Tag Archives: Paul Volker

MEMEnomics; The Next-Generation Economic System –The Book

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Friends and colleagues, after more than 10 years of working closely with Dr. Don Beck, hundreds of presentations and training seminars, 5 years of research and three years of writing, I am happy to announce that my new book MEMEnomics; The Next-Generation Economic System was launched on September 30, 2013.

I am grateful to all my colleagues and thought leaders for supporting the framework for the sustainability philosophies outlined in the book. I am  humbled by the compliments it continues to receive  from both the integral consciousness community and the business community. I’m especially thankful for Don Beck of the Global Center for Human Emergence for writing the brilliant foreword,  to Deepak Chopra, the sage and the scientist for his beautiful words of endorsement, to Howard Putman, former CEO of Southwest Airlines for his Big Picture view of the book, to Jean Houston, one of the founders of the Human Potential Movement for her relentless support and for Dr. Bruce Lipton for acknowledging its evolutionary nature.

My gratitude also goes out to Economist Hazel Henderson, Founder of Ethical Markets for her endorsement, to Cindy Wigglesworth, author of SQ21  and to John Steiner and Margot King of the Tranpartisan Center in Boulder, CO for their support of our work over the years.  The enthusiasm the book is receiving echoes the need for better business values around the world. Its success is a celebration of the emerging values of business consciousness that give us all hope for the future.

memenomics jacket option ns edit 3- 8.5

Below is a publishers preview from amazon.com

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2013

Books about subjects like economics are rarely written from the perspective of human or cultural evolution. Seldom, if ever, does a reader come across a narrative with pioneering methods that reframe a specialized discipline through a wide-cultural whole systems approach. This is precisely what Said E. Dawlabani does in this revolutionary book, Memenomics: The Next-Generation Economic System. This is a book that reframes the issues of competing economic and political ideologies and places them into an evolutionary new paradigm. This is a book about change done right.

It is no secret that today we are dealing with a great political divide that threatens many of our democratic institutions. Right and left ideologies have becomes polarized camps that seem to be worlds apart. If we were to do a content analysis of all the speeches, books, and articles from the last few years, we would see several clear and distinct patterns which seem to point us in several different directions. There is a formidable challenge that awaits thinkers who are shaping the future of humanity. One of monumental proportions that will call on our collective ability to create political and economic systems that can best handle the complex conditions confronting life on our planet. When the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith penned his views on the evolution of human morality and trade over two centuries ago, he captured the hearts and minds of people the world over. But today, after guiding the free enterprise system to unimaginable heights, his teachings are being questioned at their core. Current global economic and governing systems can no longer run on fixed or rigid ideologies regardless of how virtuous or inspiring they were in the past. In order for new leadership to emerge to answer our challenges, new paradigms must be created.

One new paradigm for human and cultural emergence is beautifully detailed in this book. Memenomics makes the case for how artificially imposed systems in economics become closed and toxic. By using processes that were pioneered through five decade of research and global applications Said repeatedly makes the case for why the future of economics must consider a values-systems approach if the field should emerge into a whole-systems form of leadership in the future. Through technologies such as Natural Design and life cycles of values systems, Said pioneers a fresh reframing of economic history that uncovers the blockages of trickle-down approaches of the past. He then offers remedies that set a new standard for sustainable practices, ones that are based on functional platforms designed to address the needs of people and cultures at their particular level of economic emergence. This book is a brilliant primer on the application of the values-systems theory to economics. It is a field guide for anyone looking to establish a cultural values-systems understanding not only to economics but also to the applications of the theory of Spiral Dynamics and the seminal work of Clare W. Graves. It represents the evolution of the Gravesian model into a field that rarely considers the different needs and motivations of the different stages of human and societal development.

To buy the book on amazon, please click on this link

You can also read the Foreword, Introduction and Chapter One for free on Amazon Kindle Preview here 

I’m quite pleased with the success of the book. It has been consistently in the top 100 books on Economic Theory for the Kindle version.  Although the Library Journal doesn’t consider it a part of mainstream economics, it was never intended to be as such. Change, rarely, if ever comes from within the system; a view that this theoretical framework made clear over four decades ago.

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Slides from March Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) Training

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Some of the slides listed in this post were a part of a presentation I made at Adizes Graduate School in Santa Barbara during the March SDi training. The presentation makes the case for how the erosion in the ORDER value system (BLUE vMEME) that regulates money combined with unprecedented levels of cash flowing from TRIBAL-FEUDAL (PURPLE-RED) value system countries into Western capital markets were the main contributing factors that forever perverted capitalism. Understanding the financial crisis from a value systems perspective helps re-frame the the entire argument of how to regulate an UNHEALTHY EXPRESSION of the ENTERPRISE value system (vMEME)and anticipate its next move before it can become a threat and cause systemic damage and eventual collapse. Feel free to copy any of the slides for your personal use. You can also email me at  sdawlabani@ecovestadvisors.com if you have  any questions about vMEMEs and their relationships to the financial crisis or if you’d like for me to give a lecture to your group about the subject matter.

Dr. Beck, the co-author of the Spiral Dynamics Theory has shared my analysis with the Chicago Group (Paul Volker’s Group), Herman Wijffels (Dutch Economist and former Executive Director at the World Bank) and the office of the Prime Minister of Iceland. This blog provides a good chronology of where Economics meet Memetics specifically as it relates to the clash of value systems over the last two years. I highly recommend you browse earlier posts

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Is there a Shakeup in Obama’s White House?

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The same public discontent that elected Scott Brown to the US Senate seems to be making its way through the White House. So long Ivy League thinking (healthy ENTERPRISE  intelligences), and hello dysfunctional LIFE CONDITIONS, or so admitted our President in a recent interview with ABC News. One of the areas of greatest dysfunction in his administration’s first year, in my opinion has been the ill-advised approach on how to regulate the financial industry. Here’s the noticeable change in our President’s approach as his thinking grows on the job

When the financial crisis was still brewing, speeches by our President-elect were full of what people wanted to hear about re-regulating banks as seen by his head of economic advisers at the time, Paul Volker. As former head of the Federal Reserve, and a Goliath in taming inflation, Volker wanted to separate investment banks from commercial banks (just like they were for 60 years before Clinton de-regulated them). Volker had an untainted view on re-establishing the  ORDER value system (vMEME) to an industry plagued with clever speculation of a FEUDAL vMEME  at a systemic level.  Once Obama took the helm, Volker was sidelined in favor of Larry Summers, Wall Street’s darling who lobbied for deregulating banks and banning any regulation of the derivatives market during his time in the Clinton administration. Many economists argue that these two factors were the major contributors to the global financial crisis.

During the past year, while millions of Americans continued to lose their jobs and the number of homes in foreclosures climbed to over 5 million, Wall Street recovered at a record pace knowing its guy was advising the White House (injecting it with a false ORDER vMEME). Only after the loss of 2 gubernatorial seats and one senate seat to the republicans did the President realize that all is not well with the electorate and that the anger of the tax payer can indeed make him a lame duck President by the time he’s 2 year into the job. Deciding to turn back to Volker’s recommendations immediately after Brown’s election was the first  move from a SYSTEMIC vMEME the President has made since his election. As proof, since the President introduced “The Volker Rule” on Tuesday the Dow Jones has dropped more than 5% and the vultures in the financial industry are running to the exit doors.

It remains to be seen if the President has the capacities to transcend “pragmatism” (healthy ENTERPRISE vMEME) to a “systemic thinking” vMEME in formulating all his policies. His next area of challenge is foreign policy and the Middle East. Would he still be content with doing nothing and stay behind George Mitchell who claims much of the credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland but has accomplished nothing in a year in the Middle East (“pragmatism” of past accomplishments), or would he be willing to roll up his sleeves and do the work that the world needs done?

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