The Global Financial Crisis is not at all a financial crisis. It is a psychological “avoidance mechanism” to disguise the stupidity of so-called thinkers who neglected the basic ingredients of economic growth:

• Invention by not supporting the generative research of the R&D function;
• Innovation by narrowing the developmental effort to things like the power and speed of IT components;
• Investment by conspiring to redefine the function of finance from support to “the generation of wealth.”

Yes, the financial crisis is a “Crisis in Thinking.” Those who indulged in these degenerative activities would simply rather be “bailed out” than be exposed as stupid.

Indeed, these “overdetermined crises” took away all of our pride in the rights and responsibilities of enlightened citizenship, entrepreneurial enterprise, and collaborative cultural relating.

To be sure, all perpetrators converged to become what science labels “depressor variables” in “The Equation for Prosperity, Participation, and Peace:”

• The neutralization of Entrepreneurial Capitalism;
• The nullification of Enlightened Governance;
• The excavation of Cultural Relating.

There has been an extraordinary confusion of finances and economics by academic economists, Wall Street marketers, and government bureaucrats. Before we proceed, let us see if we can clear up this confusion with simple illustrations of basic economic systems.

Basic Systems

All systems have similar operations (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Basic Systems Operations

As may be viewed, systems are operations that convert inputs into outputs as follows:

Resource inputs are converted into results outputs by transforming processes at measurable levels of performance feedback in order to meet the requirements of the conditions within which they exist.

These systems are present under all conditions of both survival and growth.

Changing Systems

For example, the changing conditions of the 21st century marketplace require continuously changing systems operations, as may be seen in Figure 2:

• Continuous repositioning in the marketplace;
• Continuously improving products to meet changing consumer needs;
• Continuously realigning organizations to meet repositioning requirements;
• Continuously elevating resources to meet product requirements;
• Continuously improving profitability to support all other operations.

Whether or not we meet these requirements determines whether or not we are engaged in economic survival or growth operations.

Figure 2. Changing Economic Systems Operation

The New Capital Development System

The economic growth operations may be viewed in sharp relief in Figure 3. As may be viewed, our success in meeting changing marketplace requirements is found in the development of “New Capital Development” or NCD, defining “capital” as what is “most important:”

• MCD—Marketplace Capital Development or continuous positioning to meet changing marketplace requirements.
• OCD—Organizational Capital Development or organizational realignment to implement the positioning;
• HCD—Human Capital Development or human processing to implement the realignment;
• ICD—Information Capital Development or information modeling to implement human processing;
• mCD—Mechanical Capital Development or mechanical tooling to implement information modeling.

In this context, Financial Capital Development ($) never accounted for more than 15 percent of Economic Productivity Growth or EPG, the primary component of all Economic Growth. The remaining 85 percent of the variance in EPG is attributed to the prepotent ingredients of NCD.

Figure 3. The New Capital Development System

In summary, the Financial Crisis must be separated from the Economic Crisis:

1. We are in an Economic Crisis because we have not met the requirements of a Continuously Changing Marketplace.
2. We are in a Financial Crisis because we have tried to meet humankind’s most unsavory anti-social expression—greed!

Financial Capital was never more than a catalyst to Economic Growth—a “necessary but not sufficient” resource input that helped to start the operations of the Economic System.

Other than this catalytic effect, Financial Capital is a measurement of productivity and profitability which occurs in feedback:

In other words, it is a way of “keeping score.”

In the desperation of Information Technology’s promoters to generate economic substance and operations outside of ICD, the financial people found the obvious source:

“It’s in your pocket!”

“Now if we can only get at it!”

Many people are fond of saying “Creativity is thinking outside the box.” Reactively, this means that someone is trapped “inside the box” and needs to get out. Proactively, “Genera-tivity means thinking to avoid getting trapped inside the box.”

From a more operational perspective, generative thinking creates new responses. In learning theory terms, generativity creates responses that the stimulus conditions were not calculated to elicit. In other words, generativity elicits no responses that are conditioned, linear, or based upon the limitations of the Binary Code.

In the current global financial crisis, for example, the assumptions and implications are unclear. The finance people assume that they are dealing with 100% of the variance—Financial Capital.

The generative thinkers, in turn, define the New Capital Development ingredients as follows (see Figure 4):

• Marketplace Capital or Marketplace Positioning
• Organizational Capital or Organizational Alignment
• Human Capital or Human Processing
• Information Capital or Information Modeling
• Mechanical Capital or Mechanical Tooling
• Financial Capital or Financial Investments

These effective ingredients account for Economic Productivity Growth or EPG which is the major part of all Economic Growth.

In short, the financial people say, “It takes money to make money.”

The generative thinkers propose, “It takes ideas to generate wealth.”

The former extends The Industrial Age into overtime.

The latter introduces “The Age of Ideation.”

Figure 4. The Sources of Economic Productivity Growth (EPG)

As may be viewed, Financial Capital Investments account for 15% of the variance in Economic Productivity Growth or EPG. In turn, the remaining New Capital Development Systems account for 85% of EPG. Finally, Marketplace Capital accounts for the totality of EPG—100%.

What does this mean for resolving the Global Financial Crisis? It means that our limited perspective on Financial Capital is compounded by our Binary Code Thinking which allows us only “Go” or “No-Go” choices: Either we let the Free Market operate in an “unfettered fashion” or we regulate it in a “controlling fashion.”

Only when we view the crisis in the totality of its sources can we make a long-term resolution. Indeed, we can only affect a long-term economic growth resolution when we adopt “The Generativity Solution.”

Having prematurely chosen to drive our economy by Financial Services instead of Manufacturing, we erected Financial Information Systems with “Faux Interdependence.” Lacking a “Common DNA/RNA-like Interdependent Data Base,” these Financial Services operated independently and excluded human processing. The net of their data-centric operations assumed themselves to be “Sources of Wealth” rather than “Products of Wealth” or “Measurements of Wealth.”

In perspective the solution to our economic crisis is the solution to all human crises: a “Common Integrated and Interdependent Data Base” which demands “Human-Centric Interdependent Organizational Processing Systems.” This is “The Generativity Solution.” This is “The New Capitalism.”

The principles of generativity are simple, yet profound:

• Relate to images of phenomena;
• Represent images of phenomena;
• Reason with images of phenomena.

These are the effective ingredients of thinking generatively.

In reverse order, we cannot think generatively before we have represented the phenomena ideationally. Similarly, we cannot represent ideationally before we have related to images interpersonally.

The probabilities scientists have given us normal curves: nice, linear, idealized symmetrical distributions around central tendencies such as means or averages. The curves tell us something about where people and products stand in relation to this central tendency. The work of the 20th century has been based upon these probabilistic assumptions. The mission of the 20th century has been to move toward reducing our deviation from this idealized central tendency: in other words, to look more and more like the middle of the curve.

Figure 5. The Normal Curve

The normal curves also attempt to tell us how people and products move through the phases of the curve. For example, the normal curve has been adopted by the marketplace to reflect the movement of products and people through market phases: opinion leaders, early adopters, middle adopters, late adopters, laggards or non-adopters (see Figure 6). While this approach has produced an extraordinary array of products and services, it has simultaneously generated apparently finite images of people who look and act and think alike.

Figure 6. The Market Curve