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"...The invisible hand is in its
first stage, a sort of system of social pressure that
persuades the wealthy to do, of their own volition, what the
society around them requires.” -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
This is probably one of the most
important TPOVs, not only for FLOS but for all Social
Operating Systems, not just BSOS, but others that preceded
it, and are still operating in the background. Some are
an Industrial Operating System, an Agrarian
Operating System, a Feudal-Warrior Operating System,
a Tribal Operating System, and the Hunter-Gather
Operating System. Each one most likely attracts and
emerges a values-system as a means/memes to our ends, based on
the lens of cultural scaffolding.
Context: We have to remember, that
for MOST of our history, communication was local. Just
yesterday, my Egyptian tour guide who I adopted during my
visit to Egypt a couple of years ago, wrote to me. He
asked me how I was doing lately and that he had launched his
business.
I had coached him into looking at
creating a little tour business with a website and such in
order to differentiate himself from the other "tourist
chasers" that are found everywhere you "land.”
I told him I would mention his
services, because he took very good care of me, and didn't
allow people to take advantage of me, as all try to do, as a
matter of fact, in all parts where you are a foreigner.
http://www.cairo-overnight.co.uk/.
Clearly the world is not what it
was when Adam Smith wrote his books, which included the
references to the invisible hand that I just modeled
practically for you in this context.
ONLY in the last 3 decades has
communication become ubiquitous. Therefore, this
connectivity, which is clearly a TPOV in and of itself,
has produced such emergent effects on the invisible hand that
it may be time to rewrite what the invisible hand is and does,
not only in the market space, but in the intra and
intercellular space of our living systems.
As I've inferred, but perhaps NOT
stated exactly, the metaphor of the invisible hand can be
applied to inbornness, as well as the emergence of
behavior in all living systems. I need to mention The
Santiago Theory of Cognition again, to make sure that
autopoeisis
and self-organizing systems are addressed as part of
the ideas surrounding the invisible hand.
In 1759, in Part IV, Chapter 1 of
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (ToMS), where Adam Smith
describes a selfish landlord as being led by an invisible hand
to distribute his harvest to those who work for him:
"The proud and unfeeling landlord
views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the
wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the
whole harvest ... [Yet] the capacity of his stomach bears no
proportion to the immensity of his desires ... The rest he
will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the
nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of,
among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to
be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the
different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the
economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury
and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they
would in vain have expected from his humanity or his
justice...The rich... Are led by an invisible hand to make
nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which
would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal
portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending
it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the
society..."
I had to read that several times
because I, possibly like you, had a lot of noises going off in
my head as I reviewed the story. Clearly, this is a
FLOSi (FLOS inspired) idea, which means, that as a result of
waking up and being, doing, having and becoming "wealthy" this
person is successful. Because he is successful, it
causes something beneficial to occur, unconsciously, a la
invisible hand.
There are other issues here that
are extremely important and the reason that I wanted to write,
an advanced idea of the invisible hand.
With fractional banking, not
fractionalization, the invisible hand directs what was a
largely distributed system that was NOT integrated in prior
history per se, because --> even while money anywhere affects
money everywhere, it didn't as much as before connectivity.
Using a planetary view, looking
down on what's occurring, what I'm noticing is that money and
credit is "coalescing" into specific areas and specific
people, and that the distribution of the "invisible hand" of
Mr. Market has become more visible and
concentrated-->less distributed, and therefore the power of
the invisible hand is becoming more concentrated at fewer
leverage points.
The power of the big bank, the big
company, the sovereign banks, and funds, are all starting to
play a card game that not many people can get into.
So, how does this affect this
benevolent socializing mechanism of the invisible hand?
That is my question, my inquiry, my
noticing.
Once, a single person was part of
being a market-maker, local...and later, global, but now, what
individuals do is less, much less important to the structure
of the invisible hand and it's emergent behavior because of
the concentration of money and credit into the institutional,
government, corporate, billionaire hedge funds, private equity
and sovereign funds.
When money and credit was more
available and spread out, let's say, Mr. Market had a big role
in setting the stage for the invisible hand-->Smith's
unconscious, self-interested richman.
NOW, what I'm noticing is, that as
the money and credit system represents fewer and fewer people,
as it becomes more dense in the hands of the few, Mr. Market
is anemic and the invisible hand has actually become visible
and now fails to produce the same benefits as before. Because
as a single, self-interested market-maker, this person no
longer has demographics of any real consequence in the whole,
per se.
The "richmen" are in fact serving
their self-interest, but the "effect" of individual
self-interest is being muted now by the global expansion of
money and credit-->private money and credit is 210 trillion
dollar equivalents, I've heard. That doesn't mention
governments current, or future-unfunded liabilities, which are
probably the most staggering amount we can imagine. In the
USA, it is said to be above 200 trillion now.
The single millionaire, richman is
indeed Smith's benevolent source, but in the scope of things,
much less so, when the world was "before”.
IF the basic assumptions of what is
foundational has in fact, shifted, then are the assumptions
still valid?
What happened?
Why is the unconscious benevolence
no longer as effective as noted in the ToMS?
This to me is a powerful door into
the
BS system, and clearly an important part of the underlying
differences...with FLOS, such as if the invisible hand is at
work (BS), then why is it producing more poor people, rather
than enriching more people?
The answer is more complex than I
can write here, but this dialogue I hope will begin, so that
the differences between the Invisible Hand at work in BS, can
be contrasted with the Invisible Hand at work in FLOS, as the
Invisible Hand is a critical global player.
For a primer:
[If anyone wants to host a call, I would like to make comments
for the record.<G>]
Have we breached the limits of
self-interest...the premise of Smith's invisible hand?
Has complexity intervened?
Was the premise of benevolent
self-interest, a good one to begin with?
How is the invisible hand working
now?
Why has the invisible hand, and Mr.
Market become a property of fewer and fewer market-makers?
Are we at a dangerous period in our
"end" of history?
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