On free market extremists
Sam Smith of Undernews has written an excellent new piece about the parallels between evangelical Christian extremists and evangelical free market extremists.
While a lot of attention is being paid to evangelical Christian extremism, far less is directed towards an equally dangerous religious sect – the practitioners of evangelical economic extremism.
Although the latter faith is not often regarded as an actual religion, it has far more in common with evangelism than it does with rational intellectual inquiry or thoughtful academic analysis. Along with the Christian extremists, the economic evangelists share an arrogant certainty, single factor fetishism, missionary mania, belief in intelligent design, an unlimited desire to impose their myths on others, and a rhetoric that is only meaningful if you already accept their premises. Their arguments are largely based on iconic folkloric texts and ignore the true variety of human existence and its communities and families. And they both speak in tongues, which they consider a good thing. The big difference is that while the Christian bible has the money changers being chased out of the temple, the free market bible wants them back in again.
It’s quite a fine rant, and well worth a read.
