the integral economist

Saving the City's Soul - Occupy (South East) Roanoke

2012-01-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

A Post-Recession Closeout? - "Occupy the Soul of America"

"Most of the homeless at the Mission are law abiding and hard working people who have encountered difficult circumstances and need a place to start over. They are 'invisible' because they look and act in ways that do not draw attention to themselves. I am hopeful this dialogue will produce creative solutions that will help all involved." Rescue Mission Director, Joy Sylvester-Johnson in "Neighbors Oppose Mission Expansion"

'The Enemy's Lies' - Is a Totalitarian America Imminent?

In a recent blog entitled, "A Leaderless Revolution", written and published at OpEdNews in support of Occupy (Roanoke), a section subtitled, Betraying Our Trust: 'A Crisis in American Leadership' presents a clear overview of homelessness in our city. Similarly, but citing an article published in June (see - 'American Psychosis') depicting political forms of neoconservative and neoliberal leadership as constituting two sides of "a single globalization coin" promulgating both corporatism and the privatization of property, I alluded to how these same "partisan values" are imbued throughout society and effectively, embodied by "the contemporary church" (1).

Roanoke City Council Present United Front

So too, as author of "In the Belly of the Beast - Report from a Homeless American", written only weeks after landing at the Rescue Mission in October of 2008; my tenure there since has served as a study in (alternative modes of postmodern) urban dwelling. Yet, and so as to not appear overly glib, I can attest that my experience has been anything but genteel.

Nevertheless, and over this same term, I've endeavored to serve the local community in a multitude of ways beginning more than two years ago by regularly attending Continuum of Care and RVARAC meetings in support of our region's homeless. I also initiated two websites for Roanoke's Central Church of the Brethren in the Fall of 2009, prior to launching City

of Peace and enlisting it to help coordinate our city's maiden BridgeWalk. During this time too, I played a contributing role in planning the organization and start-up of Roanoke Valley's Time Bank. More recently, and in addition to authoring three articles on leadership ("Tribal Leadership", "Integral Leadership in the New World Economy", and "A Leaderless Revolution"), I was afforded the privilege of coordinating and subsequently co-hosting, a Release Screening of 58: The Film at Green Memorial United Methodist Church this past October.

At the same time though, and while I'd be the first to acknowledge such efforts merely reflect an abiding passion for our amazing metropolis, extensive research and writing leads me to concur deeply with Amy Goodman and Chris Hedge's expressed sentiments to Charlie Rose about the Occupy Movement.

"America Sleeps While Cities, Middle Class
Disintegrate" - Lipton's "Collateral Damage"

Amy Goodman indicates that we are in the midst of a revolution. Chris Hedges describes this revolt as one that strives to regain democracy and is opposed to the current system of 'inverted totalitarianism'. It's not "classical totalitarianism. It doesn't find its expression through a demagogue or a charismatic leader, but through the anonymity of the corporate state . . . [In a system of inverted totalitarianism], 'corporate forces purport to pay a fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution, the iconography and language of American patriotism, and yet have so corrupted the levers of power as to render the citizens impotent. We see that in one piece of legislation after another . . . The formal structures of power are tone deaf . . . [Under the corporate state] there is no way to appeal to the system. It doesn't matter what the citizens want." quote from "Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges discuss #Occupy with Charlie Rose" (Vieth, 2)

Envisioning Sustainable Cities . . . Globally!

U.S. Federal Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

“The effects of current economic and monetary policies are starting to approach the level of genocide against large segments of society, if not in their intention, at least in their effects. Crime, health, and income statistics identify vast areas of both urban and rural environments as what have aptly been called ‘death zones’.” quote from Richard C. Cook's, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (p. 127) (3).

Yet strangely, where a globally centralized, debt-based monetary system is essentially 'the beast' behind the social and economic injustice against which the Occupy movement has so adamantly rebelled, practical resolutions aren't generally construed as being readily tangible. Fortunately though, but anticipating our world's present crisis more than four years ago, Richard Cook in We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform has proposed utilizing social credit in the form of a

basic income guarantee (BIG), rather than debt, to fill the current GAP between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Income. In a recently produced video from a 'teach-in' at Occupy Roanoke then, Richard explained how adopting his Gaia Plan would afford each of our planet's inhabitants a path towards 'economic self-determination' through the creation of 'subsistence income' (BIG) in the amount of $800 per month.

Innovation Resets Singularity - Fig. 4

Similarly, and as presented initially on this site in "Taking an Evolutionary Step . . .", Bernard Lietaer's academic group published their findings in 2008 announcing a remarkable breakthrough in 'sustainability theory'. As I later shared in a subsequent article at City of Peace entitled, 'Conscious Christian Leadership', a well qualified study had also concluded, "were it not for the generation of 'major innovation cycles' at 'a continually accelerating rate to sustain growth', those same systems become subject to the vulnerability of 'stagnation or collapse'."

The "Window of Viability" - Figure 2

In their own way then, these findings paralleled those of "Lietaer's team with natural ecosystems," where efficiency wasn't derived from "economies of scale as an arbitrary function of design. Instead, their study" reflected the fact that "systems not utilizing man-made, ultra-efficient (e.g. monopolistic, constrained) streams to control and distribute money, energy, water, or whatever," weren't necessarily "dependent on innovation for survival but rather, resilience." Consequently, the group's conclusions (4) resulted in generating "a single metric as an emergent property of (the ecosystem's) structural diversity and interconnectivity" which, in itself, constituted a sustainable balance between efficiency and resilience (Lietaer et al. 5).

Saving the 'Hood' - "What is emerging at OWS?" . . . Sustainable Communities!

John Fullerton: The Biospheric Reality from Katie Teague on Vimeo.
Consequently, but as John Fullerton, a former JPMorgan Managing Director concluded after visiting OWS himself . . . the fact that "participatory and deliberative democracy" emerged "as the movement's only initial priority" reveals Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is primarily "about taking back democracy." In that too, as he further notes, is something "serious" and "organic" but also consistent perhaps, with his own organization's (the Capital Institute) mission "to explore and effect economic transition to a more just, resilient, and sustainable way of living on this earth through the transformation of finance" (6).

"The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation." quote from Lietaer's (et al), "White Paper on All the Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis" (7)

Alternative Currencies: The Solution to the Economic Crisis

View more presentations from groupepignosis

At the local community level however, and as much of the foregoing content suggests, alternative currencies represent an especially viable means of fostering economic vitality. At least this was one of Richard Cook's central themes in his presentation of "Alternative Currencies: The Solution to the Economic Crisis?" at Roanoke's Main Library earlier this week. In addition to adapting alternative currencies to the specific needs of a local community's people (i.e. time banking), business and commerce (i.e. IRTA) though, community land trusts too, may prove a more feasible form of ownership in loosing the bonds of systemic dependency.

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Works Cited

1. McConnell, Brian. "A Leaderless Revolution: Occupy Economic Democracy - Part 1 of 2." (2011): OpEdNews.com, December 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.
2. Vieth, Erich. "Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges discuss #Occupy with Charlie Rose." (2011): Dangerous Intersection - Human Animals at the Crossroads, October 2011. Web. 20 Jan. 2012.
3. Cook, Richard. We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. (2009): Tendril Press. Print.
4. McConnell, Brian. "58: Conscious Christian Leadership." (2011): City of Peace, 30 September 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012.
5. Lietaer, Bernard, Robert Ulanowicz, Sally Goerner, and Nadia MeLaren. "Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability?: Evidence and Remedies from Nature." (2010): Journal of Futures Studies. April 2010, Vol. 14, no.3. Web 24 Jan. 2012.
6. Fullerton, John. "Occupy Wll Street (OWS) from a banker's perspective." (2011): In the Spirit of the Forum for Stable Currencies. 29 October 2011. Web 24 Jan. 2012.
7. Lietaer, Bernard, Robert Ulanowicz, Sally Goerner. "White Paper on All the Opitions for managing a Systemic Bank Crisis." (2008): October 2008. Web 25 Jan. 2012.

A Leaderless Revolution: Occupy Economic Democracy - Part 1 of 2

2011-11-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

"But what do they want?"

"I conclude that since capitalist growth cannot be stopped, or even slowed, and since the market-driven growth is driving us toward collapse, ecological economists should abandon the fantasy of a steady-state capitalism and get on with the project figuring out what a post-capitalist economic democracy could look like." quote from "Beyond growth or beyond capitalism?" (Smith, 1)

But what do they want?

Beginning with a clarion call to 'occupy' lower Manhattan in a September issue of Adbusters and citing the success of Tahrir Square insurgents in issuing a "straightforward ultimatum" for Mubarak's ouster, Occupy's camaraderie was forged in solidarity with that of an Arab Spring by togeth- er asking, "what is our equally uncomplicated demand?" (#OccupyWall- Street, 2).

Consequently though, and only after Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demon- strators had elicited popular support following release of an internet video showing female protesters being pepper sprayed (Day 8) and the arrest of more than 700 marchers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (Day 15) did

mainstream media (MM) begin to wonder, "What Do They Want?". While this question has proved to be one of the movement's earliest shared issues, articulating a consensus-based response has revealed unique aspects about the group's orienting structure.

Having authored an article only three months earlier for the Integral Lead- ership Review ("Toward a Sustainable Future") however, and in aspiring to envision a form of 'complex adaptive' leadership for a 'New World Economy', I mused over the wisdom of opting "to legitimize or otherwise sanction" the imposition of debt (usury) on a global populace.

"Let's radicalise our analysis"

"As a result, it's disturbingly unconscionable, especially in view of Egypt's revolution earlier this year, to blindly ignore how the West's present centralized, debt-oriented, economic system, implemented globally towards the end of World War II, is perpetuating an ever-widening gap between the world's richest and poorest, and in so doing, fueling tensions increasing the likelihood of social upheaval across vast geopolitical sectors." from "Toward a Sustainable Future: Integral Leadership in the New World Economy" (3)

By way of an update then, but explaining why Occupy's response to the question, "What are your demands?" should be, "We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands", Robert Jensen proposes instead, a deepening of "our analysis of the systems that produce" an "unjust dis- tribution of wealth and power".

"The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognise, so that they can roll out strategies to divert, co-opt, buy off, or - if those tactics fail - squash any challenge to business as usual." from "Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis"

Likewise, but acknowledging that while "(r)allying around a common con- cern about economic injustice is a beginning", Jensen further sug- gests "understanding the structures and institutions of illegitimate au- thority is the next step" (4).

Being the 'Global Vision'

Wilber's AQAL Model (an Integral Operating System - IOS)

Along similar lines, Jennifer Gidley too, describes a "crisis of consciousness" as evidenced in the findings of "(s)ev- eral contemporary ecologists, edu- cators, philoso- phers and scien- tists", but whose affects are experi- enced "environmen- tally", "economically" and "psychosocially" (5). For these reasons however, and within what's otherwise been termed a 'leaderless' (see - Leadership) movement, those expressing constancy with OWS, including Chris Hedge s ("A discussion about Occupy Wall Street"), David Korten ("Why I'm in Solidarity with #Occupy WallStreet"), and Douglas Rushkoff ("CNN: Occupy Wall Street is Not a Protest but a Prototype") are all the more notable.

Also in a recent interview, contemporary philosopher and Integral Operat- ing System (IOS) visionary Ken Wilbe r discussed how a "major global (world) transition now under way" (1:40) doesn't merely embody a para- digm shift from a Newtonian-Cartesian worldview that's "bad", "fragment- ed and broken" to one that's "more balanced", integrated, holistic, and "all good", but more accurately, reflects the human mind's evolutionary devel- opment across a continuum of five or six subsequent phases.

As Wilber further acknowledges though, prior transitions of this type from a modern, scientific-rational worldview [AQAL's lower-left (LL) quadrant] involving industrial and corporate-state social (i.e.political-economic) sys- tems (LR) for example, to that of a postmodern, pluralistic culture (LL) within an informational, value communities environment (LR) have in the past, entailed "very dramatic social and cultural upheaval" (14:40).

Clare Graves' - Levels of Existence

Referring to 'tipping points' (18:30) and the magnitude of change witness- ed by the 'modern' "rational-industrial era" (Stage 5 - AQAL) in respect to government, value structures, and the eradication of slavery; contrasted with "the emergence of pluralism or postmodernism" (Stage 6 - AQAL) which realized shifts in "multiculturalism", "valuing all minorities equally" and an "enormous emphasis on civil rights", Wilber similarly notes that both transformations occurred, "starting right about ten percent (10%) of the population (19:30)."

Following this same line of thought, interviewer Todd Goldfarb then asks, "What is the emergent worldview that we are evolving to?" (21:40). Wilber responds by adducing Clare Graves' analogy of a 'momentous leap' in meaning making (see: "Human Nature Prepares for Momentous Leap") from previous levels which to this point, have viewed their own respective values and those values alone as "real" (24:05), to one which is integral and instead recognizes "that all of the previous stages have some sort of value. In other words, there's some reason that they're there." In this respect, and as Wilber further explains (25:05), the integral level of maturation is the first to accept that "(t)o some extent" those earlier stages are "all necessary for the human mind to grow and devel- op" (6).

Betraying Our Trust: "A Crisis in American Leadership"

U.S. Federal Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

"A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels." quote by Albert Einstein in, "Atomic Education Urged by Einstein", New York Times (25 May 1946)

In light of the scope and complexity of transformation to which I've already alluded; but within a context where the prospect of systemic failure (see Debt to GDP graph above) is ever present, humankind is concurrently witnessing the wide- spread faltering and even break down of conventional economics, politics, traditional media, higher education, social justice, and the church.

Super Committee's Failure a Win for Occupy Movement?

Consequently, and along these same lines, because an onset of corporate fascism (e.g. invert- ed totalitarianism) has informed my focus over the last ten years, begin- ning with 9/11 and a subsequent intro- duction to Aaron Russo's, America: Freedom to Fas- cism, it's been a recurring theme in a multitude of projects including, "A Crisis in American Leadership" (see also "A Case of Willful Neglect").

Likewise, where "Toward a Sustainable Future" exposed neoconserva- tism and neoliberalism as reflecting two opposing sides of a single global- ization coin, a comparable affiliation with partisan values and ideologies in the contemporary church too, evinces a despotic autocracy. Not coinci- dentally, the 'fascist' motif has also commanded particular attention from various authors including Naomi Wolf (End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot) and Chris Hedges (American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and Death of the Liberal Class).

Rescue Mission Expansion - "More Homeless"

From my own expe- rience, and as the author of a blog en- titled, "In the Belly of the Beast - Report from a Homeless American", nowhere is this unholy theoc- racy of 'church' and 'state' any more evident than in my own city's manage- ment of its under-employed poor. Nevertheless, but having drafted a 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness three years earlier, in 2009 it received stimulus funding totaling $766,000 to establish a Community Housing Resource Center and later, an addi- tional $708,856 for distribution to local 'service agencies'.

Also, with an estimated "15.9 million" of HUD funds slated for interjection into the community over a five year period beginning in 2010 (Roanoke, 7), it's not especially surprising that 'Health Care and Social Assistance' workers have constituted the city's single largest group of employees, while Local, Federal, and State government workers together, were the second greatest in number (Roanoke, 8).

Yet in my case, and though highly skilled and well qualified in multiple ca- pacities, because I'm no longer afforded a contributing role within the so- cioeconomic system, I've been a 'guest' for the last three years in a Chris- tian shelter which recently announced plans for major expansion. Like- wise, although I'm innocent of any criminal offense and will be commemo- rating nineteen years of personal sobriety later this month, living condi- tions relating to hygienic routine, eating, sleeping, and evenreligious ob- servance are uniformly imposed in ways resembling corporal incarcer- ation.

Homelessness in Roanoke - Winter Shelter Survey 2011

As a result, both my freewill and movement are severely constricted by‘economic’ factors over which, neither I (nor anyone else), seemingly havecontrol or influence. Strangely too, but as something of an exemplary citizen in respect to community advocacy, my homelessness appropri- ates a relativelyhigh degree of civic monitoring nonetheless. Conse- quently, local bureaucrats have proposed that Roanoke'sinterfaith com- munity join it in utilizing a computerized Homeless Management Infor- mation System (HMIS) to extend its data collection on the city's destitute.

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Works Cited

1. Smith, Richard. "Beyond growth or beyond capitalism?." (2010): real-world economics review, Issue no. 53, (26 June 2010). Web. 2 Nov. 2011.

2. "#OccupyWallStreet: A shift in revolutionary tactics." (2011): Adbusters. 13 June 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
3. McConnell, Brian. "Toward a Sustainable Future: Integral Leadership in the 'New World Economy'." (2011): Integral Leadership Review, June 2011. Web. 9 Nov. 2011.
4. Jensen, Robert. "Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis." (2011): Aljazeera, 09 November 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.
5. Gidley, Jennifer. "The Evolution of Consciousness as a Planetary Imperative: An Integration of Integral Views." (2007): Integral Review, Issue 5, December 2007. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.
6. Wilber, Ken. "Ken Wilber on Humanity's SIXTH Known Shift." (2011): Audio Blog by Todd Goldfarb. Worldwide Tipping Point, In Integral Review, Issue 5, November 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.
7. Roanoke (Virginia). "2010-2015 HUD Consolidated Plan". Roanoke, VA: The City. (2010). Web. 30 Nov. 2011.
8.Roanoke (Virginia). "2010-2015 HUD Consolidated Plan - Employment by Industry". Roanoke, VA: The City. (2010). Web. 30 Nov. 2011.

Toward a Sustainable Future

2011-06-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Addressing Sustainability Issues

"The US dollar, like all national currencies these days, is a debt-based currency created, not by the government’s printing press, but through the extension of credit from the central bank, via the fractional-reserve banking system, to borrowers in the government, business, and household sectors. As each new dollar is created, a new dollar of debt is also created, and as the supply of dollars accumulates over time, so too does the balance of debt." quote from "Debt Trapped: Exploring Monetary Futures" (O'Connor, 1)

Tracing patterns of popular consciousness over the last three hundred years my, "Toward a Sustainable Future: Integral Leadership in the New World Economy" as published in the Integral Leadership Review casts light on an incipient, but previously shrouded, account of why global economics is currently teetering on the brink of calamity. Consequently, but addressing the prospect of just such a tragedy in a Preface to his We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, Richard C. Cook writes:

"As the world slides into an economic crisis marked by skyrocketing food and fuel prices and exponentially-growing debt, many people are fearful of a global catastrophe. Continuous warfare, financial bankruptcies, and scarcity of basic resources paint a disturbing picture to which many are responding with scenarios of doom."

Collateral Damage

Yet similarly, and as Cook notes so insightfully in this same context, "Today's crisis, above all, is spiritual" (2). Stated differently, yet over the last three centu- ries, because the "certainty generally associated with objective reality" has "been viewed as more tangible or real" and subsequently "af- forded precedence over subjective experience (i.e. 'reality')" the province of consciousness and values "pertaining especially to moral and ethical develop- ment" has largely "been eschewed in relegation to the domain of religious doctrine."

Adopting an Integral Approach

For this same reason however, it's notable that scientists like Stuart Kauffman ("Towards a Post Reductionist Science") are expressing the pertinence of expanding scientific thought and inquiry beyond the limits of reductionism so disconcertingly evident across today's academic disciplines (McConnell, 3). Likewise, and stirred "by the urgency of our times", Jennifer Gidley in, "The Evolution of Consciousness as a Planetary Imperative: An Integration of Integral Views", explains, "(w)e live in critical times —times of apparently human-created complexities, challenges and unprecedented change. In all the major domains of our lives the seams are beginning to fray." Consequently, she cites findings pointing primarily to three of these realms:

Environmentally - Alterations of the biosphere "to the extent" that "our planetary homeland" may become "increasingly inhospitable for human habitation" in "the foreseeable future".

Economically - A "growing inequity of wealth distribution" associated with unsustainable levels of "affluent consumption".

Psycho-socially - "(D)isturbing trends" concerning the "mental health and well-being of young people".

Wilber's AQAL Model

For Gidley though, these indicators reflect the view of "(s)everal contemporary ecologists, edu- cators, philoso- phers and scien- tists", signaling "an epistemological crisis—or crisis of consciousness" as existing "at the heart of our planetary di- lemma" (4). Sim- ilarly too, philoso- pher Ken Wilber's own contribution to Integral thought has led him to identify a "vertical component clash" as the "single greatest problem facing the world" in its impact on the subjective dimensions already referred to above and depicted in his AQAL model as the quadrants of individual (interior) 'intention' (Upper Left - UL) and collective (interior) 'culture' (Lower Left - LL).

Along these same lines, but pointing to the dominance of 'modern disciplines' (i.e. Economics, Education, Medicine, etc.) founded over the last four hundred years on empirical orientations arising from the Scientific Enlightenment, Wilber calls into account traditional Religion's seeming failure to nurture higher stages of spiritual intelligence (or 'ultimate concern') to any significant extent beyond Fowler's Stage 3, or Gebser's mythical, levels of respective development. By way of counterpoint to this assertion however, there's also a common injunction running through the vast scope of his writing involving the term exemplar which he elicits as knowledge emanating from the 'wisdom traditions' in general, and contemplative practice even more specifically (5).

Pioneering an Integral Future

Laurie Lipton's Icon

"The United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another, whether it is Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or John Edwards, enthralls the country . . . despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class." Chris Hedges from, "American Psychosis".

While not a new theme in the field of related academics, it's from this epistemological/ontological stance that "Towards a Sustainable Future" nonetheless, takes such direct aim at the shortcomings of neoclassical economics. Ha-Joon Chang in "Breaking the mould" for example, refers to neo-liberalism as "an 'unholy alliance' between neoclassical economics and the Austrian-Libertarian political philosophy" [some punctuation modified], claiming that "despite its pretence of intellectual coherence and clear-cut messages" it protracts itself only through "intellectual contortion and political compromise" (6).

"In such a context, it should be noted, “society” is first and foremost—and often exclusively—seen as the system of governance schemes designed to order a potentially disorderly set of individuals scrambling for material rewards. Society, in such a view, is something that is designed by people—but mainly and even exclusively by those people who are “in charge” of looking after the whole and to keep it in a measure of internal order."

Echoing similar sentiments to Chang's, Christian Arnsperger however envisions the prospect of 'integral economics' as an "agent-based, complex-systems approach in which agents have evolutionary states of consciousness and which, consequently, evolves not only through positive and negative feedbacks from system to components but also—and mainly—through the agents’ own existential and critical reflection on what a meaningful, human potential–enhancing economic life could be."

Viewed within the context of a 'meta-discipline' methodology, Arnsperger further suggests these potentials be realized by adopting 'integral' practice that draws from an "empirical observation of the most highly realized exemplars coming from each culture, religion, or spirituality" through a paradigm of "experientially reproducible life trajectories (states evolving into traits as the individual evolves through necessary stages)" (7).

The Effect of Diverse Complementary Currencies

Arnsperger's vision however, is made all the more vital when juxtaposed with Bernard Lietaer's findings utilizing ecological models to better understand complex information and sustainable flow systems. Lietaer's work in this regard has subsequently led to "scientific evidence that a structural fault is indeed involved in generating financial crashes", which in turn, helps confirm "that nature does not select for maximum efficiency, but for a balance between the two opposing poles of efficiency and resilience" (8).

Consequently, and as "Toward a Sustainable Future" concludes, once opened to redefining relationships "predicated on, and to some extent dictated by, a monopolization of" the very commodity (e.g. 'money') used to control or otherwise bind them, this planet's citizens stand poised to "venture beyond the limits and ignorance" of blind obediance to their masters' will and instead, awaken to the prospects of a shared destiny.

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Works Cited

1. O'Connor, Daniel. "Debt Trapped: Exploring Monetary Futures." (2011): From Catallaxis, (March 2011). Web. 3 June. 2011.

2. Cook, Richard. We Hold Theses Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. Denver: Tendril Press. 2009. Print.

3. McConnell, Brian. "Toward a Sustainable Future: Integral Leadership in the 'New World Economy'." (2011): In Integral Leadership Review, (June 2011). Web. 6 June 2011.

4. Gidley, Jennifer. "The Evolution of Consciousness as a Planetary Imperative: An Integration of Integral Views." (2007): In Integral Review, Issue 5, (December 2007). Web. 3 June 2011.

5. Wilber, Ken. Integral spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc. 2006. Print.

6. Chang, Ha-Joon. "Breaking the Mould: An Institutionalist Political Economy Alternative to the Neoliberal Theory of the Market and the State." (2001): United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Social Policy and Development Programme Paper Number 6, (May 2001). Web. 6 June 2011.

7. Arnsperger, Christian. "Building an Integral Economic Science: Opportunities and Challenges." (2008): Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, Volume 3, No. 4 - Winter 2008. Copyright, Integral Institute (2008). Web. 6 June 2011.

8. Lietaer, Bernard. “Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability? – Evidence and Remedies from Nature.” (2010): From the Journal of Futures Studies, Vol. 14, #3, (April 2010) Web. 20 Mar. 2011.

Taking an Evolutionary Step . . .

2010-01-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Consistent with Quigley's analysis, Arnold Toynbee suggests that a civilization begins to break down when there is "a loss of creative power in the souls of creative individuals," leading to a diminished capacity of that civilization to successfully respond to challenges. quote from Butler Shaffer's, Boundaries of Order

Leading economists have deemed our current economic situation as "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's." The magnitude of devastation has subsequently been reflected in a decline of global growth rates, deepening unemployment, and a severe drop in U.S. production, making any sort of 'bottom up' reversal seem implausible.

Nevertheless, and acknowledging that the present situation has resulted "not from a cyclical or managerial failure, but from a structural one", Bernard Lietaer (et al) in their "White Paper on All the Options for Managing a Systemic Banking Crisis" assert the "good news is that a systemic understanding and technical solution are now available that would ensure that such crashes become a phenomenon of the past." The "systemic understanding" to which Lietaer is referring to however, stems from a relatively new field of academics known as complexity science.

Addressing Sustainability Issues

Consequently, where the industrial age took shape largely from positivist perspectives founded on principles of entropy, scarcity, competition, equilibrium, and certainty, many of these underlying assumptions are currently the focus of theoretical retooling.

“I will argue that Clausius’ model of a universe running down by entropy and the Darwinian model of biological evolution as an endless competitive struggle for scarce resources both give half-truths about Nature that seemed appropriate in their historical context but are now seen to be fundamentally flawed, thereby seriously misleading us and holding up our own natural evolution.” quote from Elisabet Sahtouris', "The Biology of Business"

As a result, these emerging outlooks view even Nature differently than did their predecessors. As Lietaer's 'White Paper' attests however, a "recent conceptual breakthrough" taking "its evidence from balanced, structurally sound, and highly functioning eco-systems now proves that all complex systems, including our monetary and financial ones, become structurally unstable whenever efficiency is overemphasized at the expense of diversity, interconnectivity and the crucial resilience they provide."

"The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation." quote from Bernard Lietaer's (et al), 'White Paper'

This quite simply, entails introducing what are known as complementary or alternative currencies "within a community, region or country". The primary reason these 'systems of exchange' are referred to as 'complementary' or 'alternative' is "because they do not replace the conventional national money, but rather, operate in parallel with it."