How are fundamentalist religious movements a threat to the expansion of capitalist culture?

Question

How are fundamentalist religious movements a threat to the expansion of capitalist culture?

Answer 1

Well, that entirely depends.

I can see how they can threaten some aspects of capitalism - capitalism is based on a dog-eat-dog world in which people are motivated by greed and the desire to come on top. Capitalism encourages materialism, coveting what others have achieved, etc. Meanwhile, most fundamentalist religions try to go back to the basics, which means rejecting greed and desire for others. They stress benevolence and humbleness. This is a problem in a world where capitalism breeds CEO's that make $100 million dollar pay checks off of the backs of the massive bottom tier work force, which is mostly made up of minimum wage workers that juggle 2 jobs and supporting their family.

At the same time, fundamentalist religious movements might fit part of the capitalist mindset, so it can go hand in hand as well. Fundamentalist religions are rooted in stratification - they believe they are right, that others are going to h**l, and they stress social categories. Women are usually objectified. Most fundamentalist religious movements are made up of primarily white congregates, which while unspoken, might carry an instilled tone of racism. Capitalism would not work if not for systems of stratification. In order for the privileged class - typically white, male, Protestant and inordinately wealthy - to remain on top, they know they have to keep others in their place.

Capitalist thinking is linked with the very fact we have such an enormous gap in American society, where there are 40 million people living in absolute poverty in comparison to the top 1% of income earners that own 90% of American businesses, land, buildings, industries, etc. While the Walton family, founders of Wal-Mart, had 5 members of their family in the top 10 wealthiest Americans of 2006 (each earning 15 billion dollars or more apiece), well over 50% of Wal-Mart's employees struggled so much on their minimum wage paychecks that they were on welfare - which forces lower and middle class taxpayers as a whole to pay for their supplemental income and health care, since the rich will stop at nothing to reduce the taxes they have to pay anyway.

Fundamentalist thinking, which inherently separates people into those that are "better" and "worthy" and those that are "lesser" and "unworthy" feeds into the capitalist system perfectly. It is easier for the most privileged people in a capitalist system to simply assume those below them just weren't smart enough or didn't try hard enough and that is why they make minimum wage while the privileged person makes billions. It's a lot harder to accept social responsibility and to face the social forces that allowed them to be privileged in the first place - all the times they were given a job or a scholarship over someone of another skin color or gender because of institutional racism, or maybe the fact that they were born to a wealthy white family rather than a struggling Hispanic one.