The Integral Model of Transdisciplinary Development

For A Broader and Deeper View of Economic Development

OutlineStages of Economic Development and Corresponding Stages of Cognitive and Cultural

Development.• Frank Knight’s critique of modern welfare economics.• Correlative lines of development.• Overview: higher skills, knowledge and machinery to satisfy higher-order

needs• Needs development by each level.• Stages 2 to 3: We illustrate with a focus on individual cognitive and moral

development .• Stages 3 to 4: Here we’ll explain as we focus on societal and economic

development .• Stage 4 to 5: Overcoming insensitivities of the industrial era, but an

inability to see a way forward.• Stage 5 to 6: Envisioning a mature informational economy.

Traditional Versus Transdisciplinary Growth• Traditional approach:

Increases in average income associated with increases in meaningful development (life span, literacy, etc.)

=> all we need to do is....

Critique of traditional Approach by Frank Knight (the father of...).“What one wants is not to have one’s wants satisfied, but to have more and better wants”

Typical assumption in economics: we all care only about ourselves and maximize our own consumption, but have unlimited ability to reason.

Many do blame the financial and environmental crises on the moral functioning of our economy, but economists abandoned the analysis of morals (following positivism) unlike the early political economists (such as...).

Both of these assumptions are wrong according to...

The Integral Approach allows us to better bring in cognitive, needs, and moral development into economic analysis.

It points to what a more evolved economic system might look like.

Needs Development

Lower needs crop up first.Flood example.

Food and shelterThen belongingness.

Students and self esteem.

Vocation and self actualization.

Stages 2 & 3Piaget study with a doll.

Stage 2: doll sees doll. Sees the world as mine. (conceptual stage of cognition).

Cannot take role of other. Only my own perspective.Follows impulses (egocentric morals)

=> Tribal/horticultural economies (of long past) and magical beliefs.Physiological and safety needs. (About 10% of the U.S.

pop.)

Stage 3: doll sees me. Can see me as an object of awareness. Takes the role of other (stage 3 cognition).

Follows rules. Cares about family and group (ethnocentric morals).=> Agrarian empires, surplus, educated elite

belongingness needs.Sound versus arbitrary moral codes (imperialism and slavery).

Individual vs. collective development .(About ¼ of today’s U.S. population)

Stage 4

Stage 4: Collectively: 1600s and 1700s emerging among small but influential groups.Basic cause and effect reason. Can see our rules (you and me in relation) as an object of awareness.Newton’s laws of physics and others’ ideas of political freedom, etc. help

lead to industrial and democratic revolutions.Eventually mass education brings up average person to

this stage during the 1900s and helps spread the modern economy.About 35% of today’s U.S. population.

Limitations or unhealthy variations: Simple cause and effect. Materialistic, positivistic, survival of the fittest

(as in early industrialization without a social safety net and limited understanding of need for human capital investment.Can be unsympathetic to the inequality of opportunities that detract from functionings of market economies.

Difficulty expressing emotions.Insensitive to marginalized in society.

Stages 5

Stage 5: Collectively: About ¼ of today’s U.S. population.Started to emerge in significant numbers in the 1960s.Tries to overcome sensitivities of stage 4. Sees historical time better.Realizes simple cause and effect reasoning oversimplifies reality.Tries to touch in with many perspectives.Suspicious of truth and rankings.

=> civil rights law, war on poverty, Vietnam protests, political correctness, clean air and water act, re-owning feelings.

Limitations or unhealthy variations: Difficulty integrating knowledge or judging more useful reasoning

and moral judgments.Extreme political correctness – trying is good enough. Everyone’s perspective is equally valid even if it is very selfish.Therefore antagonistic of the harsh market and tends to be

unconcerned of unintended consequences of collective distortions of market economies.

Stage 6: Collectively: About 3% of today’s U.S. population.Resonating with many perspectives at previous stage =>

a strong ability to integrate various perspectives.First stage to understand worldviews of

all previous stages.

Example: the tall and short drinking glass experiment:Stage 3: taller glass has more water (based on typical experience but wrong here).Stage 4: correctly answers neither has more water (simple reasoning).Show video to stage 4 person of them answering incorrectly at stage 3 => the stage 4 person in disbelief.Stage 6 person understands this . Not only various perspectives, but that some perspectives evolve in stages.

Stage 6 (2nd Tier)

Stage 6:Integrative cognitive ability allows for “wise compassion” & “tender honesty.”Understands better the culture wars based on different worldviews.

Today’s problems:climate change, nuclear proliferation, natural resource

depletion,massive debt, and political dysfunction.

These are life conditions that encourage transformation to stage 6 to work for healthier interactions of agents at lower stages.To satisfy self actualization needs.Very open to scientific theory, evidence, experience because

less attached to ideological worldviews.Economic science helps us understand what the market and government

each do well and how each one fails. Working for healthier interactions of groups in our society can help us overcome

these failures better. Limitations or unhealthy variations:

Can be elitist and attribute to much of development to higher development rather than healthier interactions of agents at existing levels of development.

Stage 6 Continued

1. Tribal (foraging, undifferentiated view, following own impulses)

2. Horticultural (transition b/w 1& 3, simple digging stick, settle into villages, egocentric, might is right)

3. Traditional (agrarian- ox and plow, ethnocentric, following rules, dominator hierarchies)

•4. Industrial-modern (industrial – reproducible heavy machinery, rational-one perspective reason, either/or, follow reason, meritocracy)

5 Pluralistic-postmodern (late industrial, early informational, relativistic, sensitive, politically correct, no higher or lower, extreme democracy)

6. Integral (future mature informational, many-perspectives, basic moral intuition to work for healthier interactions of agents at whatever stage, healthy hierarchies, integrative)

Summary of the 6 Stages Across Various Lines of Development

Assignment

Use Wilber’s integral model to answer the following:

1. Describe the transition from a stage 4 traditional economy to a stage 4 industrial economy. Describe the differences between the two stages in terms of cognition, moral development, and the machinery used.

2. In the typical view held by economists, it is assumed that we only care about our own consumption of goods and services. The integral view considers human development as essential to evolution including economic evolution. Which view do you prefer and why (the typical or integral view)?