Financial markets as a collective ego
Nov 4th, 2008 by Ivo Quartiroli | 
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Financial markets have connected everything to everything else. Economy, finance, raw materials, energy sources, politics, conflicts, the environment have become completely interdependent. Minimal variations in one of the elements can cause earthquakes in areas which could seem distant from each other.
In some way finance has created a planetary ego. Finance has centralized in itself the planet’s directions and destinies. But like the ego of a person, this has happened not through the construction of solid human bases supported by the essential qualities such as awareness, compassion or the love of truth. It is, as every ego is, a stuffed shirt.
The financial ego built the infamous “bubble,” an unreal richness basically rooted in nothing and on narcissistic deceit. It has made people believe that there was something real when there was only speculation. The term speculation is perfectly adapted to its two meanings, the one is of the abstract thought which goes astray, which gets separated from reality; and the other one is of an economic act which tends to make profits.
Speculation essentially is a mental act not connected to reality. Nevertheless, this mental act creates a pseudo-reality shared by everybody in a sort of collective hallucination, similar to an individual ego which creates a tight net of thoughts supporting a single individual in believing, “I am this and that…I believe in these things…I like this and not that.”
It is surprising to see how the whole planet became busy “saving” the financial market. The interdependences have become so tight that even countries historically hostile to the Western system do not wish for an end of the “system.” The oil producing countries, including Iran and Venezuela, are trembling at the prospect of a recession which would diminish the price and the consumption of oil, China and Russia are terrified seeing the shrinking Western market and diminishing their exports.
On an individual level everybody has something to lose in the financial crisis: those who have money and investments see them erode; those who do not anyway see unemployment and inflation which limit purchasing power. Entrepreneurs and workers have the same fear. Even those who would only lose their chains are trembling when thinking of a global crisis. And they are right since crises historically always hit those harder who have less alternatives.
Nobody wants this great illusory collective ego to shatter; the ego’s defenses both on an individual level and collective one are enormous. The ego’s death is liberating but at the same time it is terrifying. The ego in itself will never surrender.
But the reality is that this big collective bubble is becoming shattered through implosion and we are witnessing the effects in pathological terms, which in this stage seem to be of a manic-depressive type. The stock exchange rates, raw materials, oil and other sources of energy go up and down like never before.
The ego center of consciousness which holds everything together (even if in an illusory manner) is disaggregating and its place is being taken by chaos. As a sort of psychosomatic consequence the physical body of the planet seems to have lost the center as well and to have entered a phase of excesses. The environmental consequences of economical choices can be felt through the weather: sudden changes, long droughts, floods, all symptoms of a center which has lost its balance.
Like many others, I too am losing resources due to the financial crisis, I have my own fears and I found myself hoping that the financial crisis could be resolved in some manner. I saw my own attachments to the whole system. But saving the banks and financial institutions is not the solution of the problem. Probably, it is part of the problem itself which sees infinite growth as something necessary, when actually it is impossible in a condition of depleted resources.
The passage from illusion to reality will bring a long, painful and necessary period at the historical and collective levels, similar to the moment when, in a personal path toward the truth it gets discovered that our personality was based on lies.
In my opinion there’s no other solution besides restarting from real bases and giving value back to what had, has, and will have value on the human and environmental levels, with an act of collective humility and detoxification after the big booze-up. I also believe that Obama will be able to address the collective consciousness as a turning point in this direction.
