http://r2.ly/ahf9 is the post on Dave Winer’s Scripting.com blog,  where I made the following comment:

“the Invisible Hand is religion.”  I totally agree.  Unfortunately,  people also place their faith in it,  and the “faith verse” of the Bible “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” is what they seem to be doing (the “free hand or free market fundamentalists):  believing in something that all the real evidence is not showing us –ie that the market will magically arrive at what is best for all,  and overcome even greed—-I think we’ve seen that it is not.  They also seem to see something working that all the evidence also tells us is not happening:  that the more money the rich have, the more they will share with the rest of us in terms of jobs.  Nada.  Hasn’t worked in the past 30 years.   The hopeful thing is that the “substance of things hoped for” is alive in the movements that have been saying “enough” to the radical state governors and “don’t go there” to the Ryan plan and all those who voted for it.  If enough people see the threat to the “substance” of things every American (and human anywhere) should hope for,  then maybe there is a chance for “faith” that is focused on THIS world we’ve been put in rather than the “after” re: which you rightfully point out that “we don’t know”.  I’ve long believed that “the substance of things hoped for” is a communal urge and longing,  and this is the crux of change,  not the “free hand” which is just corporate speak for “leave us alone to do our thing”.   Sounds like you agree..

(clarification update:  There is obviously MUCH more to the “Faith is the substance of things  hoped for” verse than I cover in the above comment.  My emphasis there was on the “faith in a dogma” that is “Free Market Fundamentalism”…thus my use of the #freemarketFundamentalism hashtag. Also embedded in my larger sense of “substance of things hoped for” is the way I feel that the world at large has a “theology” and that it works against other “theologies” of dissenters to free market fundamentalism.  These dissenters have recognized the idol;  the “golden calf” of corporate greed and the PR efforts to disseminate this as “the way it is”.  So the corporations and their monied interests and think tanks devised to propagandize this “theology”  are the powers that seek to obscure and supplant  the efforts  of the dissenters to get  their message across. So,  it seems that “evidence” gets obscured and distorted,  and so the “evidence” is “unseen”.  But the “substance” of this dissent has a justice in mind,  and as it’s “guiding principle”.  Churches and “secular” movements have a shared “substance” there,  and this ,  to the detriment of American Christianity,  is obscured by the shouts of the Christian Right.  Christianity at its core is a community that confronts those powers  that be,  and speaks the truth to power.)