My two cents.

I was convinced that it was only Wall Street, with its agenda, that was advancing the concept of communism by fostering monopolies, promoting the formation of large, state-like corporations and dampering free enterprise. Democracy can, in fact, be unruly and, thus, can disrupt Wall Street's autocratic agenda. Democracy can also render the market "inefficient." As former U.S. president Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin, warned, the current y U.S. economic system threatens the "Capitalistic Democracy."

Now, a new book by Kevin Phillips ("American Theocracy," published by Viking) indicates that "radical Christianity" is also shaping contemporary American life in a dramatic and, I'd venture to say, interconnected way. It's what philosopher Karl Popper would have called "social engineering at its best."

Phillips is the former Republican strategist who, in 1969, published "The Emerging Republican Majority," the blueprint for a new and more conservative Republican majority that has dominated American politics for decades. ,,

According to Phillips, Christian Reconstructionists call openly for a theocratic government shaped by Christian doctrine."

My take on this is that it matches perfectly with the monolithic view espoused by Wall Street, in the sense that evangelical belief in the imminent rapture makes planning for the future unnecessary.

This explains Wall Street's obsession with quarterly reports to the detriment of the well-being of the companies and the Nation. This explanation however could have more to do with a socio-political strategy than with financial gains.

These two elements--Wall Street and radical Christianity--should be further explored because they take us to another aspect of the modern era, such as the role of the media in general.

One can see a continuing movement to reform the media laws, through Wall Street, so that media companies can be easily concentrated in fewer hands, and thus more controllable and, using Wall Street parlance, more "efficient."

The development of modern communications technology and the media (both well controlled) provides the tools through which social engineering can be carried out. We know that the largest scale examples of social engineering occur in countries with authoritarian or theocratic governments.

In Europe, we are also witnessing media concentration, but, as explained in U.K./U.S. historian Michael Burleigh's book "Earthly Powers" (Harper Collins), the clash of religion and politics makes Europeans believe that, if people take God seriously, they shouldn't try to shape society to His dictates.

But, the U.S. is different. History teaches us that what causes drastic change is not just one catalystic event but a combination of factors seemingly unrelated at the origin, in which, with hindsight, we discover a common thread.

At the Arlington, Virginia-based Arlington Institute, they call these "Wild Cards." Their researchers argue that unrelated Wild Cards can have synergistic effects. Naturally, one could easily fall prey to conspiracy theories and thus make the Wild Cards principles lose credibility. It is therefore important to stick to the objective facts while being concerned about their meaning.

This process could also be analyzed in the reverse. Let's look at five seemingly unrelated events: Media concentration; export of fundamentalism Islam from the Middle East to the West; Christian fundamentalist movement; and the Wall Street anti-competitive doctrine. All unrelated events at the source, but with a link that becomes more apparent when, from the origins, one moves to the present and tries to look at the future.

And the future is clearly moving toward monolithic entities at the corporate, social and political levels.

One way to stop the theocratic design by U.S. radical Christians is to break the pattern thus far created by restoring the media rules that separate content ownership from transport, prevent consolidation and limit media outlet ownership.