Eric Fromm: Primal Psychologist

The emerging Primal episteme (Birkin & Polesie 2011) is based upon a new possibility of knowledge (Foucault 1970).  Science now provides a view of the origins of the world and of ourselves that simply was not available when the Modern episteme or age was established. The transition from Modern to Primal can be summarised as going from 

• abstract knowledge belief systems in Modern human sciences produced by and for mankind (which provides an epistemological or knowledge foundation); to
• trust in the findings of empirically-grounded science that so accurately and thoroughly describes and explains our world and ourselves (which provides an ontological or “being” foundation).

This kind of epistemic transition is not “forced” upon a recalcitrant mankind that has to obey its new sets of rules.  It is rather an opportunity for new ways of thinking about ourselves and the world that are created by pioneers who adopt the new episteme. They have adopted new epistemes in the past usually without using any kind of epistemic analysis knowledge or methods. They simply flourished and enthusiastically used the fresh insights that the "new episteme" provided in their own areas of knowledge to carve out a different kind of world, a whole new world.

Populating the Steady State Economy (SSE)

The Steady State Economy (SSE) as proposed by Herman Daly is a great and essential idea. He defines a SSE as: "an economy with constant stocks of people and artifacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by low rates of maintenance throughput, that is, by the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last stage of consumption."

The above definition is taken from the website of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) whose webpage may be found here.

PR encourages everyone to become familiar with the SSE because it is quite simply the only way mankind can survive! Elementary arithmetic plus a recognition of physical reality reveals that we cannot continue indefinitely taking resources from our planet. We are already witnessing this overconsumption right now and it is causing social stress and deprivation worldwide… imagine what problems there will be if we pursue economic growth for another hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred years! The kind of economics that now dominates our thinking has no future.

But what if economics thinking itself is the root cause of our present problems? If economics is a cause then presumably more economics, albeit of a different kind, is not the solution.

China and the Primal Episteme

Chinese accounting students who wanted to learn how accountants in the West  deal with accounting for social, environmental and sustainable development aspects of company performance had a shock when they attended Frank Birkin's lecture at Jinan University, Guangzhou, on Saturday 27th. October 2012. Instead of showing them how to do it, Frank showed them how scientific knowledge of the world now indicates that ancient Chinese ways of thinking provide a better foundation for social, environmental and sustainable development accounting than does neo-classical economics and free market idealism.

It is strange that educated Chinese people are not aware just how important their cultural and philosophical inheritance is to the world as a whole. Prof Rob Gray had set the scene by challenging Western notions of what accounting ought to be and this opened minds to the possibility that accounting could be very different - not just a servant to capitalism and financial markets. With the possibility of different forms of accounting established in their minds, these young Chinese accounting students were only too pleased to learn from Frank that they - the Chinese people - could develop their own, more harmonious and sustainable forms of accounting for China ... and for the world.

A slide from Frank's presentation in Jinan University, Guangzhou.

Please email Frank if you would like to learn more about how ancient Chinese culture and Philosophy can help to make the world a better place. You may also enquire about his itineraries in the near future to see if he could make a presentation at your university or college.