The Two Worlds: Glomart and Gaia

Whether we know it or not, we all live in two worlds, simultaneously. By “worlds” I refer to complex adaptive systems, for which you can find a useful definition on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system

Self-organizing complex adaptive systems can be found in all sizes, from individual cells to organisms to ecosystems to our entire planet. And within human society they are equally common, including entities like cities, nation states, the electric grid, the internet, and even “invisible systems” like cultures, subcultures, financial systems, political systems, and religions.  But the “worlds” I refer to are larger, all-embracing complex adaptive systems comprising all of the above.  They are so large, in fact, that we don’t even have names for them.  The conventional names are “the Earth” and “the World” or “Nature” and “Man” but these are fundamentally misleading, so I have adopted one name, already in currency, and invented the other.

The adopted name is “Gaia,” which is not simply “nature,” but rather, the complex adaptive system consisting of humanity-within-nature. The name “Gaia” therefore overrides the false (and fatal) dichotomy we conventionally posit between “mankind” and “nature.”

My newly coined name is “Glomart,” which refers not to humanity per se, but more specifically, to the Global Market Economy, which originated with the rapid expansion of trade after the Agricultural Revolution, some 10,000 years ago, but which accelerated exponentially after the Industrial Revolution of the late 18^th and early 19^th Century, and now spans the entire planet.

Glomart is the world we have made; Gaia is the world that made us. We depend utterly on both: Glomart for our livelihoods, Gaia for our very lives.

Complex adaptive systems evolve according to a specific set of production rules. And herein lies the root of our current global crisis: the production rules of Glomart are fundamentally incompatible with the production rules of Gaia.  To show how this is true, let’s compare them:

1.      GLOMART:  More is always better.  GAIA: Enough is enough.

 The first production rule is the master rule—the major premise for all the others. Glomart runs entirely on the inherently arithmetical logic of money, which is ultimately nothing but arithmetic. And just as 1 + 1 always equals 2, it follows necessarily that in economic systems governed by the rules of money, more is always better—no exceptions. Glomart, that is, runs on a logic of maximization.

Conversely, Gaia—the biosphere—runs entirely on a logic of optimization: too much or too little of any value is toxic to the system, or to its subsystems. If we eat too much, we die; if we eat too little, we die. The same holds true for all other biological values: body temperature, blood pressure, body mass, food or water consumption…or in the aggregate, population size per carrying capacity, predator/prey ratios, etc. These two foundational production rules—maximizing and optimizing, are diametrically opposed; hence, Glomart is a cancer on Gaia, not as a result of any human choice, but by its very nature as a money game, where more is always better. On a finite planet, such a game of endless growth cannot go on without destroying its biological support system.

 

2.      GLOMART: You are what you own. GAIA: You are what you do. 

Since the Glomart system depends entirely on the endless growth of production and consumption, it has evolved a culture of consumerism, where pervasive advertising continually persuades us that our human worth depends on our possessions. This addictive consumerism is essential to maintaining the endless growth of production and consumption demanded by the intrinsic money-based logic of Glomart. Hence, every government on Earth relentlessly pursues “Growth” as its overarching goal—meaning growth, again, of production and consumption of commodities per capita. Yet this endless production, consumption, and resulting population growth relies on endless extraction of finite resources at one end, and pollution at the other. It also relies on continually converting complex ecosystems into monocultures sustained by external inputs of fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. The net result has been the ongoing deterioration and destruction of vital ecosystems worldwide: our oceans, forests, rivers and streams, topsoils, biodiversity, and even subterranean (and nonrenewable) aquifers, coupled with pollution of our land, air, and water, and, above all, the disruption of our global climate system by excess CO2 from the fossil fuels upon which Glomart entirely depends.

 In Gaia, conversely—and in the earlier, indigenous human cultures everywhere that were fully aware of, and celebrated, their participation in the Gaian web of life—the core value was “You are what you do.” That is, the value of any individual within an indigenous culture derived not so much from their possessions as from the role they played in serving and supporting their community, their tribe, and the larger biological systems that sustained their tribe. And this was largely true of agricultural society as well—hence the proliferation of surnames based on specific trades (e.g. “smith,” “baker,” “cook,” “miller” “butler” etc.).

Likewise, in the nonhuman parts of Gaia, species are valued by ecologists entirely based on the niche they occupy within their ecosystems—by what they do--whether as predators, grazers, or scavengers—or in the plant, fungal, and microbial realm, as nitrogen-fixing bacteria on legumes, colonizing annuals, herbaceous and woody perennials, and so forth. “Ownership,” in Gaia, means nothing; the hole excavated by a woodpecker for her nest may subsequently—and often simultaneously--serve as the shelter of numerous other species.

 

3.      GLOMART: Nothing has value until it has a price. GAIA: Value derives from relationships.

Throughout our global market economy, nothing has any value until it becomes a commodity; therefore, the ongoing core agenda of Glomart is to transform nature into commodities as quickly as possible: forests into board feet; fisheries into fishmarkets; minerals into manufactured products; land into real estate; and citizens into consumers.  Nothing can become a commodity until we draw a boundary around it and cut it out of its supporting matrix; only then can we put a price on it to sell it on the market.

Conversely, in Gaia—in all ecosystems worldwide—the value of any element (mineral or biological) depends entirely on its network of relations with all the other living beings around it. A tree, cut down as board feet, has only one value—its monetary value as a commodity for sale on the market.  Alive (or dead) in the forest, a tree has multiple values—as habitat for a host of species great and small; as shelter for plants and animals, whether from summer’s heat, autumn winds, or winter’s rain or snow; as topsoil builder, as water retainer in its biomass, and as cloud-forming agent of evapotranspiration, creating and sustaining its own microclimate. And so it is for all other elements of Gaia, our unique and miraculous biological support system.

      GLOMART: The Bottom Line is the bottom line. GAIA: The survival and propagation of Life itself is all that matters.

This is the final, most profound difference between the production rules of Glomart and Gaia. The sole ultimate purpose of every business enterprise on the planet, from the smallest local merchant to the largest multinational corporation, is to maximize return on their investments. The basic (arithmetical) rules of the money game make no other purpose even possible, lest they be outcompeted by a rival enterprise who is able to undercut their price. And there are only two ways of making a profit: socially adaptive ways, and socially maladaptive ways. Yet corporations have no vested interest in distinguishing between them: profit is profit, and all that ever matters is the next quarterly return.

Socially adaptive ways of making a profit are no problem, and should be encouraged. They include, above all, making and selling useful and innovative products,  providing employment for others, and providing investment opportunities for investors. Socially maladaptive ways include, above all, exploitation of labor (the “race to the bottom”), externalization of costs to the public (pollution), as well as deceptive advertising and political corruption (i.e. buying off politicians with campaign contributions to prevent regulation in the public interest). The challenge, therefore, for any government is to find ways of encouraging socially adaptive investments in the private sector, and discouraging or prohibiting socially maladaptive approaches to profit maximization.

For Gaia (and for all pre-industrial human cultures that understood themselves as a part of Gaia), the only “bottom line”—the only ultimate purpose—of their behavior, individually or collectively, was (and is) to propagate and perpetuate their own kind, and the ecosystems that support them, from one generation to the next. This is the value that, most fatally, has been lost by Glomart’s relentless colonization of Gaia: the utter abandonment of future generations in pursuit of their own immediate, ever-growing short-term profits.

So what can we do about this fundamental incompatibility between our (maximizing) Glomart socioeconomic order and our (optimizing) Gaian biological support system? Pessimists, of course, will say “Nothing. We are doomed.” I sometimes incline that way, but then I step back and reconsider, simply because I am still alive, and as William Blake once said, “Everything that lives is holy.” So here is one attempt at an answer:

Imagine what could happen if, starting from the ground up, people were inspired to make a conscientious effort to shift from Glomart values to Gaian values? That is, from “More is always better” to “Enough is enough;” from “You are what you own” to “You are what you do;” from “Value = Price” to “Value = Relationship; and from “Maximizing the Bottom Line” to “The survival and propagation of Life itself” as their ultimate goal? And then—starting where they are—they devoted the rest of their lives, young and old, to growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness? Who knows?  As Shakespeare’s Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale puts it, “There may be matter in it.”  Glomart is dying; long live Gaia!