producers did not pay the ‘true’ price for environmental degradation. One prime
example in the context of climate protection is CO 2 emission standards for products
or companies: if only a handful of countries apply them, all foreign competitors
whose home countries do not make them pay for emissions can thus undercut the
more sustainable producers. It takes a degree in mainstream economics to continue
to see environmental and economic concerns as two separate birds and abstracted
‘evidence’ to support such ideological claims in the expert reports. It also takes the
popular growth narrative to justify even criminal pursuit of interests and fraudulent
behavior as somewhat related to overall economic progress.
The Volkswagen scandal is a great demonstration of how an economic mind-set
impacts the framing of events and thus the judgments of what is at stake: the EU
raised its emission standards because it tried to prevent the all-encompassing effects
of climate change and because air quality is the top environmental cause of premature deaths in Europe—about 100,000 a year. The World Health Organization
(WHO) declared air pollution the single biggest environmental health risk (Vidal
2014). Yet, when the intentional manipulation of emission measurement software
was discovered in Volkswagen cars, it was Volkswagen’s plummeting stock value
and the profit warnings that become headline news. The auto industry stands for
20 % of Germany’s GDP and some headlines are straightforwardly asking if it will
depress the country’s growth. Meanwhile, the German government continued to
block tougher European emission standards in the same month.
Structurally, the Growth Dilemma is real. But in societies with high incomes and
stagnant or negative population levels, the Growth Dilemma resembles far more a
straightjacket than an economy serving human needs: structurally it means we have
to always want more or else our economic systems fall into turmoil. Billions are
expended on marketing so that we do not forget that what we have is not enough.
Before the institutional setup that we are used to calling ‘markets’ can help to
bring out the best innovations and solutions for sustainable societies, they have to
be set up in a way that makes sustainable solutions their goal. Science should help
to understand, untangle and overcome the path dependencies that work in the other
direction. The mainstream economic paradigm and its monetary mind-set, measures
and metrics are not fit for this purpose. They are laden with value judgments and
power relations that disguise instead of enlighten.
3.3 How Mainstream Economics Anticipate the Future
This final subchapter turns to the dark green row at the bottom of Table 3.1. It
assesses what adopting the mainstream economic mind-sets means for addressing
the overarching goal of sustainable development: i.e., governing economies so that
future generations can also live satisfactory lives. To begin, mainstream economics
does not so much anticipate the future as extrapolate the way the economy will be
98
3 Why the Mainstream Economic Paradigm Cannot Inform …
example in the context of climate protection is CO 2 emission standards for products
or companies: if only a handful of countries apply them, all foreign competitors
whose home countries do not make them pay for emissions can thus undercut the
more sustainable producers. It takes a degree in mainstream economics to continue
to see environmental and economic concerns as two separate birds and abstracted
‘evidence’ to support such ideological claims in the expert reports. It also takes the
popular growth narrative to justify even criminal pursuit of interests and fraudulent
behavior as somewhat related to overall economic progress.
The Volkswagen scandal is a great demonstration of how an economic mind-set
impacts the framing of events and thus the judgments of what is at stake: the EU
raised its emission standards because it tried to prevent the all-encompassing effects
of climate change and because air quality is the top environmental cause of premature deaths in Europe—about 100,000 a year. The World Health Organization
(WHO) declared air pollution the single biggest environmental health risk (Vidal
2014). Yet, when the intentional manipulation of emission measurement software
was discovered in Volkswagen cars, it was Volkswagen’s plummeting stock value
and the profit warnings that become headline news. The auto industry stands for
20 % of Germany’s GDP and some headlines are straightforwardly asking if it will
depress the country’s growth. Meanwhile, the German government continued to
block tougher European emission standards in the same month.
Structurally, the Growth Dilemma is real. But in societies with high incomes and
stagnant or negative population levels, the Growth Dilemma resembles far more a
straightjacket than an economy serving human needs: structurally it means we have
to always want more or else our economic systems fall into turmoil. Billions are
expended on marketing so that we do not forget that what we have is not enough.
Before the institutional setup that we are used to calling ‘markets’ can help to
bring out the best innovations and solutions for sustainable societies, they have to
be set up in a way that makes sustainable solutions their goal. Science should help
to understand, untangle and overcome the path dependencies that work in the other
direction. The mainstream economic paradigm and its monetary mind-set, measures
and metrics are not fit for this purpose. They are laden with value judgments and
power relations that disguise instead of enlighten.
3.3 How Mainstream Economics Anticipate the Future
This final subchapter turns to the dark green row at the bottom of Table 3.1. It
assesses what adopting the mainstream economic mind-sets means for addressing
the overarching goal of sustainable development: i.e., governing economies so that
future generations can also live satisfactory lives. To begin, mainstream economics
does not so much anticipate the future as extrapolate the way the economy will be
98
3 Why the Mainstream Economic Paradigm Cannot Inform …