It’s the Stupid Economy Stupid: Part IV

The Personal-Interpersonal Ramifications
Embedded in the Economic Reconstitution of Identity?
(A Fourth Working Paper for Presentation)*

The apparent simplicity of harmonized complexity…

1.   Introduction

	In this fourth working paper I would like to present some of my reflections on the topic of the relationship between personal-interpersonal identity and the economic sphere. (1)

Just as political decisions have an economic consequence and cost, and, are not completely isomorphic with their political sphere of origination, and v.v., so too should we find a differentiation between our sense of identity and its causes and consequences initiated in an economic sphere of influence (and their correspondences likewise in a political sphere of co-origination). Even though actions and consequences are mirrored between various spheres of public and private activity, I would like to argue that such parallel correspondences cannot be completely isomorphic when examined temporally, spatially, culturally, personally and interpersonally, etc. If we can understand the nature of these differences or differentials then we might find ourselves obtaining a better interpretation and understanding of the phenomenon or phenomena under investigation. Why am I concerned by this seemingly unfashionable and esoteric topic? I have no desire to re-erect a grand narrative (in the manner of Marx, e.g.) but am intrigued by the sudden rush of economic innovations thrust upon us in a seemingly desperate bid to overcome the recent economic crisis that has radiated out from the US Sub-Prime Debacle into the realm of banking and thence out into the rest of the world economy, an economy that has become more globalized! (2)

	The reasons for my interest in this topic is an attempt to ascertain why radical economic re-direction now seems to be driving the political domain? Billions of US dollars and equally large quantities in other currencies have been used in bailouts, processes of nationalization, buying toxic debt and a number of other innovative attempts to normalize the banking sector along with other key areas of the economies of a large number of relatively wealthy countries. This turn around has been relatively sudden (in the latter half of 2008), has occurred with very little political debate, has been orchestrated by bureaucrats rather than politicians, and although sanctioned by politician, this turnaround has often occurred in a contrary spirit to what a number of those same politicians have said as to what they stand for and where on the political spectrum they have stood. We have recently witnessed the confused and confusing spectacle of the US president, Bush junior, telling us at the November G20 meeting that he is for less regulation when the recent consensus reached at this same meeting, and by the administration of the American government, is now for more market regulation and more supervision of those same markets. (3) 

Latest version of paper: www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html 
What is driving this change (besides the economic crisis?)? Are we seeing a return to a socialistic agenda, a deconstruction of rightwing economic polices, a reversal of economic realism and individualism and its replacement by an economic idealism and socialism (or a society oriented ‘societism’ rather than a state oriented ‘socialism’?)? If there are differences or differentials between a personal-interpersonal sphere of identity formation and economic spheres of activity (and corresponding realms of political practice) what might they tell us about how we have just seen ourselves, are in the process of re-seeing ourselves, and, how we might be coming to re-see ourselves in the near future? (4)

2.   The Deconstruction of Rightwing ‘Reform’?

	I would like to quote a series of extracts from a recent article in Le Monde Diplomatique, titled Thinking the unthinkable written by Serge Halimi (and translated by Barbara Wilson); November 2008, p.1 & p.5.

…Everything was possible because the banks had to be rescued.

    For 30 years, any suggestion that the liberal order might be amended to improve the living conditions of ordinary people, for example, met with the same stock responses: the Berlin wall has gone, didn’t you notice?; that’s all ancient history now; the coffers are empty; the markets won’t stand for it.

    And for 30 years, “reforms” went ahead  - in reverse. This was the conservative revolution, handing over increasingly substantial and lucrative swathes of national assets to money men, privatizing public services and transforming them into cash machines to “create added value” for shareholders. This was liberalization, with cuts in wages and social security…

    Speculation boomed, fuelled by the ideology of market forces, and housing became a prime target for investing. Attitudes changed, people became more selfish, more calculating, less public-spirited. The 2008 crash is not just a technical hitch that can be put right by “learning lessons” or “putting stop to abuses”. The whole system has broken down.

…What has happened to the left? As for the official left, it just wants to turn the page as quickly as possible on a “crisis” for which it is jointly responsible. This is the left that went along with liberalization, Democratic president Bill Clinton deregulated the financial sector, François Mitterrand ended index-linked wages… (5)

	Although the article mentions Bill Clinton as a pro-market de-regulator, I would argue that market de-regulation was carried on much further under George Bush. Recent events would seem to suggest that his style of conservative politics and economics is coming to an end. No one knows where the US economy is heading in particular and where the world economies are heading in general. However various trends seem to be already afoot and the drapes in the White House have not even been refurbished. As already indicated, not much debate seems to have occurred on these very important and expensive re-directions in economic finances and controls. Have forces in society been slowly changing direction prior to these events, or, are we to change direction in identity-formation and in political consensus because of this prior sense of an economic re-direction? (6)

	The above quoted article suggests that attitudes have changed and people have become “selfish” and “less public-spirited”. Is this trend favoring the individual at the expense of society about to be turned around? Or, is this a trend that is already underway? I would be more inclined to believe that this trend favoring a more social position has been underway for some time and has only recently become more pronounced and visible. Factors that have indicated this to me have been a marked reduction in those affirming capital punishment in the USA (and perhaps a direct indication of less people with strong right-wing views in this regard); a positive, assertive and responsive consensus on (an accelerated) global warming; a wide-spread repudiation of the recent experiment in a de-regulated and under-supervised market-place, etc. One might also like to argue that, overall, the world is no long supporting right-wing-oriented agendas even by parties that are traditionally ‘conservative’? The Tories in Britain seem to be gaining the upper hand and shifting their emphasis to a re-consideration of the nature of society (rather that privileging a collective sense of state in a traditional socialism). In all of this, a new sense of Left-and-Right seems to be defining itself with only the barest resemblance to past traditions.  (7)

	Let us ask ourselves what factors are driving these apparent changes, changes, e.g., from a politics of relative exclusion to a politics of relative inclusion; a political re-privileging of the community or society rather than the mere individual (even though right-wing agenda often also privilege both small businesses and large corporations), etc? Then, let us ask what does all this economic turmoil and radical economic re-direction mean for how we see ourselves and how we see each other? (8)

	For a start we might like to look for points of collision where different agenda clash. E.g., when and where myths are promoted or demoted, or, clash with other myths. Or, e.g., we might like to look at key metaphors being promoted or demoted in a text, or, also seem to clash… whenever  this type of research appears to be profitable? (9)
2.   The Theoretical Nature of Self							 

	Identity is a complex matter and for me, therein, lies its radical resolution as a problematic issue, namely, our recognition of its complex nature as complex. I.e., subject to chaotic organization – between its apparent simplicity and its apparent complexity in and through the integration of a bewildering array of distinctive senses of self that collectively and hierarchically make up this overall constituted sense of self.  I have briefly looked into this way of seeing our sense of self in previous papers in this series. Rather than being bogged down yet again in a repetition of such detail let me, instead, look at a chaotic reading of this recent economic crash, the Crash of 2008. (10)

	In chaos theory small increments can sometimes lead to radically different set (or sets) of consequences. A mere eagle could land for a few seconds on a high mountain snow field and trigger a massive avalanche that buries an entire village in the valley below.  Sometimes, the opposite can happen too. Massive increments are accumulatively added without any radical sense of re-direction (in and through a sudden bifurcation of radically different possibilities). It is quite possible that huge amounts of money might make no final difference to the course of this economic crisis. On the other hand, small increments carefully selected  might make a vast difference out of all proportion to the minute quantity of that input. However, with gigantic amounts of money sloshing around in a re-directed economy we would normally expect a proportional amount of change to co-occur? In this regard, what are we currently a witness to? Has banking dysfunction been adequately repaired or do we remain in, or have we returned to, a serious crisis of confidence, even between the banks themselves? (11)

3.   How do we Determine Possible Re-Directions in Identity Formation?

	I am sure we cannot escape the impact of this crisis. I am sure we cannot escape the eventual amelioration of this same crisis. I perceive that certain tectonic shifts in global society have already occurred and that we are witness to our adopting some radical re-directions in how we should manage the economy, how the sphere of the political is to be better managed, and, how we should set about managing this improperly, over-exploited planet that we would all still like to call home. In the context of these reflections, just how might we reach some consensus in this regard? (12)

	How does this complex sense of self respond to changes in its personal-interpersonal environment? What relationship is borne between apparent continuities and apparent discontinuities in this regard? More specifically, how might the self and its sense of identity be constituted and differentially re-constituted? That given, as above, how does an overall sense of self find itself acting within this world-of-Life with others, before others, before its own newly re-invested sense of self? How do we examine all of this? Indeed, how do ascertain this sense of a differential or set of differentials given these changing circumstances precipitating re-directions in economic, political, personal, interpersonal, national, international spheres of activity, etc? (13)

As I have noted elsewhere, identity is neither an absolutely active affair nor an absolutely passive affair! Furthermore, rather than becoming involved in controversies over nature versus nurture, and, controversies concerning an intrinsic goodness versus evilness, let us just assume that for the ego to function at all a certain degree of integrity must be assumed before that identity itself could assume a certain sense of identity! Just as a lie can only be performed in the context of a series of overall truthful dispositions, so too psychic and moral integrity must be assumed as a pre-requisite for the very functioning of that embodied ego formation under scrutiny. That granted, let me remark that differentiations or re-directions of identity are probably of greater interest and import. Let me now examine, in general terms of reference, to what degree and in what manner the current economic crisis is effecting personal and interpersonal identity formation through a re-direction of identity-responsiveness. In other words, what general discontinuities can be pointed out in this regard, and, in this changing economic climate what radical innovations and re-directions seem to be occurring in practice along with the consequences for processes of identity? (14)

4.   Provisional Conclusions?

	So far, it would appear, we have been granted a swift and determined response by certain world leaders with a degree of prescience and presence that should command our admiration, and hopefully, our long-term respect and gratefulness.  Deep-seated prejudices have been uprooted and turned around, relatively surprising innovations have been invoked that only a few months ago would not even have been contemplated as necessary let alone thought to be as either possible or desirable? Let us examine these re-positionings from economic, political and social perspectives. (15)

	From a de-regulated and a markedly under-supervised marketplace, albeit with minimum regulation continuing in a less systematic manner, to a marketplace thought to need a much greater degree of supervision, all in the space of a few weeks, and enacted with a minimal amount of debate, shows how times have changed and how the consequences and implications of these changed times are so relatively unnoticed. Economic times will become much tougher… many countries are already in a state of recession… and others will follow. Into this vacuum of a crisis it is natural to ask will Australia also follow in a similar fashion? However, with some degree of confidence re-established in some financial circles we should also ask, hypothetically and hopefully, have we escaped from what could have been a worse situation, a situation where escape would have been much more difficult (and perhaps impossible if confidence could not have returned to the center of the financial world within commercial banking and allied services?)? In America, investment banking has effectively deconstructed. Some investment banks are in receivership, others have been taken over by commercial banks. In Australia there are proposals afoot for certain financial institutions, should they wish, to take on the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a bank along with guarantees traditionally and recently supplied to such institutions (given their degree of regulation and fiscal propriety in regards to the degree of capitalization they must maintain as a minimum requirement, etc.). This is all quite ironic given that commercial banking and investment banking were to be kept separate in the corrective aftermath of The Great Depression. But times have changed. A consensus has remained, though, hopefully, that globalization is the way to head, and in which direction we should keep heading, and, that we should not return to the myopia of a protectionist economic platform. What are the consequences of this moderate degree of optimism in this regard? (16)

	A sea-change politically and economically has occurred, and, both being instrumental for and as a consequence of this transformation, there has been a change in fundamental moral attitudes!? Minimum degrees of regulation are inevitable and in their own quiet way will proliferate (more often than not merely to explicate already implied processes and practices). In counterbalance we should find less reluctance to overseer and supervise such public processes be they economical or political or social in orientation. Then, as well, we must argue for and maintain adequate degrees of such oversight and supervision along with a minimal degree of collective oversight that also adequately supervises such supervision. What might assist these processes of oversight? The invocation of adequate overall transcendental suspensions in critical reflection, moderate amounts of legislation, adequate supervision, a greater awareness of the Other promoted in and through greater degrees of transparency and mutual consideration. Insisting that all supervision, in turn, be adequately supervised, and, that an adequate degree of transparency here also here exercised! (17)

	More than ever we live in a world of simulation, in a world between both the virtual and the non-virtual. Too often I have heard complaints about the financial system (read the ‘banks’) and their fancy financial services along with their endless trading in a virtual world of paper and electronic finance. But people forget that all financial institutions effectively trade in a virtual world. The very money in our pockets, should we have some, is itself a financial device that gets traded. Coins have some intrinsic value but often not much more than a small fraction of their nominated worth, whilst notes have virtually no intrinsic value! But, we miss the point. We operate in an economy built on agreements in whose articulations we must come to trust, to credit, believe to be credible. Without such trust we get a crisis of credit of the likes we have just managed to get out of. Hopefully! Rather than disparage financial instruments, let us instead better manage these resources and re-grow ‘our’ economy with what ever tools help us to better facilitate that task. Hence my insistence, also, on greater degrees of transparency along with whatever promotes a deeper mutual trust and authenticity in all our relationships with others. (18)

	From a freewheeling world of individualism (often more praised in conservative circles) and claims for smaller government (that have never ever eventuated in conservative government, nor in non-conservative forms of government for that matter either) we now proceed to a new world order, at last, that is going to be (or should be) more society oriented (rather than state or socialistically oriented). No longer can we de-regulate and under-supervise. To some measure, we must accept being to some small degree at least, our brother’s keeper. Furthermore, in a recognition of increasing complexity our approaches and procedures need to be more dimensionally attentive to the nuances necessary for good governance. Regulation needs to be regulated; supervision needs to be supervised; responsibility needs to be made responsible; obligations need to be maintained until discharged and not parceled on and handed over; actions need to be mutually entrusted with consequences and not just pursued for their ensuing profits; responses need to be conducted transparently, and, criticisms of the same need to be conducted in a similar fashion! Into this ‘new’ world-order we have been dragged, thankfully, whether we are aware of this or not, however, will this sense of an ethical re-vitalization be maintained? (19)

In the chaotic complexity of the great marketplace of this world, small actions can how profound consequences out of all proportion to the merit of their triggering cause or causes. Conversely, ‘profound’ actions can have non-consequential consequences in a more final scheme of things. Similarly, in a vision of this chaotic landscape, resulting equilibria need not be in equipoise, nor in fruitful equilibrium, be something we can feel equanimity for or feel such points of balance to be something we could or should feel desire for. Dynamic equilibria need not be balanced and fruitfully bountiful! Indeed, they can equally imprison us in potential wells that bear only a minimal resemblance to our potentials given less adverse circumstances. Ultimately, through simulation, no absolute difference or distinction can be drawn between subjects and subjects, subjects and objects, and, subjects and apparently different contexts of operation. Furthermore, through simulation, albeit directly in contact through an immediacy of all participants in their relationships, it follows that there is a permeability between all forms of interaction in such a manner that actions and responses in one sphere are to be mirrored in some form or other in all other relevant spheres of interaction. In this mirroring, however, there need be no perfect mirroring since all reflection takes place from its own point or points of view.  Here the intended moral is that economic actions will have political and social consequences, and, v.v. Although never in absolute synchronicity at the same time they can be never too far from influencing each other in that same moment or period of time (hence some degree of relative semi-permeability in this regard). This characterization of the overall situation reflects the equal chaotic complexity and apparent integrity or simplicity of the same. Like a vast crystal, the Life-World mirrors and reflects all changes of state within, such apparent differentiations in discontinuity re-constituting the formation of identity therein, within this living World-of-Life. From such dynamic changes of conditions new states will emerge and submerge back into this eternal economy of value in whose circulation we find ourselves and find each other. Through such a prism we find the value of personal relationships, a sense of the interpersonal, the sense of the national and the sense of the international – giving with one hand and taking with the other. Participants in the economy of the Life-World that can be neither absolutely active nor absolutely passive. In recognizing this (responsitivity as a) fact of our being-with-others, a relevant degree of responsibility should always be accepted and acted upon; a state of affairs best promoted through an authenticity of transparency in that manner and to that degree that best promotes our business in the world, this same World-of-Life (in all its transcendental possibilities that can be acted upon). For so does this appear to be the Way of the world…! (20)  
                          
 Noël Tointon, Sydney, 18.11.08.

Postscript: Psychological Method?

	How does one conduct a careful psychological examination of such imputed shifts in thinking and practice? Go from anecdote to a survey of their general existence or non-existence? Conduct various studies from time to time and try to infer shifts in public thinking in this regard? Or, perhaps, as more or less suggested, in general terms of reference examine this permeability between the economic and the political and its extension to and from the social by studying changes of emphasis in metaphors/mythical texts, etc? Other methods might be to measure quantitatively and qualitatively how the use of money changes in a certain community or society, the source and direction of innovations. Then, again, we might look for differential changes in already existing institutions and the surfacing of new institutions (products and memes) (like, e.g., the Internet, collateralized debt-obligations, naked short-selling, ecological movements, NGO’s, etc.). N. (21)

Points For Discussion

1.   Is there a permeability/semi-permeability between economic and social spheres, economic and political spheres, political and social spheres, etc., and, what difference/s (in the form of a differential pressure) there might be between these relatively artificial relationships?

2.   What metaphorical/mythical clashes are there within and between major and minor texts within and between these spheres of the economic, political and social?

3.   Is there an indication of a period of ethical re-vitalization? What would characterize such an observation?

4.   To what extent should transparency be exercised? What general rules might one consider here?

5.   Should we still maintain a distinction between a Right and a Left on a political spectrum? How might it be re-defined in keeping with current political trends, etc?

6.   In what sense has the presidency under Bush junior failed and/or succeeded?

7.   Is it wrong to make a profit, or, to what extent should profit be allowed? How does a degree of the mutual enter into our discussion here since capitalism is founded on making an economic excess? Is this ‘excess’ necessarily ‘profit’ at the expense of the other party? What is an economic surplus, is it desirable or what type of surplus is desirable? Can we make a distinction between an excess of value and a profit?

8.   To what extent globalization is both a ‘problem’ and the ‘solution’?

9.   Just how is identity realized? What might be intrinsic and should be lived up to? How much of our identity is merely social or social plus key personal decisions we have to adhere to?

10.  What are the key causes of this current economic crisis in confidence, etc?

11.  What are going to be the short-term and long-term consequences of this crisis?

12.  Is there a new world-order of the type as suggested in this paper, or, will it be more of the same with more crises to follow after this one, all of a similar nature and suffered in the same vein? (22)

An Additional Reflection: How Do We Find an Appreciation of the Present?

	It has been a problem noted in the past – how does one adequately appreciate the present? To what extent do we have to see out the present in order to appreciate the same through having first suffered it and then, in hindsight, retrospectively appreciate where we were headed!? Is it not possible to obtain this deeper insight into the current course of history, the history of both others and own self, in the very moment, more or less, as it is actually happening… as we find it unfolding for-us? I believe we might find a solution to this puzzle here in this set of essays. Let me briefly explain how this difficult feat of appreciation might be achieved. (23)

	In this last essay I have stressed the sense of recent economic re-direction we seem to currently witnessing as a response to the serious nature of the global financial crisis. This concept of ‘re-direction’ has been borrowed from recent work examining the chaotic dimension of complex interaction. Re-seen in this light we might like to perceive the presence of re-directions in attitudes, trends, social-processes, etc., as an indicator of a self-organized historical process re-directed through a process of ‘chaotically’ re-directed re-self-organization. Noting such points of transition or re-direction and noting the nature and potential consequences of such processes might stand us in better stead in this desire to better appreciate the historical flavour of the present; something that hitherto we had been only able to do retrospectively after some considerable time has elapsed. So, in the light of this untested insight, an appreciation of the present can be conducted given our attention to chaotic points of re-direction coupled with an awareness as to their most probable consequences (at least for the foreseeable future).  So, how do we detect these historical points of re-direction indicating chaotically profound historical processes of re-direction rather than just processes of relatively insignificant redirection? (24)

	In this essay I noted a concept of a differential between different ways of seeing a certain situation or type of situation when looked at through various attitudinal modalities, e.g., economic, political, social, etc. These differences were treated as differentials that pointed out how a sense of re-direction was underway in a certain mode of life ahead of some other mode of life when these two modes of life are interrelated, i.e., accommodated in such a manner that would allow us to move from one to the other, and v.v., through a process of transformation (whereby in comparing the paths of treatment and re-treatment back to that initial observation or set of observations would highlight both this sense of a differential but also indicate that some sort of re-direction was occurring more in one attitudinal field than in that other field subjected to this sort of accommodative and transformational treatment/re-treatment). Put more simply, in the context of current economic preoccupations we could note that economic managers were currently driving a profound sense of economic re-direction rather than being managed from a more politically oriented sphere of activity. As to the consequences of such re-directed courses of economic policy we may well have to wait a few years in order to appreciate the final consequences and magnitude of such re-directed activity. Indeed, should the world economy move quickly out of recession such debts might well be short-term and positive in the long-term. On the other hand, if a recessionary phase cannot be quickly turned around then we may well have to bear both the impact of its continuation and the massive debts incurred in the unfruitful hope for its short-term rectification. I guess only time will tell if we were successful or not in our transit through the current Global Economic Crisis…, N. (25)