World History as the Synoptic Narrative of Thermodynamic Unfolding

The work of Peter Pogany has been prominently promoted on this blog. I’ve put together a compilation document that summarizes, in his own words, Pogany’s thoughts on the thermodynamic unfolding of recent world history in the sub-epochs he calls Global System 0, Global System 1, Global System 2, and Global System 3. Click here to download the pdf document.

The heart of the document, World History as the Synoptic Narrative of Thermodynamic Unfolding, came originally as part of a 2010 paper called “What’s Wrong with the World? Rationality! A critique of economic anthropology in the spirit of Jean Gebser.” It was later published as Appendix B in the book “Havoc: Thy Name is Twenty First Century,” (2015). This paper is based mostly on the last edit printed in “Havoc,” with some additions that come from the original 2010 paper…and various additional quotes at the end.

My table, borrowed from one made by Pogany (see the pdf):

“This paper argues that (a) the emergence of classical capitalism in the 19th century answered the need for global-scale self-organization; (b) this scheme, interrupted by World War I, was replaced after World War II; (c) the implied transformation has been accompanied by a nonarbitrary, causally determined, irreversible socialization of intranational and international economic relations; (d) contemporary civilization is moving toward a new form of self-organization that would recognize limits to demographic-economic expansion. What will it take to go from the current hostile disgust with the dystopia of tightened modes of multilateral governance to people around the world on their knees begging for a planetary guild? It will take nothing less than a mutation in consciousness, as outlined in the oeuvre of Jean Gebser (1905-1973).”
(Thermodynamic Isolation and the New World Order, 2013)

The potential third global system that Pogany projected as a possibility was thus characterized:

“Long-term world equilibrium — GS3

The thermodynamic interpretation of global history predicts a halt to population and economic expansion for purely physical reasons. This general condition requires a new global system: GS3 – two-level economy/strong multilateralism/mostly government money (maximum reserve banking).

Legally binding international agreements on the use of nonrenewable energy and material resources, as well as on harmful emissions, would enlarge the government’s role in economic affairs since administrative methods would be needed to ensure national compliance with globally determined goals. The implied strong multilateralism would split national economies (hence, the world economy) into a free-market and a public authority-dominated sector. While carrying on the best traditions of constructive entrepreneurship, businesses in the first domain would bid for resources and emission rights; joint private-public ownership would prevail in the second one. The state’s substantial holding of private shares would eliminate most, if not all, income taxation.

The monetary system would be based on a global currency issued by the global central bank. The world currency would combine the discipline GS1’s gold standard vouchsafed and the flexibility GS2’s fiat money has provided (without the fractional reserve system, which, as will become obvious during the first half of the 21st century, is wholly incompatible with any consciously pursued economic steady state.) Much along the lines proposed by Keynes at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, an international clearing house would keep cross-border trade in equilibrium.

Maximum bank reserves would restrict the ability of banks to extend loans. Just as under the prevailing minimum reserve system, some banks in some instances may keep no reserves at all; under the maximum reserve system some banks in some instances might be required to keep 100 percent reserves. While such an arrangement may not eliminate the creation of money through debt, it would certainly change its nature. The consent of depositors would be required to make loans, making financial intermediation once again the modest helper that draws together scattered household savings in order to place them into the hands of bona fide entrepreneurs. “Enterprise,” in the Keynesian sense, would squeeze out “speculation.”

The economic role of grass roots communities would increase significantly.”

Click here for the complete summary paper.

Michel Bauwens and Jose Ramos also have a very good short summary of Peter Pogany here:
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Pulsation_of_the_Commons#Pogany:_the_time_for_the_chaotic_transition_has_begun

Also see my full page devoted to all things Peter Pogany:
https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/peter-pogany/

Peter Pogany’s Thermodynamic/Economic Analysis of Recent World History

Here I’ll attempt to outline Peter Pogany‘s thermodynamic/economic analysis of recent world history, which entails two and potentially three global systems. There are some parallels, I believe to Jordan Hall’s Blue Church/Red Religion analysis, where the Blue Church represents the current status quo (Pogany’s GS2) that is falling apart, and the Red Religion represents the desire to correct the problems not by progressing forward, but rather by regressing backward to Pogany’s GS1 stage. What is needed, however, is a “Phase Shift” – an evolution of consciousness (Jean Gebser’s integral consciousness) that will support a P2P/Commons approach (Bauwens), with non-rivalrous dynamics (Schmachtenberger), which Pogany calls GS3.

Pogany calls classical capitalism GS1 – Global System 1, stemming from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776 to the beginning of WWI in 1914. “Laissez faire/metal money/zero multilateralism” – a free market system with little if any regulation, based on the gold standard, and zero collaboration between different nation-states.

“An ideological conviction took root that blossomed into the following general view: Scientific progress and the magic power of the market are destined to make man (the subject) the master of nature (the object). The free market credo effectively locked the repertoire of socioeconomic behavior into the narrow closet of calculative, money-metric self-interest and turned the past into the prehistory of a rationally assessable, eternally valid, equilibrium-centric order.”

Much like the idea of the earth itself as a self-organizing system (Lovelock and Margulis’ “Gaia hypothesis), Pogany sees the development at this time of world socio-economic systems that come to be self-organizing, hence “GS1”).  What did it take for GS1 to emerge? A chaotic transition, otherwise known as the French revolution.

Much success ensued. The free market was right for its time and improvement compared to what came before. By the early 20th century, however, GS1 came into what would in Gebserian terms be called its “deficient” stage (Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin). Every stage concludes with a deficient stage, and we do not see smooth transitions that evolve to the next stage. For this reason Gebser did not like the term “evolution,” but rather spoke of mutation. Each period of mutation was accomplished by breakdown and crisis before the new system would emerge. GS1 lasted until the outbreak of WWI in 1914 (Pogany, 2009).

And so we see the chaotic transition of 1914 to 1945, between which were experienced two world wars and the great depression.

Emerging from that crisis was what Pogany called GS2 – Global System 2, where Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Keynesian economic model was predominant. Pogany characterizes GS2 as “mixed economy/minimum bank reserve money/weak multilateralism.” Until the fall of the communist governments in the 1980s, socialism remained an unsuccessful alternative to GS2. Both GS1 (unfettered market capitalism) and socialism influenced GS2, as it navigated its way between these two polarities.

GS2 performed very admirably for about 60 years, and an improvement on what came before. Some of the signs of deficiency, however, have been around a long time now, evident at least since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the Meadows, et al Limits to Growth books, and the first American oil crisis. Real deficiency came with policies that were put in place with Reagan and Thatcher (a regressive move reaching back to the ideas of GS1).  And the global crisis of mutation/transition began with 9/11 and marked again with the collapsing economies of 2008.

It is often asked, “how do we make this move when a dialectic has been set up that says one is being a marxist or left wing socialist, etc., when one posits these new realities?”

This is the same question Pogany asks: “What will it take to go from the current hostile disgust with the dystopia of tightened modes of multilateral governance to people around the world on their knees begging for a planetary guild? It will take nothing less than a mutation in consciousness, as outlined in the oeuvre of Jean Gebser (1905-1973).” (quoted from his 2013 paper on Thermodynamic Isolation and the New World Order). And that mutation in consciousness, he believes, will only take place after a chaotic transition – likely more chaotic than the great depression and two world wars. “The current world order,” he said, “cannot deliver long-term sustainability on a planetary scale. By design, it is incapable of recognizing humanity’s thermodynamic reality.” The new world order, GS3, will likely be characterized as “two-level economy/maximum bank reserve money/strong multilateralism.” Micro-activities would be subject to globally-determined and nationally allocated macro-constraints; money creation would be curbed and disciplined.” [Perhaps parallel to Rifkin’s 3rd revolution, or Edgar Morin’s dictum that “we must globalize and deglobalize.”]

Thus “The grand and painful path of consciousness emergence” (Gebser’s EPO, p. 542).

For more on Peter Pogany, please see our Peter Pogany page.  And stay tuned for a post that provides more focus on what Global System 3 might entail.