The current incarnation is economics, which filled the control mechanism void vacated by religion after the Enlightenment. A bunch of arbitrary rules, conjured out of thin air by the ruling class, protected from scrutiny, and imposed upon the masses.

• Churches and cathedrals replaced with banks and financial institutions.
• Priests and clergy replaced with economists and finance officers.
• Mythology replaced with finance.
• God replaced with GDP.

This is not to claim religion and economics shouldn’t play a part in society, they can help with social cohesion and unifying groups for a common goal. My argument is that they should be subservient to the will and needs of the society they exist within, not positioned as their current dictatorial role of casting the societal mould.