People underestimate the subtlety of inter-generational religious teaching on the collective subconscious. It's almost imperceptible, despite the fact that has profoundly shaped the way we live today.

If Group A is permitted to engage in an activity like usury and Group B forbids it, and the two groups continue to commingle, then Group A will slowly gain power by engaging in those activities while the handful of Group B members who try to do the same thing risk being social outcasts. Now compound this by a few thousand years.

The cattle have been given a set of religious teachings that consistently undermine and reinforce the undermining of their own power.