Friday, February 12, 2016

Orange capitalism: and then what?

The new Integral Review is out and this article is of particular interest to this thread: "Orange capitalism--and then what?" It starts with a review of 2 books, Memenomics by Dawlabani and From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies by Scharmer. It then offers the author's own speculations on a turquoise economy. 

“So what is Dawlabani proposing as a solution and way forward for the American economy after this Orange collapse? Perhaps an economic system based on the Green 6th level value system?! Well, not really. […] There is no consistent and functioning Green vMeme economic system described or discussed here. Shouldn’t the Green economic system, whatever that is, have its cycle with all its phases? Shouldn’t stages not be skipped?! Instead of elaborating on a green system as a solution to the orange problems, Dawlabani moves on and proposes a Yellow system, which he refers to as Functional Capitalism. […] The Green value system, however, is in my view oversimplified. In order to integrate values at a higher level, the lower ones need to be accurately understood and described. And the key to do that, I believe, is to acquire a deeper understanding of the life conditions and problems that are associated with the Green value system and created by the Orange systems. Here I find the second book more elaborate” (131-32).


“Dawlabani sees the development of the US economic system in the last decades as in transition from blue to orange while Scharmer and Kaufer argues that it has moved from 2.0 (orange) towards 3.0 already after the great depression in the 1930’s and then regressing during the Reagan years. [...] Thus, their view of the current market oriented system as being a result of a regression is more problematizing than Dawlabani’s as they refer to 2.0 as an ego-system economy. […] Another inconsistency is that Dawlabani views the information revolution as belonging to the Green value system while Scharmer and Kaufer sees it as corresponding to Society 4.0 (the reverse relation holds to Google as a company that Dawlabani considers to be Yellow while Scharmer and Kaufer sees it as 3.0). (137-38).

On the last quote, I'm more in line with Scharmer in that the US economy has regressed from the 3.0 of FDR back to the neo-liberal/social democracy mix of 2.5. Sanders is trying to move it back to 3.0. I'm also more aligned with Scharmer that conscious capitalism is more 3.0, not 4.0. This seems a result of the skipping green syndrome noted earlier and conflating these levels.

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