Epilogue: The Religion of the Market

Abstract

As noted in chapter One, the patterns underlying contemporary globalization are nothing new. Historians such as Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, André Gunder Frank, Jerry Bentley, and others have demonstrated that the Eurocentric view—according to which world systems supposedly first emerged with the European “discoveries” of the fifteenth century—is excessively narrow. And this book has sought to make the case that for as long as global networks have been in existence—that is, for at least 3,000 years—religion and trade have gone hand in hand. As a concluding note we would like to suggest that the same is true today.

The Jewish and Christian bibles foretell one outcome of history. If economics foresees another, it is in effect offering a competing religious vision. The prophecies of economics would then be a substitute for the traditional messages of the Bible. Perhaps the biblical God has reconsidered. Perhaps, instead of Jesus, he has now chosen economists to be a new bearer of his message, replacing the word of the Old and New Testaments that has now become outdated for the modern age—as Islam advertised the Koran as a later and more accurate statement of God’s real plans for the world. Perhaps God has decided that the underlying ordering forces of the world, the ultimate reality that will shape the future outcome of history, will be truly economic.

Robert Nelson, Economics as Religion¹