Chapter 3
Why the Mainstream Economic Paradigm
Cannot Inform Sustainability
Transformations
The theory they developed is known as neoclassical economics. Today it still forms the
basis of orthodox theory, and makes up the core curriculum taught to future economists and
business leaders in universities and business schools around the world. As a set of ideas, it
might be the most powerful in modern history.
David Orrell, Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets it Wrong (2010: 13).
Wherever we look around the world, conventional economic thinking remains the principal
source of solutions. Somehow, it is suggested, we must find ways of harnessing those
forces that have got us into such trouble—self-interest and greed, harnessed to technology
—to get us out.
Chandran Nair, Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the
Planet (2011: 62).
Economic thought did not adjust to the changed conditions it helped to create; thereby it
continued to legitimate, and indeed directly to cause, massive and rapid ecological change.
The overarching priority of economic growth was easily the most important idea of the
twentieth century.
J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun (2001: 336).
Long before I discovered Polanyi, my decision to study political economy was a
key turning point in my quest to find an answer to the question of why we,
collectively, do not create the sustainable world that we, as individuals, wish for.
While finishing a degree in media and communications, (surely, I thought, “we just
need to get the information out!”) I added sociology, psychology, political science
and global governance to my courses in order to understand the gap between
knowledge and practice that I had detected. It was, however, a seminar on
macroeconomics that made me feel I was coming closer to understanding why
sustainability remains merely an aspiration. This discipline seemed to be devoid of
all the insights that I had taken away from the humanities and social sciences.
I will never forget how I was taught the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, for example.
It explains why countries with low wages specialize in labor-intensive production
and those with high wages develop production that requires more capital. Because
of the factor price advantage of, for example, fisheries (more capital needed) over
© The Author(s) 2016
M. Göpel, The Great Mindshift, The Anthropocene:
Politik—Economics—Society—Science 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43766-8_3
53
Why the Mainstream Economic Paradigm
Cannot Inform Sustainability
Transformations
The theory they developed is known as neoclassical economics. Today it still forms the
basis of orthodox theory, and makes up the core curriculum taught to future economists and
business leaders in universities and business schools around the world. As a set of ideas, it
might be the most powerful in modern history.
David Orrell, Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets it Wrong (2010: 13).
Wherever we look around the world, conventional economic thinking remains the principal
source of solutions. Somehow, it is suggested, we must find ways of harnessing those
forces that have got us into such trouble—self-interest and greed, harnessed to technology
—to get us out.
Chandran Nair, Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the
Planet (2011: 62).
Economic thought did not adjust to the changed conditions it helped to create; thereby it
continued to legitimate, and indeed directly to cause, massive and rapid ecological change.
The overarching priority of economic growth was easily the most important idea of the
twentieth century.
J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun (2001: 336).
Long before I discovered Polanyi, my decision to study political economy was a
key turning point in my quest to find an answer to the question of why we,
collectively, do not create the sustainable world that we, as individuals, wish for.
While finishing a degree in media and communications, (surely, I thought, “we just
need to get the information out!”) I added sociology, psychology, political science
and global governance to my courses in order to understand the gap between
knowledge and practice that I had detected. It was, however, a seminar on
macroeconomics that made me feel I was coming closer to understanding why
sustainability remains merely an aspiration. This discipline seemed to be devoid of
all the insights that I had taken away from the humanities and social sciences.
I will never forget how I was taught the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, for example.
It explains why countries with low wages specialize in labor-intensive production
and those with high wages develop production that requires more capital. Because
of the factor price advantage of, for example, fisheries (more capital needed) over
© The Author(s) 2016
M. Göpel, The Great Mindshift, The Anthropocene:
Politik—Economics—Society—Science 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43766-8_3
53