Sure, and this is what’s currently happening - companies are competing in terms of who is benefitting people most, because this is what people are increasingly caring about. It’s also happening with the environment - e.g. more and more people want to have an energy supplier using 100% renewable energy, and so these are the suppliers that are succeeding. Seems positive to me. They are still competing and so the companies doing less well are losing…
The concept of directing finances towards social capital and influence is something that’s mentioned by Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching if I remember rightly, and is something seen a lot in collective cultures.
Some of these MEGA CORPORATIONS can afford to meet these ever stricter standards. Sadly most lobby for exemptions because they have the political and financial power to do so. I.E. (The Trans-Pacific Partnership)
Some people (the vast majority?) sense this type of crony capitalism is what creates the bifurcated have’s and the have not’s? How do you suggest this be addressed since no one even hears the pleas of the little guy? (RSB Marketplace?)
A possibility would be to give government support -bonuses/tax breaks - to anyone cutting carbon emissions. I think this probably already happens in a lot of countries.
I agree that this is the narrative we read about … but to me it’s totally unrealistic in the “real world” … Please let me explain or inquire of you if you already know.
Regarding bonuses/tax breaks … a really small business owner is barely paying taxes because they make very little money. Many don’t even earn enough to pay taxes, they are on Government welfare collecting “earn income credits”. These small business owners are our fellow citizens and they are being completely shut out of the economy.
For example: If you own a small local restaurant you are competing just to survive another month against large corporate franchises with billion of dollars. They have lots of money and power. When you go out to eat where do you spend your money?
Some 2020 Statistics: Small businesses make 99.9% of US businesses and employ 47.1% of US employees.
The small business owners that employ close to half the population in the US are slowly being squeezed out of business by the big giant corporations; who can afford to monopolize the marketplace. These giants push for more Government regulations they can afford to comply with; their intention perhaps being to put the little guy out of business?
Sadly I feel as if the next generation has no idea about any of this? Please if I’m missing something and you can help I’d sure love to hear it. If you don’t have better answers please let me ask for support and help sharing this information with others.
(Watch Damnation on Netflix to feel some of parallels from our history)
Let’s look at gasoline prices and my lawn maintenance guy as an example…
Government fiat raises gas prices by 50% here in the US with the intention of driving electric vehicle adoption.
My landscaper drives an old pickup pulling a large trailer that gets likely 10 mpg. Other than wages, fuel is his single largest operating expense which the government has just increased by 50%.
I don’t know what he pays his employees, but I doubt they make $15/hour. Probably $10? Government fiat raising his employee costs by 50% will force some very serious business decisions.
Raise prices and risk losing clients? This is called price elasticity of demand and a very well known economic “law”, just like Inflation. At some price point, I will mow my own lawn.
and/or reduce his employee count which happen to be his children…
Brandon has never owned a new truck in his life much less put a deposit down on a Tesla Cybertruck so he can “go green”. He is the perfect example of a Really Small Business owner. The chances of him being able to “participate in” the massive benefits of this “new green economy” before he goes out of business don’t look so good.
And what’s most twisted about all this is Brandon DOES NOT WANT the government to destroy his business for him so he can go on a Federal Universal Basic Income.
Update; Conversation didn’t go as planned… Seems my lovely wife is completely bought into the patriarchy and I’m stuck with all the dirty heavy work yoke to drudge through life shouldering and also somehow picked up on demand barrista, dog feeding and foot massage duties.
Wow @FermentedAgave you hit it right out of the park with your story on this. Thank you
I will go further … these same corporate giants also want open boarders to flood the market with low-skill and low-wage (under-the-table) workers to further crush the little guy (middle-class-working-families).
I am hoping to hear back from @Julia248 or @once3800 and everyone else here on how the younger generation(s) of integral thinkers integrate these market dynamics into an integral framework that can/will accommodate everyone?
As I see it … this inherited life-style of Americans is being torn-away from our youth. Please @Julia248 and/or @once3800 help explain what we’re missing in all of this? If you don’t have answers perhaps you can share this with people in your circle(s) who might? Thank you!
Thank you @Julia248 for your kind reply. I hope you find some time to think about what just happened here and what it means in your integral journey? When you’re ready I am eager to hear what you discover. ~ Peace
Some quick thoughts though - I would say the issue is down to capitalism going out of control - anarchocapitalism allows it to be all about who’s best at competing - they don’t need to have any morals (though it can be useful for them to present as having them to win over customers. Though doinf good is still a positive anyway).
I think this is where it’s useful to have some government controls - high taxes for people earning above a certain threshold, and support for small businesses who are making things better - e.g. paying fair wages and doing good for the environment. Also corporation tax - something really positive decided at the G7 summit and discussed for ages was the bringing in minimum corporation tax across the world, so companies can’t go to a country with low corporation tax to avoid it.
Making the playing field more level and giving people resources so they do have a chance. Allowing people free lifelong education, ensuring everyone gets a good start in life, free counselling services for everyone (along with free healthcare). Educating people and helping them grow so as to end discrimination.
If just talking in terms of capitalism, there are always going to be people succeeding in the market and other people failing, but making the playing field more level allows it to be a funner game for everyone.
@Julia248 it’s an interesting discussion. I’ve built up my mental framework around have the government manage and regulate the external quadrants across the various levels - police, regulations of all types, taxes, external defense. Meanwhile our spiritual practices (religions, yoga, perhaps IT,…) are what we use for our internal quadrant development. It’s a fairly basic church and secular state separation.
The really interesting areas are the overlap zones. As a religious man, I don’t feel the need for the government to legislate internal feelings, thoughts, or more subtle morals. Yes to the government on legislating and managing the actions - murder, theft, fraud, etc…
We can “feel” for the embezzler that raided the county treasury because of her gambling addiction or the rioter that slips into looting because they’ve always wanted a 75" TV, but having the government dig into those internal spaces really creeps me out. Yes, they should manage the actions, but not the thoughts, motivations of the people.
I think the breakdown in outsourcing our morality (using the term as very generally) to the government is that there is no guarantee that government employees or agencies are any more “moral” than the common citizen. If anything history has shown the more power the government is able to consolidate, the worse things gets for common citizen.
@FermentedAgave, yes sure, you don’t want people making decisions about your inner world, or an Orwelian thought police, and I don’t think many people would want this (maybe a very small minority would). You also don’t want Donald Trump or Joseph Stalin and friends making any decisions about how society’s structured or functions.
At the same time, you don’t want Jeff Bezos et al. being in charge and having control over you or society either. The common theme is not wanting anyone immoral to be making decisions about society and not wanting anyone to control one’s inner life. I would day the aim is not having anyone make decisions about anyone else at all, but I dont think this is possible until everyone’s at a high stage of development. At present, you will always have people trying to take over and assert their will over others - one structure falls and another is created.
I think government is definitely necessary right now, but moral governments who are going to try do the best for people. But then it’s also aboit how they get voted in. In Scandinavian countries, for example, people are voting in these governments, and also the right people are standing as members of Parliament, because a lot of people are at least at the green stage of development.
Bringing it back to the original Topic of Gender differences and shadow:
I see a lot of shadow in the term “Nanny State” (nobody here said it, but it’s a common term used in conservative circles). It’s a term used where traditional conservatives are fearful of the Government being a diabolical motherly figure. Take a moment and sit with that terrible, invasive controlling image of the nastiest mother figure you can imagine as your government. Then realize it’s your shadow.
Similarly, there is a lot of shadow when people are fearful of a unhealthy “masculine” form of “functional” government - where just the bare necessities are met but there is no beauty, zero compassion and Government is a “Bruh Network” of ass kissing and double dealing. “Let the orphans starve and illegal immigrants get what they deserve for breaking the law” are examples. As with the Nanny Government - let the whole concept of an unhealthy masculine fascism sink in. Then realize this is your own fears drawing out your own shadows.
As with most shadows, there is both truth and untruth in reasons to fear both models.
@Julia248 I’m confused now. You don’t want Trump or Stalin, but you’re OK with some other bureaucrat going into internal quadrants to rearchitect society as well as reprogram your thinking and mine?
Also I see driving broad social behavior (squeezing the lawn guy into buying a Cybertruck, or pushing onto UBI, as the example) as very different from Bezos and Zuckerberg running having over sized influence. But yes our government does need to get with the times regarding internet platforms and other Exponential adoption technologies that lead so quickly to monopolies.
As @raybennett points out I could be “afraid” due to my shadows, but what safe guards would we put in place in this “high order” authoritarian collectivist structure to insure it doesn’t turn out like every other attempt in history? I think the question is worth answering if only to help me get over Mommy being mean to me when I was bad.
Here’s a pretty good synopsis of what @raybennett is talking about with respect to conservative thinking.
The structure they intend to leave behind will contain but a handful of the cultural artifacts they encountered. Bringing down statues of Abe Lincoln, books by Dr. Seuss and schools named for the country’s founders? That’s just their casing the joint. The large-scale heist hasn’t even started.
No. I was saying I don’t want anyone controlling or making decisions about my or other people’s thinking/emotions etc, and also that I don’t want people with low moral development controlling how society’s structured (Trump and Stalin were hyperbolic examples of this latter part).
It’s your fear, not ours. You have to figure out what you need to feel safe, not us.
If you see Stalin around the corner of every effort to make Government compassionate, that is your paranoia - not the basis of a rational discussion.
Is it fear? Or is it prudence?
I’m not seeing the “existential need” to fundamentally alter the Western (US in my case) governments to “try” something new. It’s not as if this “new” government and society have a track record of “making it better for humanity and the world”. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question why “enlightened authoritarian collectivism” is going to work out better this time around.
Progressives may claim that the “intent is for betterment of humankind” this time around, but isn’t that exactly how it was promoted every other time it’s been tried?
Maybe I’m not clear on what “enlightened” or “integral” is, but I can’t identify any “2nd tier” leaders in the US government today (Biden, Harris, Schumer, Pelosi, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Trump, McConnell, et al …).
What I do see are two camps. One camp look to be stewards of our democracy (with the usual messy graftiness and corruptioniness). Whilst the other camp wants to fundamentally change from our current “government for the people by the people” to a “people that do as they’re told by the governing class”.
Like I’ve said several times. The Progressives control the House, Senate, and White House. Get the legislation passed and executive orders in place, and it would be nice to also see some good old integral “include and transcend” with all lower level 10M’s of citizens as well.
