What he realized, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion -- the only really felt religion -- that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers -- the elect, the money-priesthood as it were -- 'Thou shalt make money'; the other for the employed -- the slaves and the underlings -- 'Thou shalt not lose thy job.'
George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistras Flying (UK: Penguin, 1984 (1936))
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