most agree the founding prophet to be Adam Smith and the saints are those economists who added something signifigant to the canon Law - people like John Maynard Keynes. The priesthood are of course, the current crop of economists who are members of different sects that go by names like 'Chicago School', 'Keynesians', and so-on. The priesthood protects it's 'inside' knowledge of the religion with its own special language and shrouds its activities in elaborate ritual (economic theory and calculations) from which it 'reveals' its 'wisdom' to the laity. And finally, there are the places of worship. The shopping malls.

It's impossible for any group to wield authority over any population unless a majority of those people consent to be ruled. This is true even in the most opressive dictatorship. Consent is forthcoming when the majority believe that the authority of the ruling group is legitimate. Legitimacy can take many forms but since the primary goal of the ruling group, is to extract tribute from the population, it makes (economic) sense for them to use the most 'cost effective' methods to ensure compliance. (The most feathers, for the least hissing, as the saying goes.)

At the beginning of the modern Indistrial era, the new ruling class saw clearly, the need for something that would legitimise their rule and traditional religion no longer fitted this emerging socio-economic model, based as it was on the ideas of individualism, material progress and the 'scientific method'.

Economics legitimises and justifies all Industrial ruling systems, from Capitalism to Communism. When the authorities' legitimacy rests on the credibility of the enabling religion, that religion had better 'produce the goods'. Because, as their credibility washes away, so does the legitimacy of the ruling elite they support. When John Maynard Keynes wrote his General Theory, the world was a very different place than it is today. His theory may have described the (economic) universe correctly in 1936 and the decisions made by politicians based on it could and did produce the results the theory predicted. That was then, this is now. Keynes' theory doesn't accommodate Peak (anything). One has only to look at the financial mess that continued application of the policies indicated by Keynes' theory have caused, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, to see that 'mainstream' economics is proving to have feet of clay.

Calls to adopt a new economic theory, one that takes today's realities into account, abound. But no authority seems to be taking heed. 'Theory' has solidified into 'dogma'. Every day that authorities continue to enact policy based on this discredited model, they piss away a little more of their legitimacy. Society breaks down when a significant minority no longer see the rulers' authority as legitimate. Society collapses when that minority, becomes a majority. The Soviet Union failed as much from loss of legitimacy as from military defeat or economic collapse. The same goes for the wave of 'regime changes' sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.

A protest still acknowledges the legitimacy of authority. A riot, on the other hand. . .