Just as Burkean conservatives are lost in the right wing rhetoric, and so unheard, progressives who are also democratic and inclined to smaller scale go unheard.

see my The use of religious affiliation – a way of saying “No”? for an older but still relevant analysis.

• food
• land
• health
• education

and intergenerational continuity and care. that is, for the life of a full human.

….. a major division toward the future: will it be one world of managerial necessity, or regional and local, with wars and fears? I think history is on the side of regional, avoiding the large bureaucratization of the world, but one humanity on one planet is compelling logic. there are major attempts ahead to deal with the problems, intertwined, of economics, finance, and consumption.

I am thinking this is a, or even the, major division point. From Catholics vs Protestants, Polytheism and monotheism, WW2 with its split between northern European and Mediterranean perspectives.. More will come forth.

I don’t know about you, but when I see the words, “Toward a New Global Financial Architecture,” all the red lights on my dashboard start to flash. And when these words are coupled with the name of Soros, I start to hear sirens.

The point of quoting this is because it represents a major division toward the future: will it be one world of managerial necessity, or regional and local, with wars and fears? I think history is on the side of regional, avoiding the large bureaucratization of the world, but one humanity on one planet is compelling logic. there are major attempts ahead to deal with the problems, intertwined, of economics, finance, and consumption.

via Soros & Johnson to Shake Up Economic Thinking at INET’s 1st Conference in Cambridge, April 8th – 11th » New Deal 2.0.

Hard to do political economy without a goal

My view now is that climate change requires that we give up the growth, wars and empire model for sustainability where we need development without growth. We also need very rapid technical innovation (current innovations do not sum to a substantial enough change in climate condition amelioration, such as clean energy. The numbers are too large.). But that innovation will be, to be clean, highly automated and robotized. The result would be even more structural unemployment. Hence we need a “citizen dividend” or guaranteed income, if people are going to e secure enough.

Hence we need an economic school of thought that looks for how to achieve high tech innovation and citizen dividend toward a sustainable low growth society.

One of the problems we face is caught in the newdeal 2.0 comment, “I don’t know about you, but when I see the words, “Toward a New Global Financial Architecture,” all the red lights on my dashboard start to flash. And when these words are coupled with the name of Soros, I start to hear sirens.”

The unitary world, essential to some, is the end for others.

King’s College Cambridge

· 1930 and the Challenge of the Depression for Economic Thinking: Friedrich Hayek versus John Maynard Keynes

Hayak did not make the same critique of corporations that he did of government: too big to plan well/ The background is Adam Smith’s critique of corporations as instruments of anti-market control.

· Anatomy of Crisis – The Living History of the Last 30 years: Economic Theory, Politics and Policy

This is the period of the neo-liberals. The previous liberal consensus was also a problem. Leaves out resources at one end of political economy and wealth distribution at the other. The crisis is much longer than 30 years. Perhaps the whole empire and war paradigm from the bronze age is at an end, the planet filled up, we need a really new model of development without growth (Aristotle).

· What Kind of Theory to Guide Reform and Restructuring of the Financial and Non-Financial Sectors?

 A theory of economics that begins with nature and ends with wealth. A return to the broader gauge political economy.

Has the Efficient Market Hypothesis Led to the Crisis? Collapsed with The Crisis?

No, the problem was corporate control of markets, not markets.

Toward a New Global Financial Architecture

Recognize that finance rides of economics and tries to be free of economic realities to play the game of financial arrangements. Society cannot afford the costs of finance as a separate sector.

How Empirical Evidence Does or Does Not Influence Economic Thinking and Theory: Calibration, Statistical Inference, and Structural Change

The range of “evidence” and data is too narrow. Leaves out wealth distribution and resource exploitation, unfair about real costs and externalities, treats labor as a cost but profit as a gain. This is really a mess. Measures such as productivity (increase by firing workers) show how biased the current data approach is.

The Consequences of Inequality and Wealth Distribution

This requires really deep thinking about the nature of human society, civilization, motives, quality of life and culture. But basically inequality leads to politicians bought by money and a system of elites that, as Toynbee said, “in cries, the elites abandon ther own people”. Or Joseph Tainters’ “Collapse of Complex Societies”: elites, owning infrastructure, take ou costs rather than repair, when a crisis is imminent.” (paraphrase)

Mathematical Models: Rigorously Testable, Qualitative Metaphors, or Simply an Entry Barrier

Models are fine, but of whole systems not of sub systems. Let’s measure real stuff. This gets to climate change, pollution, costs of toxicity..

Political Economy: What Can Government Do? What Will Government Do?

When governments are owned, not much. Need a deeper understanding of the role of elites, democracy, decentralization. The great problem with the mess we are in now is must we be centralized to make critical decisions, or do we need dispersion so that local experiments can flourish? Population is a key driver. But they major issue for governance is going to be centralization vs regionalization, the argument the Greeks had over Alexander and Macedonia.

Above all, larger scope, and consider

1, time line of how we got here (western civ, population, wars, materialism, etc.)

2. mess map of current nasty dilemmas and their interconnections

3. Plausible scenarios going forward

For example (few years old)

I have constructed a small graphic to represent potential future directions for the world’s societies, and what they might suggest in terms of social purpose and strategy.

Two unknowns of our future are

Can we solve our major problems?

Will we do so primarily with large organizations, or small organizations (local and regional economic and governance)

Making axes of these gives us four future possibilities.

In the upper right we have market globalization. This is the "official scenario", especially in the United States. Below on the right are small organizations working to solve major problems. This we can call Jeffersonian.

Those moving into the top right have the values of those in the Jeffersonian, to live in homes in the country near the village and have their children walk to school, but the tendency is for the Jeffersonians to fight. This tension leads to increased security concerns and moves the whole society to the left hand side ("left" not in the usual sense.), fascism, if big systems dominate, and local mafias if things fall apart.

Thus we should avoid polarizing, and foster purposes – strategies, policies – that move in between, inter-weaving the Jeffersonians and marketists together.

But is there really an alternative to technocratic centralization?

Let me be blunt. Markets without constraints lead to monopolies, democracies without constraints lead to tyrannies. The two tend to engage the same people near the top, and that is fascism.

This tendency is exceedingly strong. But that helps define a purpose – to work hard to find an alternative viable direction for humanity, one that subordinates economics and politics to social good, not to a kind of personal gain that in practice enriches a few while impoverishing many. This has of course been a perennial issue, from Aristotle to the struggles of the 20^th century, over how to manage capital, status and technology. If we understand why we get this technocratic trend, we can have a more informed purpose.

Translating unmappable facts into economic discourse, it turned out, was what Krugman was better at than anyone else: he could take an intriguing notion that had come up in real-world discussions, pare away the details (knowing just what to take out and what was essential), and refine what was left into a clean, clever, “cute” (as he liked to put it), and simple model. “It’s poetry,” Kenneth Rogoff, an economist at Harvard, says. “I mean, you go back to his first book and there was this beautiful chart about what the Volcker contraction did to output that swept aside so much—he just drew this little graph which really cleared the air. I’ve heard economists use the word ‘poet’ in describing him for decades.”

via How Paul Krugman found politics : The New Yorker.

But the ruling powers of money would rather keep the cash flow than deal with human well-being. hence we are caught in repeatable cycles because narrow interests control the political process. It has nearly always been like this. Is there a way out?

This is a deep problem for us. It especially brings into question such things as

• the relation of science to society
• the problem of social classes
• the relation of success in power to success in civilization and human potential.

And above all the relation of thought to human action.

The result is, we have a replaceable society with no money to replace what is rotten and nearly exhausted. Just cleaning up would be extremely costly, and disposal an environmental  monster.

This could be a great opportunity if managed well, but more likely, with just in time junking, not going to go well.

Toynbee suggested that in crises the elite abandon their own people, and Spengler was clear that decline leads to opportunism within and without. The anger in the political process is worse because there are no real winners in any contest.

This is a lens through which to look at all events.

main conclusion: people act in accordance, no more no less, with the material conditions in which they find themselves. The difference between Guatemala and most of the US is profound, and people act accordingly.

Which leads to how spirituality and religion fit. I think Vicero was the one who coined the word “reliogion” as a way of typing together (re-ligiere) spirit, ritual and institution.  Perhaps this s too much because all such ensembles tend to turn inward and conservative to rpesere status gained.

The ide of god. I take it as a projection of ou nature outward, and much religious tradition is in taming that out projection (as the old testament does).

In our scientific priesthood period, we turn against that kind of intutiton because we avoid all hint at the human, projection or love or intuition or imagination.

So Depock ehre speaks to part o this dilemma and I wnt to spned more time in the following weeks returning to the themes of the human, the spirit,a the imagination, and its role in climate change.

After all, if we we need a new kind of culture to cope with having reached the carying capacity o the world, we need a “who we are” perspective.Deepak ChopraAuthor, Sirius/XM radio host

Posted: February 24, 2010 10:22 AM

Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World

Before addressing the importance of spirituality in modern times, we should first define it. Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality. This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego. In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God. When we have even a partial glimpse of this level of awareness we experience joy, insight, intuition, creativity, and freedom of choice. In addition, there is the awakening of love, kindness, compassion, happiness at the success of others, and equanimity. As the turbulence of our mind settles down, our body also begins to heal itself because it also quiets down. The body's self-repair mechanisms are activated when the mind is at peace because the mind and body are at the deepest level inseparably one.

All religions are founded on a deep spiritual experience of unity consciousness where there was complete union between the personal and universal. Unfortunately, many times the followers of religion, instead of understanding the religious experience and seeking it for themselves ended up merely worshiping the founder of the religion. It is more important to fully grasp the teaching of the religion and its basic tenets, that have come from a deeper experience of transcendence. Self-righteous morality is not a means for experiencing higher consciousness. Higher consciousness, spontaneously leads to moral and ethical behavior. However, because spiritual knowledge is powerful, the custodians of organized religion have frequently ended up with destructive behaviors — power mongering, cronyism, control, corruption, and influence peddling. As a result organized religion has frequently become quarrelsome, divisive, and led to conflict. No organized religion has been immune to this unfortunate tendency. So, we have had the crusades and witch-hunts of Christianity, the Jihads of Islam, the violent communal riots instigated by fundamentalist Hindus and the persecution of minorities and ethnic cleansing all in the name of God.

Our present times are particularly dangerous because ancient habits combined with modern capacities and technologies of destruction are a devastating combination that can destroy life on our planet.

As we begin to have a more scientific understanding of the transcendent level of our existence and look at the basic tenets of all religions, we find that the spiritual experience is fundamental to all and similar in all. This experience can be had by anyone through the practice of meditation, prayer, contemplative self-inquiry, the expression of love and compassion in action, intellectual inquiry into the deeper meaning of life, and self-less service. With these practices, we begin to realize that consciousness is a field of infinite possibilities; that it is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and infinitely creative. This experience also leads to unbounded love and compassion. Getting in touch with our deepest self is therefore the utmost importance because it is our connection to the mystery that we call God.

As the Sufi mystic Rumi has said, “You're not just a drop in the ocean, you're also the mighty ocean in the drop.” If there is anything that will at this moment heal our wounded planet with its immense problems of social injustice, ecological devastation, extreme economic disparities, war, conflict and terrorism, it is a deeper experiential understanding and knowledge of our own spirit. With this deeper understanding and with an interfaith dialogue that looks at our commonalities rather than our differences, we have the opportunity to solve the problems of the world, address its inequities and heal ourselves. The word, “healing” and the words, holy and whole, all mean the same thing. To be healed is to have the return of the memory of who we really are. When we return to our sacred source, the world will be holy, and it will be healed.

via Deepak Chopra: Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World.