The Worship of Wealth
When it’s a question of money, everyone is the same religion
“Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.”
— Thomas Jefferson, 1810
“MAMMON, n. The god of the world’s leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.”
— Ambrose Bierce, 1906
Society, in its haste to worship the rich, has conflated wealth and morality.
We seem too eager to grant carte blanche to any moral transgressors, offering them special dispensation as readily as the Cardinal of the Diocese of Boston allows Catholics to eat corned beef on Friday March 17 during the season of Lent, as long as their offshore bank accounts have 11 figures, their company’s market cap stays in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and their yachts have room for dozens of guests, two helicopters, three speedboats, four bartenders, and a pony.
Throughout history, the tension between wealth and morality has manifested in various forms — from the venality of the Gilded Age to…
