The power of faith in economics

I have long found the similarities between economic systems and religion fascinating. For example, the Orthodox Church has centuries of history as the state religion in the former Soviet Union. The Russian Tsar was crowned by Moscow's Patriarch and thus was assumed to be divinely appointed to rule. Thus, when the Bolsheviks came to power they had to find a way to get the mostly uneducated peasants to accept their newly proclaimed authority after they had killed God's supposedly anointed ruler.

Marx had stated that religions were the opiate of the masses, however, Soviet Communism, ironically, would borrow many of the symbols of Orthodox Christianity in order to propagate their beliefs. And in so doing simply became the new state sanctioned religion.

Thus, communism attempted and succeeded in the major cities, less so in the countryside, to replace Orthodox Christianity as the new religion of the people. Any belief system works similarly, in that it only works as long as the people have faith in the system, and are willing to contribute to its propagation. I had a Russian professor who traveled and studied in the Soviet Union several times, and I remember a story he told us about his observations throughout the years of going there. He said up to the late seventies people still for the most part seemed to believe in communism as a superior economic system, and they worked for the betterment of the society and towards the triumph of communism throughout the world. However, when he went back in the eighties he said he noticed that many people had stopped working as hard at their jobs and didn't seem to care as much anymore about espousing the benefits of communism. Thus, their faith in the system had begun to wane, and while there are many reasons which led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, I think people's faith in the system was a large factor in communisms demise.

Similarly bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies operate on faith, fiat currencies for that matter also run on faith. People believe that they offer value, and so they gain value. Thus, even though much of the price fluctuations in bitcoin and other currencies are due to speculation. We shouldn't overlook the role that belief plays in their current valuations. So, in a way currencies be they digital or fiat are in fact similar to religions in that the more people that believe in them, the more influence they have on the world.