He is one of the older generation of gods. He still remembers a young Zeus, sucking milk from the she goat. He can still tell of the terrible struggle between Mardukh and Tiamat, when Mesopotamia was young. The old gods laughed at him, called him a base merchant and a thief, and taunted him with their thunder. But he is alive, and they are dead, and the new generation of gods is more appreciative of his qualities.

He is the old god of the market. When Og of Bog met Gug of the cave people, and gave her an antelope for a shiny stone she found, he was there. When Odysseus the Greek came to Phoenicia to trade, he first paid homage in his shrine. People in barren areas ate thanks to him, and artists did great works of art because they knew he will provide for them.

At times he was depicted as a woman, with the scales which were considered, by mistake, the scales of justice. But then people saw that justice doesn't always prevail, and they broke the statues, and made new ones in which the goddess they thought represented justice was blindfolded. He is similair to the justice they imagined in a way, because he decides what will die out and what succeeds, but the merits he weighs are different, less abstract.

I remember reading in the history books about a Roman Emperor who tried to make war upon the market god. He decreed that all men shall continue the same career for all their lives, and that they shall be replaced by their sons after them. What was for the market god even worse, he decreed the prices will not change and will remain the same for all eternity. Not long afterwards the Germanic tribes came from the east, and no one tried to stop them, no one really cared, and the empire died.

There was little economic activity in the hard times that followed, when robbers and knights roamed the land and took whatever they wished by force. But when we started building our civilization again he was there, teaching people to take care of their own interests, helping to create peaceful societies once more.

Even the gods worship him. When the pollution king builds a new factory, when the goddess of knowledge publishes a new book, they pray to him to make their work succeed. He determines what will live and what will die, which ideas are good and which are bad, maybe even what gods will be worshiped. I work very hard in his service. He demands nothing less, but rewards me, for he knows if he won't I will work for him no more.

Support a free market in the field of government.

Ori Pomerantz is a computer professional who resides in Israel. However, he is a citizen of the Free State of Mind.