Wit & Attitude Quote by John Ralston Saul

Saul doesn’t just take a swing at bankers; he takes a swing at the moral self-image of modern capitalism. Calling them “pillars of society” is a deliberately oily compliment, the kind you’d find engraved on plaques at gala dinners. Then he yanks the rug: these pillars, he suggests, are structurally rotten. The line works because it treats respectability as a costume, not a character trait, and it implies that the public’s deference to finance is less earned than performed.

The kicker is the conditional theology: “if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.” Saul isn’t preaching; he’s mocking the way power structures borrow religious language when it’s convenient (trust, faith, duty) and dodge moral accounting when it’s not. By framing damnation as contingent on God’s existence and the reliability of scripture, he slips past piety and lands on something more corrosive: even our ultimate moral referee is, in a modern world, subject to interpretive doubt. That’s not relativism for its own sake; it’s a jab at the loopholes the powerful live inside.

Context matters: Saul’s broader work targets managerial elites and the hollowing-out of democracy by technocratic “common sense.” In that frame, bankers aren’t cartoon villains; they’re the most polished face of a system that confuses profit with virtue. The joke leaves a bruise because it hints we’ve built cathedrals for finance, then act surprised when they demand worship.