Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I just started a new job with a marketing agency this week. It's an entry-level job and I'm gonna be sent out on the street to gather qualitative and quantitative data and give away free stuff to to get that data to put together entire marketing programs. The company has various clients.

Anyway, they gave me a bunch of material to study before I actually start doing to job. As I was reviewing it, I was amazed at how advanced and complex, both psychologically and anthropologically, the material was. They noted that people don't make decisions about buying things because they need them, but because they want them. Buying things is based upon emotion, which is later justified via logic (Hume). And, the major drive of all human action was to gain satisfaction or pleasure and the avoid dissatisfaction (4 Noble Truths). Then there was so much data about how to develop Emotional Branding (TM), at what ages people are most able to be conditioned for various products and how, etc…
It was like reading straight out of psychology and anthropology, as well as philosophy text books.

The point of all this, is that one of the things that is required in consciousness development up the various stages, is a reduction in the egoic attachment to sense objects.
But, the largest industries in the world are all geared towards increasing this attachment and emotional need, which in effect, stifles further development. KW has talked about the MGM and it's pernicious effects upon the spiral, but from what I have read, this more pernicious aspect of Orange has been overlooked.  The only dangerous aspect that is really noted about Orange is the materialist world-view that it promotes, and the destructive force of it's technology.

What do you think?

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

My impression of Orange is that it doesn't promote sense objects so much as it promotes status. Pleasure can be a sensory thing (food, sex) but it can also be other things, like being respected, having a good job, high self-esteem, being part of a group, etc. There is also marketing directed at raising your consciousness, healing the planet, becoming more fulfilled and happy.

Of course, a lot of money is made of off playing to people's physical desires and needs, but this kind of marketing only really took off in America in the last 40 or 50 years since Green attacked Amber's shame about physical pleasure. They intended to replace it with Green respect for all people, but as it turns out, when you knock the supports out from under a society, some parts go backwards. I think it was worth it though.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

That's the whole point. In order to sell things to you, they are tied emotionally to things like status, feelings of self respect and worth, etc…
One doesn't make money directly from other people feeling good about themselves, they make money by tying those feelings to a tangable product with a brand name. The marketing that is directed at raising one's consciousness, is often underminded by industries designed to create profits.
People spend thousands of dollars of things that are designed to have a Green look and feel, but are really just tied to emotional brand selling. Your talking about something else though, I'm talking about the need created in marketing agencies to condition people and to manipulate human delusion. I think the iphone is a good example, designer clothes, new cars, jewlery, etc…
But for what you are saying, the marketing of a green lifestyle is almost always bullshit right under the surface.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Ok, I thought you meant sense objects as in physical pleasure. Maslow's hierarchy of need is a useful guide for this kind of discussion. Each type of need is important, and there's advertising aimed at all of them, including self-actualization, consciousness raising, etc. I-I markets itself, Zaadz markets itself, lots of Green companies market themselves. Those are all legitimate needs, and companies fill those needs – an iphone and designer clothes are legitimate needs, aren't they? There's a book called Mediated where the author discusses many problems of consumer culture, but also points out that it's improved the daily lives of hundreds millions of people. It's inevitable that the culture would go through this stage, and also inevitable that it would go beyond it after it's worn itself out on materialism.

I don't agree that companies that market themselves as Green are necessarily bullshitting people. People have complicated motivations, it's not as simple as being either totally genuine or totally fake, that's kind of an ideological purist perspective, don't you think? The fact is that as soon as you invent something like anti-marketing, it becomes codified – looking at it from a semiotic perspective, it becomes just another way of signaling a set of values, a different type of marketing.

Ken recently talked about how a lot of integral people have a Green allergy, well Green people have an Orange allergy, so they are very purist about rejecting any hint of Orange values.

Here's another book called Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture about how every form of rebellion against consumer culture ultimately becomes part of it. Counter-cultures are feeding the monster they are fighting.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I understand that there are complex motivations for individuals and small Green companies, but how much of the total market economy is represented by individuals and truely Green companies that aren't creating as many problems as they are solving?
It's an extremely small percentage.
It is too simplistic to say that companies merely fill needs that are inherent. Needs are consciously developed and conditioned all over the world. Not only that, but legislation is manipulated just as much to require the monetary support of people.
When you say that an iphone and designer clothes are legitamate needs, were you joking or are you serious?

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I am totally serious about those being legitimate needs. It's appropriate for Orange individuals, and Integral people should probably embrace it to one degree or another.

One big misconception of the environmental movement is that everyone needs to be at Green in order to address environmental problems. That approach is a huge waste of resources, it's better to motivate people from the level they are at – make environmentalism cool, sexy and profitable for Orange, make it honorable and duty-fulfilling for Amber, etc. Barrett Brown was talking about this on IN a few weeks ago.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

That's like saying that we should embrace Islamic fundamentalism because it is legitimate for people at a certain stage to deal with global issues.
Also, your starting with the assumption that the need for designer clothes or the latest gadget is some how a natural thing, and not conditioned by a trillion dollar marketing machine.
This is yet another issue I see with some who propose integral theory. Just because people at a particular level or stage behave a certain way, it is often assumed that the behavior is somehow natural and a normal, even unavoidable aspect of stage operation.
There are sooo many factors that go into these things and individual stage development is more of a limiting factor, than a generative one.

Also, that model for getting people to make green decisions from their CoG is a great idea on paper, but when we actually look at the data, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we see that they are often disasters. I've looking into many of the ways that green issues are dealt with on a local level, especially abroad, and things don't look good. So far the idea of getting people to implement green ideals via their CoG, is really theoretical at this point.
A great example is eco-tourism, and I posted an ethnography about it on this forum a few months ago.
The most obvious though, is the fact that green sells as a status symbol regardless of how green something actually is. So marketers have found that they can package anything in a metaphorically green box and it will sell just as easily, regardless of whether it is green or not.
But again, your straying from the point of the thread. I'm talking about the vast majority of the market, with is geared towards keeping people addicted to sense objects, and especially the need for the new, which is something that one must over come if they ever hope to progress.
No one would argue that a kid growing up in Africa that is surrounded by civil war, AIDS, war loads, genocide, slavery, etc… is going to have a hard time progressing to a stage beyond those things, because they are so prevalent around them. How could you argue that our marketing machine might not also stifle the development of our kids beyond rampant consumerism?

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

That's like saying that we should embrace Islamic fundamentalism because it is legitimate for people at a certain stage to deal with global issues.

Really? Because I never said that people who are buying an iphone and designer clothes should be dealing with global issues. Unless they happen to be integral.

Also, your starting with the assumption that the need for designer clothes or the latest gadget is some how a natural thing, and not conditioned by a trillion dollar marketing machine.

It is partly conditioned by marketing, just as when someone gets hungry, they crave types of food from their culture. So I guess hunger is not a natural need because an individual's choices are partly influenced by the LL. This is kind of a Marxist perspective, of course.

Also, that model for getting people to make green decisions from their CoG is a great idea on paper, but when we actually look at the data, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we see that they are often disasters… So far the idea of getting people to implement green ideals via their CoG, is really theoretical at this point.

So is it a disaster, or it is just theoretical. If it's theoretical, how can there be data about it?

But again, your straying from the point of the thread.

I apologize for that, thank you for keeping me on track. Clearly the intent of the thread is to bash consumerism. I will leave you to it.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Teacup, you are completely conceptualizing my point and arguing with someone other than myself.
I also never said that people who wait in a line over night for an iphone or have an absolute need for designer things, should be concerned with global issues.
I'm saying that you don't understand the how culture works. There are billions of people that move from stage 1 to stage 5, and never become Islamic fundamentalist radicals. The same is true about the extreme felt need to possess the latest and greatest thing.
While all people feel hunger, and that drive is universal, what is considered 'good to eat' beyond the basic nutritional value of things, is absolutely based within a culture. Cultural conditioning actually superceeds physical and nutritional needs in most cases.

Stage development is really just relative degrees of delusion. If at a certain stage a person's anger, greed and delusion are not only not limited by a person's environment, but fostered, reinforced and conditioned, then the possibility for that person to over come those things and climb the ladder, will be negatively impacted.
If a heroin addict lives in a world, where heroin is free, unstigmatized and available in annymous despensing machines on every street corner, then that addict will never, ever get clean. It won't happen.

Life isn't the zero/sum game that you are insinuating that I am saying. I'm not bashing consumerism. People are always going to want various sense objects. Things that they can hold in there hands that other's want, but don't have. I know this.
But, when you have trillions of dollars, billions of man-hours, and the vangaurd of social and psychological science all geared towards, not only exploiting that fact, but expanding upon it, and making sure that greed and delusion are reinforced so they don't weaken, the obvious result will be a stifling of consciousness development.

As far as the data gathered from persuits like eco-tourism, Scuba divers protecting coral, biofuels, etc… the facts don't look good and a Prius has yet to surpass a porshe for most people. Hence it's still rather theoretical.

Your right that marketing agencies need to be utilized to sell green products. I'm in total agreement. But, again, look at the total market and you will see that that market is so small, in relation to not really the products, but conditioning that I'm pointing at. Yet, that isn't the point of this thread.

If someone feels an absolute need to buy a Prius or some other green product, then that is good for our environment, and you are right. But, that person's greed and delusion are still being reinforced and conditioned and will still have a harder time getting to the point that they would buy that green product, becasue it is simply the right thing to do.
But, again the majority of marketing forces aren't being used to make people want Priuses, it's geared toward the drive to simply want things, to reify sense objects as representing need itself. iPhone = happiness.
The individual products don't matter. The drive to reinforce and condition the underlying greed and delusion are, so that once the product is produced the work has already been done.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Mr. Teacup,

I want to appologize for the tone of my last post to you. Saying that you don't understand culture was uncalled for and rude.
I could feel you automatically putting what I was trying to say into an Integral 'box' that wasn't reflective of the point I was trying to get accross. I know this, because I've read the same KW and other's books that everyone else here has, and understand the typing rather well. There is a kind of assuring taxonomy developed in the work, but underneath it there is the message that individuals and reality are very complex forms and mixes of these simplistic models.
Hence, me saying that life is not a zero/sum game.
I could feel you completely ignore the point I was trying to make, and instead debate a generic AQAL green figure that rallies against capitalism and consermerism just to rally against it and not fully understanding it. I often do the same thing to others. Not on this forum, but in day to day encounters.
My point in essence is that neither rampant and extreme comsumerism, nor greed and delusion exist without each other.
We can't just snidely dismiss all behavior as simplistic and inevidable outcomes of meme expression. That is just one of many causal factors in human behavior.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I can see why you might think that I'm dismissing your argument as just Green, but I'm actually not just deploying AQAL in a content-free manner. I've linked to Mediated and Nation of Rebels as part of my justification, and I also think highly of the arguments raised in Neo-Bohemia and The Conquest of Cool.

I am very familiar with the anti-consumerism arguments – I used to make them. But the books I referenced above put forward devastating critiques of that perspective, showing it to be ultimately shallow, ahistorical, wrapped up in it's own flattering myths about rebellion. Most significant of all, it's hypocritical because the alternative it offers is unable to withstand the same critique that it levels against consumer culture. And these books are written largely by people who are or were part of the movement, so it's not that they disagree that there are severe problems with consumer culture. They are dealing with the fact that green anti-capitalism thought has largely failed to be effective for all those reasons. That's not to say that all green anti-capitalism movements are failures – the open source movement, which I have supported and participated in for about 10 years, has become increasingly influential and effective. It's no coincidence that liberal activists espousing green values have adopted many of techniques and some of the issues (privacy, voting machines, net neutrality).

So it's not that I'm ignoring your point; I just don't think it takes into account the above critiques.

There are billions of people that move from stage 1 to stage 5, and never become Islamic fundamentalist radicals. The same is true about the extreme felt need to possess the latest and greatest thing.

So Orange can be pathological, but most people realize this. The problem is not that people are at the extremes of Orange, but that too many people are at healthy, normal Orange and are not transitioning to Green. The reason they aren't transitioning to Green is because Green is effectively unavailable having rendered itself inert, and was actually instrumental in electing our current president. Politically, Green has been ineffective for 50 years, and blaming that on Orange is ridiculous. We need a new Green value system, and I suggest that it is found in the open source movement.


But, that person's greed and delusion are still being reinforced and conditioned and will still have a harder time getting to the point that they would buy that green product, becasue it is simply the right thing to do.

This kind of thinking limits effectiveness, in my opinion. The distinction between self-interest and altruism gets more and more blurry as you go up the spiral. This is the meaning of John Nash's equilibrium principle. I generally don't steal from my employers – is that because of self-interest or because I want to do the right thing? You might say that self-interest is just about not wanting to get caught, but actually, it's because I realize that my employer and I are in an interdependent relationship, a non-zero sum game. I don't actually gain from stealing from my employer, it would be like trying to get nutrition from eating my own hand. Do I avoid eating my own hand out of self-interest, or altruism toward my hand? The idea that we are trying to transcend self-interest is misguided – in fact, we are trying to expand our definition of self – from individual, to family, to tribe, to nation, to world, to kosmos. To be “self”-interested for the kosmos is more moral than to be altruistic to one's family.

And thanks for re-opening the lines of communication.

~MrTC

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Holden, if you're gonna do marketing, especially for the big companies, you pretty much have to accept that you are working for the dark side, and that you'll have to turn your imagination to the purposes of the dark arts.

That's the way life is.

Arguably one could do marketing without exploiting brain, mind, and consciousness, but if the thing you are trying to sell is in any kind of competitive niche, and you need to make a living at it, you'll end up doing some kind of exploitation.

Of course, that's true of most businesses or employments in our culture.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Yes, that is what I am finding out first hand. And that's the thing. These “Dark Arts” as you say, are nebulous in design. Nebulous in the sense that they aren't geared toward selling anything in particular, but to simply sell.
The whole point is to analyse the way the human mind works, both as an individual and in a group, and exploit the inherent greed and delusion, so we can keep people in a constant state of want. So when we get a contract for a particular product, we just plug in the product.
As Mr. Teacup has said, not every part is bad. Part of what we do is gather information so that we can tell a company how make something better in the sense that it is closer to what more people really want. The bad part is that we are also responsible for telling people what they want and are supposed to want.  So the part about us gathering research to make things better, is really kind of a ruse.
Before I got there, there was a huge campaign for Camel cigarettes. They sent out thousands of samples to loyal smokers, 62,000 loyal smokers, and got feed back and tweaked and changed, and on and on for a year. At the end of the year, we now have Camel's signature blends.
So this seems like a market good. People already smoke and we made the cigarettes better. But we have to ask ourselves why those 62,000 people started to smoke in the first place. There is no inherent need to smoke. The need was largely manufactured.
More than that, I was going over our actual part, which was to ensure that ASU30 (adult smoker's under 30), not only got a hold of these cigarettes, but that we produced a Positive Emotional Branding Experience (TM). That is, our goal is to get 18-29 year olds to think of a manufactured mental scene, feeling or state which automatically equates to these cigarettes. All research shows that after 30 people either stick with one brand and don't change or they quit.
The one necessary step needed on the journey to a non-dual stage is to disassociate This=That. This however is the one aspect of delusion that is necessary if you want to sell someone something that they don't need or automatically want.
As one brilliant person said, I forget who, “You don't see a lot of Zen monks at the mall every weekend. That shit is bad for business.”
Yet, at the same time, we're not selling anything that people don't want. It really is easy to blur the ethical lines. This was only a short term job for me to save money, because I'm moving back to Japan for a couple of years. One of the biggest job markets for social scientists right now is for marketing companies, so I wanted to try it out.

Mr. Teacup, have you seen the online John Stossle, the journalist, clip of his arguing for the benifits of the free market? It's very interesting. The thing is though, in the end no one has any idea what will happen with a completely free market. The reason we have regulated capitalism is because the capitalists didn't do so well with a lot of freedom.
Your argument is valid, but I think balance is needed with the present equation of market and advertizing forces. Too far in either direction and bad things happen.
So again, I agree with your sentiment, but my thesis is that the reality of the present mix is designed to reinforce the very delusion and greed necessary to continue on the ladder of development. I also don't like many of the anti-capitalist movements out there, as I am a former anarchist, but that doesn't mean that because they go about things the wrong way or are hypocritical, that the opposite of their message is true.
I'm a vegetarian, since 13 in South Texas,  and I think a lot of animal rights groups also hurt their own causes as well.

“The problem is not that people are at the extremes of Orange, but that too many people are at healthy, normal Orange and are not transitioning to Green. The reason they aren't transitioning to Green is because Green is effectively unavailable having rendered itself inert, and was actually instrumental in electing our current president. Politically, Green has been ineffective for 50 years, and blaming that on Orange is ridiculous.”

True, and that's the standard party line for Integral. You have understood my point then, because I was saying that while green does a lot of damage to the health of the spiral, the damage also done by Orange has been wholesalely ignored. I'm not blaming Orange, but I'm seeing and placing blame where blame is due. In South Chicago, where I used to live for a while, development isn't stifled because of MGM, it is stifled because, “Cash rules eveyrthing around me, C.R.E.A.M, get the money, dolla dolla bills yal.” (Wu Tang)

The majority of Integrally minded people don't live in poor areas, or in really rich areas, but somewhere in the middle and in liberal areas of the country. They deal with MGM daily, but the rampant and exploitative consumerism that the majority deal with, is so pervasive that it is ignored and not thought of a cause of developmental retardation, but merely an effect of 1st tier consciousness.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

“You might say that self-interest is just about not wanting to get caught, but actually, it's because I realize that my employer and I are in an interdependent relationship, a non-zero sum game. I don't actually gain from stealing from my employer, it would be like trying to get nutrition from eating my own hand.”

That kind of thinking is what we call in marketing, being a sucker to the propaganda of the rational choice theory. Not in those words, but that's the message.
Not you, but most people, the vast majority of people don't make decisions rationally. They make choices emotionally and then later back up there decisions in a rational and logical way. We know this and our job is to exploit this by directing you feelings to buy something, and then producing a rational explanation for you, so you can be as lazy in the process as possible.
You want proof? One word: Bush. The man was sold to the American people the same way they are sold beer and Nikes.


So, I would say that you don't steal from your boss now, because you understand the interconnected nature of the relationship, but everyone else steals. We could open up a store with all the shit that's stolen in my office, and the only limit are various controls put into the system. I'm not just talking about products, but 15mins becomes an hour on a time sheet a dozen times a week.  I don't steal for the same reason you don't, but I didn't used to steal when I was younger, because of the emotional value I placed on honesty that was taught to me by my parents.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

The whole point is to analyse the way the human mind works, both as an individual and in a group, and exploit the inherent greed and delusion, so we can keep people in a constant state of want. So when we get a contract for a particular product, we just plug in the product.

I'm thinking that “greed and delusion” aren't the best word choices to describe what you want to describe, altho I get your meaning.

What's being exploited are the feelings of incompleteness and incohate longings of earlier, “lower” levels of development.

A person buys a hummer not just to display status, but to satisfy a reptile brain need to be big and strong and threatening, to be able to defend symbolic territory from interlopers. You could say, they just want to be loved, and lovable, on that reptile level.

The behavior looks like greed for status displays, and it is that, but it works the way it does because of the longing of incompleted levels.

But you're right, part of the large view of the job of marketing is to stimulate and send signals to those incompleted areas in every modern humans mind, to manufacture an burning illusion that completeness can be purchased.

Then just plug in the product of the most recent contract.

I'm sure what you will learn about the brain and human nature will be useful later. I hope the job doesn't get too vile. ;-}

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I've seen John Stossel. He bugs me – most free-market/libertarians kind of annoy me. Maybe they just seem so callous. Ken Wilber has spoken favorably of Thomas Friedman, although he's really a classic, pro-globalization liberal. I agree that my theory doesn't entail becoming a libertarian, not by any means. But John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods and on the board of Integral Institute is a libertarian. That doesn't make him right, but he has some interesting things to say about conscious capitalism here.

I'm well aware of the flaws of rational choice theory, and I don't mean that morality is based on rationality. I didn't use reason to come to the realization that I shouldn't eat my own hand. It's intuitive. For someone with high moral development, the possibility of theft never enters their mind, much less evaluated for it's cost-benefit ratio.

——–

Michael, the anarcho-primitivists argue that it's not just capitalism that is the problem, but agriculture. 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution created the human population explosion that turned us into the vicious parasites we are today. And the incentive to abandon the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that we enjoyed in harmony with nature for hundreds of thousands of years. It's been downhill since then, so they look forward to the death of 99% of humanity and a return to that time. But maybe survival is too good for the human scourge? To me, it seems a little tasteless to hope for the death of one's own children, so I guess this perspective is not for me.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Teacup,

I didn't see this until just today.  I am no anarcho-primitivist and I totally agree with your sentiment of “tastelessness.”  I do not see the human species as a “scourge” inherently, but, lost in the dubious guidance of a highly exploitative, opportunistic, and amoral economic super-structure, we are collectively beginning to look that way.

I would consider myself exactly the opposite of the anarcho-primitivist.  I see a world that can handle 20-30 billion people or more.  Maslow's hierarchy is all that must be accomodated.  Appropriate technology will provide for that entire structure.  The only change required would be a surrender to the spiritual imperative - an about face from the stuff-oriented, survivalist mentality which is hoodoo'd into us by, as Bill puts it, the dark side.  The flat out happiest people I have ever seen in my life were Indian adivasi (out of towners) who did not have shit for stuff, but they had Ganesh, and Shiva, and Shakti, and smiles that were hot with wonder.

That the earth cannot handle its current population is a myth.  The problem is that capitalism cannot materialize the “cargo” dream it has been manipulating us with for these past few hundred years and now seeks, I dare contend, to orchestrate a little population correction, that will bring numbers back into a manageable range.  Think armageddon, aids, famine and whatever other apocalyptic nightmare that comes to mind - “strategic” nuclear war, for instance.  What would emerge from this chaos would be a sharply reduced population, maybe as much as 50-60%, and an intact executive/military/industrial coalition which is fully prepared to rule us with sattelite detection and anhiliation technology that is already in place.  The end result would be a “Skull and Bones-” style ruling class, storm trooper goons and the rest of us who survived, yeah, us slaves.  This, I contend, is behind the sneer on Dick Cheney's face.

With all due respect to you and Rick and the others who are still taking capitalism seriously as a “workable” economic methodology, I say “Wake the fuck up!”  I believe that we need to begin to imagineer and implement, on the personal level first, a complete overhaul of our “consciousness” re ultimate priority and ultimate responsibility.  I mean, don't you suppose that we can do better than this grasping, bleeding, wasteful, heartless, do-nothing-that-jeapordizes-return-on-investment Goliath?

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Michael,

Fortunately, the population is projected to max out at 9 billion.

On whether humanity is a scourge, I recommend this essay by Adam Werbach, president of the Sierra Club. Here's a quote:

Within environmentalists and environmentalism reside both a love for
and a hatred of humanity. Because misanthropy at a political level is
suicidal, it merits remaining private. But over the years, ordinary
Americans have sensed it, the media has magnified it, and during the
springtime of the environmental movement, the keenest conservatives saw
an opportunity to exploit it. Ayn Rand, for one, saw environmentalists'
“ultimate motive [as a] hatred for achievement, for reason, for man,
for life.”

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Teacup,

I'm ok with 9 billion, though I truly think that breakthrough power/food/housing/potable-water/health care technologies can provide sustainable thrivance for more once the death grip of poverty consciousness (a capitalist invention) has been lifted.  My reason for the more-the-merrier attitude is that I see this earth as a likely (at least locally in the grand scale of our galaxy) rare opportunity for souls to incarnate.  More, these trying and conflicted times are what afford the soul (if you, as I, believe in such a thing) just the kind of intense and rendering fire that can advance a soul's maturation.  This concoction of conflicted gender, race, politics, economics, population, religion, resource, and global warming dynamics, is a rich stew fit to nourish the highest levels of karma burning liberation.  I imagine billions of old souls from all over the universe standing in line for a shot at this incarnation lottery. 

I do not adhere to the conventional wisdom that population-driven ignorance and excesses have precipitated the global warming crisis.  A conflicting theory is making its way through the defenses of the politically correct  “we-did-it-to-ourselves” mantra.  As I understand this alternative view, it says that the evident warming effect that we are seeing as manifest in rising ocean temperatures and melt rates in Greenland and Antarctica, simply cannot be attibuted to CO2 levels alone.  In fact, according to the talk, the actual warming indices are as much as 50% higher than can be attributed to CO2 alone.  What is it that accounts for this evident discrepancy? 

Apparently, the shape of the earth's orbit has something to do with it.  Typically, the orbit is somewhat elliptical with periods of greater ellipse coinciding with periods of deep glaciation and periods of more circular orbit (as we are experiencing now) characterized by warming, ice melt, and rising sea levels.  It seems that the more circular the orbit, the more a general “warming” of the planet occurs.  This warming accumulates in the ocean, hence the general rise in ocean temperatures.  Warmer oceans mean incrementally more evaporation into the atmosphere.  In conclusion, the theory contends that it is H2O in the atmosphere that is exacerbating the heat-trapping phenomenon.  Actually, the theory holds that H20 is the driver with CO2 being the exacerbator.

My point is that population is taking a bad rap for consequences for which it is not responsible.  CO2 production, especially in the last 50 years when we really knew and could do better, is the consequence again, of irresponsible, and exploitative economic policy.  Additionally, population cannot be held responsible for the earth's orbit and the impact that it has on global warming. 

Further (and why it is pertinent to this topic) my point is that the virtual inevitablility of a relatively dramatic (new models suggest as much as 20ft in 50 years) rise in the sea level will force a minimum of 1/3 of the earth's population to relocate.  If the rise follows the conservative end of the model, this relocation will be underway in less than 20 years.  If population is not substantially “corrected” by then, we could be at the 9 billion population level.  This means that, conservatively, 3 Billion people could be on the move in the next 20 - 40 years.  That is well within the life time of our children.

My final point is that if anything remotely similar to this scenario in scale and time unfolds, capitalism and the captains of industry as we know it and them today will screw this up so bad that an overwhelmingly apocalyptic cluster fuck will be the inevitable result.

The time for a competitive economic structure is over.  It is time for those who seek to lead us to concede to the most conservative of predictive models and begin to plan for this apparent inevitability.  IMO, there will be no room for competition in the solution of this dilemna - maybe in the design and engineering arena, a certain vestigial competitive spirit may be useful, but when it comes to implementation, a one-size-fits-all attitude must be built in or competition and a falling-through-the-cracks consequence will unfold as sure as hell.  As the world's biggest “exacerbator,” biggest economy, and with the most at stake, the US must lead this global effort. 

Thus, the question remains:  how to change the current hog-wild momentum towards some huge, population-correcting “event?”  I don't know what, but I do know that the solution will not come out of the paradigm in which the problem was created.  The solution will be spirtually based I suspect - perhaps right along the lines we are exploring here - people willing to wake up from the materialistic nightmare, get realized, start producing light, and become so attractive to “others” that “others” will become willing to follow suit.  This is no fantasy, it is the 100th Monkey Tipping Point where the vision would hold 10 Billion of us living here in 50 - 100 years, well fed, healthy, fully challenged by consciousness expansion, and 1/3 of us living at sea.

As to Werbach's observation that environmentalism harbors misanthropy, well, name me a political movement that does not harbor misanthropy.  Ayn Rand's exploitation of nascent green is not so much the product of “keen observation,” that environmentalists hated “achievement,” “reason,” “man,” and “life,” its just the kind of uber-provocative, over-the-top charge that one would expect from her natural successor, Ann Coulter.  Ayn Rand was witty and insightful, yes, but she was never anything more than an apologist for the “who me, responsible?” crowd and ultimately served nothing more than to deepen the mess we are in today.

Lastly, as a reluctant but necessary consumer of health care “products,” I am here to tell you that the medical industry is no capitalist victory.  It is true that infant mortality rates have dropped, but why is this attributed to capitalism?  Why could this improvement not have occured in a cooperative system?  What makes competition so vital to progress?  Why is the most capitalistic nation on earth #38 in the world when it comes to health care for its citizens?

Yer pal,
Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

As to Werbach's observation that environmentalism harbors misanthropy, well, name me a political movement that does not harbor misanthropy.

The environmentalist misanthropy is of a different order altogether. Every worldview hates all the others, but generally they will stop hating you if you convert, but Green tends toward self-loathing on top of that. This is not a winner politically. You won't find a more strident critic of Objectivism than me, and that is why I try to avoid discrediting the ideas that they oppose.

Competition and co-operation are the eros and agape of the economic system. Even though two companies might be competitive with each other, they are also co-operative. For example, both companies share an interest in a stable, predictable government and justice system, share costs of creating transportation, communication and even a military infrastructure that is necessary for business to be conducted. This is all done co-operatively, and the actual exchange with a customer is also co-operative, most companies are run internally with co-operation. There is definitely an element of competition: who can provide the most value to a customer. The problem with capitalism is not competition, but when companies fail to account for the true costs – environmental, social, etc. – of what they are selling. These hidden costs are offloaded on to workers, tax payers, societies, ecosystems and future generations, so all anti-corporate projects are really nothing more than making sure that corporations and their customers pay the true costs of the products. In reality, society heavily subsidizes corporations, and we are simply hoping to remove those subsidies, just as free market economics demands. It would mean that many harmful products and business practices turn out to be unprofitable, but that's the way things are in the free market.

It's true that the high standard of living we enjoy could have been achieved purely through co-operative means, but it didn't. Why not? Competitive people did competitive things, and co-operative people did co-operative things, so why did the competitors win? In large part, because they provided better solutions. I'm not saying that capitalism is solely responsible for lower infant mortality – government obviously played a role too. But where did the government get the money to implement all those improvements? By taxing the public's rising income that was driven up by capitalism. A command economy is too inefficient over the long run to provide an equivalent rise in income.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Hey guys, let's keep the posts at the bottom of the thread to make it easier for peopel to follow the conversation please.
Mr. Teacup, my responses to you posts have been posted at the bottom.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I realize that my employer and I are in an interdependent relationship, a non-zero sum game. I don't actually gain from stealing from my employer, it would be like trying to get nutrition from eating my own hand.

Wow. Crazy.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Dear Ones,

The New World Order's principal export is religion - not Christianity, but Capitalism.  God, for the vast majority of this planet's citizens, is money, cash, precious metals and jewels, real estate, securities, acruals, art, memorabilia, and other negotiable “instruments.”  The adage that money can buy anything but love is bullshit.  Having money and a modicum of wit will acquire for you what a surfeit of wit will not.  Money will buy celebrity, sex, drugs, recognition, attention, and, if you wave it around in just the right way, the affections of someone you who may just come to love you.  The saying that “Cash is King” is true in more ways than one.  If you don't have money in this world, you do not have shit, period.  You are left to look sad and act nobly while your children die from routine diseases and you will labor, labor, labor to produce the goods that everyone else in the marketing, distribution, and sales chain will use to send their children to college and their mistresses to Bergdorf's.  Capitalism swallows its opposition as does any dark force its every accuser who dares to employ the same tactics.  The steady cooptation of Green anti-capitalistic ventures is evidence.  Communism was a joke, not because Marx was so wrong-headed, but because, in the cauldron of revolution, it is the scum that rises to the surface.  The Russians say, the best day in the history of their country was the day that Lenin was born and the worst was the day he died.

If everything, as many of us are coming to believe, is somehow derived from love, then capital, money, wealth, and the power associated with them are essentially forms of this love.  As a parallel, all forms of desire, wanting, urge, and need, derive from the same basic source:  the yearning to be re-united with our higher Self.  It is as if not getting any or enough affection when young, turned many of us into attention freaks as a substitute.  Becoming adept at attaining and ultimately addicted to attention, helps allay our doubts about our belonging and adequacy.  Parental affection, at the least, is required to anchor us in our families and give us a sense of belonging in the world for we know as a result of this unconditional affection, that there is nothing we can do to jeopardize our sense of belonging.  Thus, we do not require inordinate amounts of attention. 

The pursuit of attention pits us against our siblings in a competitive dance and thus we become corruptible.  Our focus shifts to looking good, pride rises and we learn to lie, cheat and steal to maintain our edge.

Attention, thus, is capital in the economy of youth.  This horrifying lie becomes the taproot of our conscience and all of our subsequent rationalizations, justifications, and moral compromises, branch forward from it.

Few doubt that heartfelt cooperation between a mother and a father is the foundation for a functional family.  This burning truth, initiated at conception and sustained prior to, and after birth through unconditional affection, is the only way that the young can thrive in a culture so ridden with lies.  Soon, they will find out what they are up against, but, with the anchor of total acceptance, and the model of their parent's commitment to cooperation, children will know at their core that they have a choice.  Sadly, few of us received such dedicated modeling, coming only to realize it after spending years in the jungles of dissatisfaction, misplaced yearning, envy and despair with only our “look good” to sustain us. 

Capitalism is thus founded on this imbedded notion that competition is more important to survival than cooperation.  Indeed, within the context of “survival,” it may be.  Yet we all yearn to more than merely survive.  We yearn to thrive, to live in happiness, joy and freedom, to see in others what we admire about ourselves, to experience a pervasive state of fondness for our families and the world and to share with all how this state of fondness has affected us.  This sharing is affection.  Affection derives from cooperation.  Competition is painted in “Sportsmanship” but really breeds contempt.

Sorry Teacup, it will take a mighty persuasive argument to convince me that consumerism has any merit whatsoever, let alone capitalism.  This question just came to mind for me for the first time today:  Which is more important in the Kosmic sense:  the vitality of the planet, or the vitality of the human species?  If we, as a species, have become a threat to the life-sustaining environment on this planet, then we are a scourge, an out-of-control virus for which there appears to be no cure.  This has not always been the case.  IMO, one of the key differences is the rise of capitalism, God as money, and the conviction that competition is more important to our sustenance than cooperation.

yer pal,

Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Dear all

What a fascinating discussion. I find myself swinging from one argument to another, seeing 'truths' in each.

Where I am at the moment (and probably most people) I can have very little effect on global level development but I can impact on my own sphere of influence.
 
When I first learned about spiral dynamics I think I was green with an orange tinge and believed it was my duty to make everybody around me green (of course, to be the best green!!). My poor kids, they were relentlessly propogandised! At some point I finally 'got the message' from all (?most) developmental theorists, we have to go through the stages in a sequential order, we can't skip a stage, we can't force the development. What we can do is hope/aim to go through them in a relatively healthy and timely way.

So what has this got to do with Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development?

My eldest son is well and truly orange, slap bang in the middle of the Nike generation. I used to drive him and myself nuts trying to 'make' him green. trying to curb his rampant consumerism. Once I got the message, I let go of that need to change him. i learned to live with my kids at the level they were/are at (most of the time!!). I made/make my own decisions in a way that feels right for me and my place in the world and communicate that to the boys and we talk about the adverts they see and what they're going to spend their money on.
So now, ever so quietly and with very little fuss i'm seeing my eldest start to question himself and make different choices (not many, just a few, but its a start) and of course the younger two are now diving head first into ipods and mobile phones etc. I can't stop them going through orange, i can hopefully help them do it in a more healthy way and sow the seeds for them to step into green when they're ready.

To rage against marketing, capitalism and all things orange is truly understandable but ultimately pointless, we just have to go through it. Unfortunately the sheer population numbers make this an horrific prospect for the planet. So what do we do? My own answer is to do the little bit that i can in a way that honours the whole spiral and keeps tugging at the edges in my sphere of influence.

There may be people in this pod who have a wider sphere of influence or who work directly or indirectly in marketing, capitalism et al and if you've got it flaunt it I say.

Juliee

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Juliee,

Thanks for your thoughts and the experiences with your children.  My 19 yr old son is wrestling with the same thoughts and decisions.  He has heard me go off on capitalism and consumerism for years - ad nauseum, and it hasn't seemed to affect his ideals or motivations one bit.  I have come to take this as a good sign, not that he doesn't bend to my wiser “ways” as I have not required him too, but more, I have encouraged him to find his own way and just listen to what I have to say with out necessarily believing it.  I like it that he, however uncertainly at times, follows his own inner guidance.

Regarding ranting and railing at the “darkness” of capitalist consumerism:  well, its not only a waste of time and psychic energy, it actually makes things instrumentally worse as power gains power by being opposed.  Any close look at the global economy will show that we are trapped in a hoodoo dream where the promise of stuff, “cargo,” to bestow status, belonging, fulfillment and the rest, bleats at us from every corner of our communities and homes.  There is no getting away from this omnipresent siren call.  How desperate it seems, behind the beautiful models, and the idyllic consequences of your purchase.  Now that we are trapped in this consumer dream we live with the fear that nothing can replace it.  What if it stopped?  What if people stopped buying, or even slowed down substantially, all the miscellaneous crap that is manufactured around the globe in little and big sweatshops - what would these para-slaves do to put bread on their tables?  The problem with capitalism is that it HAS to keep going, going, going, expanding, and wasting, wasting, wasting.  It can't become conservative.  Goods cannot be made to “last.”  We cannot have an electric car society - think of the loss of profit for the oil companies and the complex, wasteful, polluting, and replacement part-dependent intermal combustion engine.  Capitalism economically and self-aggrandizement personally are inherently destructive to both the environment and the psyche.

IMO, the solution is to stop serving it, to stop participating in its rituals, to recognize that a truly sustainable economy is founded in spiritual expansion, not material wealth.  As has been said, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

IMO, the solution is to stop serving it, to stop participating in its rituals, to recognize that a truly sustainable economy is founded in spiritual expansion, not material wealth.  As has been said, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Hi Michael

Ditto what i said to Rick, you are right. But its tough isn't it? I see-saw backwards and forwards when I'm out shopping. Do I/we really need that? I'm getting better but I'm still a long way off. As you both say, it is so ingrained in our way of living.

I read somewhere (don't know how well founded it is in research - anyone?) that part of 'the West's' obesity problem is linked to the response to 'feast or famine' situations in human history and perhaps this can be extended to other aspects of greed, in addition to the spiritual/psychological 'gaping hole' approach.

So perhaps conscious shopping can be added to our ILP?

Juliee

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Julie: “So now, ever so quietly and with very little fuss i'm seeing my eldest start to question himself and make different choices (not many, just a few, but its a start) and of course the younger two are now diving head first into ipods and mobile phones etc. I can't stop them going through orange, i can hopefully help them do it in a more healthy way and sow the seeds for them to step into green when they're ready.”

Oh, no doubt. I agree with Mr. Teacup and his underlying argument, but I would say that any extreme, one way or the other are in a sense, the same.
I'll qualify what I mean. Ordinarily we think in terms of mirror opposites. A mirror opposite isn't actually the opposite of something, but merely that thing reversed. So we think the opposite of good is evil, or left and right. When actually examined though we see that these dualistic concepts, that is mirror opposites, contain both themselves and also that opposite.
So proponents of absolute free market capitalism and socialists totally opposed to all markets in the present moment, really aren't that different. They are just as committed to mental concepts over direct experience, just as dogmatic, just as rigid, stubborn, and dangerous as each other. Of course one has a great deal more power in the present world, but millions have been killed by the other in the past.  We can see this process also taking place in America's absolute feeling of being on the side of right, and the fundamentalist Islamist feeling the same. Each spin with good and evil filling each other and we dualistically and mentally conceive of unitary goods or evils.
So, Julie, your son is transversing an orange tinged continuum at the present moment, and he had a dark green mom.

How many kids have really green parents to kick and beat at their current position on their particular journey, and show them the examples of another way? How many kids are that lucky? How about the billions of kids that grow up in a world in which the outside world seems to be invading like a foreign army, but instead of tanks and bullets, shots of ad campaigns are launched at them? Or the poor kid, that makes up the majority of the world, looking at their t.v. and seeing hip-hop stars flashing a life style only imagined, and the rest of the world telling them that that is their personal Nirvana.

We can't ignore that the author of Integral theory, was a middle class, white, skinny, and nerdy kid that lived in Boulder. So MGM gets a lot of attention, but the developmental threat to most people in the world is largely unnoticed.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

How many kids have really green parents to kick and beat at their current position on their particular journey, and show them the examples of another way? How many kids are that lucky? How about the billions of kids that grow up in a world in which the outside world seems to be invading like a foreign army, but instead of tanks and bullets, shots of ad campaigns are launched at them? Or the poor kid, that makes up the majority of the world, looking at their t.v. and seeing hip-hop stars flashing a life style only imagined, and the rest of the world telling them that that is their personal Nirvana.

You are right of course; as I said my sphere of influence is relatively small but it is mine and I'll do what I can with it. There are other actions of course outside of just my family (carefully selected child sponsorship for example). I choose to do what I can rather than succumbing to despair, an avalanche starts with a snowflake or two.

I understand and feel your anger, i choose to use my anger to fuel what actions I can take rather than let it tear me apart inside - as it used to do.

I'm conscious I probably sound sanctimonious - I don't mean to be, but following discussions on other recent threads I decided that my next step was to let my voice be heard fully rather than edited out of existence and I feel very strongly that we have to start somewhere, even if it is tiny.

Juliee

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

What we see as 'needs' here in the US are luxuries in other countries.  Given that the US as a whole has a main center of gravity at orange it would be very understandable how 'we' are focused on the newest ipod or what's hot for spring.

Trying to compare the actions of US consumers with African or Mexican consumers is not really possible we are at very different stages and have no connection to each other in a real way.   What I mean by this is although my daughter might understand intellectually that kids in India live in a garbage city, she can not fully understand it because she lives in a house with a computer etc. (although we don't have a TV and all her friend think I am a freak… but that is a different conversation)

Conversly, here in CA we run across folks from Mexico frequently who do not put toilet paper in the toilet because in Mexico it does bad bad things to the plumming.  Their level of consumerism around toilet paper is different than ours and that would hold true for other immigrants as well.  Once here of course they adjust pretty quickly as orange would fast become a part of their everyday world.

My way of talking about consumerism is having the need vs want discussion.  We all have needs and for the most part they are really pretty basic.  Everything else is a want and to the degree we let that control us and our environment is the degree in which the consumerism runs rampant. 

There are a lot of good things that come from capitalism and the research into what drives people to do what they do…… you understand their motivations, you understand their wants and if you are a conscious company you use that information to facilitate change.  If you are a conscious consumer, you buy from that consciousness… at whatever level that might be.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Gina,

What “good” things come from capitalism that would necessarily not come from another economic system?

Conscious companies have to compete with companies that are not “conscious,” or whose consciousness includes taking advantage of those companies with a “conscience.”  By its very nature, capitalism has weeded out the “local,” the select, and the “ma and pa,”  Capitalism has environmentally destroyed entire regions of the country leaving poverty in its wake.  US-based capitalism has exploited the rest of the world in a far more insidious fashion than even here at home.  IMO, conscious capitalism, is a retrograde joke - an attempt to reform or re-costume a failed concept.  Capitalism is a system where ruthless opportunists rise at the expense of their more civil co-workers.  Modern capitalism has thrived by busting unions and reducing health care options.  Capitalism spends as much money on lobbying congress as it does advertising its products.

Please, what is “good” about capitalism?

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

hmmm, good capitalism

Aren't you taking this to the mean orange stage?  Capitalism creates growth.  Not all growth is good, nor is it all bad.  Why is consumerism so hated?  because of its cancer like qualities I suppose.  I might  be wrong about this but I remember hearing that all humans have some form of cancer in their gene pool.  What makes it malignant for some and not others?  Right now there are pharmaceutical companies simultaneously doing great things and hideous thing to and for people….. the cancer is there and it is healing itself too.

Is Starbucks the Devil? perhaps it certainly homogenized the coffeehouse experience.  But it also created a large counter culture.  When I first moved to Austin (1993) there was maybe 2 coffeehouses in the entire town.  I had just come from San Diego where I frequented several area coffeehouses and enjoyed the atmosphere.  I seriously considered opening a coffeehouse on South Congress.  It wasn't long before Starbucks was on the corner of many roads AND it also increased the number of independent offerings as well.   

Don't even ask if coffeehouses are necessary.  I won't debate that issue  ;P

Your wired friend,

Gina

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Julie: “I understand and feel your anger, i choose to use my anger to fuel what actions I can take rather than let it tear me apart inside - as it used to do.”

I'm not angry about this. Do my post really have such an angry tone to them?

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

That's what I hear Rick, but maybe its my own anger.

Juliee

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Gina: “Trying to compare the actions of US consumers with African or Mexican consumers is not really possible we are at very different stages and have no connection to each other in a real way. ”

I'm glad you said that, because you've hit the nail on the head of one of the most common misconceptions in Integral communities today. Consumerism isn't different in Mexico or Africa because most people are operating from different CoG. It is different because of the extreme poverty.
Mexico has a lot of rich people that own very nice things, but Mexico has a systematic and socially enforced class system of ethnic identity. Get in your car and drive around Mexico and talk to the people.
In the world, people are completely aware of the fact that they don't have anything, and others do. They are very politically aware that those “others” have what they have, because they've taken it from them and their ancestors.
But again, there is often a love/hate relationship with development. People in many areas of the poor South, around the world remember the money that allowed them to have modern conveniences, and would like to bring back a gold mine or some other outside development, but this time operate it as partners and not colonial subjects.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

The CoG is not really what I was saying, actually I think I said the opposite of that.  What people experience is what effects them the most.  If I were to drive around in rual Mexico I would have a very different experience in talking to people than those in populated areas.   What they can't have and what they do have creates a center of being that is different. 

Isn't it partially the poverty that does then create a different center of gravity?  There is no real way for a child who can't read to get to Green, fully.  This is why I used the example of my daughter not understanding, she might get it in her head but she really truly can't understand that until she gets there on other levels lines of development.  You know, like orange can't even begin to see green until it enters green.

Right you are about development, the love/hate and the process of growth under pressure/control of another (just ask my daughter HA)  Much of development does come from a change in one's environment and that would hold true to what then drives our focus on consumption.

I feel like I am getting off topic and may even be repeating some of what was said above… sorry, if so.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

I see what your saying Gina. Yeah, extreme poverty is in itself the greatest retardent for both vertical and horizontal development. As we say in Buddhism, those either in hell or in heaven have little chance to begin upon the Middle Way.
In a way, your argument does fit into this thread and is very Integral, because it is the physical manifestation of the psychological aspect tha this thread is about. While the willful exploitation of human greed and delusion for the purpose of selling us things in the rich North has a deleriterous effect, the same pocesses have physical effects upon the poor South. Both causes have both effects in both places, just to different extents. As when Nestle' pushed infant formula in Africa and SE Asia, to make up for lost sales in the U.S. and Europe, and sold the image that feeding your child formula was more White and modern, and that if you didn't, you weren't doing all you could for your baby. Of course, they did this without the thought that the water that these women had access too caused millions of those formula feed babies to die.
We can see how the two forces really aren't two here.
So let's add this aspect of Orange to the conversation.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Michael: “Conscious companies have to compete with companies that are not “conscious,” or whose consciousness includes taking advantage of those companies with a “conscience.” ”

That's a good point too. It's called the Tragedy of the Commons. If you choose to do the right thing that not exploit a particular area, resource or people, then someone else is gonna do it, so it might as well be you that gets rich. This is why so many large energy corp. are going to congress and asking for standardized emmisions standards. If one of them decides to build a new plant and spend some extra money to make it cleaner and capitalize on public support, there is nothing to stop another company from taking advantage of that companies weaker financial situation and out compete it. So no one does anything, because it is illegal to take an action in a corporation that will not maximize profits for their shareholders.
But, this is for another thread. Michael, start a thread about capitalizm, that's a good idea.
This thread is about the retarding effects of mass consumerism on conscoiusness development.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Rick,

Hmmmm … “Marketing, Capitalism and Issues of Consciousness Development.”  I agree that my, er, attitude about capitalism and its relative merits may be a bit on the radical/idealistic side and somewhat “away” from the topic orientation that you and Teacup were exploring, but whenever I see capitalism being examined for its relative merits, I am reminded of how disgusted I am about the hub-bub over the Sopranos, Gangsta Rap, and the rest of our our overwhelmingly sex-drugs-and-celebrity kulture.  IMO, capitalism (the god-is-money religion of it) is the big driver here.  The development of consciousness in children is stun-gunned  first by the sheer visual clutter of the average stuff-filled home, then cluster bombed by television and first strollered visits to the mall, and then directed ultimately towards the consumer groove, by the omni-present machinations of “conscious” capitalism, marketing in particular.  Self-oriented desire is inculcated within the child and pre-teen by the most sophisticated brain-wash methodology ever derived.  Resistance is futile.  Small-self-aggrandizement thwarts the expansion of consciousness whether its driven by material or intellectual acquisitiveness.  How can we talk about spiritual expansion without criticizing the economic climate which evidently confounds it?

 

Gina,

Ok, we'll make an exception for coffee houses.  I need to say that I do not hate capitalists or entrepeneurs, or “making money” or spending money.  I am not an economist or a particularly well-informed student of economic history, but what I see, now, manifesting in the world, is hog-wild capitalism where some of the most concentrated efforts mankind has ever produced are aimed at securing footholds in emerging markets for products that have nothing but look-good/feel-good/kick-ass rationales behind them.

In a perverse but real way, emerging political entities and the counter-insurgencies which seek to suppress them are markets for weapons, munitions, and contract “services.”  It used to be the “church,” in business with the monarchies of England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, and Spain, that exported its particular brand of Christian religious/economic imperiaism around the planet.  With the rise of ecumenicalism in the 19th century, we have seen a decline in the overt influence of the church over the last 150 years or so, but the toll of mercantilism and now capitalism rolls on.

In a little over 30 years, China has been transformed from a near-feudal, agrarian state into a smoke-belching, environment-be-damned, raw material sinkhole.  World-wide, a hundred million manufacturing jobs have been lost into this vortex.  The western deal-makers who pioneered this transformation in China left one thing utterly clear:  there was no substitute for quality of manufacture.  It had to be right, and the Chinese responded by learning quickly just how to satisfy the western taste for product perfection.  Meanwhile, the Chinese, fat on cash, tied up shipping, cement and other basic industrial materials and the cost-savings to the customer which first seemed legitimately attractive were eaten up by the precipitous rise in the cost of building materials, and fuel.  Now the Chinese have learned how to cut corners, substitute one high-end ingredient for another lower cost, perhaps toxic one.  They have learned how to maximize profit at the expense of their customers and their own dignity.  They have become good little capitalists, all eyes on the bottom line.

So what has capitalism achieved by industrializing the most populous nation on earth?  It produced cheap goods for a while, but now these same goods cost as much as if they were manufactured in Sweden, or Italy.  It has created a highly competitive market for scarce raw materials where it is not the seller that is disadvantaged by the “competition” it is the buyer.  This is a first and the beginning of what will be capitalism's “winning” strategy about how to continue to obscenely profit after demand finally outpaces supply.  There will be less “stuff” and it will be more expensive.

Of one other thing we can be continually sure - the minimum wage will always be 5-10 years behind the curve, so the poor, the vast majority on this planet, will never be able to afford the things we have dangled before their noses as we exploited them for their labor and political apathy. 

Capitalism works well for those who have already got it made, and holds some promise for those that are “aspiring” as long as they can pinch their noses tightly enough to do what they have to do to “make” it.  This accounts for maybe 15% of the world's population - the rest are fucked.  Period.  Capitalism cannot solve this problem, will not solve this problem, does not want to solve this problem, as capitalism depends upon this disparity for its very existence.

Yer pal,
Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Yeah Mike we I agreed that we could discuss both the psychological and physical effects of the capitalist market structure.
Here's a video about what I'm talking about:

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=imcwl21jb6

just cut and paste the link.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

It is very telling that Integralism so very rarely touches on economics.

And has, for all practical purposes, no economic theory.

It's one of the great weaknesses of the current formulations.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Mike: “With all due respect to you and Rick and the others who are still taking capitalism seriously as a “workable” economic methodology, I say “Wake the fuck up!” ”

I don't think that capitalism is a workable system for any kind of long term. I'm a socialist and more specifically an anarcho-syndicalist, if I had to choose a favorite economic framework out of the air, but in the real world we can't do that. The fact is that we have a global, capitalist power structure and that is what we have to deal with today. I think that Mr. Teacup is just being pragmatic in his own way. So I think my views, if I really have any, would lie between both you and him.

Bill, that reptile brain idea reminded me of an interview with one of the heads of marketing for GM. He's an anthropologist and he mentioned the reptile brain and the need for more horsepower, etc… In the end though, I think that even his statements were designed for marketing propaganda in and of themselves, because he was speaking of an overly simplistic bio-psycho model, and decades out of date with modern social science theory. I was telling a couple of my professors about the interview the next day and we all laughed about it.  But the starting pay for a PhD anthropologist with GM is 100,000 a year + benifits. I don't know if my moral compass is that strong.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

that reptile brain idea reminded me of an interview with one of the heads of marketing for GM. He's an anthropologist and he mentioned the reptile brain and the need for more horsepower, etc…  because he was speaking of an overly simplistic bio-psycho model, and decades out of date with modern social science theory. I was telling a couple of my professors about the interview the next day and we all laughed about it. 

The multiple brains model is obsolete?

Bummer. I didn't get the memo.

I use it daily, and frankly it's one of the most powerful tools in my toolset. As a communications metaphor, a predictor of behavior, and a methodology for psychological training, it's hard to beat.

I wonder what I could ever use to replace it?

And all those marketing folks are going to be really embarrassed.

What obsoleted it?

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Hi everyone

Just wanted to throw something into the equation:

I've got to say, the discussion here dosn't strike me as using AQAL very effectively.

What is capitalism?  Well, its basically a LR system, its interobjective - value free.

Capitalism - Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services.

People use that LR system in different ways, multi-level as it were.  Cases of exploitation are not orange - orange is world centric, you dont generally exploit people if your world-centric.  But what happens if someone with red morals uses the sytem?  They can use it for personal greed, which people do…a lot.  So blame the greedy red dudes, not the system.

The LR system is going to function according to the different Centres of Gravity in the LL that actually use it.  The fact is, we still have a huge number of people at pre-world-centric levels, so whats going to happen?  People will exploit other people for their own gain!   Surprise, surprise!  But thats not the fault of the system!  Thats like blaming the gun when some nutter shoots someone is cold blood.

Are the details more complex and messy?  Sure.  But I think its important to be a lot more specific about evaluating just what capitalism is, and what its composed of.  AQAL is a mightly fine tool, use it dudes!

Ewan

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Yer absolutely right Ewan, but we have to examine the nature of the beast here. Orange's values are, in a way, value free. It is a rational and theoretical mind that gives little attention to the way the world actually works. So you get concepts that are pushed, like Rational Choice Theory, even though we've known for years that people don't make rational choices when deciding to buy or do something. We say that the price of things is determined by market forces like supply and demand, but in that equation it is necessary for individuals to have full discloser of what something actually costs in monetary units and it's full utility. Both of which are manipulated and hidden from consumers. Add the fact that Capitalism is not in fact value free. It is illegal for a C.E.O to have his corporation do something that will not maximize profits for his shareholders. So, in most cases, it is illegal to do the right thing and to not take advantage of every exploitable situation.
Now I'd like to use that gun analogy that you did. Is it the gun or the shooter? I'd like to ask you what you thoughts are to America's gun laws? What do you think about the fact that I can walk down to the corner of my block to a pawn shop and buy a gun in under an hour, here in Texas. Or, that after a one day course, I can get a permit to carry that gun around with me as long as I conceal it. (Concealed handgun permit). Or, what do you think of my governor, who is pushing a new law through the state legislature to allow me to carry that gun anywhere, even bars and airports? Call it a difference in culture, but as a Texan, this doesn't bother me at all.
Yet the facts remain, that while the U.S. has similar statistical numbers for every like crime when compared to all other industrialized nations, and lower numbers for many, we excel at gun deaths.
I think our rate of home robbery is even lower than many European countries, but we kill thousands of people yearly with guns. Two criminologists studied this issue for a few years and wrote a book titled, “Crime is not the problem: Gun violence in America today.”
So the U.S. has proved over the last 50 years that an armed populace can't be trusted to not kill a whole lot of people.  Again, because peopel usually don't kill other people rationally and methodically, but randomly and emotionally. The same way they buy things.
We have also proven over the last 100 years that a capitalist economic system can't be trusted not to harmfully exploit people and the environment to the fullest extent possible. The system is set up on the premise that social elites will operate in the system more nobly and with higher standards. But reality doesn't bare that out.
In reality, the Tragedy of the Commons, states that the winner will be the one that can race to the bottom the fastest. Within capitalism, green companies and others don't compete on equal ground. They system privileges those who operate as close to legal limits and those who can cross those limits every now and again will always win. It is more cost effective to break a law if the fine is cheaper than the profit made.
So, again this is something that looks good on paper, but is fucked in reality. So much so that economists have only two choices in the world today: the neo-liberal capitalist market that was being developed by Adam Smith in the 18th century or Marxist theory. That's the end of the choices to be had at a University. Which shows that this is something that is void of real life understanding.
Just like the two lower quadrants, this looks good from afar, but up close it falls apart. The only way to keep either plausible is to keep both out of the light for the last 60 years of knowledge.

But, as Mr. Teacup and others have noted, there are no other options. I'm a socialist, but I don't believe for a minute that pure socialism, a la anrarchism, is plausable or possible in today's world. Maybe in a few hundred years, if we are still here in some Star Trek future it will be, but not now.
So let's keep this about the damaging affects to the spiral that orange systems, like capitalism, have. I started this because, as Bill said, Integral theory focuses on MGM's while it is void of an economic theory.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Capitalism - Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services.

I understand the attraction of fantasy definitions, but I'm not sure that it's going to help in a situation like this.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

“That's what I hear Rick, but maybe its my own anger.

Juliee”

No, I don't think it's that. I think it is my style of writing. I love to write persuasive essays for various causes, and was inspired from a very early age by all the great speakers, like Martin Luther King Jr., who didn't just get to people with rational and logic reasoning, but actually moved them and made them feel something.
While I don't write like that in this forum, because it is not really the place for that, I think some of that still comes out and it can be read by another as angry and yelling or passionate and caring. Put that into a debate and angry and yelling will win out.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Rick,

For whatever its worth, I have not read all of your posts but I will bet that I have read most of them.  I can often feel the strength, insistence, and passion of your positions and interests, but I cannot recall being so distracted by  the “anger” in your tone, that it ever occurred to me to comment about it.

Ewan,

As far as discussing capitalism in AQAL terms, I think that is a good, though academic, idea.  This topic is about the impact that “capitalism - the street level practice,” has on the development of consciousness.  I would agree with you that, as an economic system, capitalism can be discussed as free of “values,” but, in practice, in the hands of corporations and their boards, capitalism becomes a proto-value in and of itself.  It more closely resembles fundamentalist religion in action than a malleable economic theory.  At one end of the scale, you have the local, the personal, the gnostic, who try to fit into the capitalistic “faith” so as to feed their families and foster a sense of belonging and service to their communities.  At the other end of the scale are the literalists, who have discarded the flesh and wave the bones in ruthless incantations while seeking to destroy or assimilate their competition.  IMO, AQAL is not sophisticated enough to tackle this subject.  It is also possibly true that my familiarity with AQAL is not sophisticated enough to see how it might be of use.  My interest is in creating an economic model that may be personally incorporated and manifest.  In a “stuff-oriented” reality, like Rick, I would favor a labor-based political power structure.  However, despite my many failings and inconsistencies, I am not a “stuff-oriented” person, but far more an idealistic utopian with a food, clothing, shelter, health care, spiritual practice, theatre, skateboarding, gardening and tantric sex outlook.

If an AQAL perspective can help us move from this racist, androcentric, ageist, imperialistic, fascistic nightmare towards a materially sustainable and spiritually focused lifestyle, then bring the word Ewan.  I will do my “wrinklier” best to catch up.

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Hi Rick

And I sometimes hear anger where it’s not consciously intended. I am hyper sensitive to it from my upbringing. I’ll remember to listen to your posts through a passion filter from now on. :-)))

Juliee

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Mr. Teacup: “I like to point out to people that along with all the problems, capitalism has also brought about the lowest infant mortality rate in the last few thousand years.”

How's that? The numbers show that child mortality drops with improved hygiene and nutrition. Capitalism hasn't improved either, as these are largely filled by governmental niches. Most of the technology and R&D to improve these things also come from universities and government funding, which are then given freely to private companies that product products with said technology and sold to us for a profit. This is a double taxation.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, until governmental implementation of basic hygienic services, labor and food regulations, capitalist markets did nothing to improve these things.
Global capitalist agricultural markets leave locals undernourished while essential locally grown food is exported, and subsistence farmers are pushed off their land so that higher value exports, like coffee, drugs, cacao and sugar, etc… are grown for export.
There is current food production to supply every man, woman and child on earth with a balanced 2,800 Kcals. a day. The problem, as noted by others, is profit oriented distribution.
30,000 children die every day due to malnutrition, so how are capitalist markets good for child mortality? They are good for U.S. and European mortality rates, but we are a numerical minority.

The poor in the rich north are helped by government programs, not corporate distribution.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Michael,

Wow, jumping from marketing to a Mad Max future of global warming all in one thread, interesting. What your talking about with the earth changing axis rotation and the like, are various regular cycles that we've determined happen ever 10,000, 250,000, 50,000 years and a few others. I forget the names of the cycles as they are just named after the people that figured them out, but we aren't in one of those at the present moment.
Since the end of the Pleistocene, the last ice age, we've been in the middle of one of the greatest times of climactic variation in earth's history. The earth is actually much cooler now than it has been during most of the millions of years that it has supported life. But when you study the data and the line graphs, the last 1.5 million years or so looks like an oscillating line on a lie detector, with a rapid back and forth. Whereas before that the changes were smooth and more regular.
So your right that climate would most likely be changing anyway, as we are do for it, but climatologists tend to agree that human activity is adding to a natural event; giving it that extra push if you will, and speeding up the process.
Interestingly enough, since this crowd is into evolutionary theory, many of the key periods in hominid evolution occurred during periods of extreme climate change. I know that Integral people like to think of evolution as something that just happens, like gravity, but unless a species is stressed with environmental change, it's genome can remain rather stable over time, as micro-evolution, or mutations, rarely lead to phenotypic (physical) change over short periods. This is why the roach or the crocadile haven't changed much in millions of years.  Currently humans have one of the most stable and least variable genetic structures in the natural world. In the world of evolution, a lack of variation means a lack of possible change available when something does happen.
 I can't remember the researchers name that did a systematic study of the fossil record and climate change data, but she found that climate was just one of many other factors, as there were periods of rapid change that affected other species much more than hominids. But, we believe that our ancestors were able to thrive by being one of the few mulit-niche adapters, that is able to survive in places with rapid climate change, much better than other more specialized species. 

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

ooh, I have things I want to add……
but alas
I am at work for capitalist pigs (pittooy)

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

see also From Odwalla to Interra

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Since John Mackey was mentioned here as an example of integral business practice, please see this thread in Inspirations etc. I'm feeling a bit disheartened that one of my “heroes” has participated in such activity.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Bill: “The multiple brains model is obsolete?”

The last thing I read about it was the way blood and brain activity would pool around the older areas of the brain during times of extremem stress, when fight or flight was necessary and a lot of thought wasn't. Like instinct kicking in. That's probably why time seems to slow down in a really tramatic situation, like a car accident or a serious fight, and why some times you don't rememeber exactly what you did or what happened in a tramatic time. I'm not really sure about the exact process or the latest stuff on this.
So I think the context of the situation matters when talking about the multiple brain theory.
This however doesn't have much to do with the baser needs or desires, as most of those come about because we're able to imagine other possibilities, which is made possible only because of the neo-cortex. Thus our delusion is more a product of further evolution than an ancient reptile brain. So when you see a fine looking woman and you want her, that may be an ancient desire, but when you see a fine new sports car and you want it, that isn't an ancient desire.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

So when you see a fine looking woman and you want her, that may be an ancient desire, but when you see a fine new sports car and you want it, that isn't an ancient desire.

According to the multiple brain model, it is, at least as I understand it.

I can't claim to be completely current, and the new brain imaging stuff is telling us new things at a very fast rate…

But, the model goes, status seeking behaviors are mediated by what would be thought of as the mammalian parts of the brain - the tokens of the status seeking behaviors change, but the behaviors themselves are very constant, from culture to culture, and from species to species. It's an abstracted form of public display for status and mating.

This is how the model is used in marketing. When we buy a fancy red car, we're not really buying the car, we're buying both the neurological and endrocrinological rewards and the potential very real physical world rewards of a change in status.

We buy to satisfy an urge mediated from the “middle” and “bottom” structures of the brain.

I know that a lot of neurologists and brain anatomists think that the real picture of how the brain mediates and generates behaviors is a lot more complex than a three (or four) brains model suggests, and I figure they are probably right.

But, I think a lot of people still use it as a metaphor and predictor, because it just works well in application. It works well for me.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

Here's the last paragraph from my last post in the John Mackey thread in Inspirations etc. It's a question I've long had and challenges the basic assumption of zaadz itself, that we can upgrade capitalism by incorporating “consciousness” into it.

And another key question, one asked before, is to wonder if capitalism doesn't have to be replaced by another form of economy in an integral perspective? Perhaps it's tetra-enacted with the rational-egoic level of consciousness and perhaps its form is limited to that structure? So trying to “upgrade” the structure with so-called integral ideas might be like trying to make the old PacMan game do advanced CGI.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

As one example of this transition to a new economic form, one that is between capitalism and whatever, is cooperative economics. It's still a market-based economy but the form embodies many of the principles that Mackey champions. For example, per Jaroslav Vanek* (Professor of Economics at Cornell) he'd agree with Mackey that maximzing profit is not the function of markets. He'd also agree in that a free-market economy is the way to go. But Vanek sees capitalism as tending toward monopolies due to the investment of capital by private and separate stockholders. Whereas cooperatives are competitive, market-driven businesses where ownership and management is distibuted to the worker, not capital-holders. The nature of this organizational structure implements all of Mackey's innovations and then some. While Mackey's corporate version is an improvement, it still doesn't provide the democratic advantages of a cooperative and in fact it cannot embody such advantages structurally.

*See this link for an interview with Vanek.

Re: Marketing, Capitalism and issues of consciousness development

We are also exploring alternatives to capitalism in the Open Integral thread “Emerging economic structures”