Why Does Capitalism Need Us to Remain Religious?
The Persistence of the Sacred: From Homo Religiosus to Global Capitalism
For religious historian Mircea Eliade, human beings cannot be fully understood as homo sapiens—the one who thinks—but as homo religiosus: the one who lives in search of meaning, guided by the sacred. This dimension is not limited to organized religions or belief in gods, but runs through human history as an essential need: to create symbols, construct foundational narratives, participate in rituals that interrupt banality and connect everyday life to something that transcends it.
The homo religiosus inhabits a world divided between the profane—the chaos, repetition, and meaninglessness—and the sacred—that which grants order, orientation, and value. Not guided solely by reason, but by mythical memory, ritual repetition, and identification with exemplary models. Such a person recognizes spaces charged with symbolic power, consecrated times, acts not done just because, but because they refer to a profound origin. For Eliade, this structure remains even in modern societies that proclaim themselves secular: the sacred does not disappear, it simply changes form.
This is why defining ourselves as homo sapiens is not enough. Thinking is not enough if that thought is not sustained by a horizon of meaning. Even when the dominant narrative tells us that we no longer believe, that we are rational and modern, we continue to organize our lives around symbols, rituals, and totalizing narratives. And if not through traditional religions, we do so—with equal fervor—through political ideologies, economic systems, or consumer cultures. The religious, as a deep structure of experience, persists.
Western Capitalism: The Religion of the Self
In Western capitalist societies, religion is not dead: it has been absorbed and recycled by the market. Where there were once gods, today there are brands. Where there were temples, now there are shopping malls. Ancient liturgies have been replaced by ritualized consumer events (Black Friday, sales), and old commandments by promises of self-actualization. The structures described by Eliade—myth, symbol, ritual, sacred time—are still present, but transfigured.
The dominant myth is that of the successful entrepreneur, the individual who, through effort, talent, and perseverance, "makes themselves." A narrative of personal redemption supported by a system that preaches individual freedom as the supreme value, even though in practice that freedom is deeply conditioned by class, gender, race, or place of birth. The symbol is no longer the cross or mandala: now it is the brand (Tesla, Nike, Apple). Success becomes a sign of salvation, of having reached that modern paradise where everything is possible and everything is permitted.
The current archetype is the charismatic entrepreneur, the visionary CEO, the lifestyle “influencer.” These figures act as models to emulate, often with almost messianic traits. Rituals are also present: consuming, producing, displaying, sharing. Daily life is organized as a chain of symbolic acts: from the morning coffee to the guided meditation on an app, from body worship at the gym to the race for likes on social networks. "Time is money," and the present is experienced as a transition toward a future that is always promised but never fully arrives. Social networks, with algorithms that reward image and exposure, become the new altars where the self is sacrificed to receive approval, visibility, and belonging.
And what remains of social well-being? Of personal fulfillment? In theory, liberal capitalism promises prosperity for all. Each individual should have the possibility to go as far as they wish, and the state should ensure a minimum of conditions for that to happen. But reality is less bright: what is often presented as freedom is nothing more than self-exploitation dressed as autonomy. The contemporary subject must constantly reinvent themselves, sell themselves, surpass themselves, with no safety net. Cyclical economic crises, growing inequality, ecological collapse, and the deterioration of mental health show that this “religion of the self” can be as demanding—and as cruel—as any theocratic system.
Well-being is reduced to what the market allows. If you can pay, you access. If not, the system makes you feel it is your fault, that you did not try hard enough. The promised paradise is always one step ahead. And that's enough to keep the cult alive.
China: The Myth of Returning to the Center of the World
Faced with this religion of individual desire that fragments everything, contemporary Chinese capitalism proposes a completely different logic: a religion of order, anchored in a collective narrative. At its core is a powerful myth: China's return to its rightful place as the center of the world. This idea, deeply rooted in national consciousness, is fueled by a historical wound: the so-called century of humiliations.
Between the mid-nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, China was looted, invaded, and subjugated by foreign powers. The British Empire, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and later, the United States, imposed unequal wars, abusive treaties, and territorial concessions, such as with Hong Kong. The Opium Wars, peace treaties drafted by force, spheres of foreign influence, and the brutal Japanese invasion during World War II fragmented the country’s political and symbolic body. That series of humiliations was not forgotten: it was transformed into a founding myth of national rebirth.
The Chinese Communist Party, far from rejecting that wound, incorporated it as the symbolic basis of its legitimacy. Its discourse does not revolve around individual freedom, but around the restoration of lost greatness. The market does not serve the individual, but the state and the civilizational project. Economic prosperity is not a promise of personal fulfillment, but a tool to recover the central place that, according to the official narrative, China should never have lost. Individual fulfillment only makes sense as it contributes to the collective destiny: that China once again occupies its place as the center of the world.