Or &quot;thou salt not covet&quot; was always bullshit no one really followed and used selectively to shame people who went against the church and to shame the people into tithing, shame the rich to giving up their estates to the church, protect markets&#x2F;vendors that the church has a stake in, etc.<p>As a student of history I find it amusing when people pick some golden period when things were better or when we look at written records uncritically. From what I can tell, human nature doesn&#x27;t really change and follows the types of algorithms evolution has inserted into other animals like following game theory-like tactics.