Globalization, Romanticism, and Owen Barfield

Here’s a link (below) to a paper that I did that looks at the idea of a corresponding consciousness globalization to globalization. This consciousness that has been maturing for three hundred years under the general term "modernization," and the process has not matured uncontested. The Romantic Movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries provided an alternative consciousness with the possibility of alternative futures. Romanticism as an alternative consciousness can be seen not just as a historically specific event, but as an unfinished project. The work of Owen Barfield, the English philosopher, writer and poet, provides a framework for examining Romanticism, globalization and consciousness in the broader context of the evolution of consciousness. Within Barfield's structure, Romanticism constitutes a practical vehicle for evolving beyond the consciousness of globalization.

Globalization, Romanticism, and Owen Barfield

jd

Idea for a political organism

First the name. The tentative name is "Romantic Union". Well it is tentative. The mission of the organism is to restore the unity of the world, of subject and object.

We are trying to restore the Union: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Or "A long long time ago, our species brought forth on this planet, a new consciousness, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that consciousness, or any consciousness so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." (???)

Our field of activity is both in the mind, and in the world. Does that sort of violate our mission by assuming the duality? How about -- to people who see the world as a duality of subject and object, interior and exterior, it will appear like we have two sides to our task? Hmmm. Already this is getting complicated. But we bugger on...

Imagination is the first tool to be taken up in this task. We will use exact sensorial imagination to develop this tool. Goethe shows the way in this respect. Trust in this imagination, our intuitive powers will guide our work. Imagination can break the mind-forged manacles.

Our imagination reveals us as part of nature in profoundly deep ways that we have forgotten; we participate through our directed imagination in the ongoing creation, the eternally becoming of the world. The world, the planet is allowed to be whole again.

In economics we are communist: from each according to ability (no shirkers!); to each according to need. Difficult to imagine anything except food when one is starving or freezing or sick. Need to get to work on that one, right away.

Imagination can help us break the chains of property, but we might get some extra resistance on that one.

In structure, we are not network -- too schematic. We are not organization -- too mechanical. An organism though -- that's the thing. Interconnected, dynamic, in motion, alive. Various organs conscious of what needs to be done because we are part of the organism, it's in the -- can't really say DNA, too mechanical -- the soul? the urphänomen? Tied together by a shared vision, program, and understanding of mission. But a remarkable degree of independence and at the same time, cohesion and coherence.

We recognize that we live in a mighty web of relationships with other people, through the work and play we do and the things we enjoy. We reject the fetish of things as things, we embrace them as products of fellow human beings striving, laboring, creating. We share that with each other; we are mutually dependent on each other. So likewise we reject the notion of intellectual "property". We should have gotten that out of our system in the romper room. No one ever had an idea by him or herself.

We embrace science, but don't stop there. Science can be deepened, extended, made whole. We embrace a new empiricism that allows us to grow new organs of perception.

We embrace technology, but don't allow it to turn us into machines. We know what it is and what it isn't and aren't fooled.

We embrace sensuousness, feeling, creativity, active play. We know if we attend to nature -- we study a flower, we stare at clouds, we feel raindrops -- an awareness or knowing arises; there is something real in that. We embrace the felt change in consciousness when we read a poem, and know there is something real to that. We know, or have known, or want to know, what it means to love and be in love and be loved. We recognize the reality of that. We embrace that reality.

What else? Maybe a good closing line, like, "We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win." I don't know -- what do you think?

Ecosystem of globalization -- comments and questions

I received some comments and questions on my Ecosystem of Globalization paper. They were good comments, and I thought I wd share my response. Comments are in italics.

Sorry to be so long in replying. Some of the language was new to me, and I wish I knew more about economics, etc., but it was easy enough for me to follow a lot of it. I thought if you ever expand this, I, personally, would benefit from examples, for example, of extension and intensification.

Extension means growing geographically, by pulling new markets into capitalism. So China becoming a capitalist economy (in whole or part) would be an example of extending. Another example would be a local, non-capitalist economy being pulled into the world economy. Extension is a way of increasing profit etc. by selling more to the new markets, tapping into resources, integrating people as workers and consumers into the (capitalist) world economy.

Intensification is making more profit out of the same market. This can be done by turning existing activity into profit-making activity, e.g., privatizing public services, or people buying services that used to be done by unpaid labor at home (e.g. childcare, food preparation, house cleaning), or people consuming more (helped by easy debt).

So the idea is that once there are no more new areas to pull into capitalism, the only way it can grow is through "intensification."

Random thoughts.

Re: Transportation and globalization. It seems to me this is an important cost to the ecosystem of increasing globalization. I wonder how one would figure the relative costs and benefits of local production and consumption vs spreading out production and shipping goods around the globe.

This is an interesting question. It gets to what is counted as a cost. You are saying that if all of the externalized costs were factored in, global production might not be so cheap...

You say on p 2 “there is no ‘wilderness’ today…outside of capitalism.” Right. Some time ago, the National Forest Service began using the language of “recreation amenities” in relation to public land management. This fits into the original paradigm of public land management as resource management and conservation, rather than preservation. First, it focused on extractable resources like timber, mining, and grazing. Then, recreation amenities came into the same paradigm. I know there are economic analyses of recreation showing how many dollars a nearby community gains from having, say, a national park nearby. I imagine there are more sophisticated economic analyses of recreation as a commodity, but I don’t know.

I think also, even if it isn't managed as a park or for economic exploitation in any way, it still isn't "wilderness". That even if it is "unspoiled" or unexploited, it still is related to capitalism in some way (e.g., an "other" or as a resource reserve that allows everything else in capitalism to go on.

Another negative effect of globalization is the disruption and disenfranchisement of local communities, especially land-based communities. As local communities get caught up in globalization, they lose their connection with the land, resulting is less sustainable ways of treating the land. This might be another concern related to speculative capital on p 3. Disruption of local communities has both human and environmental costs.

This would be a good example of "extension."

On p 4, in your para which begins “It should be noted…,” is it also relevant that new technologies create new needs in existing markets, which in themselves are a sort of new market? Is this intensification? Is that even a useful way to think about it?

Yes, this is a useful way to think about it, it is an example of intensification.

Reading the section on the ecosystem of globalization, I thought of a recent book by Richard Louv, LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS. The subtitle has the catchy phrase “Nature-Deficit Disorder” in it. I liked the book. Among other things, he goes into how kids are blocked from direct contact with nature by insurance companies, homeowners’ associations, liability issues, etc. In other words, he takes up some of the institutional and structural barriers to contact with nature as well as the psychological ones. Now, looking back at my notes, I have no idea why I thought of that in reading this section of your paper. Maybe you can see a connection. Anyway, I liked the book.

No, it is very apropos. You had mentioned the book to me, and I think I had it in mind. (Wait -- I see Richard Louv is quoted in WSJ article in footnote # 10).

On page 6, note 11, I chuckled. Finally some light humor in a dismal situation!

I wasn’t sure what you meant by "the end of value" on page 7, but I wanted to know. This sounds like a useful and interesting concept.

"Value" is a Marx concept, and the way I understand it is that it describes a particular kind of relationship between people and between people and nature. The idea here is that capitalism turns everything into an economic quantity. So it is also way of looking at the world, not for any intrinsic usefulness or quality or in its own right something with a right to exist, but as a means to increase wealth. In this sense, the "end of value" is a good thing. That was another paper (http://www.gocatgo.com/texts/eov.html)

So, here is my big question, and maybe the central question of your paper. If I understand you right, capitalism is inherently anti-environment or anti-environmental-sustainability, by virtue of its need to continually extend and intensify production. Only an overthrow of Capital will foster sustainability. Got it. Are there variations on capitalism which are not inherently destructive; can capitalism evolve, or is a revolution required? And if capitalism is irredeemable vis a vis the environment, are there any practical alternatives in the foreseeable future?

I think what I was trying to get at is that capitalism is not "anti-environment or anti-environmental-sustainability". But rather that capitalism creates a certain kind of environment to ensure ongoing profitability. Although it often looks like it, I don't think capitalism will commit environmental suicide (well it still might, but it's a losing bet no matter how you think of it). "Sustainability" raises the question of sustainable on whose terms? Towards what end? So it might be possible to have a "sustainable environment" of tree plantations, ocean fish farms, and private nature parks. But your idea of sustainable would be much different I expect. But your main point, what is to be done -- that's the thing. It might sound counter-intuitive, but I guess the important thing is getting people to think differently, to be conscious of this, to realize that they can do things and that things can be different. You are certainly part of that. People have different talents and will apply those as they see fit. I think that there is something radical in developing a qualitative, holistic, monistic sense of nature; but a decent understanding of capitalism is important too. So the question to me is how does consciousness change, what ideas are put out there and discussed and argued out. And the political and economic solutions will flow from that. I hope.

I would like to bring these kinds of issues into my courses more. I did last week in a one-day discussion on ecopsychology with the Wilderness Therapy students, and they got into it. I think it is a set of questions they ask a lot, but which rarely get brought into ecopsychology discussions. Andy Fisher (RADICAL ECOPSYCHOLOGY) does too, questioning capitalism and current social paradigms, but still, it is oddly absent from ecopsychology discussions. Anyway, thanks for sharing this paper with me. Keep me posted. If you have or see anything else that would be a good, broad intro to the economics of environmental sustainability, let me know.

Hmm. James O'Conner has an essay, call "Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible?", anthologized in Natural Causes, that raises some important questions -- I think starts well, but gets dense as it goes on about capitalism (I still need to finish reading it). There's a chapter from the Deep Ecology for the 21st Century by Donald Worster, "The shaky ground of sustainability" that looks alright, but I just glanced over it. The Brundtland Commission Report "Our Common Future" from the late 1980s is the classic UN-type document, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Common_Future.

Or the Wikipedia entry on sustainable development might be helpful to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development

I'll give it some more thought.

-- jd

Green Party in Illinois

The Illinois Green Party (ILGP) achieved an important goal in the November 7 election when their gubanatorial slate of Rich Whitney and Julie Samuels pulled 10.4 percent of the statewide vote, and in some counties over 25% of the vote. Not only were the numbers respectable in themselves, but more important, by pulling more than 5 percent of the popular vote the party attained "major party" status. This means that for future electoral campaigns, the number of signatures that must be collected to get on the ballot is much much lower. So this past week's results mean that it the door is open at least through 2010 for the Greens to run more candidates. Major party status also carries some responsibilities, like conforming to local structures and primary procedures (so "committeemen" and local central committees).

The ILGP post-election newsletter points out that where the media coverage was the fairest, the Greens did the best. The Rockford Register Star endorsed Whitney, and he pulled 24 percent of the vote in that county.

More info is on the ILGP web page.


jd

Quid pro

Here is a blog-of-note that gets a fair amount of thoughtful commentary:

Feral Scholar by Stan Goff

(Okay full disclosure: he put a reference / citation to something I wrote on his blog, which is what prompted be to look at it, which I appreciate. Regardless though, it's a very good, active site.)

jd

Venture capital, oil capital and the environment

"Venture Capitalists Ignite Bitter Fight With Push for California Oil Tax" reads the headline of a Wednesday (9/27/06) page one story in the Wall Street Journal (by George Anders and Rebecca Buckman). The story describes a struggle over Proposition 87 in California, which will impose a 6% tax on oil output to pay for research and development of alternative fuels. Big backers of the proposition include Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who made his money at Sun Microsystems; Google founder Larry Page;, Wendy Schmidt, wife of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and John Doerr, "a prominent partner at VC [VC == venture capitalist] firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers." Oil companies of course are fighting back, with California-based oil giant Chevron taking the lead.

The struggle highlights one kind of split that is opening around environmental, and in particular, climate change, issues. In 2002, Joel Kovel wrote a book whose title, The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? (Zed Books), sums up one common line of thinking on the Left -- we either destroy capitalism, or it will destroy the world. As the publisher's blurb sums, "Kovel indicts ... capitalism as ecodestructive and unreformable." Capitalism is ecodestructive and unreformable in many senses, but splits like the one reported in the WSJ suggest another tack. And that is that a section of capital, maybe a decisive section, will recognize that capitalism and an environment capable of sustaining human life are not fundamentally incompatible. With a properly managed ecosystem, the expanded reproduction of capitalism can continue. All that is required for profit is the expropriation of surplus labor. Whether that takes place at an oil field or a solar panel factory is irrelevant.

If capitalism can negotiate the shift in the energy regime, in terms of the environment it can continue lumber along by creating a more and more tightly managed ecosystem. By "managed" I mean practices that will become increasingly aggressive over time, made possible by more and more sophisticated monitoring tools (e.g., satellites networks, ocean buoys, even microtransponders on insects -- see Radio frequency identification and tracking of individual ants engaged in colony scale division of labour); more use of genetically engineered organisms; computer-enhanced agri- and aqua- and silvi- and horti- culture (e.g., open ocean fish farms), private nature reserves, etc. Not all of these are "bad", the point mainly is that capitalism, or globalization-as-capitalism-in-the-age-of-electronics will create a new ecosystem, just as every production regime has done in the past, to maximize its continued existence (see The Ecosystem of Globalization for a bit more on this). Paul Burkett's 1999 book Marx and nature: A red and green perspective (New York: St. Martin's Press) is pretty good on the environment and the "limits of capitalism": "We may not like it, but the fact is that capitalism can survive any ecological catastrophe short of the extinction of human life." p. 192)

A chart accompanying the WSJ article mentioned above indicates a dramatic growth in VC investment in green technologies -- over $350 million in the first half of the this year, well beyond the slightly more that $200 million in all of last year. The WSJ article points out that Proposition 87 in California is being championed by sections of capital that have invested in green technology and stand to gain if it succeeds (money from the oil sector is transferred to the green energy sector). Prop 87 has become the arena in which this struggle between sections of capital are fighting out this struggle over the environment -- the natural conditions within which capitalism operates -- but this struggle takes place on capitalist terms. While we all benefit, I suppose, by now choking to death from smog or dying from heat exhaustion or drowning in coastal flooding or frying in UV radiation, the fundamental crisis is not resolved. And by fundamental crisis I mean capitalism's destruction of humanity (does this statement need to be justified?)

[An aside: venture capital has a connection to speculative capital (uses pools of otherwise idle capital, absorbs risk of new research, chance of big payoffs not through direct expropriation of surplus value but via the transfer of value due to either monopoly rents or individual value transforming into social value made possible by "intellectual property" monopolies, volatility of outlook for new firms provides playground for speculative capital, no doubt more connections)]

jd

On the speculative capital front

-- Poor Brian Hunter and Amaranth Advisors. The 31-year-old trader lost about $5 billion of the hedge funds assets "in about a week" (see e.g. The Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2006, p. A1). "Brash" trades gone bad in natural gas futures highlight the difficulties hedge funds can face. It' not quite right to say "lost" -- the firm "lost" the money to other speculators.

-- Hank Paulson goes to China. In his trip earlier in September (2006), Treasury Secretary Paulson sought to head off growing anti-China sentiment in the U.S. The 9/13/06 reported that he "signaled he won't engage in China-bashing and will instead seek to persuade Americans that they stand to benefit from China's economic rise." Well not just "Americans" -- today's WSJ (9/28/06) reports that his former firm, Goldman Sachs, stands to make "buckets of money" from a $2.58 billion investment last May in the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, its "single-largest investment of all time." The bank is going public next month, and based on current interest in the IPO, Goldman Sachs is likely to double its money.

jd

Which is more complicated...?

A question came up about whether it is fair to say "While the human-made artifact is no more complex than a plant or animal or even a rock, it is no less complex either" (in a piece on Goethean science and human artifacts). The human, machine-like order placed over raw materials is no where as complex as that of a natural substance.

My reply was:

I was trying to address that we lose sight of where the things around us come from -- not just non-human nature (not sure how else to say that) but also social processes. First, these artifacts do come from nature and by exploring that aspect of them we recover something, or maybe at least understand something of the human-nature relationship. Second, I am not trying to say that, say, one of those robo-dogs is as complex as a real dog as a dog. But I do think that history and social relations are expressed in the artifact, but that this dimension is generally obscured or lost. That dimension is very complex because it ties into a very large web (if not ultimately all) of human interactions, history, desires, etc., and expresses nature processes of a different sort than that of a dog. (And Goethean science helps us reach and experience that, etc. etc.)

(Also, this human dimension also exists for non-human nature to the extent that human beings have transformed ecosystems, species, etc.)

jd

Goethean science overview

The following is an excerpt from a longer piece I did, it gives an overview of Goethe's approach to science. The numbers in parentheses are page references to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Scientific studies, translated and edited by Douglas Miller (1988). - jd

Although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's approach to science is primarily a way of knowing (Wahl, 2005), it implies at the same time a particular understanding of how the world is organized. In Goethe's world view, nature is "alive and active, with its efforts directed from the whole to the parts" (20). Everything is interconnected and dynamic and in a process of formation (bildung). Goethe's world view is monistic. Concepts, ideas, even the "archetype" (urphänomen) are not separate from phenomena, standing behind it, but part of the phenomena.

This living, dynamic, interconnected world is known first through the senses. The Goethean approach is strongly empirical, emphasizing the importance of direct observation and experience in knowing the world. The phenomena is central, but Goethe also recognized that perception is a participatory act, anticipating phenomenology by 100 years (Heinemann, 1934; Seamon, 1998). The observed works on the observer as much as the observer works on the observed. In a play on words ("an ingenious turn of phrase"), "objective thinking" for Goethe "means that my thinking is not separate from objects; that the elements of the object, the perceptions of the object, flow into my thinking and are fully permeated by it; that my perception itself is a thinking, and my thinking a perception." (39) The observer-as-subject does not disappear when "thinking objectively" (if even that were possible).

Empirical data is always understood within a theoretical framework, and so it is important for the investigator to be conscious of the framework being used. Goethe went a step further though, bringing his artistic sensibility to bear on the investigation. The careful, detailed observation of phenomena is complemented by what he called "exact sensory imagination" (46). Phenomena are processes that are in a constant state of formation, and empiricism can only examine parts of a process, snapshots in time. Because a process exists and develops through its interconnections, it has an integrity that cannot be grasped through dissection or reduction (although they may contribute to understanding). This is especially the case with living organisms. In order to grasp the living whole of the phenomenon, the investigator must bring the phenomenon to life in the imagination.

Experiments play an important role in Goethean science, but Goethe cautions against the easy temptation of drawing false conclusions. Experiments are properly used to recreate previous experience, or to coax new experiences out of phenomenon under specific conditions. Using experiments to prove a hypothesis is "detrimental" (15), because of the tendency to ignore experiences that fall outside of the hypothesis: "Thus we can never be too careful in our efforts to avoid drawing hasty conclusions from experiments or using them directly as proof to bear out some theory. For here at this pass, this transition from empirical evidence to judgment, cognition to application, all the inner enemies of man lie in wait." (14) For the investigator, phenomena are part of many causes and effects; the appropriate question is not one of causes or purpose ("what are they for?"), but of determining the conditions under which phenomena arise ("where do they come from?"). (121)

Goethe described different stages or modes of knowing, using different terms in various writings. In one place he describes a sequence flowing from "empirical phenomena", observations found in nature, to "scientific phenomena", where the phenomena is understood well enough to reproduce under controlled conditions, via experiments, to "pure phenomena", which is a purely mental process, where the heart of the phenomena is comprehended, and "the human mind gives a definition to the empirically variable, excludes the accidental, sets aside the impure, untangles the complicated, and even discovers the unknown." (25) Elsewhere he describes an empirical phase of careful study yielding to the necessity of visualizing internally the various observations in order to gain a sense of the whole. Empirical observation gives way to an intuitive perception:

If I look at the created object, inquire into its creation, and follow this process back as far as I can, I will find a series of steps. Since these are not actually seen together before me, I must visualize them in my memory so that they form a certain ideal whole.

At first I will tend to think in terms of steps, but nature leaves no gaps, and thus, in the end, I will have to see this progression of uninterrupted activity as a whole. I can do so by dissolving the particular without destroying the impression itself.

If we imagine the outcome of these attempts, we will see that empirical observation finally ceases, intuitive perception of the developing organism begins, and the idea is brought to expression in the end. (75)

Elsewhere, Goethe describes his general process as proceeding from empirical observation to archetype (118), and elsewhere, "of what nature bears within itself as law" (147).

Goethe's concept of "archetype" is one of his more difficult concepts. In his "Maxims", Goethe describes the archetype in four ways: as "ideal" in the sense of the "ultimate we can know"; "real" because we experience its expression; "symbolic" because it represents all instances; "identical" because it is identical with all instances. The archetype is expressed concretely through phenomena. The archetype describes an inner lawfulness or logic or coherence, a "structural range" (120) within which the archetype can be expressed. Naydler (1996) describes it like this: "The Archetypal Phenomenon is experienced when a group or sequence of phenomena real an underlying meaningfulness and internal coherence which is grasped by the intellect in a moment of intuitive comprehension." (p. 103)

Goethe sought to identify archetypes for minerals (Amrine, 1998; Steiner, 2000), plants and animals. Through the emphasis of one aspect over another, the archetype manifests in various forms. Goethe described his archetypal plant in a 1787 letter: "The primordial plant is turning out to be the most marvelous creation in the world... With this model and the key to it an infinite number of additional plants can be invented, which must be logical, that is, if they do not exist, they could exist, and are not mere artistic or poetic shadows or semblances, but have an inner truth and necessity. The same law is applicable to every other living thing." (328-9)

The archetype should not be considered as a Platonic ideal form standing behind phenomena (Heinemann, 1934). Nor is it a blueprint or formula, or an abstract or symbolic rendition separate from the phenomena. Nor is it a statistical average or composite. The archetype is not separate from the phenomena. When challenged by Schiller that his archetype "was not an observation from experience" but "an idea," Goethe retorted, "Then I may rejoice that I have ideas without knowing it, and can even see them with my own eyes." (20)

The unification of object, perception and thought achieved through "exact sensory imagination" is a direct way of knowing. "Let us not seek for something behind the phenomena -- they themselves are the theory" (307), where theory is understood in its traditional sense as a "way of seeing" (Amrine, 1998). "There is a delicate empiricism that makes itself identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory." (307) In fact, for Goethe the observer has little say in the matter:

When in the exercise of his powers of observation man undertakes to confront the world of nature, he will at first experience a tremendous compulsion to bring what he finds there under his control. Before long, however, these objects will thrust themselves upon him with such force that he, in turn, must feel the obligation to acknowledge their power and pay homage to their effects. When this mutual interaction becomes evident he will make a discovery which, in a double sense, is limitless; among the objects he will find many different forms of existence and modes of change, a variety of relationships livingly interwoven; in himself, on the other hand, a potential for infinite growth through constant adaptation of his sensibilities and judgment to new ways of acquiring knowledge and responding with action. This discovery produces a deep sense of pleasure and would bring the last touch of happiness in life if not for certain obstacles (within and without) which impede our progress along this beautiful path to perfection. (61)

The "many different forms of existence" require different modes of thinking to fully know the object, including poetic and scientific modes (Root, 2006). In knowing the object, the object becomes "an organ of perception," a new way of sensing the world.

References

Amrine, F. (1998). The metamorphosis of the scientist. In Seamon, D. and Zajonc, A., eds. Goethe's Way of Science: Towards a phenomenology of nature.

Heinemann, F. (1934). Goethe's phenomenological method. Philosophy. (9) 67- 82.

Miller, D. ed. and trans. (1988). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Scientific studies. New York: Suhrkamp Publishers.

Naydler, J. (1996). Goethe on science. Edinburgh: Floris Books.

Root, C. (Spring, 2006). Conversation between friends: An inspiration for Goethe's phenomenological method. In context. 15. Ghent, NY: The Nature Institute.

Seamon, D. (1998). Goethe, nature and phenomenology: An introduction. In Seamon, D. and Zajonc, A., eds. Goethe's Way of Science: Towards a phenomenology of nature.

Steiner, R. (2000). Nature's open secret: Introductions to Goethe's scientific writings. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press.

Wahl, D. (Summer, 2005). "Zaire Empirie": Goethean science as a way of knowing. Janus Head. 8(1).

Goethean science and human artifacts

I wrote up an essay sort of thing on Goethean scienec and how it might be used in the investigation of human artifacts. Here's the link: Talking with history: Using Goethe's scientific approach with human artifacts

jd

Salsa recipe

What is cooking if not interconnection? This recipe came from Liz. (Thanks Liz).


Liz's Salsa

6 jalapeno peppers
1 12-oz can Hunt's whole tomatoes
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Juice of one lime
Garlic powder (maybe a tablespoon?), or few cloves fresh garlic
8 shakes of salt
some black pepper

Boil the jalapeno peppers in water until army green (or less), remove stems.

In a blender, combine everything and blend away.

Heat will vary w/ jalapenos, you can also adjust by number of peppers; lime juice cuts the heat. Salsa will mellow overnight (refrigerate of course).

The hot part of the peppers is the white stuff that holds the seeds, so you could do a nice salsa fresca by removing that part of the fresh jalapenos, and use fresh tomatoes instead of canned in above recipe. I've never tried it, but...

Four laws of ecology

Barry Commoner's Four laws of ecology:

1. Everything is connected to everything else.
2. Everything must go somewhere.
3. Nature knows best.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

From The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology, 1971.

Ecosystem of globalization - research proposal

I assembled a research proposal on the "ecosystem of globalization", using the concept of "ecological revolution" to test the idea of globalization as an "epochal shift." The research proposal was done as, well, as homework for a research methods seminar; the quantitative research was never done, but I did do a paper, or two papers out of the literature review ("Speculative capital and the ecosystem of globalization", a longer, more rambling piece, and a condensed version, "The ecosystem of globalization").

I tried to think about how one identifies an "ecological revolution", in order to know if the investigation would show that there is an "ecosystem of globalization" emerging. I proposed looking at the environmental impact of three (speculative) financial structures associated with globalization; and assessing them according to seven categories. Here's the section that laid out my criteria:

Categories for assessing ecosystem impact

Non-human categories (after Simmons, 1996)

(1) Biological productivity: A significant change moves the ecosystem from one type to another, where types are identified as forest; woodland, grassland or savannah; desert; cultivated land; urban; other terrestrial. The rationale is that each of these ecosystem types has a distinct net primary productivity (Simmons, 1996), and a shift from one ecosystem to another indicates a shift in biological productivity.

(2) Population dynamics and diversity: A significant change includes the removal of a keystone species, a key engineer species, or extinction, e.g. associated with unique habitat loss.

(3) Stability: A significant change is indicated by a potential change in (1) or (2).


Human-nature categories (after Merchant, 1989)

(4) Production process, including economic productivity: A significant change in the production process is indicated by a new form of motive power or central technology (e.g., the steam engine, the microchip (Davis, 2000))

(5) Social reproduction process: A significant change in the reproduction process is indicated by new productive relations.

(6) Property forms: A significant change in property forms is indicated in types of ownership or a changed the relationship of the owner to the thing owned. E.g., significant changes include a change from common ownership to private ownership, or single owner to corporate ownership, or tenant owner to absentee owner.

(7) Consciousness (representations of nature, narrative, ways of thinking about nature): A significant change in consciousness is indicated by a change in narrative (e.g., from progressive to declensionist, or declensionist to recovery), or change in valence (a role or character reversal, e.g., from nature as Eden to nature as vengeful), or a change in mode of participation (e.g., from subject-object to partnership) (Merchant, 1995).

For example, one identified impact of timber REITs is an increase in land ownership turnover (Block and Sample, 2001; Hagan, Irland and Whitman, 2005). After examining the impact of turnover, timber REITs might be categorized as:

-- signficant to stability (3) (e.g., rapid turnover has the potential of leading to clear-cutting or parcelization that leads to a change in ecosystem type or habitat loss), property forms (6);

-- insignificant to population dynamics and diversity (2) (i.e., some insignificant change is expected), (7) owners' and local inhabitants' way of thinking about the forest;

-- not applicable to biological productivity (1), economic productivity (4) and social reproduction (5).

In the case of land turnover, the applicable effects might be deemed to be relevant at the local and possibly regional level, but not at the global level.

[See the proposal for the references]

jd

Dialectical materialism

An addition to the Wikipedia entry on dialectical materialism:

New discoveries in physics (including x-rays, electrons, and the beginnings of quantum mechanics) challenged previous conceptions of matter and materialism. Matter seemed to be disappearing. Lenin disagreed:

'Matter disappears' means that the limit within which we have hitherto known matter disappears and that our knowledge is penetrating deeper; properties of matter are disappearing that formerly seemed absolute, immutable and primary, and which are now revealed to be relative and characteristic only of certain states of matter. For the sole 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside of the mind.

Lenin was following on from the work of Engels, who had noted that "with each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science, materialism has to change its form." (Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.) One of Lenin's challenges was distancing materialism as a viable philosophical outlook from what he referred to as the "vulgar materialism" expressed in statements like "the brain secretes thought in the same way as the liver secretes bile" (attributed to 18th century physician Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis, 1757-1808); "metaphysical materialism" (matter is composed of immutable, unchanging particles); and 19th-century "mechanical materialism" (matter was like little molecular billiard balls interacting according to simple laws of mechanics). Lenin's (and Engels') solution to this challenge was "dialectical materialism", where matter was understood in the broader sense of "objective reality" and consistent with new developments in science.

The ecosystem of globalization

"The ecosystem of globalization" is a condensed version of my "Speculative capital and the ecosystem of globalization" paper. The new paper focuses on globalization and the environment in general, and has a lot less detail on speculative capital.

jd

Speculative capital as dominant sector

The concept of a "dominant sector" of capital is based on the idea that power is not distributed evenly throughout a class. One or more sectors may contest for political control; political control provides that sector with the ability to re-align, or even reorganize the economy through government spending, tariffs, taxation, law enforcement, military action, regulation and all of the other instruments of political power.

While wealth is the basis, ultimately, of capitalist power, more important is the control of wealth. This was implied by Lenin in his definition of finance capital as the merger of industrial and bank capital under the control of the banks. This distinction is important because, although finance, and in particular, speculation, does not produce value, it may control the sectors that do, and through that control, dominate (in the sense of setting the political agenda) the class and the economy. Here is an attempt to answer some questions about the concept of "dominant sector" today.

First, how does speculative capital come to be the dominant form of capital in the age of electronics? It does this by coming to control wealth.

1. Globalization (transnationalized production) requires hedging in order to maintain a stable production environment. Hedging is the participation in speculative capital markets to protect assets. Speculative capital comes to control larger pools of capital as a result.

2. Idle money is not capital (it is no longer being used in the self-expansion of capital). Banks historically have provided a way of keeping that money working as capital, by taking the industrialists money and lending it to other industrialists. The faster that money can be loaned out, or, if speculated with, the faster and cheaper and more frequent the transactions, the busier and more profitable that capital can be. Because modern speculation is based on digital networks operating at nanosecond speeds, modern speculation allows that capital to always be active in financial trading. And because of this hyperactivity, the opportunity for additional profit exists, attracting capital to speculation. (This profit is not generated by speculation per se, rather it is re-distributed from producers of values to speculators. Speculative capital attracts and accumulates surplus value produced elsewhere in the economy.)

3. Speculative capital offers a means of gaining a higher return on investment, so money flows into speculation and speculative capital comes to control more wealth. Capital seeks the highest return on investment. In a period of low interest rates, low rates of return, and large pools of money capital (it can't be invested in current production techniques because, with the productivity of robotics et al, investment in production will only flood the market with commodities), companies put that money to work in speculation. As financial observer James Grant said in the recent (6/12/06) Business Week article, "The world is stretching for return."

4. Within the financial sector, speculative operations are more profitable, causing a shift in the focus and activity of finance capital. The tail comes to wag the dog. "Investors argue that trading is booming now while most traditional banking businesses are languishing. Big firms can no longer subsist on underwriting or stock and bond trading as the combination of more rivals and cheap electronic trading drives down profit margins. 'Wall Street doesn't get paid to not take risk anymore,' says Merrill Lynch & Co. financial-services analyst Guy Moszkowski." (6/12/06 Business Week).

5. Through leverage, speculative capital controls sums of capital far in excess of actual holdings. Leverage is basically borrowing money to invest.

According to a Business Week chart (from the 6/12/06 issue), every $1 of major security firm equity controls $18 of assets. This underestimates the reach of speculative capital though: When the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management's troubles became public in 1998, its leverage ratio (that is, the amount of the capital it was investing compared to its own capital) was 28-1 according to a GAO report (Saber, in his Speculative Capital, said it was 50-1). That is the equivalent of a bank lending someone $2.8 million, or $5 million, depending on whose figures you use, using a $100,000 house for collateral. Which of course in normal financing for production a bank would never do. Saber argues that because arbitrage, the heart of speculation is in theory a "riskless investment", that there is a certain rationale to leverage ratios like that. LTCM's leverage ratio according to the GAO report was not out of line with other securities firms; Goldman-Sachs leverage ratio was 34-1 at the time, according to the GAO report. (Due to differences in calculating the ratio, these numbers may not jive with the Business Week numbers above). One additional note on leverage: according to Saber, as the spread on arbitrage shrinks due to competition and better technology, more leverage is required to maintain the same returns.

6. Speculative capital is also the arena in which speculation takes place -- the exchanges, the traders, the computer systems -- and speculative capital accumulates capital via the trading fees it charges everyone to participate in the mayhem.


Second, how does speculative capital exercise that dominance? Control over the economy is exercised in several ways.

1. Through influence on money market funds, speculative capital wields tremendous power over national currencies, which affect the cost of imports (in particular oil, priced in dollars) and exports, and access to money for production. See, for experience of various Asian countries in the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Through the speculative financial markets, capital can quickly flow into and out of markets and financial instruments -- is what is meant by "hot money", or the "instant plebiscite" that Walter Wriston talked about in his 1996 Wired interview.

2. Through stock markets, speculative capital (in the form of hedge funds) can affect the fortunes of companies by affecting their stock price, which can affect the ability of companies to raise additional money, or force shareholder activity to boost share price, or play a more active role as a company shareholder. Although traditionally connected to production only abstractly, in some cases speculative capital is taking a more hands on approach (see, e.g., "How U.S. Firms Are Pulled To the Mat by Hedge Funds", 2/11/06).

3. In a similar way, speculative capital, through hedge funds, is playing a more active role in private equity, that is financing start-up companies. See the 6/12/06 Business Week article, also the 4/5/06 WSJ article "Need Cash? Call a Hedge Fund". Speculative capital also provides sources of capital for venture funds, and ways for investors to speculate on new technologies.

5. As capital involved in the trade of commodity futures, speculative capital wields power over commodity pricing -- e.g., historically corners on the grain market; and more recently Enron and other energy traders and the California electricity crisis.

6. Control of wealth enables speculative capital to push for particular solutions that benefit it. Enron, which was transitioning in the 1990s into a speculative trading company, lobbied for the Kyoto protocol, in part because it focuses on the trading of pollution permits as the solution to global warming.

7. Control of wealth enables speculative capital to push for general policies that provides a climate in which it can thrive: free capital flows, controlled inflation and low interest rates, privatization and commodification (more trading opportunities), open capital markets. (E.g., Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under Clinton and also a Goldman-Sachs alumnus, used the Asian currency crisis to force open the relatively closed South Korean financial system.) What Hank Paulson does at Treasury after his expected confirmation may provide some indication as to what an "agenda of speculative capital" looks like.

Third, what is the relationship of speculative capital to other sectors of capital?

1. The production of use values, as always, is the foundation of the economy. The source of profit, as always, is surplus value expropriated during the production of values. Speculative capital "only" re-distributes this surplus value -- that is the source of gain from the trading of stocks and options and other kinds of derivatives. Speculative capital cannot exist independent of productive capital. But like the Old Man of the Sea, speculative capital rides on the shoulders of productive capital, overseeing and controlling it.

2. As capital becomes more mobile, all capitals are quickly merged into a big digital ocean of capital. To a great extent, this is made possible by the technology of finance. As soon as cash is deposited in a bank, that money becomes available to the bank for speculation. The boundaries between productive sectors like agriculture, industry, and transportation melt as their capitals mix in finance and become employed as speculative capital. Every industry must keep its capital active when not used for production, whether because expanded production is not feasible (e.g., how many more factories can Toyota build?), or because reserves are needed for future contingencies. Speculative capital puts that capital to work trading financial instruments.

3. Speculative capital works in the same way as finance capital in general, pooling individual capitals under its control. The main difference is that classic finance capital is directed back into production -- loaned out to expand production. If that capital cannot find a place in production (again, because production opportunities are constrained by hyperproductive new technologies and exhausted markets), it is put to work in speculation.

4. Speculative capital is the culmination of the process of the formation of a general rate of profit, the overall system of capital that Marx talked about, where all capitalists partake in the exploitation of labor even if they do not directly produce use values.

5. Speculative capital permeates all sectors of the economy, as a kind of spirit (Hilferding referred to finance capital as the holy ghost of capitalism; speculative capital is the perfection of that permeation) in and behind and around production, connecting everything together. Because it profoundly affects raw material prices and interest rates, speculative capital affects the daily operations of production and transport. Through complex derivatives and other kinds of hedging, speculative capital dissolves boundaries between sectors in other ways connecting distant markets in the same commodities as well as markets in different commodities. The complexity of these financial interconnections is not feasible without computers and digital communication networks.

jd

Mr. Speculative Capital

President Bush nominated Henry Paulson, CEO of investment bank Goldman-Sachs as secretary of the Treasury Department last Tuesday (May 30, 2006). The June 12, 2006 Business Week called it "Mr. Risk goes to Washington." Mr. Speculative Capital that is.

I have argued that speculative capital -- capital involved in the trade of financial instruments -- is a subset of finance capital in general, but comes to dominate not just finance, but capital in general during the stage of capitalism known as "globalization." (For more on see a paper on speculative capital, also a paper of networks and globalization which has more on this.) The transition of Goldman-Sachs from private partnership investment bank -- making its money primarily from advising corporate clients, helping companies go public, and facilitating mergers and acquisitions -- to speculation powerhouse underscores the dynamics of how speculative capital rises to the position of control. As a companion Business Week piece (" Inside Wall Street's Culture Of Risk" by Emily Thornton) noted:

Investors argue that trading is booming now while most traditional banking businesses are languishing. Big firms can no longer subsist on underwriting or stock and bond trading as the combination of more rivals and cheap electronic trading drives down profit margins. "Wall Street doesn't get paid to not take risk anymore," says Merrill Lynch & Co. financial-services analyst Guy Moszkowski. The big investment banks add value by 'absorbing the risk that their clients are looking to get rid of.'"

The article quotes financial market historian James Grant: "The world is stretching for return." Speculation can achieve that, while traditional banking activities can't. (Another aspect of speculative capital's clout is the number of Goldman-Sachs alumni in positions of political power: see "The Leadership Factory", another Business Week item.)

I think it is also important to note that large volumes of risk cannot be managed without the aid of computers and digital networks; or, speculative capital can only come to the fore with the introduction of electronics into production. E.g., according to Thornton's article,

Yet for all the risks they're taking on, banks insist they're safer than ever. They've hired many of the greatest mathematical minds in the world to create impossibly complex risk models...

The bank [Bear, Stearns & Co. -- the transition is happening throughout the financial industry - jd] has built such powerful computing systems that Alix [chief risk officer at Bear, Stearns] can reevaluate every day the risks of thousands of positions across the firm's trading businesses under various stressful scenarios to be sure the firm doesn't hold too much of any risky investment at any one time. That type of analysis used to take a week to complete. "The machine works," he says. The degree to which risk management has evolved in the past few decades is astonishing, say analysts.

The transition at Goldman-Sachs from old-line banking services to speculator was overseen by Paulson, including investing mightily in the technology that required to successfully manage the risk. According to a May, 2000 Forbes cover story on Paulson and G-S, "Goldman Sachs will by year's end have spent $5 billion in five years on all this technology, building an arsenal aimed at making money whichever direction the market goes. So long as it goes somewhere. 'Volatility is our friend,' Hank Paulson says serenely. 'If it wasn't for volatility, why would you need Goldman Sachs? Why would you need to take positions or risk?'". Michael Mandel, in Business Week noted that "Goldman, under Paulson's leadership, became one of the greatest and most profitable risk-taking machines ever built."

So what does Paulson's nomination to head up the Treasury Department mean? Because Paulson is such a big deal on Wall Street, the general assumption in the news of the nomination is that Paulson was guaranteed a seat in Bush's inner circle and more clout in domestic and international economic policy than his two predecessors. Paulson's nomination might help calm jittery markets, the "Rubin effect" as Liz Moyers reported on Forbes.com. Through G-S dealings with China, Paulson might have influence on economic relations with China, including moving them to a market-based currency exchange rate. As a big-time conservationist (Paulson is chairman of the Nature Conservancy) he might bring some sanity to the government's policy on climate change.

Michael Mandel argues that Paulson brings to Washington is the ability to explain to Congress and the public the nature of risk in the new economy. This can be translated into explaining why the sources of risk for most people -- cuts in government programs, "free trade", job flight, downsizing, market volatility, etc. -- are good. Neoliberalism is creative destruction of the old bureaucratic, timid ties that bind, freeing up the entrepreneurial risk-taking adventurous spirit blah blah blah. The two previous secretaries of the Treasury came out of old-economy industry (aluminum and railroads), where debt and risk are "bad". In new-economy terms, growth means risk, risk means debt, and no risk, no reward. Goldman-Sachs increased its long-term debt five-fold from 1999 to 2005 ($20 billion to $100 billion). Looked at in "new economy" terms, the U.S. national debt, trade deficit and currency weakening can be seen as "leveraging up" -- taking on risk for big rewards down the road. Paulson will be able to explain why this is good. And maybe he will be able to explain why privatizing social security will be ... ummm ... good. Mandel writes, "Within Goldman, Paulson is known as an exceedingly effective communicator. If he can translate Wall Street's language of speculation into something the public and politicians understand, the President's gamble in appointing him will pay off for everyone."

Paulson has been a supporter of Bush (helping to raise over $100,000 for his campaign in 2004). As a Wall Street Journal article by Deborah Solomon the day after the announcement noted:

Mr. Paulson has generally taken positions that hew closely to the Bush administration's. He has called for open markets, favored Bush economic policies and said deficit reductions should come through spending cuts, not tax increases. In an op-ed article in this newspaper in 2003, Mr. Paulson said the Bush dividend tax cut would spur growth and said the notion that such a reduction "somehow favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor harkens back to an earlier era when only the rich held equities." Last year, Mr. Paulson said that while he was "concerned" about the deficit, he viewed it "as being a necessary and understandable side-effect of what needed to be done to stimulate the economy."

However, the economic policies listed above are not that much different from Clinton's policies. They describe the general neoliberal program of the past 25 years. And one could argue that Bush's actual policies -- the cost of establishing the police state, the cost of the war in Iraq, Congressional pork -- run counter to the neoliberal agenda.

Another, entirely (pardon me) speculative thought: Speculative capital requires some degree of stability in the underlying world economy -- volatility yes, but not so much that it reaches a systemic tipping point. And the Bush administration is making a total mess of things, from the war in Iraq to oil prices to climate change to China to budget deficits and trade imbalance, that "Wall Street", or the representatives of speculative capital, are saying "Enough!" And Paulson is stepping up to try and restore some order.

Time will tell.

jd

Malthus and crisis point

Someone asked me a question about globalization and the ecosystem of globalization -- I argue that globalization as a new stage of capitalism (or an "epochal shift" in the terms of William Robinson et. al.) leads to a new ecosystem, in contrast to the ecological narrative of the "end of nature". How does such a viewpoint fit with the Malthusian idea of carrying capacity and crisis point? (For a bit more on population and environment, see this little paper: Human population and ecology)

Here was my response:

Re: Malthus and carrying capacity and crisis -- I think that Malthus is a political story and not a scientific one. Or hypothetical but simplistic, because the factors that contribute to carrying capacity are complex and political in the sense that carrying capacity has to do w/ historical/cultural factors and technology (which is political in the sense of what gets researched and deployed). So "crisis point" is not fixed but "depends."

One might argue that we are already at an ecological crisis point, having already exceeded carrying capacity as indicated by mortality from poverty-related causes (curable diseases, starvation, exposure, etc.) But this would be the carrying capacity of globalization-as-a-stage given the current advance of technology. Some other form of social organization might (I would hope) raise the carrying capacity, assuming some more rationale understanding of affluence, and accompanied by an intense research and development program of renewable energy sources.

I think the tendency in globalization is towards more artificial or managed environments that will continue to provide the conditions for the economy to stumble along. It won't be a particularly "wild" or "natural" environment (except maybe for areas reserved as private parks or ecotourist havens). There may be localized ecological crises, that even spill over their local boundaries, but they will be absorbed in the same way that localized economic crises are absorbed at the global level.

However, I don't think that globalization is the only choice available, in big historical terms, so hope springs eternal. Environmental questions quickly slip from the realm of science into the realm of politics.

Climate change is something else, and if the worst case scenarios, or close-to-worst case scenarios happen, all bets are off.

jd

More on emissions markets

Here are some links to more info on the carbon emissions markets (I lifted news and commentary ones from the Gristmill post and comments).

News:

Emissions-Trading Profits in Europe Plunge as Data Questioned (Bloomberg report)

EU gives green light to pollution hike (Times of London)

Data Leaks Shake Up Carbon Trade (New York Times)


Commentary:

EU carbon-trading market hullabaloo from Gristmill, the Grist online magazine blog

Emissions impossible from the Guardian

Question marks over EU CO2 trading scheme from EurActiv, includes a number of links for additional background info.


Background: These articles came out within the past two years, but include good analysis

Marketing and making carbon dumps: Commodification, calculation and counterfactuals in climate change mitigation A very good analysis by Larry Lohmann of The Corner House, appeared in Science as culture, September, 2005.

Climate fraud and carbon colonialism: The new trade in greenhouse gases by Heidi Bachram, appeared in Capitalism nature socialism December, 2004.

jd

Speculative capital and the environment, plus carbon markets

Here is a link to a draft of a paper I presented at the 2006 Global Studies Association here in Chicago. The paper is titled "Speculative capital and the ecosystem of globalization". It will undergo a significant re-write before I am done with it.

Related to this, the New York Times carried an article in Tuesday's paper (5/16/06) called "Data leaks shake up carbon trade" by Heather Timmons (I'm not sure how long that link will be good). It has been one year since the Kyoto protocol went into effect for the 163 signatory countries, and several European countries started leaking out their emissions numbers ahead of the May 15 release date. The initial numbers from France, Sweden and a few other countries were significantly below their allotted permits, meaning that those permits would be available for sale on the carbon market. This drove down the price of carbon permits from about 30 euros per metric ton of CO2 to a low of 9.40 Euros in a matter of days. But on May 15, prices doubled from the day's low to the day's high. (If you are curious about the carbon markets, check out the European Climate Exchange website, which has historical prices, and a good news section.)

It looks like European countries exaggerated their current emissions levels, used to create and allocate the permits. By exaggerating the baseline of pollution used to measure Kyoto reductions, national government's were cutting their local industries some slack. With a high baseline, industry has had to do little or nothing to meet reduction guidelines. Or maybe industries provided faulty numbers: "Governments have been cheated by the big industries, which gave them the wrong assumptions for their emissions," charged Stephen Singer of the World Wildlife Fund. Or possibly industry was on their way to reducing emissions anyway, through cleaner technology, and the Kyoto targets weren't set low enough.

The extreme volatility in the market has upset some traders as well, who taken by surprise by early release of data and data leaks.

The charge that baselines were faulty reinforces the idea that the Kyoto Protocol terms are a joke: open to fraud and deceit, and shooting for targets that will do little to reduce emissions or global warming. "So far, the permit market appears to have done more for the balance sheets of power companies than for pollution control," per the NYT article, since companies were granted the inflated number of permits, which they can turn around and sell on the open market. And the markets themselves, including the brokers, which make money as long as trading is taking place.

jd