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Economics filled the void in society vacated by religion after the Enlightenment.
A mechanism of control, conjured by the ruling class, imposed indiscriminately upon the masses, protected from scrutiny, and justified by arbitrary, curated rules.
People just use religion to mean a popular idea now I guess. The invisible hand is an abstraction of general observed trends. It's a metaphor. Unlike gods, no one thinks it exists in a literal sense, and to say it doesn't exist figuratively would be absurd. Anyone can acknowledge a society's needs can sometimes be met by someone with a profit incentive. You don't have to think that's a good way to address them to admit that the selfish interest and the collective interest can align. I don't know how society could function at all if this wasn't the case.
And who ever said growth could be infinite? A basic idea of microeconomics is that marginal profit decreases with increased production until it inevitably becomes negative. Capitalism, like all economic models, is a proposed way of managing scarce resources efficiently.
People may be over-enthusiastic about these things I guess, but that doesn't make them religious any more than someone being keenly interested in model trains makes them some sort of zealot. These comparisons are really forced and relies on intentional mischaracterization which serves no one.
After all, isn’t paying one’s debts what morality is supposed to be all about? Giving people what is due them. Accepting one’s responsibilities. Fulfilling one’s obligations to others, just as one would expect them to fulfill their obligations to you. What could be a more obvious example of shirking one’s responsibilities than reneging on a promise, or refusing to pay a debt? It was that very apparent self-evidence, I realized, that made the statement so insidious. This was the kind of line that could make terrible things appear utterly bland and unremarkable.
-Debt: The First 5000 Years, David Graeber
I would say it is a scam, and they are well well aware of all these points. They just don't care, it's about having your time filling your pockets then run away before the consequences can catch you.
It’s easy. You just need to move on -- like a plague of locusts. Like a fucking plague. Failure is a core tenet of liberalism. When life closes a door, it opens a window. And if the fall is too steep, use the fire exit. Run to the roof -- you always have that airship on the dock. The most important thing is to keep moving. Keep dreaming. The auditors cannot get to you if you keep running -- very, very fast, from one fuck-up to the next.
So it's a Megachurch?
Yes I think everyone is aware the pie is finite. They just want the bigger share of it before we run out of pie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
And they also don't read their scripture.
More famously, it is also used once in his Wealth of Nations, when arguing that governments do not normally need to force international traders to invest in their own home country.
So according to Smith the hand would maintain employment of the population, not drive down prices.
In both cases, Adam Smith speaks of an invisible hand, never of the invisible hand.
Where did this pic of Pynchon come from? I was only aware of the one from his time in the military.
I just tried gravityies rainbow a third time. Couldn't do it
Careful, you dont want to anger the economy with such blasphemous thoughts...