The social necessity of God

There can be little doubt that as an ideology neo-liberalism is dead.  Yet its corpse lies heavy on us and while it is increasingly loathed by those trapped under it, it survives because it is held as a truth that there is no political alternative to it that isn't even worse.

With the continued impotence of the political Left in the West, it has been the Churches that have provided the only alternative vision.

God has been left as the only source of value that is not wholly compromised by neo-liberalism's relentless reduction of all life to the status of commodity, and the Churches left as the only organised radical opposition.

So how do the forces of neo-liberalism react?  Is there any connexion between the relentless reductionism of neo-liberalism and the relentless reductionism of militant atheism.  Perhaps not intentionally, and indeed some of those most hostile to religion regard themselves as politically Left wing, but they are fulfilling a crucial role for neo-liberalism by undermining the religious concepts that are challenging the dominance of materialist commodification. Their replacement of universal and authoritative 'values' with provisional, variable, transitory and consumer-based 'choices' fits neatly with the rule of the market and the supremacy of capital.