Religions and Ideologies as Strategic Assets: A Supply-Demand Model of Belief Systems Across National Rise and Decline

This paper develops a macro-historical framework for the emergence, institutionalization, proliferation, fragmentation, and decline of religions and secular ideologies. It treats belief systems as equilibrium governance technologies that enable large-scale cooperation, legitimacy formation, and moral constraint when kin-based networks and informal reciprocity become insufficient. The framework models belief formation as a triadic supply-demand equilibrium among (i) the public, which demands justice (especially distributive justice), meaning, security, identity, and explanations of suffering; (ii) ruling authorities, which demand order, hierarchy, legitimacy, and mobilization capacity; and (iii) intellectual elites, which supply doctrines, rituals, interpretive schemas, and institutional designs. The supply-demand model yields testable hypotheses: belief systems tend to arise under crisis and coordination problems; codification and canon formation stabilize authority when actor incentives align; prosperity and intellectual specialization foster pluralization; fragmentation lowers institutional trust and state capacity; and crises of meaning resolve through reform, revival, replacement, or stagnation. The paper evaluates these claims through both supply-demand theoretical framework and comparative qualitative evidence across multiple civilizational trajectories and applies this framework to contemporary geopolitical competition, emphasizing ideological divergence within and between the United States and China. The analysis suggests that ideological capital, representing the level of belief system, is a strategic asset that conditions long-run state capacity, technological trajectories, and economic growth.