Still more on anti-capitalism

Continuing from the last post:

Neale: In Second Tier you are not trying to negate another's right of passage by being anti- their due process. As I said above, Second Tier can take steps to facilitate another's right of passage, such as opening the way for an easy transition from capitalism to positive Green alternatives, thereby helping prevent the negative Green formations that are the "anti" reactions to change. There is no place here for a Second Tier facilitator to be using "anti" language in this very delicate and nuanced process of trancending/including and transcending/replacing.

Me: We still have to have laws that enact the highest level in transitional structures. I agree with Wilber again in his statement "The war in Iraq." It addresses that we can support one's development in lower stages in terms of basic structures, but at the same time enforce exterior law from the highest transitional structure. You're associating the word 'anti' as a blanket that denies the former and that's not necessarily the case. And not so in this case.

Riane Eisler has an interesting take on capitalism. Wilber got from her the idea of actualization and dominator hierarchies. The former are when the poles like male/female etc. are balanced in partnership, the latter when one, usually male, takes dominance. Eisler thinks certain periods then are not continually evolving but in some cases devolving. Capitalism with it's unbalanced dominance on the individual (usually male) can be seen in this light as a regression instead of an evolutionary step forward. I've often wondering whether capitalism is a continuation of the feudal system and functionally unfit to coordinate with democracy. Democratic economics would be the more functional fit with a democratic politics. That capitalism currently dominates our political system as an oligarchy seems to support that view.


Camosy: An integral point of view on neoliberal capitalism would be post-capitalism. If you look at the results of such efforts as micro lending, "conscious capitalism" starts to look like a version of trickle-down spirituality. Since we all are in the same boat - we share space within the same LL & LR systems and networks, integral action is not merely a case of gently encouraging some kind of growth to goodness model. There IS a place for an Integral form of resistance, hacking, and negation - working to accelerate the deconstruction, delegitimization, and dissolution of harmful structures.

However, I do expect that the main sentiment at the ITC will be to DOUBLE-DOWN on Conscious Capitalism. It should be an interesting debate! smile emoticon

Neale: Integral praxis deals with every level of the spiral, for a whole and healthy spiral. The scenario I presented to Zak is a situation happening now, in Green, with Bernie Saunders. And so in the spirit of Integral making an impact, how can Bernie's political agenda - in dealing with out of control capitalism - go Integral at that Green level, to integrate capitalism at Green without causing disruption in the rest of the spiral. It is time for Integral to start proving itself at ALL levels of the spiral, and I think this is a great opportunity to make an impact, make a difference in the "real" world. It's called right action in Green.

Corbett: i think to suggest we shouldnt be anti-capitalist and should give the plutocrats a chance to come around on their own to a voluntary surrender of power and wealth is naive in the extreme, revealing the bourgeois origins of such sentiments. having said that, i think the integral orthodoxy would like it, and that they would probably make such an argument themselves. sorry, lex.

Roy: Lex Neale does have a point, in saying that an integral approach would include conscious capitalism, and build from there. This is a prime example of the limitations of integral systems thinking which has a strong (should I say exclusive?) developmental bias. When we are thinking of individual persons, the developmental systems narrative is adequate. But when we are thinking of social systems -- of populations and network effects, of complex adaptation of societies of members -- developmental logics is not only not adequate, but a serious category error. We need to switch to evolutionary thinking, of thinking of emergence.

Here is the difference. Developmental logics says that the next higher form is built upon the most recent form (the current highest level). This is the natural hierarchy of development - I have to be 2 feet tall before I am 3 feet tall. I have to be a systems thinker before I am a meta-systematic thinker. Natural hierarchies are somewhat trivial, and therefore they are not problematic.

In evolutionary ecology we see something drastically different. We see that time and time again, the next higher form represents a radical disconnection from the current higher forms. Evolution builds on/ works on flexible, maximally adaptive forms, not on highly evolved, highly interdependent forms. The more interdependent the form, the more interconnected the system, the less it can adapt (because the entire system has to shift all at once). Therefore, evolution proceeds by disrupting that system entirely, by decomposing it down to minimally viable forms, and re-booting the adaptive process.

Because late-stage capitalism is reaching an evolutionary apotheosis (you can prove this rigorously through panarchy theory and the fact that late-stage capitalism, as late-stage socialism, is the result of a long period of relying on K-strategies)... Therefore, the greater possibility is that capitalism as we know it will crash, that therefore, any more energy put into its survival (k-strategies) only pushes it closer toward collapse, In the wake of that decomposition, there will be many opportunities to re-compose what it is to be an economy, a people, an earth. This is either a post-integral position. Or a 3rd or 4th tier version of it.

Whatever we say here, won't make the final difference. What is MORE real has the MOST chance of becoming the case. The only difference is who gets to look back and say "I told you so."