Religion and Capitalism
How religious ideologies encourage our participation in capitalism.
When only 2,000 people have as much money and power as 60% of the rest of humanity (Oxfam), what compels workers to continue to show up for underpaid labor?
Marx argued that religion, as an ideology, maintains this system of inequality. In Marx’s view, those without wealth or power continue to work for low wages because they have internalized the idea that any type of work is, itself, an inherent moral value. Within a religious, capitalist culture, people work to benefit the rich because they believe that we will be rewarded in the afterlife.
Marx once described religion as “the opium of the people” which is a commonly cited and commonly misunderstood quote. Many dictatorial regimes have, historically, misappropriated this Marxist argument to justify a violent crackdown on religion in their countries (Eagleton 128). At the time of Marx’s claim, opium was legal and was widely used to relieve pain. So, he was not arguing that religion was some kind of addictive drug that people behave in an unreasonable manner. Rather, he was arguing that religion was a comfort to people who were suffering (Stein and Stein 18).
Marx’s exact quote on the matter is,
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a…
