Integral Global Capitalism

[Edward theurj Berge]

As some of you know, I am boycotting the Integral Conference because of I-I's unabashed promulgation of global capitalism. (See for example our prevous discussion on Integral Capitalism.) In that regard see Daniel Gustav Anderson’s “Sweet science: A proposal for integral macropolitics,” Integral Review, 6:1, March 2010, pp. 10 - 62. An excerpt:

 

“I will retell Wilber’s ontology…in order to demonstrate the political significance…which coincide with the particular social regime (or in Wilber’s terms, the “telos”) it expresses, integrated global capital (Guattari, 2000). My purpose is not to explicate the flaws in Wilber’s logic or demonstrate his misreadings of particular texts; such exegesis has been taken up elsewhere; it is instead to suggest ways in which Wilber’s holarchy flickers or mechanically reproduces in the field of metaphysics and spiritual aspiration the social and political structures of late capital, which are not integral at all. Further, because Wilber’s holonography reproduces the present political order and forecloses any legitimized means of transforming its problematic terms of exchange, the unevenness of its development (as I will show), one may plausibly claim that it is not a transformative model but a conservative one in the last analysis, where conservatism is understood as an attempt to maintain the status quo for its own sake” (23-4).

[Edward theurj Berge]

People become loud and bitter when they feel they are not being heard or their position is weak (as if emotion will shore up their argument).

Funny, thanks for the humorous insult. As usual though you are wrong, as there are other and better reasons for getting acrimonious which obviously escape you. As for emotion, perhaps a review of the real and false reason thread might enlighten you? Naw, didn't think-feel so.

[Edward theurj Berge]

So the point I am making is our “white” population was made by ethnic waves of poor immigrants (If you were somewhat wealthy and not being persecuted because of your religious beliefs or ethnicity, why would you leave your country?). When each new ethnicity came to the US they became the low man on the totem pole and settled into their low income ethnic part of town (this is well chronicled). So it takes longer for the newest poor immigrants to gain an economic foothold in the US economy and meld into the pot and accumulate wealth. Also many immigrants distribute what wealth they accumulate in the US to family back in the motherland. Because other countries have a more pure ethnicity, ethnicity or language, etc. is not a barrier to the distribution of wealth like it has been here in the US. Cappice?

Oh yeah, I get it alright. It's just programmed nonsense though, as if the ethnic poor in this country really have equal opportunity for wealth given enough time? You are so sold on this mythic meme that I'll just leave you to it.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Recall David Loy's comments on page 1 of this thread. He wrote an interesting essay back in '97 called "Religion and the market." Therein he referenced Max Weber, an early favorite of KW. An excerpt:

"The scholar who did the most to uncover the religious roots of market capitalism was Max Weber. His controversial theory not only locates the origins of capitalism in the 'this-worldly asceticism' of Puritan ethics but suggests that capitalism remains essentially religious in its psychological structure. According to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Calvinist belief in predestination encouraged what became an irresistible need to determine whether one was among the chosen; economic success in this world came to be accepted as demonstrating God's favor; this created the psychological and sociological conditions for importing ascetic values from the monastery into worldly vocations, as one labored to prove oneself saved by reinvesting any surplus rather than consuming it. Gradually this original goal became attenuated, yet inner-worldly asceticism did not disappear as God became more distant and heaven less relevant. In our modern world the original motivation has evaporated but our preoccupation with capital and profit has not disappeared with it; on the contrary, it has become our main obsession. Since we no longer have any other goal, there being no other final salvation to believe in, we allow the means to be, in effect, our end.

"Weber's sociology of religion distinguishes more ritualistic and legalistic religions, which adapt themselves to the world, from salvation religions more hostile to it. Salvation religions are often revolutionary due to the prophecy that motivate them, and missionary because they seek to inject a new message or promise into everyday life. Their efforts to ensure the perpetuation of grace in the world ultimately require a reordering of the economic system. Weber noticed that adherents of this type of religion usually 'do not enjoy inner repose because they are in the grip of inner tensions.'

"This last point, which not only describes Puritan thisworldly ascetics but reminds us of our own situation, suggests that market capitalism began as, and may still be understood as, a form of salvation religion: dissatisfied with the world as it is and seeking to inject a new promise into it, motivated (and justifying itself) by faith in the grace of profit and concerned to perpetuate that grace, with a missionary zeal to expand and reorder (rationalize) the economic system. Weber's arguments imply that although we think of the modern world as secularized, its values (e.g., economic rationalization) are not only derived from religious ones (salvation by injecting a revolutionary new promise into daily life), they are largely the same values, although transformed by the loss of reference to an otherwordly dimension.

"Our type of salvation still requires a future-orientation. 'We no longer give our surplus to God; the process of producing an ever-expanding surplus is in itself our God.' In contrast to the cyclic time of pre-modern societies, with their seasonal rituals of atonement, our economic time is linear and future-directed, since it reaches for an atonement that can no longer be achieved because it has disappeared as a conscious motivation. As an unconscious incentive, however, it still functions, for we continue to reach for an end that is perpetually postponed. So our collective reaction has become the need for growth: the never-satisfied desire for an ever-higher 'standard of living' (because once we define ourselves as consumers we can never have too much) and the gospel of sustained economic expansion (because corporations and the GNP are never big enough)."

[Joseph]

Great Article on Adam Smith. A few months back I watched the BBC series A History Of Scotland on DVD. There was an episode called The Price Of Progress about the influence of the enlightenment & the rise of the mercantile class in Scotland. Adam Smith is portrayed as originally being a believer in the invisible hand of the market as a regulating principle. As time went on however, he became disillusioned at the greed & ruthlessness of the wealthy upper classes. It was then that he wrote The Wealth Of Nations. How ironic that his work has become the idol of the religion of the free market.

Here's a  link to A History Of Scotland. There is also an episode about the benefits & limitations of British socialism in Scotland.

 

theurj said:

Here's an interesting article called "Was Adam Smith anti-capitalist?" It explores several historians that dispute how Smith has been used to support the type of corporate global capitalism being espoused today. Recall that Chomsky calls is state capitalism and that it has no relation to Smith's ideological capitalism. For example:

"One study summarizing the findings of those who have read The Wealth of Nations concludes that Adam was actually opposed to official Smithian dogma in at least seven ways:

1. Adam was pro-labor and had a negative view of labor-masters
2. Adam distrusted and denounced the capitalist class
3. Adam argued against special corporate privilege and called for the dissolution of corporations
4. Adam argued for investment at the local or domestic level and decried globalization
5. Adam advocated taxing the rich to give to the poor
6. Adam observed that state power could be used to protect human rights
7. Adam looked to government-supported education to mitigate the effects of the division of labor

[36hot9t8hcdap]

LOL

The latest rubbish emailed by Integral Life.com

 

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[Balder]

Yes, I got that and thought, Oh, no, they're beginning to follow the Holosync business model.

[e]

Oh yeah, I get it alright. It's just programmed nonsense though, as if the ethnic poor in this country really have equal opportunity for wealth given enough time?

Will they have a better chance here or in a 3rd world country? Where will their children have a better chance? I am simply saying any form of Green will have its basis or support in Orange. You can't have Green emerge without some sort of stable Orange. (You can't sit around the coffee shop reading the Communist Manifesto on your Kindle without someone footing the bill for the coffee or the Kindle or your education. You can't have a coffee shop without stable Blue). Isn't that the basic premise of integral (Yellow)? All the memes are recognized as having value within context. What is healthy Orange for you personally Edward? How have you embraced and integrated that meme into your life in the 2 lower quadrants of culture and society?


Some similar themes we have chatted about in this thread.
Americas Next Chapter - 3 days starting on the Jan 19th.

[36hot9t8hcdap]

"you can't have Green emerge without some sort of stable Orange."

 

my understanding is you need a stable now unstable Orange for Green to emerge.... but Orange none the less.

[Christophe]

Re: Eben Pagan

 

Oh my God. At first, I was like "Now Ken WIlber has lost his mind finally". My disgust only grow when I clicked at Pagan's video (what a name!). 15 minutes in, after I answered wrong to all three of his test questions, I started to doubt. 20 minutes in, he got me, I was ready to give him my vote. 30 minutes in, after him repeating and repeating the same old same old, he lost me again. But hey, I recognize well-done propaganda when I see one, and this right here just has the special extra 'je-ne-sais-quoi'. Chapeau.

 

This is all rather funny actually, but the Integral Life commercial blurb says something of a whole different caliber that I did not hear from Pagan (maybe I overheard it). It says:

'Relax-- and breathe into your checking account'

Holy Moses. I... don't know what to say. This is just ... oh my god. I really hope this is just a commercial metaphor, right? No wait. I can see it now: Millions of Integral Buddhists in the world RIGHT NOW sit on their Zafu, meditating about their checking account, breathing in good interest rates and letting go of the Crash and Bust Energy.

 

SCREEEAAAAAAAAAM!!!

 

This is such a gross denial of the very real underlying structural problems that I have a hard time not to faint.

Did I ever mention Pillipp Goodchilds 'Theology of Money'? Yes? What? It's even in this thread right here? O well then, alright. Nevermind.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Will they have a better chance here or in a 3rd world country?

But I never compared the chances of the impoverished from 3rd world countries to the US, but rather the US with those on the list from Europe, like Norway and Netherlands. I'd say given the distribution of wealth in those countries, with less disparity than the US, their chances are better. And that disparity, while it no doubt has something to do with what you said, likely has more to do with their social democratic orientation versus the state capitalist model.

Plus I don't deny, nor have I on this thread, the necessity of the previous economic structures as prerequisite for latter ones, or that they can be healthy in the appropriate time and context. I find Chomsky's view of Adam Smith, for example, to be a healthy capitalism. I find the capitalism of my youth to be more healthy, when folks like my parents actually could achieve the American dream through hard work. But that's long gone and the current state/corporate capitalism is so sick as to be heinously unjust. All I'm asking for is for so-called evolutionaries to promote the next phases and stages of economic systems, and I find Rifkin doing that.

[36hot9t8hcdap]

Balder said:

"Yes, I got that and thought, Oh, no, they're beginning to follow the Holosync business model"

.

.

Yer got to love those new entrance green Vmemer's ... solid orange cores with a thin green coating ..... a short of shitty brown colored result  ..... much like the stuff they are normally full of ...hehe

[e]

e : "you can't have Green emerge without some sort of stable Orange."

 

Mark: my understanding is you need a stable now unstable Orange for Green to emerge.... but Orange none the less.

 

Right, it's like being on 2 stools. We have Orange/green transitioning to orange/Green to Green/yellow, etc. According to SD people’s values transition based on a change in the Bio/Psycho/Social life conditions. I think AQAL would also say a culture has these same values (where would you learn them from?). So when I was saying Orange must be "stable" I was referring to the culture and not the individual. That is as cultures evolve, they retain vmeme contexts in which individuals act i.e. I can enact Red while playing ice hockey, Blue while obeying traffic laws while driving home, Orange at work, Green while making a car purchase, etc.

 

PS Really enjoyed Wei Wu Wei, particularly Open Secret. I recently picked up The Tenth Man by chance while I was in a bookstore in India.