some quick free-falling thought:

i got trapped with "enantiodromia"; a word i was unaware of, but a concept which seems very familiar. you approach it from a Jungian POV, while i arrive at a very similar ideation contemplating the Tao from Confucian philosophy.

opposites turning into each other. this idea validates recursively. here are two examples:

the two most monetarily capitalised holidays in America are first Christmas and then Halloween. these two holidays are celebrations of near opposite abstractions.

let me introduce you to enantiodromia dot com, but please stay aware when clicking on the link, as it redirects, and the resultant site seems appropriate within the scope of this post.

this leads me to believe that you are on target, sniping at a proper target of opportunity. i'll attempt to flesh out my thinking about this, and post more content a bit later.

I too had to look up enantiodromia denoting that you are more intellectually advanced than I. But that is one of the things I like about you. Nonetheless I do understand the concepts and perceptions you've laid out though cannot connect them with any of the names you've mentioned.

I met Bernard Lietaer a couple of years ago at a talk he was giving at Naropa University and he talked to us about yin currency and working with alternative currencies which would move us further to appreciation of natural value and being more connected to the creator of our goods.

A movement is a wise way to move in a new direction. For me change of lifestyle, not using television, beings selective regarding marketing that gets into my realm, and getting more connected with my community are steps in that direction. Politically I don't know how we break the corporate log jam? I suppose slowly and patiently which I'm not very good at.

Excellent post! I hope you continue to look at leadership in a variety of ways because leadership is greatly needed. Many people would be making changes right if there were leadership to inspire them. I'm sure leaders will arise out of necessity over time and as you say, I would prefer that they have a depth of understanding to not just be reactive.

You are correct Zipper. The change we need cannot come from an imposed "top down" solution. As my mother id fond of saying. "You cannot legislate morality and ethics". You can only make laws against truly unacceptable behavior.

The change has to come from below. People have to change their attitudes toward how we deal with each other as well as behaviors.

The capitalist behavior have to become unacceptable to the masses and this has to be instilled starting at an early age.

It will take time and it will be messy. Most change is.

C

Zip, as always, you're a pleasure to read.

The thrust I like. But here's my beef. To reject capitalism and free-markets outright is to repress the "assumptions... entrenched in the culture [of capitalism]."

As I think you're suggesting (at times), we need a bridge into another system. Repetitious movement over the bridge will bring us to or closer to the promised land. The re-cognition (over and over) of civil rights is one example.

In this instance though, we need a kind of belief which -- without rejecting the current system -- steers us into another system. I would suggest that state-socialism is not that bridge. It merely represses capitalism. To me, free-market or voluntary socialism is the bridge. It accepts free-markets while simultaneously rejecting capitalism. It processes capitalism -- sublimates capitalism into the means rather than the end. The end becomes dignity and equality of power (also known as justice).

Zipperupus, have you considered capitalism is evolving?... towards free markets? Free markets being were government regulation and law is completely absent and the consumer and worker is left to their own devices to face the corporate super structure by their masses alone. I caught a glimpse of it in The Shock Doctrine when Klein discussed Chile and Argentina and saw pieces of it manifesting itself in the recent financial meltdown last year. In fact, Greenspan's recent capitulation that he made a mistake in believing the markets were self correcting(that's how I interpreted it) is the very foundation of free market ideology. In short, free market ideology as what has occurred in Chile, Argentina, Poland, Russia and other regional areas once it came into play, would deprive the middle-class of all their gains over the last 50 years - we'd be back in the robber baron era. The real question is how does a society recognize a threat to their livelihood and what actions can they take to steer the economic engine towards a working environment were both public and commercial interest coexist for each others sake without one dominating the other. It would require the total support of the governmental engine of the country, however, if the engine is running rough due to fouled sparkplugs chances are the transition may not take place or if it does the outcome will not be near what is expected and may collapse back to the very environment they are trying to get away from.

Personally, I think the US is at the first step where the public needs to recognize the country is there for them first. The question is, will they take that first step. In doing so, the commercial interests that control the halls of Congress will have the fight of survival they fear most - total lost of control over the government and the public. And that's the real problem... the government sides with commercial interests and leaves the public out in the cold.

the commercial interests that control the halls of Congress will have the fight of survival

Not just the commercial interests. All interests will fight not just for survival. Samuel Gompers put it well. When asked But what does Labor want ? ,

More

I used to opt for highly regulated,democratic, free enterprise but I'm slowly coming to accept that that's tautological . The capitalists will as inevitably vitiate democracy as the revolutionary workers. Been there, done that. Bought the T shirt.

China has conclusively demonstrated that democratic free enterprise is not a condition of a rising median standard of living. But not that it's a condition
of a high degree of individual freedom.

It's sufficiently easy not only to envision the downside of the Chinese model but to actually observe it, that I unhappily prefer the devil we know.

Since you mention Lukacs, it might be helpful to hear his insistence on the need for revolution:

However lengthy the objective process of socialization may be, however long it takes the proletariat to become conscious of the changed inner relationship of labour to its objectified forms (the relation of present to past)with the dictatorship of the proletariat the decisive turning has been taken. A turning which cannot be approached via 'socialization' as an 'experiment', or by such devices as a planned economy within bourgeois society. For these are--at best--organizational concentrations within the capitalist system which do not affect the fundamental cohesion of the economic structure or the fundamental relation between the consciousness of the proletarian class and the production process as a whole. Conversely, even the most modest or most 'chaotic' socialization which takes the form of appropriating property or power overturns this very structure and thereby prepares the course of development for an objective leap forward. When the economistic vulgar Marxists attempt to replace this leap by gradual transitions they forget that capitalism is not merely a matter of production techniques, it is not 'purely' economic (as in bourgeois economics) but it is in the true sense of the word social and economic. They overlook the fact that "capitalist production as a continuous connected process, a process of reproduction, produces not only commodities, not only surplus value, but it also produces and reproduces the capitalist relation; on the one side the capitalist, on the other side the wage-labourer".

Another way to question the statement has nothing to do with that debate but with the idea that seizing power and property overturns "this very structure". Much of what Lukacs writes in other places could be used as arguments against this idea.

I think much talking at cross purposes happens because these two different conversations usually collapse into one.

I accept the idea that some sort of diremption is required if the reproduction of capitalist relations is not to perpetuate the limits it creates for human society. I disagree with Lukacs that we can't experience any of the creativity needed until after such a break occurs.

An essential discussion, Zipperus; highly recommended.
One essential factor in shifting to a financially productive yet humanely-oriented middle ground will be to change our emphasis in education.
How will our cultural values change when we continue to send our children to business and law school graduate programs in which they are taught the mantra that generating maximum profit and/or identifying loophole exemptions will be their highest and best use?

As I pondered the loathesome infiltration of capitalism into a self-identified spiritual realm, religion, I found the wealth of our MSM-identified, national religious leaders repugnant and I considered the Orthodox Christian doctrines with which I am far too familiar with its models of monasticism and self-sacrifice. But then, I stopped and considered the rest of that religion and its churches, those massive structures of our highest arts, and the most gaudy clothes adorning the leaders topped with the crown of a ruler.

The hypocrisy was glaring, but the history revealing. In the end, it came down to a society bringing their wealth together and creating these massive structures with incredible art: poetry; paintings; drama; and music. Yes, the wealth was more consolidated by force then free-will offering, but come together it did, and there was this magnificent world created for nothing greater then the glory of God, although there are certainly those who would take personal credit for it. When all is said and done, each had their own perception of how it came to be, and what it meant, but there was a significant lack of personal ownership. It was the Church's. It was the community's. It was left to no one and no one simply inherited it due solely to their family's relationship, although it would be disengenuous to assert that there are no bloodlines

Since the Dark Ages the Church [note the capital letter, meaning all of Christianity, particularly in Europe] has been assailed by temporal powers, individuals and governments seeking to diminish its wealth. Ever so slowly the churches have deteriorated. In their place we now have these corporations. What was lost? The notion that the community can create something glorious that we ALL own. Now we have shareholders that make no pretense. Others are working for the glory of the shareholder and society is due NOTHING in return for the buildings, drama, art and music. Nothing more then a wage is exchanged and even that is usually given begrudgingly.

Our religion in America is reflecting this corporatism. Our MSM-designated church leaders have tremendous personal wealth that they retain. It is not the privileged lifestyle in a church-owned mansion any longer. It is their's to keep. No mention is made to a monastic, ascetic life of spiritual struggle. Wealth alone has become the evidence that one has found favor in the eyes of God. Even the suggestion there is an Orthodoxy has been abandoned. "I can find it all by myself in the Bible", although insidiously "leaders" do influence how people should and should not interpret the text, conveniently hundreds of years of tradition are ignored and the work of some great minds dismissed.

Zip, I was clearly sparked by your use of the word orthodox, having been raised Orthodox, and I agree that there is an ambiguous faith developing among the people that their wealth is the sole reflection of divinity. An ambiguity that becomes clearer all the time. Once upon a time the church was the people's and the community was deserving of our participation. Today we each have our own church and resent the community for asking anything of us.

We are divided and conquered. Every stadium has a corporate sponsor despite their communities providing millions of dollars to the edifice. Every Concert is brought to us by a corporation. Television is completely a corporate environment despite the fact that every cable crosses public spaces, and every dish crosses the public airwaves. And most importantly, on this day, unless we find each other and pull together, our very lives and health is dependent on shareholders and their magnanimity because we lack the power to demand they admit they are part of society and are obligated to give something more in return then mere wages.

Now this is a Cafe.

Thanks, Zip, for provoking some great stuff.