disputing the trade-offs behind political decisions or when justifying business
strategies. The economic paradigm is thus massively influential in what is deemed
possible and legitimate for hypothetical future development paths. Eric Beinhocker,
director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s (INET) research program in
Oxford, explains: “Just as abstract scientific theories are made real in our lives
through the airplanes we fly in, the medicines we take, and the computers we use,
economic ideas are made real in our lives through the organizations that employ us,
the goods and services we consume, and the policies of our governments”
(Beinhocker 2006: xi–xii).
Paul A. Samuelson, Nobel laureate and one of the most influential economists of
the twentieth century, went as far as to say: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—
or crafts its advanced treatises—if I can write its economics textbooks” (Weinstein
2009 citing Samuelson). His textbook Economics was a bestseller for nearly 30 years
and translated into 20 languages.
Similarly, popular economist John Maynard Keynes shared Samuelson’s opinion: “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right
and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed
the world is ruled by little else” (Keynes 2007: 383–384). He continued to reflect on
the effects that this power of ideas has on societies and commented on his own
overturning of firm beliefs: “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping
from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into
every corner of our minds” (ibid: preface).
It is this stickiness that most of the book seeks to highlight and understand.
Because after all, some of the most powerful current economic ideas—like ‘gain’
being the prime human motivation, ‘utility’ a good measure for well-being and
‘capital’ a useful container term for everything that might be needed in production
processes—were once radically new and far from common sense. They were
integral components of the massive paradigm shift that has been called the
Enlightenment movement. Dirk Messner, leading German transformation
researcher and president of the German Development Institute (DIE) has described
its effect as a change in the social, cultural and cognitive ‘software’ of the agrarian
societies: it changed the reservoir of ideas, norms, values and principles which
actors drew on when creating technologies, institutions, laws, business models and
individual identities (Messner 2015: 263).
Today, 250 years later, these powerful ideas and economic concepts have
become the basis of a new normal, of a civilization and development model that is
unsustainable in a world with nine times as many people as there were when these
concepts were invented. Applying them means that leaders claim progress even
when the patterns of the clouds, the oceans, the forests and the very soil are
destroyed to a degree that threatens to tip our fragile planet out of balance. In
addition, while this development model has created much material wealth, it has not
generated the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people as its
progenitors and promoters believed it would. Meanwhile, the market system that
hosts this type of civilization has become one of global reach and highly complex
4
1 Introduction
strategies. The economic paradigm is thus massively influential in what is deemed
possible and legitimate for hypothetical future development paths. Eric Beinhocker,
director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s (INET) research program in
Oxford, explains: “Just as abstract scientific theories are made real in our lives
through the airplanes we fly in, the medicines we take, and the computers we use,
economic ideas are made real in our lives through the organizations that employ us,
the goods and services we consume, and the policies of our governments”
(Beinhocker 2006: xi–xii).
Paul A. Samuelson, Nobel laureate and one of the most influential economists of
the twentieth century, went as far as to say: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—
or crafts its advanced treatises—if I can write its economics textbooks” (Weinstein
2009 citing Samuelson). His textbook Economics was a bestseller for nearly 30 years
and translated into 20 languages.
Similarly, popular economist John Maynard Keynes shared Samuelson’s opinion: “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right
and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed
the world is ruled by little else” (Keynes 2007: 383–384). He continued to reflect on
the effects that this power of ideas has on societies and commented on his own
overturning of firm beliefs: “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping
from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into
every corner of our minds” (ibid: preface).
It is this stickiness that most of the book seeks to highlight and understand.
Because after all, some of the most powerful current economic ideas—like ‘gain’
being the prime human motivation, ‘utility’ a good measure for well-being and
‘capital’ a useful container term for everything that might be needed in production
processes—were once radically new and far from common sense. They were
integral components of the massive paradigm shift that has been called the
Enlightenment movement. Dirk Messner, leading German transformation
researcher and president of the German Development Institute (DIE) has described
its effect as a change in the social, cultural and cognitive ‘software’ of the agrarian
societies: it changed the reservoir of ideas, norms, values and principles which
actors drew on when creating technologies, institutions, laws, business models and
individual identities (Messner 2015: 263).
Today, 250 years later, these powerful ideas and economic concepts have
become the basis of a new normal, of a civilization and development model that is
unsustainable in a world with nine times as many people as there were when these
concepts were invented. Applying them means that leaders claim progress even
when the patterns of the clouds, the oceans, the forests and the very soil are
destroyed to a degree that threatens to tip our fragile planet out of balance. In
addition, while this development model has created much material wealth, it has not
generated the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people as its
progenitors and promoters believed it would. Meanwhile, the market system that
hosts this type of civilization has become one of global reach and highly complex
4
1 Introduction