Cults throughout history share certain characteristics. It may well be that modern financial services fits the bill.
The suspenders and yellow ties of Michael Douglas's banker portrayal in 'Wall Street' has given way to subtler but no less expensive suitings. The ideological rejection of regulation, even if it protects you from yourself; clingy living and socializing on Park Avenue, in Greenwich and the Hamptons; and the sacrifice of entire economies or societies in favor of one's own well-being are certainly consistent with the type. But don't take out word for it. JL
Umair Haque comments in Eudaimonics (hat tip Big Picture):
Modern-day "finance" as we know it has little to nothing to do with (real) economics. Where economics is about creating authentic value, igniting positive sum games, discovering pathways to prosperity, finance is (or has become) about reshuffling yesterday's value, extracting the lion's share in zero sum games.
Yet, the self-appointed sheriff of the global economy--the master "trader"; in reality, a mere jumpsuited technician of a lethally dysfunctional machine--is viewed as the modern-day equivalent of a mystical seer, a Delphic oracle, whose visions earn the indisputable right to luxuries and riches beyond the most avaricious dreams of the kings of yore. All of which raises the question: if modern-day finance isn't (about) economics, then what is it? I'd like to suggest it's nothing more than--and nothing less than--a cult.
Consider, for a second, a quick list of characteristics of mind control techniques that cults use:
"Studies performed by those who believe that some religious groups do practice mind control have identified a number of key steps in coercive persuasion;
People are put in physical or emotionally distressing situations;
Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader or group;
They get a new identity based on the group;
They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled."
Let's go through each one by one.
People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations. Does the edifice of modern-day finance put people in emotionally and physically distressing situations--moreso than they have to be, to amplify the stakes? In fact, it puts entire nations and regions in them--just ask Europe, America, or China. The cries of "Panic!! Armageddon!!" that every minor question or challenge to the cult of finance are met with are a form of inflicting distress--as are the constant looming threats that "the markets" will eternally, hellishly punish those who fail the test of virtue.
Problems are reduced to one simple explanation, repeatedly emphasized. Does the monolith of modern-day finance reduce problems to one simple explanation, repeatedly emphasized? Sure: it's the idea that I've called financial determinism--that through unfettered financialization (read: bigger banks, funds, faster trades, more intense buying and selling of paper) the world's challenges can be surmounted, and humanity's biggest problems solved--and that conversely, without hyperfinancialization, humanity has little chance at prosperity. Simply put: more finance, good. Less finance, bad. Would that the world were so naively simplistic.
They receive unconditional love from a charismatic leader. One word: Geithner. Kidding aside, the point is: the cult of finance has a set of leaders--leaders who show cult members a level of unconditional love that's truly breathtaking, that makes religious cult leaders look like misers. Bailout after bailout after bailout for blowing up entire economies? Now that's unconditional love.
They get a new identity based on the group. Does modern-day finance create "a new identity based on the group"? I think so. Once you're a member of the cult of finance, the kid gloves come on. You're essentially above the law, beyond the state, and through the looking glass. And I'd guess that might be behind the curiously overweening sense of power most of the members of this cult display: the off-the-cuff remarks that bank chiefs make, for example, that are farcically absurd (when they're not savagely dehumanizing)--like Lloyd Blankfein's famous claim that Goldman Sachs is just "doing God's work".
They are subject to entrapment, and their access to information is severely controlled. Does modern-day finance create situations of entrapment, and control access to information? Of course--it's entire "business model", as anyone who's spent more than a day or two inside an "investment bank" is premised on hoarding, restricting, limiting, and squeezing information--and so literally keeping nations and corporations, CEOs and prime ministers in the dark. This point is indisputable, given the steep rise over the last few decades in revenues from trading--and the not-so-secret secret that much of that trading revenue is based upon a whisper circuit of quasi-insider info. The cult of finance is premised fundamentally on sophisticated tools to erect barriers to information at every pass--that's exactly what shadow banking is.
I could go on, but perhaps my point is clear. "Finance" as we know it serves little social purpose; instead of a socially useful activity, it's a self-destructive one for nations to encourage and subsidize.
Less a legitimate collective interest in the pursuit of prosperity, "finance" bears all the hallmarks of a quasi-religious cult--a "hypermachine" whose goal is to, at all costs, enforce loyalty to a fantasy of divine salvation (with lurid threats of eternal punishment and foregone salvation), dictated from on high by charismatic leaders, on whose tablets are inscribed a set of commandments that are nothing but a tightly controlled system of organization that uses simplistic, lowest-common-denominator techniques of social domination and psychological subjugation to sharply circumscribe the boundaries of human freedom, responsibility, and growth.
It's got little to do with economics, prosperity, and humanity--and a whole lot to do with big, fat, dirty money.
Oh, hi--welcome to the Great Stagnation. Want fries with that cult membership?
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