Progressive economics

[Edward theurj Berge]

I referenced this site, Kick if Over, in my last post in the Rifkin thread. Like Rifkin it's a different way of looking at economics and a way that might well be considered an advance in developmental terms. Here's the introductory blurb. There are quite a few articles and lots of references, links. etc. And certainly food for thought and discussion here.

"Adbusters invites economics students around the world – especially PhD students – to join the fight to revamp Econ 101 curriculums and challenge the endemic myopia of their tenured neoclassical profs. Read some of the introductory articles, check out the latest dispatches on our blog, then download the Kick it Over Manifesto (and other posters) and keep pinning them up in the corridors of your department. Get a small group together and start jamming! Put your university at the forefront of the monumental mindshift now underway in the 'science' of economics."

[Kevin J. Bowman]

Dear theurj,

 

When I wrote about Chomsky in my article, ''Integral Political Economy," the implication was that one may have an adequate theory of hierarchy for individuals in the linguistics learning line while not having one for organizations and society in the political-economic learning line. I never claimed Chomsky was at the green stage in the linguistics line. How do you make that leap? Nor did I try to peg his specific level of development in the political-economic line. I merely pointed out the problem with his nearly total focus on the shadow aspects of the political economic system. He gives very little attention to empowering the healthier aspects of the private and public sectors. What support do you have for Chomsky's taste for liberterian socialism? Does his justification for it represent a way forward? As I wrote, his clarification of the shadow elements are helpful. Yet they are incomplete as a direction for empowering the elements of the system that do work.

Thank you for reading my paper,
Kevin Bowman

theurj said:

In p. 2 of this thread I brought in Kevin Bowman and questioned some of his apparently kennilingus-biased interpretations. As one brief example from the referenced article he's talking about Chomsky's criticisms and solutions emanating from stage 5 pluralism, which “fights dominator hierarchies without acknowledging growth hierarchies” (24). Has Bowman never heard of Chomsky's famous hierarchy of grammar? Even the most rudimentary exploration of Chomsky cannot miss this significant contribution to linguistics, that is, if one spent the 2 minutes to find it without proceeding with preconceived blinders. This is part of Chomsky's “universal” grammar which is not culturally constructed and is not part of the supposed pluralistic wave's inability to make such non-relativistic stances. According the Chomsky's wikipedia entry, even “some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results”* in this area.

 

There is much, much more criticism that can be leveled against Bowman's acceptance of this faux green meme representation but I'll leave it to each of you to explore it. As just one source see Natasha Todorovic's Spiral Dynamics take on from where this green meme nonsense comes. One excerpt:

 

“Ken Wilber's Boomeritis...has confused orange, green and yellow. Whereas he criticizes something he calls the “mean green meme” he uses orange v-meme descriptors to make his case suggesting he's not clear on the differences between green and orange. Then, when it comes to yellow, he uses green value system descriptors as a contrast, again confusing green and yellow. Wilber applies an inappropriate term to the behavior and thinking of those who cannot be described in those terms" (12).

 

Also see their Boomeritis FAQ and Ray Harris' "Rescuing the green meme from boomeritis" and part 2 of that essay.

 

* Granted there is contention about this in the field from the likes of Lakoff, for example. But that's another story for another day.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Hello Kevin and welcome. As for what Chomsky contributes to a better system instead of mere criticism, take for example this post referencing his liberal socialism. Also follow the link in the post for his analysis of Adam Smith in support of his position. And this post, where he prefers economic democracy as a 'higher-level' solution (my, not his, frame). It might help you to get a feel for an overall flavor of my view(s) on such topics by seeing a few threads here, like "integral global capitalism" for the criticism, and for 'developmental' solutions see threads like "Jeremy Rifkin" and "eco transitions." You'll find much akin to Chomsky's economic democracy in both.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Link above for integral global capitalism is wrong, this is correct.

[Kevin J. Bowman]

 

Thank you for the links. The views of Chomsky's relayed in those links are consistent with my characterization of sophisticated radicalism (in my IPE paper), i.e., the need for greater stakeholder balance. What I criticized in Chomsky's view, as you may recall, is his underlying root cause of what he calls state capitalism. For him the root problem is consent manufactured by the elite. Although this is partially true in my view, my point is that Chomsky does not give enough attention to the egocentric and ethnocentric tendencies within all major stakeholder groups that led to, or remake, this relatively pathological version of capitalism that he is describing. The average voter, union member and leader, middle manager, business executive, banking CEO, currency trader, consumer, ideological economist, and so on contribute by looking out for their short term interests with limited consciousness rather than demanding leaders with sound solutions. Immature conservatism/liberalism/radicalism are typically used to deflect the blame of each stakeholder group. The immature/mature (I/M) fallacy describes the common arguments used which lack theoretical and empirical support. The fallacies act as a cover to avoid difficult behavioral adjustments for each group. Chomsky said greater democracy is the solution. At a more fundamental level, I think our democracy requires healthier discourse to overcome these fallacies. For this, mature agents should work to lead the various stakeholder groups they find themselves in. How else can we change the system?

 

In my paper, Holarchically Embedding Integral Political Economy, I add the elevationist version to the reductionist version of the I/M fallacy. There I also describe (as in one of your links) how A. Smith is taken out of context. See for example Universalism versus the Fallacy of Implied Universalism and the section on reconciling various schools of economics by quadrant, level, and political-economic type. The name IPE is in part an effort to include the deeper vision of the early political economists. This paper came out this past June (2011) in the J. of Integral Theory and Practice, Vol. 6, No. 2.

 

I hope to read the other posts to get a better understanding of your views. Today I had time to focus on the Chomsky stuff.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I, and I would guess most here, do not have access to JITP without paying fees. If you are interested and able would you care to post your referenced article form the 6/11 JITP here via attachment for us to read and comment upon?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Also briefly perusing this thread there is quite a bit of good stuff to consider.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Christian Arnsperger reviews Integral Economics in the March 2012 issue of the Intergral Leadership Review. The book is by Lessem and Schieffer, which was discussed earlier in this thread. Arnsperger's work was also discussed above, as well as a thread specifically devoted to his work. An excerpt of the review:

“What is problematic is that one of the paths – namely, the Western path of private enterprise and finance – has effectively silenced the others and deprived them of a distinctive voice on the global scene.... The widespread claim that 'There Is No Alternative' (TINA) to private-capital driven trade and finance globalization...is based on a stark form of cultural and spiritual reductionism.... Lessem and Schieffer very interestingly trace this imperialistic worldview to a powerful process of intellectual and spiritual repression within Euro-American economic thought itself....the 'Western' living economy itself, characterized by organic dynamism and the flourishing of personal initiative, has been distorted beyond recognition by mainstream economics’ focus on a very narrow set of assumptions (isolated agents, instrumental rationality, static equilibrium, etc.), agency principles (cognitive minimalism, insatiable wants, inability of agents to criticize the economy they live in, no existential or spiritual self-perception, etc.), and institutional settings (capitalist markets, statist 'top down' public sector, a single all-purpose currency, etc.). So when a Western economist looks at her own intellectual tradition and realizes its impoverishment, she shouldn’t be to surprised by the fact that, having been spread over most of the planet in the form of policies and regulations, this impoverished tradition also causes poverty and inequality worldwide due to capitalism’s inability to distribute incomes well and to the market’s incapacity at taking everyone’s interests into account.”

[Edward theurj Berge]

Arnsperger is also the co-author of a new book, Money and sustainability: The missing link. See his blog for details. A few chapter headings caught my attention: III.1, The emergence of a 'global casino'; III.4, A solution: The privatisation of everything?; V.4, An unrelenting concentration of wealth: The poor v. the super-rich; V.5, The devaluation of social capital: Why competitive behavior CAN overpower cooperation.

[Edward theurj Berge]

From the Foreward:

"We will never create sustainability while immersed in the present financial system....[it] is incompatible with sustainability in five ways: it causes boom and bust cycles in the economy; it produces short-term thinking; it requires unending growth; it concentrates wealth; it destroys social capital.... Informed observers of the 2008 crisis...believe that the causes of instability have not been changed. Indeed many of them have grown worse. There will certainly be another global financial disaster."

[Edward theurj Berge]

Gar Alperovitz and Thomas Hanna have a recent article in The Nation called "Beyond corporate capitalism." Therein they discuss public ownership of some large businesses, and how it would boost the economy. Of course conservatives will cry socialism but they are not suggesting all (or even many) businesses be publicly run. And who really cares what conservatives say anyway? I say it's time to own the label under the moniker democratic socialism, and be proud of it. But that's me, not the authors.

One industry considered for public ownership is banking. Currently five giant banks own more that one-third of all deposits. They have thwarted every turn for tighter regulations due largely to their ownership of the banking committee (remember Dimon's blow job). They were responsible for the last meltdown and another is forthcoming due to still gambling with the same instruments. During the bailout we had an opportunity to make those banks publicly owned but blew it. Interesting enough, this argument was put forward by the conservative Chicago School of Economics. We already have three huge publicly-owned entities that are doing well: medicare, social security and the VA health system.

"Public enterprises do not spend large amounts on advertising or brokers’ fees to sell their products. They do not add a profit margin to every service they provide or article they sell. Nor do they pay exorbitant executive salaries.... Private companies also all too frequently run off to China or Mexico looking for cheap labor, leaving behind unemployed workers and wasted cities. Public enterprises stay here, maintaining jobs and sustaining rather than abandoning our communities. Public enterprises do not force cities and states to pay millions in 'incentives' to encourage them to locate in a particular area—often only to move on later, leaving discarded people and deteriorating schools, houses, roads and public services. Also, public enterprises do not spend huge amounts of money undermining the political process through extensive pro-corporate campaign advertising and lobbying. And public corporations are open to public scrutiny, while private corporations keep most of their internal decision-making secret."

Please see the rest of this interesting article.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I just discovered this site, the integral economist (group epignosis). There's quite a few models and contributors included, some of those in this thread.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here is one democratic socialist take consistent with some of my recent blog posts:

“The really inconvenient truth is that there is no possible way to accomplish any, much less all, of these things [see article] other than by breaking with the underlying logic of the accumulation of capital.... What is required both for long-term human survival, and for the creation of a new condition of 'plenitude,' is a smaller ecological footprint for the global economy, coupled with a system of comprehensive social, technological, and economic planning—one that is of, by, and for the people [i.e., democratic]. It means abandonment of the myth of absolute economic growth as the panacea for all of society’s ills, and the downshift to a sustainable, steady-state economy rooted in the development of human community rather than individual accumulation."

Also recall this post on The Simpler Way. In this article on capitalism Trainer said:

“There is now a strong, indeed dominant tendency on the 'Left' to assume that globalisation is inevitable, that the market system is to be accepted and that the goal must be to work for a humane, re-regulated capitalism, or 'social-democracy' [not to be confused with democratic socialism]. The 'Third Way is about the acceptance of globalisation and capitalism but with the assumption that they can be made humane' (…'civilised' in Mark Latham’s terms.) Many within the anti-globalisation movement are only out to re-regulate capitalism, for example calling for fair trade. Fotopolous calls these people 'Left reformers' and distinguishes them from the currently small minority on the Left who believe that it is a fundamental mistake to assume that capitalism can be civilised and who insist that the goal must be to replace the system. Fotopoulos, and I are in the latter camp.... It is disappointing that so many of the people opposing globalisation and economic rationalism do not realise that trying to reform capitalism is utterly mistaken. What we have to be about is a transition to not just a non-capitalist economic system but to a very different culture in which the driving forces are not individualism, competition, growth and acquisitiveness. If we do not make this extremely big and difficult value change within a few decades we will probably find our selves in a very nasty new dark age.”