Reply to Bryan O'Doherty

See his Integral World article here which references me. My reply:

I suggest you also read my Integral World review of Rifkin's book on the Commons here,* wherein I said in chapter five:

“While the Internet of Things (IoT) is opening us again to more communal sharing, it is not a return to the kind that was pre-capitalism. Instead it is a concern with the balance between individual and communal, so that one can still have control over what private information one shares in social networks. We want to collaborate and share more, be more transparent than the capitalistic individualist, but also retain our private autonomy and property to some degree. Hence having some control over what we choose to share or not is a key security issue in the emerging IoT, as well as reflecting a worldview shift.”

Also this from chapter 16, showing that healthy capitalism is a balance of individual and social concerns. So it is not capitalism or individualism per se that I criticize, but what has become of both that have reached a highly dysfunctional state.

“In the Afterword Rifkin expresses mixed feelings for the end of capitalism. He appreciates the entrepreneurial spirit that animated it. He thinks that it is in fact the so-called 'invisible hand' and disagrees with Adam Smith that it involves pure self interest devoid of public concern. Such a spirit is driven by a need to create newer and better products and services to serve the public, which of course also serves one's own financial interests. And that capitalism was an appropriate and efficient response to the energy-communication regime of the times.”

Also in the Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality forum thread on this book** I noted the following on page 8 when it comes to individual/social, interior/exterior (see the actual post for links to the references):

“So it seems that the political and social revolution arises from the external socio-economic system, the mode of production. This agrees with at least that part of the Wilber that spoke to this as the predominant way most people move into a new level overall. Where it differs with him is that the latter thinks it's more developed individuals that create the new systems from the inside out. It seems it's more individuals being affected by the emerging tech and modes of production that then instills the value logic.

“It's similar to the point I made here about successful trans-partisanship being accomplished not by having a 'higher' model to which one must conform, but by the actual practice of operating within the socio-cultural practice of democracy. This is what transforms individual operators to have a value logic supporting the notion of the public good in distinction from the dysfunctional notion of individuality espoused tireless by the regressive capitalists that prefer oligarchy. Again, it's the social practice that inculcates a working trans-partisanship for democracy against oligarchy, where the Wilber inside-out model has yet to have even a miniscule effect on this stated goal.

“I know, the Wilberian might argue it's not one creating the other, it's all of them tetra-arising at the same time. But as another example, Habermas using Mead determined that it was the cultural system that creates and inculcates the individual ego in the first place. Without it, despite the hardware, one remains an egoless wolf boy. Vygotsky's work supports this notion as well. They directly contradict the Piagetian notion of inherent inner structures that shape external stimuli to fit that structure. It's a very metaphysical system that I examined in depth in the real/false reason thread.

“And again, it's not that the inner/outer, individual/social all tetra-arise simultaneously. That certainly provides for a nice apparent 'balance,' but again it's an imposed systemic assumption that presupposes such a balance that does not match the empirical facts on the ground, but instead tries to match the facts to the created metaphysical system. It is a hallmark of the capitalist system to do exactly that as elucidated in many places, this being but one example.”

* http://www.integralworld.net/berge7.html
** http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/the-zero-marginal-cost-society-by-jeremy-rifkin