Attempting Integral Economics...

So, I just looked up a bit of information about Pigouvian taxes.  My first take at this idea is that this type of taxation is idealistic and doesn't account for systemic demands of our currency system motivating greed and scarcity.  I think an Integral Economics will conclude to use multiple currency systems which resonate with each other and motivate healthy economy and interaction.

Money has 3 basic purposes.  Money is

   1. a way to exchange value

   2. a way to store value

   3. a way to account for the value which has been exchange

Beyond this scope, all rules are what we make of them.  The dominating currency is a masculine type, centrally based and eternally deficient currency.  By this I mean that the Fed is a private organization that decides how to regulate the currency system and if we don't continue to create loans at an increasing 4% rate per year, that system will crash.  Every dollar you have ever possessed was created by someone's mortgage or car loan somewhere.  If there is no debt, there is no money.

We have used other systems throughout history.  A dual currency system tends to be the strongest in which one currency is used for day-to-day trading while the other currency stores value.  Take the Yak Islanders for example.  They canoed to a island and mined a huge rock which was used as the store of value for the family.  They carved a hole in these rocks, which is what made them valuable (value is a belief, very interior).  They obviously didn't bring this rock to market, etc. and they had a portable currency that they would use for day-to-day transactions.

The Egyptians used Demurrage, which is the opposite of our currency.  By this I mean that currently if you go and put money in the bank in a savings account, it accrues value.  The Egyptians were an agricultural based society and used grain as their means of exchange.  If a farmer deposited 10 bags of grain in the granary and came back a year later, there would be 8 bags vs. 12 in our current system.  This motivates people to remove their holdings in the bank and sell and exchange their goods rather than having it stored somewhere not moving.  A dollar spent 20 times is worth $20 instead of $1.  This is a hot potato type of currency.

Using this currency vs. the Pigovian tax is much more effective at creating an environment and economy which supports and benefit infrastructural improvements such as forests.  I don't have the slide in front of me but basically if you look at the value of a tree over 100 years using demurrage vs. a fiat currency, it is in the fiat currency user's best interests to take a tree, turn it into toothpicks, sell the toothpicks and put the profit in the bank rather than letting the tree grow.  In the Demurrage system this investment is accounted for and is worth the multiplied value that is logically inherent in a 100 year old tree.

I don't have an answer for what the next healthy system will look like, but the LR motivations implied here are that a fiat system which requires constant expansion is insufficient to create sustainability.  I know your piece was pointed towards economics, but if we can't sustain this planet, economics will be one of the first things to break down.  Taxes are a way to change motivations some, but it mostly looks like a way to slow down expansion and change cost-benefit analyses rather than motivating our culture to invest in our children and planet's future.  How can we make clean and green (not vMEME) economy?  I agree with Brian O'Connell with respect that you must look at all first tier memes simultaneously rather than focusing on a portion of the rainbow.  Integral implicitly accounts for all memes all of the time, right?  I also think that you have an insurmountable task to get taxes like these passed.  The powers at be are in power and will use that power to make sure the current system continues to benefit them.

One last major ontological hurdle for you to overcome is the fact that Economics commonly teaches people that money is value neutral.  Just a number in the equation, that is all.  I have outlined a couple of the complimentary currency systems used in the world today, each of them has a different way they motivate the users.  These currencies will be a part of the solution.  Complimentary currencies are a portion of the monetary system, which Americans just tend not to be educated about.  I've seen Australians come in for an Integral seminar and know exactly what LETS currencies are and use them on a regular basis.  There are portions of Japan where they use LOVES and have credit cards that interact with multiple currencies at once.

I just think Integral Economics should account for these variations in how currency can be used.  Each of these systems lead to a different set of LR motivators which in turn lead to different results as to what is best for a person as they use these different systems.  When one system starts to over inflate, it becomes more beneficial to use a complimentary one.  We've been doing this for thousands of years.

Take two examples of 1) WWII and the Weimar republic and 2) the great depression.  In both of these cases the primary currency was defunct.  In Germany, the currency began to hyper inflate which caused the Weimar populace to create their own currency for local exchange.  The government made this exchange system illegal and forced the public to use the national system.  This forced hyperinflation and the rest of it including Hitler becoming democratically elected.  We made a similar set of systems during the great depression in America.  I grow corn, you grow pumpkins, lets help each other put a good dinner on our tables.

The scary part is when you try to implement these same systems today.  How many farmers do you know?  Will they help you out if the grocery store can't?  Most people have a week or so worth of food in their pantries.  Most grocery stores have about 2 weeks worth of food.  What happens when it the grocery stores can't pay for their deliveries? If people can't eat, they are thinking in a purely beige to red mode of thought.

We have to create a system that will help us take care of each other.  A system which will motivate us externally as well as ethically to take care of each other and ourselves; to breed a healthy interpersonal interaction.  I believe that if we found the right set of currencies, it would be the single greatest thing we could do to reduce suffering around the planet.

Money is a Perfect Artifact and we have now gotten to the point of evolution where we can choose what sort of system will work best for us. We can now create an economy that will motivate us to take responsibility and Stewardship for our planet.

Thanks,

-o-J

To the fed is an evil conspiracy out to destroy all trees clan.

If you understand the Integral map, then how could a purely lower right system 'The Fed' be the root of all economic evil? All systems can be traced to a creator and reduced to a cabal, because they are artifacts of the creative process of human problem solving.  So what if any system has a originating intelligence? Does not the entire universe? Or do you mistrust that creator as well?

Are you creating an economic system in your own image? Are you the economic god?

If a system exists, it was evolved and thus should continue to evolve.  No system, the fed included, just popped up one day solely created to oppress and enslave people or trees. That is such an insidious and obvious personal shadow, one I suffered under for waaaaaay to long myself, so I feel your pain brothers and sisters.

I don't know your particular history of the fed (rather subjective, no?) , but I can spot mean green meme retro romantic saturated rhetoric from a mile away, regardless of the topic.  I remember when I believed our monetary system was the root of all suffering including my own, but thanks to Ken Wilber, I now know better and can breathe and maneuver within a less than perfect system, but a system that is more perfect than tribal trade rituals of yesteryear. Anytime anyone proposes reinstitutionalizing systems (as if that was possible) of an idealized ancient past as a solution for a rapidly approaching and idea blowing future, I get pretty freakin' frustrated. I also pretty much ignore your sources because your whole premise is so mean, self serving and tired that I know there is always an internet source to back it up. More power the people!

I'm actually all for alternative currencies, but would they not exist on top of the fiat system? Bringing novelty, depth and variety to a more fundemental system that retains a solid and tested foundation? Transcend and include? Active evolution.

The current economic crisis has a little to do with the fed and a lot to do with the narcissism of a culture that has lost its moral and ethical DEPTH- Boomeritis comes to my mind. The same narcissism that creates hedge funds to short whole banking systems is the same narcissism that would replace the fed with Mayan seed trading.

I don't think your 'throw out the current system and replace it with MY system' diatribe is of any use at all. I don't think the extremely tired 'Ken wilber and the Integral elites' whining ever served anyone towards a higher learning. And if you think I'm being mean, I mean to be! 

GOD, I wish there was a mean green meme silencer ray. BZZZZZZZZZZZT