Forget land, labour and capital—BELIEFS are the supreme economic production factor

Beliefs are the first step in any economic activity. How and why do they matter, and how do we sustain the most useful beliefs?

“We are not members of a democracy Father. We are members of an order”
— Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, in The Mission (1986)

Not long after the above line is spoken in the classic 1986 film The Mission, we see the transformative effects of that order on the indigenous tribes who were contacted by Jesuit missionaries and began adopting their bel…