Loy wonders why we acquiesce in the appalling realities of global inequities and sleep so peacefully at night. He finds his answer in Rodney Dobell’s explanation that “lies largely in our embrace of a peculiarly European or Western [but now global] religion, an individualistic religion of economics and markets, which explains all of these outcomes as the inevitable results of an objective system in which … intervention is counterproductive.” Any intervention in the “world of business” is perceived as a threat to the “natural order of things,” a direct challenge to the “wisdom of the market.” He claims that: “The hegemony achieved by this particular intellectual construct … has become a dogma of almost universal application, the dominant religion of our time.” – Counterpunch

It is generally accepted in the mainstream media that the West runs on “capitalism” – that market forces determine sociopolitical and economic outcomes.

This view is…