Bloom - The genius of the beast : a radical re-vision of capitalism

To DARPA for mothering the Internet and to Google for turning the Net into one of the most important research tools since the invention of the library. To Frank Fox for research assistance on soap, P. T. Barnum, and the plantation. To James Burke for showing us a new way to think. To Michael Smolens and O. Woodward Buckner for kicking this book into existence. To the Tea Lounge's Jonathan Spiel, Greg Wolf, and Frieda Wolfe for creating a new form of community living room (complete with wi-fi). To Richard Metzger, Alex Burns, and Anat Levy for keeping me alive during an extremely challenging time. To Nancy Ellis and Linda Regan for making this book materialize.

To those who have stimulated and sustained me: Buzz Aldrin, Sabine Allaeys, Amy Alkon, Jill Andresevic, Amara Angelica, Barbara Annis, Jeremy Barr, Howard Baskind, Don Beck, Art Bell, Eshel ben-Jacob, Lawrence Joseph Berger, Berel Berko, Bonnie Bernstein, Richard Brodie, Bob Cavallo, Sol Charney, Alex Chislenko, Bob Citron, Michael Clauss, Andrew Cohen, Alan Corbeth, Joseph de Cuir, Bruce Damer, Tom Danheiser, Audrey Dawson, Gerry Delet, Daria Dorosh, Alexander Elder, Karen Ellis, Derek Enlander, Adam Fisher, Russell Gardner, Peter Garretson, Valerius and Renate Geist, Maya Gilbert, Jeffrey Gitomer, Bob Guccione Jr., Mark Hopkins, Steve Hovland, Feng Hsu, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Pascal Jouxtel, Jay Kenoff, Bob Krone, Mark Lamonica, Robert Largen, Stephen Lee, Liza Lentini, Jason Liszkiewicz, David Livingstone, Michael Lockhart, Lisa Lyons, Sonia Mahendran, Rob McConnell, Chris Mc-Culloch, Andy Meyer, Igal Moria, Gayil Nalls, George Noory, Nando Pelusi, Walter Petryk, Bala Pillai, David Pincus, Harold Pollak, Ian Punnett, Joe Quirk, Dennis Reinhart, Geraldine Reinhart, Lorraine Rice, Jessica Roemischer, Terry Jean Rosenberg, Judy Rubin, Jack Sarfatti, Linda Diane Scalf, John Skoyles, David Livingstone Smith, Harris Bud Stone, Mathew Tombers, Dana Toomey, Mel Toomey, Tina Turner, James Santagata, Amir Siddiqi, Jerry Sukinik, Sesh Velamoor, David Walley, Nancy Weber, Ira Weinstock, Paul Werbos, Ahmed Yehia, Robert Zubrin, and Steve Zuckerman.

To Gary Zamchick in New York, Kevin Hagell in Vancouver, Sabine Allaeys in Brussels, and Pigtail Pundits in Mumbai, India, for making the world's first biopolitical animation on behalf of the Big Bang Tango Media Lab.

Thanks for helping me infiltrate the entertainment business go to: Zohn Ardman, Dennis Arfa, Joan Armatrading, Dee Anthony, Don Arden, Bill Aucoin, Jeff Ayeroff, John Baruck, Philip Bailey, Frank Beard, Robert Kool Bell, Jim Belushi, Alvin Bennett, Chris Blackwell, Susan Blond, Marshall Blonstein, Jay Boberg, Bonnie Bruckheimer, Glen Brunman, Richard Burkhardt, Pamela Burton, David Byrne, Bob Cavallo, Ray Caviano, Janis Cercone, Lyor Cohen, Natalie Cole, Tom Consolo, Alice Cooper, Ian Copeland, Miles Copeland, Stewart Copeland, Bobbi Cowan, Jack Craigo, Peter Criss, Kevin Cronin, Cameron Crowe, Rick Davies, Freddy DeMann, Connie de Nave, John Denver, Joe Dera, Dennis De Young, Rick Dobbis, John Doumanian, Sheila E., Alan Edwards, Ken Emerson, Donna Fargo, Steve Fargnoli, Jim Foglesong, Peter Frampton, Chris Frantz, Harrison Funk, Peter Gabriel, Steve Gaines, Eric Gardner, Art Garfunkel, Billy Gibbons, Danny Goldberg, Lynn Goldsmith, Ron Goldstein, Shep Gordon, Mike Gormley, Bill Graham, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, David Grisman, Alan Grubman, Dave Grusin, Daryl Hall, Jim Halsey, Jordon Harris, Annie Haslam, Peter Haycock, Jim Henke, Dusty Hill, Sam Holdsworth, Derek Holt, Dick Howard, Charles Huggins, Phyllis Hyman, Billy Idol, Arthur Indursky, Shelton Ivany, Jackie Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Michael Jackson, Randy Jackson, Tito Jackson, Joan Jett, Billy Joel, Geoff Jukes, Art Kass, Chaka Khan, Tony King, Martin Kirkup, Peter Knobler, Ken Kragan, Connie Kramer, David Krebs, Gary Kurfirst, Kenny Laguna, Ida Langsam, Carmen LaRosa, Larry Larson, Jay Lasker, Steve Leber, Anne Leighton, Ellen Levine, Aaron Levy, Nancy Lewis, Martin Lewis, Ralph MacDonald, Lou Maglia, Toby Mamis, Danny Marcus, Rhonda Markowitz, Bob Marley, Rita Marley, Ziggy Marley, Tony Martell, Doc McGhee, John Mellencamp, Bette Midler, Craig Miller, Andy Miele, Stephanie Mills, Tommy Mottola, Anne Murray, Ed Naha, Jack Nance, Terry Nunn, John Oates, John O'Donnell, Luke O'Reilly, Jim Pettigrew, George Pincus, I. Martin Pompadour, Bud Prager, Ed Pressman, Charley Prevost, Prince, Leonard Rambeau, Lou Reed, Bob Reno, Lionel Richie, Nelson Riddle, Sylvia Robinson, Larry Rosen, Jane Rosenthal, Sheldon Roskin, Carol Ross, Diana Ross, Gerald Rothberg, David Rubinson, Todd Rundgren, John Scher, Paul Schindler, Gina Schock, Marty Scott, Andy Secher, Russell Shaw, Bob Shaye, Jaime Shoop, Pat Siciliano, Mike Sigman, Robert Ellis Silberstein, Stan Silver, Gene Simmons, Russell Simmons, Paul Simon, Bob Small, Harry Spiro, Billy Squier, Paul Stanley, Harriet Sternberg, Charles Stetler, Tony Stratton-Smith, Mark Stern, Henry Stone, Derek Sutton, Sylvester, Mary Travers, Kathy Valentine, Luther Vandross, Vanity, Gabe Vigorito, Perry Watts-Russell, Wendy & Lisa, Jann Wenner, Tina Weymouth, Adam White, Jim White, Tim White, Paul Winter, Linda and Cecil Womack, Frank Yablans, Chuck Young, and James Young.

Thanks for teaching me the hidden art of building a superstar, the art of touring strategy, to Bill Ham.

Thanks for helping me slip into the corporate world to: Peter Bramley, Robert Hazel, Denny Hermanson, Brad Johanson, Stephanie Phelan, Linda Sampson, Matty Simmons Richard Skidmore, Bill Skurski, Gail Skurski, and Michael Sullivan.

Thanks to the first Omnologists: Morgan Kinney and Jim Watkin.

Super-sized thanks to my mentor in neurobiology, E. E. Coons; to my mentors in magazine publishing, Mary Peacock, Sally Freeman, and Gerald Rothburg; and to my mentors in the music world, Seymour Stein and Bob Cavallo.

And special thanks to the staff of The Howard Bloom Organization, Ltd.

Why does capitalism need a radical re-vision?

The first decade of the twenty-first century gave the Western world one skull-cracking slap after another. The attacks of 9/11 and the downing of New York's World Trade Center, the slog in Iraq, the Great Crash of 2008, the implosion of major corporations like General Motors, Chrysler, Merrill Lynch, and Citibank, and the growth of China to superpower statusthese were wake-up punches. They handed you and meCEOs, researchers, artists, students, and thinkerswhat may be our greatest opportunity and our greatest responsibility since the Great Depression and the Nazis threatened to topple the Western way of life in the 1930s.

Our civilization is under attack. But many of us don't want to defend it. Why? There's a void in our sense of meaning. We've been told that the Western system is one in which the rich stoke artificial needs to suck money, blood, and spirit from the rest of us. We've been told that the barons of industry work overtime to turn us from sensitive humans into consumersmindless buyers listlessly watching TV while growing obese on the artificial flavors, the chemical preservatives, and the cheap sugars of junk food. And some of that is true.

But the problem does not lie in the turbines of the Western way of lifeit does not lie in industrialism, capitalism, pluralism, free speech, or democracy. The problem lies in the lens through which we see.

Emotional flows have powered our past and will drive our future, too. But we've never had the perceptual lens to bring them into view. Capitalism works. It works for reasons that don't appear in the analyses of Marx or in the statistics of economists. It works clumsily, awkwardly, sometimes brilliantly, and sometimes savagely.