'Commodity Fetishes' and Cultural Adaptive Rate

commentary by Roger Erickson

In a comment at an earlier article, Matt Franko asked: "have you ever come across behavior in any other primate species (other than certain humans of course) that is equivalent to what Marx termed from the secular point of view 'commodity fetishism?' "

Yes and yes.

[Short answer: that's essentially what Adaptive Rate is all about. We've learned to be very conservative about moving on to new habits only after exhaustively testing them for unpredictable failures. Our deepest goal is to change as fast as is safely possible, but no faster. Fact is that we need both conservatives & liberals, plus everything in between. We should always let liberals slowly scale up "free innovation zones," and we should always have our conservative base carefully selecting from all the liberal innovations - the sooner the better for both. The two should acknowledge one another & work in patient symbiosis - not at cross purposes.  There is no point of stability in the world that is not a dynamic equilibrium between multiple, continuous spectra of conflicting forces.  The brilliant thing about dynamic equilibria is that they are nearly invulnerable because all the conflicting forces are so strongly buffered.  Nearly ANY sling or arrow of outrageous fortune will be absorbed and only cause them to adapt - where a simple, rigid system would shatter and be utterly destroyed.]

Long answer:

Initially, yes in that many species, from crows to rats to crustaceans hoard away shiny things, from glass beads to bottle caps & jewelry. The proposed explanations for the large number of species-specific observations vary from the ridiculous to the sublime. Best for readers to google the topic themselves.

Even further yes - if you consider any given metabolite or even a cultural "transition-state" as itself a commodity.

Once seen that way, every step in learned molecular, biochemical & cultural aggregates has passed a given stage of associative learning, by trial & error accumulation of positive feedback reactions that reinforce the "initially recognized" and then "expected" path to a worthwhile return. Expectation is simply a statistical threshold when plotting the ratio of positive/negative feedback loops.  Think of all the variations of Pavlov's dog, then scale that up to Pavlov's culture.  Both a dog and a nation are cultures, one is a culture of cells, the other a culture of humans.

However, none of these learned associations in any type of culture have ever satisfied all of these three conditions simultaneously:
1) guarantee 100% association in any given context;
2) guarantee continued association across changing contexts;
3) guarantee optimal return in any or all contexts;

[For example, humans went from the Stone Age to the Copper Age to the Bronze Age to the Iron Age to the Age of Reason .. and on to that subtle transition from the lumbering policy of the Gold-Standard Age to the dynamically scalable Public Initiative Age. A more interesting question is why it took us this long to make those transitions. We prolonged a fetish to each set of conditioned habits, before repeatedly moving on, [eventually]  ... each time moving on to briefly adopt a new fetish for a new association while we're learning it!]

There isn't any known example of associative learning that can be proven to be the last. There are ALWAYS more options to explore & lessons to learn.

It's the speed of transitioning that counts - between the old & the newly discovered, optional, associations. That's what we call "adaptive rate."

We're in the middle of an adaptive-rate race. We've estimated it's been continuing on Earth alone for at least 3.5 billion years ... and will continue for an essentially unlimited time (as far as we know). The only thing we can count on is continued change .. and our ability to adapt to it (faster than others).

How quickly we explore our expanding "Options Space" is what will either keep humans at the forefront of evolution on Earth - and the USA in the forefront of that forefront - or relegate humans to just another species that a better one will stand upon.  In the process, will we relegate the USA to being a nation of neoLiberal Luddites that more advanced cultures will stand upon?  Or do we want to continue leading that race?

Latest Congressional Budget Deal May Project Erroneously Low Federal Deficit

The tenacious and relentless Joe Firestone has a nice post up at correntewire this week that does some projections on what Congress may be thinking with respect to federal deficit spending through March of next year.

Well, here we are again, House leaders have agreed on a compromise continuing spending resolution at the same level as before from October 2012 through January 2013. It’s likely now that the President(s?) will probably try to make the money available for deficit spending as of today, last through the time period of the continuing resolution so that one deal including both the budget and raising the debt limit can be made by March of 2013. According to the July 31, Daily Treasury Statement, there’s $499,424,000,000 left until the debt ceiling. That’s an average of $62,428,000,000 deficit spending per month for the next 8 months, ending March 31, 2013. For the past 10 months, average deficit spending was at $114,802.3 Billion per month,

My emphasis. Joe has dug out the details of what he sees as a desire by Congress to only net issue $62B/mo. of USTs through next March; while over the last previous 10 months, the non-government sector (both domestic and external) have been demanding and taking $114B/mo.

The non-government sector always wins in this "contest of wills".  So expect the monthly deficits going forward to be closer to the $114B recent trend levels.

That said, although Congress cannot dictate a level of the federal deficit, they can probably take certain actions in which they retain discretion related to the rate of withdrawals from the Treasury accounts. So expect slower government vendor payments, delayed awards of federal contracts, an underfunded US Postal Service pension fund, slower (less timely) Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, delayed infrastructure project starts and so forth.  This as Treasury seeks to reduce the rate of US Treasury account withdrawals where they have some discretion  in an effort to reduce the rate of new net Treasury securities issuance.

Joe goes on to repeat the great and larger policy proposal for Treasury to simply deposit a large minted coin (btw struck in platinum, suck it up moron gold-lover commodity fetishist sickos) with a $T face value to top-over the Treasury General Account.  This is a method to avoid an unnecessary "fiscal cliff" that could be created by the present policy of UST issuance that is limited via a separate and redundant congressional action in the form of "debt ceiling" legislation.

 Thanks for this analysis Joe!

 (Mike, this does not look like a "good" development... $114B/mo. will come, but "kicking and screaming", reduced cash-flow for many, like attaching a leech onto an already sick patient, etc...)