The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism »

Howard Bloom (Brooklyn, NY) has been called "the Darwin, Newton, and Einstein of the 21st century" and "the next Stephen Hawking." He is the author of two acclaimed books, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History and The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. Those books have won praise from The New Yorker, the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Wired, Foreign Affairs and numerous other publications. A recent visiting scholar at New York University, Bloom is the founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, founder of the Space Development Steering Committee (a group that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell), executive editor of the new Paradigm book series, and a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society. He has appeared on Good Morning America, The CBS Morning News, CBS Nightwatch, the BBC, and over a hundred other media outlets.

Is global capitalism on its last legs? Is the era of American leadership over? Has the West begun a decline into a new Dark Age? Does American civilization deserve to survive? These are the unnerving questions raised by the Great Crash of 2009.
Visionary thinker Howard Bloom has a radically new answer. In The Genius of the Beast, the author of the acclaimed books The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, insists that global society has only begun to realize its full potential. Bloom argues that there's a hidden mandate beneath the surface of capitalism: It s struggling to whisper and rumble its message to you and me. That hidden imperative can lift us from economic crisis, can make us a leader in the next-generation economy, and can dramatically upgrade our ability to empower our fellow human beings. Bloom sees crisis as opportunity, opportunity for the whole human race.
In more than eighty short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs. The Genius of the Beast takes the reader on a sweeping tour of human history, from the Stone Age to the present. Every chapter conveys a radically new way to see the astonishing mechanism we call "Western Civilization." Bloom marvels at how humans have turned toxic waste into food and fuel, trash into treasure, and garbage into gold. He shows how we've produced material miracles based on immaterial things passion, persistence, and fantasy. Bloom shows that what many regard as the end is just the beginning. The beginning of something you've never before imagined.
Bloom explains why the secret to capitalism's next great leap does not lie in new financial tricks, but in tapping things right under ournoses in radically new ways that is, tapping our imagination, our desire to feel useful, our desire to help others, and our desire to be recognized for contributing to the welfare of humanity. The key to next-generation capitalism, writes Bloom, lies in a big-picture view that's utterly unlike anything you've previously perceived. A big-picture view that will startle you. A big-picture view with which you can ignite the world, get a new handle on your life, and help transform society.
This brilliant, inspirational work of daring ideas and breath-taking research offers more than hope. It offers unseen levels of understanding. Understanding that can literally redefine what it means to be a human being.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING:

"It's an extraordinary book, exhilaratingly-written and masterfully-researched. I couldn't put it down." —James Burke, creator and host of seven BBC TV series, including Connections.
"Brilliant and powerful." —Edgar Mitchell, sixth man to walk on the Moon, pilot of Apollo 14's Lunar Module, and founder of The Institute of Noetic Sciences
"Howard Bloom's newest book nails it once and for all. Hard to believe a book could clarify and illuminate everything swirling through and around our beleaguered selves, but this one does it!" Richard Foreman, MacArthur Genius award-winner, founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and the man the New York Times calls the "gray wizard of experimental theater."
"Pure poetry, divinely begotten. It's a struggle of visions wine and wafer to become the real world's flesh and blood. I am convinced that Howard Bloom is the reincarnation of Plato. This beast is absolutely captivating; a godsend." Mark Lamonica, author of Rio L. A and Junk yard dogs and William Shakespeare
"I imagine Howard Bloom's eyes laughing as he takes a sledgehammer to smash yet another giant icon: this time it's the sacred cow of capitalist macroeconomic theory. But when the dust clears — and he's colorfully reconstructed the history of Western Civilization through the eyes of his latest mega-idea, the hunting, devouring, nesting Beast — it turns out capitalism is a good thing after all. We were all just wrong about why! Howard remains one of my favorite sources of new memes. Don't miss this one." Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: the New Science of the Meme and original author of Microsoft Word
"Read with delight this terrific book in which Bloom re-writes the history of the West and shows us what capitalism is really all about—or what at its best it demands of us and how it rewards our innermost natures. Bloom is a thinker of the order of Herbert Spencer or Henri Bergson—he tries to see the whole picture from the origin of the universe through the origin of life to the origins of humanity and the continuity of the creativity of the cosmos in our personal and social behavior. His insights along the way are mind-churning: his portrayal of Plato's real genius as a marketer is brilliant. The bacteria who poisoned their environment and thus moved evolution upward...what a metaphor. Columbus' greatest skill was marketing not navigation, the role of tea rituals, and the tale of soap, all are wonderful. I've been writing about Max Weber and 'the spirit of capitalism' and it makes me even more aware of the brilliance of Bloom's argument about what is in the beast and how it can be tapped: capitalism does not just emerge from the Protestant ethic but from the nature of the human animal and its cosmic inheritance. Let's hope this side of the beast can win out over its parochial and narrow other self that longs for the safety of the tribe. But about the West at its best, he's right: Capitalism = Service. An amazing and brilliant book." Robin Fox, founder of the Anthropology Department at Rutgers University, former director of research for the H. F. Guggenheim Foundation, co-author of The Imperial Animal and author of Kinship and Marriage
"It will grab you by the throat and shake your fundamental perceptions of life." —Robert D. Steel, former CIA clandestine case officer for extremist targets, creator Marine Corps Intelligence Center, CEO of OSS.Net, Inc., author of On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, #1 non-fiction reviewer at Amazon.com.
"Capitalism de- and reconstructed—capitalism with a heart—and brain: Howard Bloom's new book marshals his vast knowledge of history, deep cultural experience and broad scientific understanding to argue for a new way. Ever since I sent away for a marketing book in the eighties whose major advice was how much money you could make marketing marketing books, I was skeptical. But marketing genius Howard Bloom may have written the greatest marketing book ever—one that puts capitalism in its cosmic context." —Dorion Sagan, author of Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of The Origin Of Species (with Lynn Margulis) and Notes from the Holocene: A Brief History of the Future
"At last a consistent free-flowing unmutilated vision for those who want to see the connection between physics, emotions, business and society. Some Bloomian terms and concepts (like reperception, messianic capitalism, cycles of boom and crash, and the universe feeling out her possibilities) have already invaded my everyday speech. This is exactly what we need: a science book meant for action and an action manual rooted in science." —Pascal Jouxtel, partner, Eurogroup Institute, Paris, author of Comment les systemes pondent.
"Howard Bloom has created a masterpiece! This book is the 'aha moment' that everyone needs and is deeply yearning for." —Barbara Annis, CEO, Barbara Annis & Associates, author of Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business and Same Words Different Language: How Men and Women Misunderstand each other at Work and What to do About it.
"Howard Bloom's books are a gift to civilization. The Genius of the Beast is the best business history I've read, and I've read many. It does resonate to my frequency! It does." —Alex Lightman, author of Brave New Unwired World: The Digital Big Bang and the Infinite Internet, CTO, FutureMax Group, CTO, Intergovernment Renewable Energy Organization.
"A delightful and insightful rollercoaster ride into the future of capitalism, ripe with Howard Bloom's trademark gusto for kaleidoscopic adventure on the frontiers of history, biology, physics, marketing, economics, and management." —Nova Spivak, CEO and Founder of Twine.com, the world's leading pioneer of semantic webs.
"Bloom makes a culture rock and roll as he blows away past myths, present cul-de-sacs, and future blind alleys. If the safest place in any crisis is always the hard truth, Bloom doesn't hesitate to tell us what's real, what works, and how we can escape the mess we are in. Pay heed!" ——Don Edward Beck, Ph. D. Chairman, Global Centers for Human Emergence, co-author Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change.

"There is a resonating message in The Genius of the Beast. The human being is front and center in history. Front and center in the past, present, and future. That human being is our client. The Genius of the Beast explains the centrality of understanding our client's emotions. It explains the paramount importance of delivering outcomes that satisfy those emotions, and of delivering those outcomes in an ethical manner. This message is fundamental in a time when there's a fracture in the investment business as we continue the shift towards retirement management. The old normal does not fit the current situation anymore. There are too many unsolved problems. There are too many unsolvable problems. The investment profession needs a new language. Traditional finance and economics described the client in terms of rational utility. That language is no longer good enough. We need new words that help us understand our clients emotional needs. That's why we've put The Genius of the Beast in our advanced curriculum for Retirement Management Analysts and have cited it in our own book, RIIA's Advisory Process: How To Benefit From 'The View Across The Silos.'" —Francois Gadenne, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director, The Retirement Income Industry Association. Co-author of How To Benefit From "The View Across The Silos."
"In The Genius of the Beast, Howard Bloom achieves what he has set out to do articulating a thoroughly secular call to what amounts to a spiritual mission. By tracing the capitalist impulse to innovate all the way back to its humble origins in bacteria and ants, Bloom conveys a powerful moral and evolutionary imperative for us to reinvent ourselves and reinvigorate this system for the sake of our collective future." —Andrew Cohen, founder EnlightenNext
"I'm a Christian and Bloom is an atheist. But he brilliantly nails the divine nature that drives us toward creation and rest."The Genius of the Beast is a secular epiphany. ——Brace E. Barber, President/CEO Decipherst, Inc. and author of No Excuse Leadership

Contents

PROLOGUE....................11
I THE MYSTERY OF MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ECONOMIES....................25
II THE BIRDS AND THE BEES OF BOOM AND CRASH....................57
III HOW PASSIONS POWER THE EVOLUTIONARY SEARCH ENGINE....................95
IV TRUTH IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER....................147
V THE GREATEST HITS OF HISTORY ... AND HOW THEY GOT TO BE THAT WAY....................175
VI THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF FANTASY....................217
VII JACKING UP THE SYMBOL STACK....................265
VIII THE TRANSCENDENCE ENGINE....................297
IX EMOPOWER: THE LIFT OF GENEROUS SELFISHNESS....................317
X AN EXTRA TWENTY YEARS OF LIFE?....................377
XI IS GOSSIP GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?....................411
XII THE ROCKET FUEL OF EMPATHY....................453
Endnotes....................485
Acknowledgments....................567
Index....................571