Summary: THE DAILY EVOLVER LIVE EPISODE 88<br> <a href="https://www.dailyevolver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/lonely-corporation.jpg"></a><br> This week I focused on a topic that is always front and center in the culture wars: the role of the public sector and the private sector in our lives, and the tension between the two.<br> One story that captures this tension in the U.S. is the Supreme Court hearing of the complaint by Hobby Lobby, a chain of retail stores, seeking an exemption from having to provide “morning after” contraceptives in its employee health care plan under the new terms of Obamacare.<br> The founder of Hobby Lobby, David Green, is a devout Christian who donates half the company’s pre-tax earnings — $500 million so far — to evangelical ministry. An amber traditionalist at heart (though clearly an orange modernist in his ability to build a very successful business), Green specifically objects to birth-control medications such as “Plan B” that would destroy a fertilized egg. This detail is often missed in media reports which represent the company as objecting to providing any contraception whatsoever. In fact, they are objecting only to the class of “morning after” contraceptives, which they consider to be a form of abortion.<br> As integral practitioners, let’s pause for a moment and enter the worldview of conservative Christians (amber altitude) which is radically different than the worldview of those of us who have become secular at heart. For them the world is an enchanted creation of Almighty God. Likewise, life itself is a gift from God and only God can create it. Being faithful means that we are grateful when God sparks a new life into being, and we joyfully make room. To do otherwise would be to disobey God.<br> At the amber altitude the battle cry is “God and Country,” with God coming in first and country second. Humanity is corrupted, fallen, and although we have to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” the ultimate purpose of life is to be righteous and holy under a Law that supersedes the puny laws of man. It makes perfect sense: to whom are you going to owe your primary allegiance, the crowd in Washington or the Creator of the universe? If you are a child of God living in His enchanted creation, that decision is easy.<br> A similar issue surfaced in a recent controversy out of Arizona, where the legislature passed a law defending the “religious freedom” of private businesses to, for instance, deny to bake a cake for a gay wedding. In this case the Republican governor vetoed the legislation. The reason? There was too much blowback from the secular business community, who feared an economic boycott of the state, particularly the upcoming Super Bowl scheduled in Phoenix next year.<br> So it turns out that the dollar is almighty too! In fact one of the most potent evolutionary forces in modern culture is the trumping of money over traditional ideology (orange altitude over amber altitude). As a result of the Arizona outcome, similar initiatives promoting this conservative brand of religious freedom in other states have been seriously undermined.<br> This question of corporate personhood shows up in other cases as well, most notably the Supreme Court case Citizens United, which lifted the limit corporations and labor unions can donate to independent political groups.<br> HOW THE PRIVATE SECTOR EMERGED<br> For most of human history, of course, there was no such thing as a private sector. The tribal elders (in the magenta altitude), the warlord (in red altitude) or the king (in the amber altitude) could control your life in whatever way they saw fit.<br> In the middle ages, we saw the gradual emergence of charters given to various guilds who could exert some independent control over their trade: blacksmiths, farmers, weavers, barrel makers – even executioners!<br> In the 1500s we saw the emergence of mercantilism,
