Economics and Religion

I saw heard a discussion the other day about how religion affects our lives.  How even atheists and agnostics still hold a moral code based on religious teachings.  This hit home to me, and perhaps it even affects our economy. 

Religion, most if not all, feature at their very core a code of morals that the faithful subscribe to, whether consciously or subconsciously.  This code is how their parents discipline them, so even if a particular person denies any religious underpinnings, it just isn't so.  The United States was founded by primarily Christians, so our laws tend to follow the teachings found in the Bible.  Murder laws, theft laws, and even littering laws draw from the Christian "love thy neighbor" doctrine.

But it extends much deeper than that.  These morals are embedded even in our economic system.  Businesses that are moral would tend to succeed more often than immoral businesses.  This success is judged by how long they last, and how big they grow.  Consider the mafia for example, yes they have been around for a long time, but the individual players do not last long.  There will always be those who are lawless.  Now consider a company, no need to name one, but one that is listed on a stock exchange.  They have built their company through offering their neighbors a product or service.  They would have had to have cared, at least at one time for the outcome that product or service had on their customers, in other words, being a good neighbor.  Because of the intrinsic nature of our morals, people will talk and recommend companies that live by good moral standards.

And yes, good companies can go bad.  When that happens, they tend to wane and disappear from the scene.  Some might say they lost their sense of purpose.  And so our economic system is tied to religious morals.  But in the US we have separation of church and state, you say.  And you would be partly right.  The actual wording says that the state can not endorse a single religion, as did the British by making the Church of England the church of the land. 

What about the fact that there are many different religions and churches represented in America.  It seems if you study major religions, most have figured out that the same things, on the whole, are moral and one way or another have included them in their Holy Teachings.  While Buddhists may not have the Ten Commandments, they do have a code that encourages people to love one another in a similar fashion.

Is this good for society, or should we strive to throw off religion?  Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, and Marxism is basically an Atheistic system.  In the former Soviet Union, gangs are common, the black market is thriving, and intellectual theft is rampant.  In the west, where religion was not thrown off, we enforce laws that keep all those in check as much as possible.  Why invent something, if someone will steal it and undersell you?  Why write a book or music, if someone else steals it and doesn't care if you are paid for your efforts?

We need Priests, Preachers, Rabbis, and all other religious leaders so they can continue to promote a moral society.  A moral society can then produce products and services that fairly help all in that society.  So yes, we need religion!