Let me start by saying that I am not writing a paper for publication here. These are my thoughts distilled and mixed together from my own writings and many many of others. We all know that there have been very many attempts to redefine capitalism as something new that can be sustainable. I admire the optimism of those who dream about such things but am also very critical of their inability to understand how deep the contradiction goes. Hypothetical systems are a dime a dozen and our problem is the one system we have. That one is real and we know as much about it as we are going to. If one were to apply logic here the basic level would be the notion of equivalence classes and the fact that they divide the universe of discourse into categories that have no overlap. I submit that as systems the category that capitalism falls into and the category of sustainable systems are disjoint. I don't want to be pedantic here. There are other places for the rigorous spelling out of the logic behind what I have to say. On the other hand, these things have to fit our common sense or they will be quickly forgotten. Before I launch into the common sense discussion, there is another logical point to be recognized. For all my my lifetime of almost 76 years now the ideas that sustainibilty needs to be based on have been labeled and framed to be associated with terms like "socialism" and other buzz words. This has been both very effective for the defenders of capitalism and very disastrous for us as we seek a way of life that is sustainable. I will simply assert that the list of bad things about "socialism" contains many of the attributes needed in a sustainable system and that the things listed as virtues in the capitalist system are what make sustainability impossible. Finally, words like "freedom", "liberty" and "democracy" are subject to many meanings and interpretations and very context dependent. Their basic difference from simple licensce gets smeared over selectively in political rhetoric, especially by Libertarians. Having read Ayn Rand many years ago and then having read the Journal of the Cato Institute since it began until it made me too bored. I am not speaking from ignorance. Freedom carries with it categorically a responsibility regarding its use. With these introductory ideas in mind we can go forward beyond the break.
Much has been written about capitalism and sustainability so I hope you realize that this essay is not a recapitulation of that. I have something very fresh to bring to the debate and it will not be easy to digest for a number of reasons. My published work and the book Jim Coffman and I are writing, Global Insanity:How Homo sapiens Lost Touch with Reality while Transforming the World, are detailed presentations of ideas I can only sketch for you here. The thesis is rather simple yet rather unique:
The Global Economy that sustains the civilized world is destroying the biosphere. As a result, civilization, like the Titanic, it is on a collision course with disaster. But changing course via the body politic appears to be well nigh impossible, given that much of the populace lives in denial. Why is that? And how did we get into such a fix? That question has two answers, one historical, the other phenomenological. First, Western science conceived nature as a machine, a legacy of the empiricism of Bacon, the dualism of Descartes, and the determinism of Newton. But that metaphor is fundamentally flawed, as Robert Rosen has rigorously demonstrated. Second, the Global Economy, like any complex system, developed into existence. Development is a growth- and feedback-driven trajectory of systemic change that reinforces specific dependencies while eliminating alternatives, reducing the diversity that affords degrees of freedom. The more developed a system is, the less potential it has to change its way of being. That is why, in the evolution of life, most species become extinct (overspecialization), and ecological collapse is a common occurrence. But we humans have taken it to a new level. On a global scale, we built an industrial “metabolism” based on nonrenewable high energy resources, which fueled our exponential growth and socioeconomic development. As a result, we are now deeply dependent on that system, and are forced to keep repairing it in order to survive. Unfortunately, not only does the system lack the resources it needs for long-term survival, it is based on the misconception that life is a mechanism, with its implicit assumption that technology has an unlimited capacity to fix all our problems. Now that we are trapped, people don't want to hear that those ideas are wrong, because that brings to light just how dire our predicament really is.
The book closes with our thoughts on what options humanity has for negotiating the impending worldwide collapse of social and economic systems—which can also be viewed as a metamorphosis—with minimal suffering, and what we hope will persist through the transition.
Clearly we have a lot to say and it has a lot grounding in serious work by others. In my latest published paper I give some insight into how these ideas came to be:
Even More than Life Itself: Beyond Complexity
This essay is an attempt to construct an artificial dialog loosely modeled after that sought by Robert Maynard Hutchins who was a significant influence on many of us including and especially Robert Rosen. The dialog is needed to counter the deep and devastating effects of Cartesian reductionism on today’s world. The success of such a dialog is made more probable thanks to the recent book by A. Louie. This book makes a rigorous basis for a new paradigm, the one pioneered by the late Robert Rosen. If we are to make such a paradigm shift happen, it has to be in the spirit of the dialog. The relationship between science, economics, technology and politics has to be openly recognized and dealt with. The message that Rosen sent to us has to be told outside small select circles of devotees. The situation has even been described by some as resembling a cult. This is no way for universal truths like these to be seen. The essay examines why this present situation has happened and identifies the systemic nature of the problem in terms of Rosen’s concepts about systems. The dialog involves works by George Lakoff, W. Brian Arthur, N. Katherine Hayles, Robert Reich and Dorion Sagan. These scholars each have their own approach to identifying the nature of the interacting systems that involve human activity and the importance of identifying levels of abstraction in analyzing systems. Pooling their insights into different facets of a complex system is very useful in constructing a model of the self referential system that humans and their technology have shaped. The role of the human component in the whole earth system is the goal of the analysis. The impact of the Cartesian reductionist paradigm on science and the related aspects of human activity are examined to establish an explanation for the isolation of Rosen’s paradigm. The possible way to proceed is examined in the conclusion.
What is new here? let me note a few of the central points:
1. The ideas are radical and go to the heart of why we have not looked at things this way before.
2. They are grounded in differences in world view that underlie most of the political and ecomomic dialog we encounter.
3. They are well grounded in the kind of cognitive neuroscience that George Lakoff has developed so well, yet they integrate his ideas with many others.
4. They answer the claims that the reductionists, the "conservatives" and the religious right make about our situation.
Now to spell it out briefly. First the root idea. Things happen because they are caused by something. As Lakoff has pointed out as well, there are two very different world views based on the concept of how things are caused. The reductionist, mechanist, conservative, religious world views all have a common notion of causality, namely the concept of "direct cause". An agent acts and causes something to happen. Machines work this way, that is until they fail. Then the other notion of cause comes into play. We can call this "complex cause". This has no simple way of being said because of its very nature which is tied to what we have learned about complex systems. The key ideas are these:
1. Complex systems contain closed loops of causal entailment. These loops are similar to the feedback loops we see in the machine like models used by those involved with direct causal arguments yet are profoundly different.
2. The concept of the whole being more than the sum of its parts rests on these loops. reducing the system to its parts destroys the loops and vital information about the system. The collection of parts is not the system, nor can it give us information about how the system functions. Machines can be "reverse engineered" complex systems can not.
There is far, far more to be said but this will serve our needs here.
Many of the ideas about economics that became our economic myth were ideas that predated systems theory yet were consistent with what we know about complex systems. In particular, the myth of the "invisible hand" is clearly consistent with the nature of complex systems as stated above. However, the way it is conceived and used has no relationship to what we know about such systems. Economic theory, free markets, etc. are constructs built using the world view based on direct cause. Complex cause is given acknowledgement and used to argue against intervention and control in favor of the workings of the "invisible hand" yet nothing in systems theory justifies the faith that all will be for the best if the system is left alone. The fear that intervention and manipulation can cause problems is well justified yet largely unheeded in the quest for money, power and control. In the name of freedom people want unlimited access to the system with out control on their activity at the same time they want to control the activities of competing players. Inside trading and other scams are just part of the evidence for this. the argument that these are "imperfections" in the system that regulation can correct is a part truth at best. Because the system is so complex, each attempt to regulate is the father of new ways to beat the regulations.
Ironically, the system we call "capitalism" fits the requirements the invisible hand myth has been based on, namely that there is too much that we will never know about the myriad interconnections and loops in the system for us to ever hope to control it. The rest we have learned empirically. We have learned that left unchecked the system serves fewer and fewer in any manner that would justify participation in it by the masses. The scare is constantly there that we must let it go on because if we meddle we can kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The obvious question is who gets the egg?
Marx wrote about the nature of capitalism and his ideas had profound effect on the world. It seems reasonable to acknowledge that among the most profoundly affected by his influence were those in the class benefiting from the system at a scale that dwarfs what others gain from it. Hence the ideology of capitalism from that point on was a reaction to Marx in large part. If there is an ideology behind the system it has little to do with how the system functions for its proponents claim that the system needs to be left alone in order to work best. They point to failed systems and use those failures to justify their own rather than to make any attempt to establish what its benefits to the masses are supposed to be. The masses are left to take as little as they fight for and the struggle is stacked against them.
Current empirical flaws in the system with regard to its possible sustainability revolve around two features that the capitalist system has yet to acknowledge in any realistic way. The first is the limits on the availability of resources and the second is the production of waste. Any effort to reduce these increasingly important aspects of the system interfere with the very forces that drive it. Profit and capital accumulation are so very important. The real question is whether or not there is any choice here. Because the system is so poorly understood as a system, one of its most prominent features gets neglected. If you watch it operate, players come and go but this has little overall effect. Who determines this? No one does. Likewise, we have green companies and we have attempts to have decent working conditions, wages, etc. The system seems to be influenced by these in no identifiable way. However, if these organizations fail to meet the systems requirements they have gone the way of other organizations that did so green or not. If they become "successful" in the sense that we see success in the system they eventually are either bought out or otherwise assimilated into the system and their unique nature is either lost or so diluted that they have relatively little impact.
So we are faced with the question of whether or not there can be a sustainable form of capitalism. The requirements of sustainability have been made clear by many others as have the features of capitalism that do not remotely fit these requirements. Thus the problem becomes a very complex one at best. If the nature of the present system is complex and self correcting in some general way, how do you change it? No competing form of system has ever come remotely close. Approaching it like a machine is futile and potentially destructive. The masses of the people in the world depend on its integrity in so many ways. Attempts to create other forms have not come out too well and history has yet to tell us what the evolution of the global system we are in will be.
Political systems come and go, players come and go, yet the system grinds on. It grinds on because it must. People need to eat, have shelter, and a certain number of toys. As long as enough of them have their needs met, only a small part of them will question the possibility of a better way. Right now we are seeing uprisings here and in the rest of the world. These are symptoms of something, but it may not be what we think it is. As the system evolves, it will go through transitions and end up even more stable than before. It is the job of anyone who proposes that capitalism can be made sustainable to tell us how this is supposed to happen without destroying the system as we know it. Secondly, it seems very ambitious for anyone to suggest that they know enough about how the present system operates to find ways of changing it that it will not be simply gobbled up as others have. A poor but useful analogy is the idea that one could change the shape of the surface of a warm lake by scooping water out with a bucket.
This works more than one way. If we find ways of making the system do what we want it to we can get these limited results without endangering it as our adversaries claim. A more green capitalism is feasible for a while. However there is an inbuilt contradiction in that notion. Capitalism that is based on the use of resources to make green products still uses resources. Capitalism that is based on the production of waste making green products still makes waste. Here's one to think about. Over time let us get back to manufacturing repairable things that never get thrown away. Do we have enough resources and can we afford the waste we will produce in doing that?
Finally, last but not least there is technology. One principle that needs to be recognized is that technology has a special relationship to the human mind. We pretend that we have the ability to pick and choose between "good" and "bad" technology. Where is the evidence? Nuclear weapons, agriculture that destroys the land and uses up petroleum and water, poisons that affect the egg and sperm even before fertilization let alone what they do after, and so much more. If it can be done it will be done. Weapons, crowd control, etc. War is a part of what we are. All this is linked together in a very complex web.
Our political system is part of the larger system as well. The two parties are part of that system and are in harmony in their appearance of struggle and differences. When there is a problem that has potential for threatening the system they serve to stabilize the system as our recent experience with the banks, etc has shown. When they try to act in ways that will destabilize the system they gridlock. Again this is a manifestation of the intricate causal loops deeply imbedded in the system.
If you like invisible hand kinds of magic, ask yourself how much the Bush administration's antics lowered the influence of the dominant Nation as Globalization was progressing. We can not look at what might have happened otherwise, but I have not seen many arguments pointing out how our influence increased. The question remains wheteher the concept of Nation is even obsolete with a global system of capitalism. I suggest it is. These changes take time and they happen as seemingly unrelated things like the Bush administration happened.
So if not sustainable capitalism then what? Most likely the system will run its course and bring itself down. If this sounds a bit like Marx do not be confused. Marx saw the system as being beyond the reach of humans yet he hedged. He believed that human action to change it was possible. I like to see his analysis as one that works at a very vague systems level. I don't think he had a clue as to how humans could do what is needed even though he had a clear idea of what he thought was needed. All this may sound discouraging, but like Marx, many of us have a clear idea of what is needed. What we do not have a clue about is how to get there. Maybe it is just as well for the system has its way of changing even the most dedicated. I still believe Obama thought he could bring about change. He has, but nothing like the change he envisioned. The basic system is stronger than ever and ready to grind on for as long as it gets fed. It will spew out its poison and we will go on believing our favorite myths about it.
In the sixties we had some ideas that crop up once in a while. Some worked for a while before they either died or were absorbed by the system. We called them "parallel institutions". To me this is still the only way I can see us answering the many questions asked above. The idea is too simple so it may work. To state it too simply you just begin doing what needs to be done as best you can understand what that is. you work from values and principles and do not be afraid to abandon something that clearly does not work as you had intended. If you get smashed, start again. Do not let the corrupting influences of the political system, either party, distract you for even a moment. We know what that does. what will happen? Your crystal ball is as good as mine. There are things happening at the moment. You have choices. Get your own life in order first. Live a sustainable life as much as humanly possible. Don't use poisons, waste things, create waste, consume more than absolutely necessary, etc. I stopped the list because it goes on forever and almost no one will do it anyway. Meanwhile the system grinds on and on. We do not need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.