Meaning of "altar"

1. Does "altars" here mean "tables"?

2. Does the orange sentence imply that it is the the profit that wants to create for itself a model or is it a model that wants to create profit for itself?

3. Does the green sentence mean "on the other differentiates itself, separates itself, stakes claims, and branches out"?

4. What does the pink sentence actually mean?

Context:

Thomas Hirschhorn's work World Airport features a crudely rendered miniature fleet of jet airliners, each emblazoned with a national-airline logo such as British Airways or El Al, positioned on a makeshift tabletop tarmac. A snaking tinfoil branch or artery connects these objects with the “altars”—one is “sporting,” crowned with an enormous pair of Nike high-tops; others are dedicated to the philosophers Georges Bataille and Gilles Deleuze—and air-route maps posted around the rest of the exhibition space. Information on regional conflicts in Kosovo or Rwanda, and additional texts written in various languages about the installation by different art critics, are taped to walls or left on chairs for viewers to “take away.” Hirschhorn sees these knots of models, altars, and textual information as representative of global networks that continue to mutate and otherwise grow unchecked in the pursuit of profit. He writes:

profit, which wants to create for itself a model on one hand, and which differentiates itself on the other, separates itself, stakes claims, branches out […] There’s no confrontation or reinforcement; what happens is simply an interbreeding without confrontation […] One’s head spins, one’s consciousness goes to sleep and the force dies away; it’s the mergers of the multinationals on the one hand, and regional wars on the other!