stack of resources and services to be freely disassembled, reassembled and
substituted.
Neither happiness nor nature qualify as ‘pieces’ whose properties stay the same
if they are relocated. Nor can properties be easily reinstalled once single items have
been taken out of their former setting. Understanding the world in systems, on the
other hand, provides a very different understanding of the developments and their
trajectories. Notions of tipping points, non-linear developments, delays and runaway effects, as well as irreversible changes and uncertainty enter the picture
instead. This changes the perceptions of risk and even cost–benefit analyses
tremendously. Adopting a precautionary approach becomes more of a rational
strategy than one easily dismissed as anti-progress. This is the effect of paradigm
shifts as described by Kuhn:
. . . the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the
world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments
and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and
different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before.
It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet
where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.
. . . In so far as their only recourse to that world is through what they see and do, we may
want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world (Kuhn 1962:
111).
Understanding the world through quantifying and monetizing has subjected ever
more areas of social being and collaboration as well as human–nature relations to
the logic of markets. A non-market relationship or good is transformed into a
commodity that is, from now on, compensated for with a payment, wage, rent or
interest. It is now captured in economic statistics and an exchange value frame of
willingness-to-pay enters the relation: the worth of everything is expressed in prices. Marglin dedicated his entire book to discussing how thinking like an economist
undermines the earlier guiding principles and frames around those relations: people
or communities who were formerly rather self-reliant and governed by reciprocity
become dependent on market processes and the exchange values of their particular
goods and services (Marglin 2010). With money come economistic mind-sets and
financial motivations. The wider cultural meaning of work as a productive and
caring activity is reduced to something done to make money.
While some may argue that this has delivered on a more efficient division of
labor and specialization, it does not at all automatically mean that the relations and
the quality of services like childcare, nursing, housework, etc., improves. Or that
people enjoy their work more and perform better. At the same time, this way of
thinking justifies anti-poor resentment because the lower the price of what one
offers to society (i.e., the wage), the less worth it has. Therefore, having no job is
viewed as a sign of not making enough effort.
Meanwhile, expanding financialization also means that the structural imperative
of needing even more growth is expanded. Using interest-bearing or debt-based
forms of money means that the borrower not only has to ensure an output that
returns the input factor costs and his income in the form of profit, but also the
3.3 How Mainstream Economics Anticipate the Future
113
substituted.
Neither happiness nor nature qualify as ‘pieces’ whose properties stay the same
if they are relocated. Nor can properties be easily reinstalled once single items have
been taken out of their former setting. Understanding the world in systems, on the
other hand, provides a very different understanding of the developments and their
trajectories. Notions of tipping points, non-linear developments, delays and runaway effects, as well as irreversible changes and uncertainty enter the picture
instead. This changes the perceptions of risk and even cost–benefit analyses
tremendously. Adopting a precautionary approach becomes more of a rational
strategy than one easily dismissed as anti-progress. This is the effect of paradigm
shifts as described by Kuhn:
. . . the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the
world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments
and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and
different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before.
It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet
where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.
. . . In so far as their only recourse to that world is through what they see and do, we may
want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world (Kuhn 1962:
111).
Understanding the world through quantifying and monetizing has subjected ever
more areas of social being and collaboration as well as human–nature relations to
the logic of markets. A non-market relationship or good is transformed into a
commodity that is, from now on, compensated for with a payment, wage, rent or
interest. It is now captured in economic statistics and an exchange value frame of
willingness-to-pay enters the relation: the worth of everything is expressed in prices. Marglin dedicated his entire book to discussing how thinking like an economist
undermines the earlier guiding principles and frames around those relations: people
or communities who were formerly rather self-reliant and governed by reciprocity
become dependent on market processes and the exchange values of their particular
goods and services (Marglin 2010). With money come economistic mind-sets and
financial motivations. The wider cultural meaning of work as a productive and
caring activity is reduced to something done to make money.
While some may argue that this has delivered on a more efficient division of
labor and specialization, it does not at all automatically mean that the relations and
the quality of services like childcare, nursing, housework, etc., improves. Or that
people enjoy their work more and perform better. At the same time, this way of
thinking justifies anti-poor resentment because the lower the price of what one
offers to society (i.e., the wage), the less worth it has. Therefore, having no job is
viewed as a sign of not making enough effort.
Meanwhile, expanding financialization also means that the structural imperative
of needing even more growth is expanded. Using interest-bearing or debt-based
forms of money means that the borrower not only has to ensure an output that
returns the input factor costs and his income in the form of profit, but also the
3.3 How Mainstream Economics Anticipate the Future
113