Monday, June 8, 2015

Invisible hand job of conscious crapitalism

Continuing from this post wherein I said that conscious crapitalism is like New Age superstition, recall the following from Chapter 11 of my review of The Zero Marginal Cost Society.

[T]he capitalist invisible hand [...] was itself a holdover from a theological God in control to rational, self-interested individuals in control. Lacking a systems view it replaced God with the invisible force of a marginally less superstitious autonomous Market. Backed by ecological and other scientific advances, it is being replaced with the visible systems view of the global eco-social commons and redefining our place within it.

Note that the invisible hand of the market is still metaphysical in that it must posit some supernatural agency that operates on its own if we but focus on our self-interest, i.e. the market will take care of itself. Moving into systems science and ecological consciousness thus naturalizes this process, making previously supernatural agencies like Gods or markets visible and understandable, and reconnecting us with ourselves, our peers and our environments, but in a postmetaphysical framework. This also applies to the sort of instrumental rationality inherent to 'enclosure' of disciplines of study rather than to interdisciplinary cross-sharing more indicative of Habermas' collaborative, communicative action.

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