I think we need to step way back, to get a sense of what is going on.

As these sentient creatures, our minds pick out signals from the noise. Presumably what is most logical and useful, but we all know that's not how it really works.

It is the signals that most readily synchronize with our prior knowledge, supporting our beliefs, as we re-enforce and magnify those signals. Then we bond to those on similar wavelengths.

The effect, is the group, the tribe, the herd, the corporation, the social super organism.

Now as we all swirl around these vortices, the core of which, the grain of sand at the center of the pearl, the eye of the storm, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, are the ideals to which we all can identify. The creed, code, heroes, narratives, gods, goals, motivations, etc.

We refer to this as religion.

Yet this centripetal dynamic always exists in that larger field of energy, the noise from which we extract signals. Without noise, there is no signal.

While structure coalesces into these vortices, like matter into galaxies, much of it is broken down, as imperfect, unstable, insufficiently dense and radiated back out, as light, energy, noise.

What does actually fall all the way into the center of galaxies is shot out the poles as quasars. Which are like giant lasers and lasers are synchronized light waves. While it might travel billions of lightyears, it too eventually dissolves back into that ambient light.

Now the primary ideal of Western civilization is monotheism. Yet the universal is the elemental, not the ideal. Science looks to the elements, art looks to the ideals.

So a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement from which we fell. More that light shining through the film, than the narratives playing out on it.

Morals are not absolute, because if they were they couldn't be transgressed. Like a temperature below absolute zero. They are ideals. The codes and creeds that enable a healthy culture. Without that center of gravity, it will break down and dissipate. Tower of Babel. Ones that at their core must insist on collective responsibility, with rights as reward. "It takes a village."

Making rights ordained and responsibility optional, means everyone grabs their slice and runs. Tower of Babel

The problem with making some Almighty God the moral policeman, rather than a more evolved civilizational code, was that as fear of God died, the Will to Power rose to fill the void. Essentially might is right, as the only code. Leaving the amoral assholes in charge.

So now we are to the point the primary locus of the culture is the community tokens of exchange, the money. The medium has become the massage.

Yet a medium is not a store. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, the hall closet is a store. The average 5 year old can figure there is a difference.

So we have this system where the medium of exchange, the economic circulation system, is constantly being drained, to create those illusions of individual wealth, so ever more has to be added and ever more ephemeral methods of storing the excess have to be devised.

Storing the asset side of the ledger requires some form of debt on the other side.

In this communal super organism, government, as executive and regulatory function, amounts to the nervous system of the state, while money and banking serve as blood and the circulation system.

With public government and private banking, the banks rule. Less oversight, don't have to work around election cycles and control the finances of anyone running for office.

So the only real job those flunkies in office have, is running up the debt the banks need to grow metastatically. "The real money is in bonds."

The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.

Thanks to World War 2, as the largest public endeavor in US history, the military is the primary public works project all our oligarchs can agree to. So it is the only tool in the tool box, when the flunkies feel the need to act important. That's why they are out playing cowboys and Indians on the other side of the planet, while the country falls apart.

Where we go from here, is the question.

Russia and China basically went back to private government, with Putin and Xi as respective CEO's, to keep their oligarchs in check.

If we want to move forward, it will involve understanding that money is a public utility, like roads and banking has to be as public as government.

When the medium enabling markets is privately controlled, we are all tenant farmers to the banks.