Economics is the social control mechanism that filled the void vacated by religion after the enlightenment. A bunch of accounting rules cherry picked by the ruling class, protected from scrutiny, arbitrarily and inconsistently imposed on the masses, enforced by threat of violence.

Finance is its mythology. Banks are its cathedrals. Financial institutions its churches. Economists its clergy. GDP its God.

If religion is the opium of the masses, economics is their fentanyl.