Never in human history has there been such opportunity for humans to experience the joy of life and freedom. Never has such opportunity been sqaundered for the sake of obscene wealth and power of the few. Why? The reason is a new religion that is not usually recognized as such—economics.

Economics is replete with a priesthood, sycophants, dogma, ritual, cant, symbolism, mysticism, and make-believe.

The high priests of economic bunkum are bankers who create money, the means of exchange, as interest bearing debt. Their sycophants are the politicians, academicians, and journalists they buy. The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve recites dogma and cant as he performs his ritual testimony to the sycophantic Congress.

"Free Market" is currently a dominant theme of mystical cant. "Free Market" trade is doublespeak for trade invariably limited and restrained by pounds of documentation of restrictions and sanctions.

It is believed that through some magical, unknowable process "the market" is the best arbiter of economic exchange. Magic, make-believe, and doublespeak supplant human rationality. Magic, make-believe, and doublespeak provide cover for an altogether anti-human, anti-social, and anti-libertarian agenda.

Technology, particularly as applied to the use of energy, has made it possible to produce life sustaining wealth far in excess of human needs with minimal human labor. Yet, our culture incorporates an unquestioned dogma of jobs for everyone. Let us question it. Jobs doing what?

A casual observation reveals that most human labor expended on "jobs" produces no life sustaining wealth—none at all. What, then, is the purpose of all these jobs?

The answer for the worker is easy. It is to get money.

A worker may spend up to three hours per day getting to and from his place of employment. He spends another eight to twelve hours at his job. To get money. What does he do with the money?

Up to one half of the worker's wage or salary may be deducted before he gets the remains. Of the remains, he may spend more than half of that on interest for money that he has borrowed to "enjoy" a house in a good neighborhood, a good car, and the latest gadgetry of home entertainment. The "enjoyment" of this high standard of living may require that a spouse participate in the same quest for money. Most of his or their wages or salaries is expended for benefit other than his or their own. This is how the vast majority of workers, who produce nothing, are supported.

Government, at all levels in the U. S., is the largest employer employing over half of all workers. Retailing is the next largest employment industry. Advertising, entertainment media, banking, and gambling including investment banking, insurance, and the stock market as well as casinos are other industries that produce no life sustaining wealth.

It is easy to anticipate that human agents of the above institutions and industries will justify their employment as providing a "service." In some cases the service may be useful; in other cases, the service may be destructive. Tobacco is a destructive industry. Arguments are made that much of the entertainment media output is anti-social when it glamorizes smoking and violence.

Other arguments say that much of government programs designed to address problems are self-defeating; actually making the problems worse. The arguments have more than a little credibility; but, for the most part, the arguments are too narrow and ignoring of total context.

Of all human activities, the making of war is the most obscenely anti-social, destructive, and wasteful. Yet, human agents of this colossal mass murder and infrastructure destruction are accorded hero status. No one personifies this lunatic element of culture more than two "heroes" of Desert Storm, Colin Powell and Norman Swartzkof.

But war is good business. Production of war material and maintenance of war bases provides employment and pays wages for pure waste. Government borrows bankers' money to pay for war. Taxes are raised to pay the debt and interest. After the destruction of war, banks lend money that provides employment for rebuilding. Good business!

What are wars about in the first place? Partisan propaganda aside, wars are about getting or maintaining power over and control of wealth and people. It is the jungle mentality at its worst.

The ultimate cause of such behavior as war can only be a subject of speculation. One such speculation is that war appeals to or is a function of the human brain that developed in a jungle culture. Jungle culture is survival at all costs—competitive and brutal. The human brain has not yet adapted to conditions of technology that make brutish competition a danger to human survival.

Sometime it was discovered that cooperation could enhance competition. Humans began to form organized groups to enhance competition for food and the space that provided it. Organization required rules and leadership to prevent internecine competition and enforce cooperation. Eventually tribes formed led by lying, manipulating egomaniacs and psychotics. Tribes evolved into nations led by the same types.

It is also an observable attribute of the human brain that it is vulnerable to simple, often mystical or superstitious explanations for unkown causes of visible effects. Gods were a convenient explanation for any unknown. Lying manipulators found a powerful abstraction with which to manipulate ignorant masses of people.

Sacrificing and tithing later adopted by secular manipulators as taxes became a way of fleecing the productive people for the benefit of parasitic, elite priests and kings.

As science developed and advanced human knowledge of the physical world and made storage and rapid dissemination of knowledge possible, scepticism of god mysticism and magic developed. It also became possible to produce more life sustaining wealth than could be used.

In order to maintain power and control, manipulators needed newer and more sophisticated abstractions. Today, it is economics mysticism based on money. Economics is the new god. Money is the tool of control.

Cui bono?

Do mothers who abandon their children to participate in the quest for money benefit? Do their children who become anti-social monsters and carry guns to school and shoot their peers and teachers benefit?

Who benefits are the creators of money who use the remainder of society as their wealth farm. They are such a small fraction of the population that they must maintain layers of protective sycophantic government agents, irrational economists, and thugs willing and able to use force when necessary to protect them. The nonproductive sycophants benefit, too.