The BRICS countries are heralded for their double digit economic growth rates and while this has indeed been impressive, particularly in India and China, it is clear that significant social and environmental fault-lines have developed in these regions. Building on the integral heritage of Ronnie Lessema (TM)s previous work through Trans4ma (TM)s Centre for Integral Development, here he makes the case for a "integral advantagea (TM), a philosophy inclusive of nature and culture, technology and economy, altogether accommodated by an integral polity. Moreover, and as will be illustrated in each of the cases of the five BRICS countries, each one is an integral entity in its own particular right, and needs to be viewed, and duly evolved, as such. In the final analysis, he argues, then, that around the world, the failure of a society to develop is not due to its economic limitations, in isolation, but to the failure of nature and culture, technology and economy, to co-evolve in unison, under the rubric of an integral polity, altogether aligned with that particular society. Drawing on the approach he has developed towards the release of a societya (TM)s genius, in each case, he demonstrates how the pursuit of integral advantage may actually arise. Most specifically, he indicates how a balance between the spiritual and the material, on the one hand, and the natural and the social, on the other, needs to be achieved.
Contents: Part I Orientation: The internet is not the answer: fields, factories and workshops to networked economy; Emerging markets and societies: north-western conventional economic wisdom; Towards integral advantage: integral realities and rhythms. Part II An East-West Russian Integral Perspective: Mutual aid to earth manifesto: grounding in Russian nature and community; Cosmism to anthropoecology: grounding to Russian emergence through culture and spirituality; Anthropoecology to the world as household - Russian navigation: philosophy of economy as social science; Portrait of a Russian province: Nizhnii Novgorod Zemstvo effect. Part III North-South African Integral Perspective: Wild law to earth jurisprudence: grounding Southern Africa in local nature and community; Future primal and the truth quest: emerging through local-global culture and consciousness; Truth and reconciliation: navigating towards freedom; Ubuntu to value sharing: transformative healing effect - out of the divine will of Africa. Part IV Circumnavigating BRICS: India, China, Brazil: Integral India: south-east - swadeshi to sarvodaya; Integral China: north-east - chaxugeju to guanxi; Integral Brazil: south-west - eco-services to free trade re-imagined; Reconstituting the BRICS: comparative to integral advantage. Index.