Does American capitalism still need God?

Yesterday (Internet news) I observed Russia's new Czar, Vladimir Putin, grand standing at a Unity Day parade with a guy in religious garb- who would seem ludicrously incongruous before atheist Lenin's tomb. Perhaps this guy was the Russian Orthodox Pope? Like the Emperor and Pope in the Catholic Middle Ages, Putin and this Orthodox Church religious leader need each other? Thus I wondered.

How odd that soon after the collapse of  atheistic communism in Russia the new rich in Russia feel a need for religious authority. A divine backup for dubious new Private Property Right?

Putin was educated under the old Soviet educational system which taught young Vladimir that "religion was the opium of the people".  Marx's "dialectical materialism" ruled out any need for God in the human social order.

According to the French philosopher Voltaire the French aristocrats - secretly non-believers themselves- wanted  the oppressed peasants to take Catholic priest-craft and dogma (which blessed earthly AUTHORITY) seriously. The Faith of millions kept THEM from getting their throats slit, so the privileges classes reasoned-before the 1789 Revolution.

Today in America we hear and read much about our ONE PERCENT plutocracy. In our secular country, religion and God seem to be under attack. Marx said that the ruling ideas in any social order were the IDEAS OF THE RULING CLASS. Question: Is the American ruling class now mostly estranged from the Christian faith of their ancestors? Are they closet atheists?

But you can still read on any dollar bill : "IN GOD WE TRUST". That still makes sense if the REAL religion of the American ruling class is global capitalism. And their God – MONEY !

This post was submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com