New subject: Fwd: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion)

16 Nov 2015

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From: Great Transition Network <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 10:22 PM
Subject: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion)
To: [email protected]
...
From John  Barry <[email protected]>
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“Economists—the prophets and priests of this new religion—preach about and
have a major impact on public policy and our institutional arrangements.
Economics therefore provides an alternative faith tradition, complete with
values, ideas of welfare and of progress—usually defined in terms of
quantitative economic indicators, which dominate public discourse and which
seek to reshape our institutions and organisations. With their influence on
government, economists are the new theocracy, the contemporary
manifestation of Plato’s guardians.... In ancient times, seers entered a
trance and informed anxious seekers of the mood of the gods and whether the
time was auspicious for particular enterprises. Today, the financial media
are the diviners and seers of THE MARKET’s moods, the high priests of its
mysteries. THE MARKET has become the most formidable rival to traditional
religions, not least because it is rarely recognised as a religion.”
(Boldeman, 2007: 279).

Norgaard's timely essay follows nicely from some of the previous essays
this year - from Kallis, Daly and Bellamy Foster for example - in offering
another critical perspective on the ideological dimensions of dominant
economic thinking. While I agree 100% with the analysis offered by
Norgaard, I feel he pulls his punches. Everything he describes as
'economism' can be easily and equally described as 'capitalist economics'
or - to give its more usual nomme de guerre - neoclassical economics.
'Economism' is, after all, simply the ideology of capitalist economics, the
capitalist economic imaginary that has now achieved almost full spectrum
ideological and imaginative domination in how we define and describe the
economy and this how we conceptualise 'economics'.

Thus it is not the ‘Anthropocene’ we now live in (which conveniently elides
and deliberately obscured issues of class, power, global and national
inequality, and injustices between peoples and places), nor is it the
‘Ecocene’ as Norgaard suggests. No, rather than either of these terms, a
more accurate description for the current age is the ‘Capitalocene’ (Moore,
2014). After all, what we witness is not the 'humanisation the world', nor
has our planet been ‘economised’, but rather the earth has been
'capitalised'. And it has been capitalised, rendered into commodities,
monetised, and valued right from the micro-level of DNA through
biotechnology to the macro-level of the entire planet becoming negatively
affected through climate change by capitalism and its addiction fossil
fueled endless orthodox economic growth.

Similarly, when Norgaard talks of 'economists', I do not think he is
talking about feminist economists, ecological economists, Marxist or
heterodox economists, or green political economists such as myself. No, he
is correctly talking about those who are members of the dominant economic
orthodoxy, capitalist, that is, neoclassical economists, so let's call a
spade a spade. And, of course, it is economics as doxa that enables it to
be interpreted as form of religious thinking.

In everything from the nonsense of a 'value-free', objective 'science' of
the human economy to myths of endless economic growth on a finite planet,
we can correctly ascertain the ideological and mythic characteristics of
modern capitalist/neoclassical economics. So I ask if it looks like a pig,
smells and walks like a pig, why not simply state that what we're talking
about is capitalism, its ideological power and inherent tendencies to
ecological irrationality and social injustice? Why be coy?

On this issue, I've been always struck with the reticent of American
scholars from invoking the C word, in a way we in Europe find odd given how
criticism of capitalism and suggestions for possible post-capitalist
political economies and social orders has long been a perfectly legitimate
form of scholarly inquiry. It is almost as if some people can accept the
end of the world more readily than the end of capitalism....Here, economism
as used by Norgaard is closer to the way it was defined by Lenin (quoted in
the essay) as a reformist rather than transformative political project in
its unwillingness to explicitly propose the replacing of capitalism...but
this is perhaps a minor quibble (but one perhaps worthy of a future Great
Transition discussion).

I have myself long been convinced of the ideological character of modern
economics. Here, I make two related points. The first is that there is no
ideology-free conceptualisation of the economy and economics: all forms of
economic thinking are at root forms of 'political economy' a fusion of
ethical, political, and normative prescriptions and principles with
empirical economic proposals in terms of policies or suggestions for public
policy. Political economy is of course what Adam Smith and the great
classical economists practiced, fully aware of the political and ethical
dimensions of their ideas and proposals. It's a pity most modern economics
students have very little idea of the political economy roots of the
discipline they study . Instead, modern students of neoclassical/capitalist
economics (since there is little to no pluralism in modern economics
teaching) are completely ignorant of either the normative or historical
foundations of discipline. In this context, what we in
the universities churn our year after year in our economics programmes are
nothing short of 'technically competent barbarians' (Barry, 2012).

The second point relates more to the religious invocation used by Norgaard
to describe modern capitalist economics. Here, viewing this religious
dimension as essentially ideological in another sense - that is masking and
occluding power relations or hidden normative assumptions conveniently
smuggled in as 'axioms' for example - is a really important starting point
for the dethroning of this false religion of 'economism'. Here we need to
ask ourselves, in whose interest is this form of 'knowledge/power' deployed
and inscribed in university curricula, and what does it hide and why?

How fragile as the assumptions behind market economics? asks Norgaard
rightly. Here are some more suggestions to add to the ones he outlines.

‘Twelve Theses on Neo-Classical Economics’.

1. the fact that the ‘economy’ is the material/metabolic
foundation/bridge/link between the human and non-human worlds also affects
relations of power within human societies;

2. neo-classical economics’ purported objectivity, ‘scientific’ status, or
‘value neutrality’ is false since it is as value-laden and based on ethical
and political judgements, as other ethical or political position and
prescriptions;

3. related to that, this lends economics the illusion of being able to
definitively establish the ‘truth’, mostly through its use of quantitative
and numeric methods, what Stephen Marglin (2008: 136) calls the algorithmic
‘ideology of knowledge’ of economics;

4. modern capitalist economics regards itself as defined by its methodology
and approach, which has (almost) universal application to all human
affairs, rather than a subject matter, ‘the economy’ per se ;

5. the ‘naturalising’ of the institutions of the modern market economy –
such as ‘the market’, ‘private property’, ‘competition’, ‘efficiency’ etc.
– in such a way that these are both ‘natural’ (beyond the capacity of
humans to alter) and also ‘good’, if we want economic growth and material
well-being;

6. which in turn establishes ‘economics’ and ‘economists’ as the
professional ‘experts’ on how the economy works, thus ‘crowding out’ or
marginalising ‘non-economic’ and thus ‘non-expert’ commentary on or views
about the economy;

7. allowing its analyses and aims – most crucially the concept and
objective of orthodox ‘economic growth’ – to be accepted within a pluralist
social context, i.e., it is something almost all value/normative and
political positions can accept, endorse, and support as a self-evident
‘common good’ (think of how both left and right promote orthodox
undifferentiated economic growth uncritically);

8. its capacity to deliver (albeit unequally) material benefits to enough
people often comes via hiding, externalizing, or sequestering the social
and environmental costs of economic growth, but nevertheless it is regarded
and promoted as a form of knowledge that ‘works’;

9. its supposed ‘non-political’ character –related to 2 above, which;

10. supports powerful interests, groups, forms of thinking, and
institutions within society, and allows the by-passing of ethical,
political debate, and perhaps more crucially of all;

11. its position as the ‘master discipline’ or form of knowledge within
policy-making and political decision-making by the state such that all
discourse and debate must ultimately be translated into a form acceptable
to neo-classical economics.

12. which means that as well as ‘crowding out’ rival accounts of the
economy, as well as political and ethical debate, neo-classical economics
‘colonises’ non-economic areas of life, such as health, family, the
domestic sphere, community, and politics, i.e. , it moves outside its own
subject area.

While all of these ‘theses’ are interlinked, it is the imputed ‘value-free’
(and therefore supposedly non-ethical and non-political) character of
modern neo-classical economics that I particularly wish to focus on here.
Simply put, the study of the economy is not, and never can be, either a
politics- or ethics-free zone.

My own work on critically examining orthodox, undifferentiated GDP-measured
economic growth as a permanent feature of the economy has led me to analyse
not just growth but neoclassical/capitalist economics as by turns a form of
ideology, myth, religion, and cultural meme (Barry, 2015). Revealing the
ideological core of capitalist/neoclassical economics is of course central
to Norgaard’s essay.

The ideological power of capitalist economics cannot and should not be
underestimated. Its comprehensive failure to predict the current global
economic crisis has led neither to its displacing as a useful paradigm nor
to the reforming and reformulating of the paradigm (Barry, 2012). Rather,
we have witnessed what John Quiggin provocatively but correctly denotes as
'Zombie economics' (Quiggin, 2010). That is, dead, analytically useless
(but politically and ideologically powerful) ideas and nostrums that still
reign over us in terms of informing everything from 'commonsense' and
everyday understandings of the economy, to state economic policy, to the
political platforms of political parties (Barry, 2012). This entails
recognizing the ‘commonsense’ and ‘taken for granted’ nature of capitalist
economics and its emphasis on growth, i.e. that almost everyone seems to at
least tacitly, if not explicitly, accept it. Thomas Homer-Dixon captures
this well in his statement that:

“The tacit arrangement among our elites, our experts, and the rest of us is
essentially symbiotic - a mutually gratifying and self-sustaining cycle of
denial and delusion. Through our acquiescence in and often active support
of modern capitalism, we legitimize our elites' and experts' status and
power, while those elites and experts give us an overarching ideology of
permanence, order, and purpose that lends our lives a sense of place and
meaning. According to this ideology, economic growth is a panacea for all
our social and personal problems. Growth equals health. Unfortunately when
we’re in denial, we can't think about the various paths that we might take
into the future. Nor can we prepare to choose the best path when the
opportunity arises. Radically different futures become literally
inconceivable - they are ‘beyond imagining’ in the same way the
heliocentric cosmos was inconceivable to many people prior to the
Copernican revolution.” (Homer-Dixon, 2006: 219)

And we need to always remember that orthodox, capitalist economists are
called up to comment on the media not because what they say is correct or
true, but because they are asked, because they are presumed to be and
present themselves as the authority on ‘the economy’. That is, it is from
the fact that orthodox economists have privileged access to some
objectively verifiable truth that their power and authority stems. Rather,
it is because ideologically we all accept that they so possess this power:
the power to discern whether the ‘market fundamentals’ are sound, to detect
the prevailing or anticipated moods of the Gods of the market. How
different is this from shamanism? Indeed, how different is the dogma of
austerity as cure for our current economic woes from other societies that
sacrificed their children to assuage the Gods and ensure the harvest?

I see Norgaard's article as an important contribution to the project of
dethroning and delegitimising capitalist/neoclassical economics - similar
to the view of scholars such as Princen who have advocated the effective
delegitimisation of fossil fuels as an indispensable element in
decarbonising the economy and combatting climate change (Princen et al,
2015). We need to see neoclassical economics /economism for what it is—a
form of groupthink—and we need more like Norgaard to point to the emperor
and say he has no clothes. And as for what new clothes we need, what new
'ism' as Norgaard put it, we need, my own suggestion (and in keeping with
Norgaard) is that we need an old/new political economy of sustainability
based on pluralism. We need context-specific not one-size-fits-all logic,
and one in which the myth of endless economic growth is replaced with
sufficiency, a sense of ‘enoughness’, and (as the degrowth position has it)
a focus on redistribution of resources,
economic wealth and opportunities. And perhaps above all else, a new model
of progress and prosperity beyond orthodox economic growth which has done
its job in the overdeveloped world (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009), and now
passed the point where it is causing more costs than benefits.

It is high time we call a spade a spade and move on from not just the
dangerous myth of perpetual economic growth, but the entire dominant
economic system of thinking (which can be viewed as form of religious,
ideological and indeed mythic thinking) and practices behind it - namely,
carbon-fueled, consumerist-dependent capitalism. To paraphrase, 'It’s
capitalism stupid'. And to invoke religious language, ‘the truth will set
us free’. And here we might best begin by recognising that the enemy of
truth is not falsehood but myth and fantasy. As JF Kennedy noted:

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate,
contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive, and
unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We
subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the
comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts
us everywhere - in government as in business, in politics as in economics,
in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs.”

And so Norgaard’s essay helps us see past the beguiling and comforting
myths of capitalist economics and to recognise both the painful truth of
economic mythic thinking (allied to a powerful myth of techno-optimism and
the capacity of human beings to control the world). And thus begin to live
in sustainability as a consequence of recognising the multiple dangers and
risks of such false mythic thinking. But he also rightly points out in his
essay that we need alternatives to the latter’s religious mythic doxa.
After all, without vision the people perish.

In this way, I think the task before us is to 'live in truth', as Vaclav
Havel wisely put it, and equally importantly to co-create and co-imagine
new visions for how we want to live in truth, justice, sustainability and
solidarity with one another in our particular places and storied
residences, as well as our more collective species story of living in peace
on and with our planet, our 'common home' as Pope Francis has recently put
it. Capitalism or our ‘common home’? (Pope Francis, 2015). That is our
choice.

References

Barry, J. (2012), The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human
Flourishing in a Climate Changed, Carbon Constrained World (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).

Barry, J. (2015), What's the Story with Growth?: Economic Growth as
Ideology, Myth, Cultural Meme and Religion
available at:
www.researchgate.net/publication/280489369_Whats_the_Story_with_Unsustainable_Economic_Growth_Understanding_Economic_Growth_as_Ideology_Myth_Religion_and_Cultural_Meme

Boldeman, L (2007), The Cult of the Market: Economic Fundamentalism and its
Discontents (Canberra: ANU)

Homer-Dixon, T, (2006), The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the
Renewal of Civilization, (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf).

Marglin, S. (2008), The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economists
undermines Community, Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Moore, J.W. (2014), ‘The Capitalocene Part I: On the Nature & Origins of
Our Ecological Crisis’, available at:
www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Moore3/publication/264457281_The_Capitalocene_Part_II_Abstract_Social_Nature_and_the_Limits_to_Capital/links/53dfe3520cf27a7b830748fb.pdf

Pope Francis (2015), Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father
Francis on Care for Our Common Home, available at:
w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Princen, T. Manno, J. and Martin, P. (eds), (2015), Ending the Fossil Fuel
Era (Boston: MIT Press).

Quiggin, J (2010), Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K (2009) The Spirit Level: Why more Equal
Societies Almost Always do Better, (London: Allen Lane).

--John Barry--
Queen's University Belfast

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Friday, October 30, 2015
...
From Paul Raskin <[email protected]>
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GTN Friends:

I write to launch our NOVEMBER DISCUSSION, which will consider Richard
Norgaard’s new GTI essay, “The Church of Economism and Its Discontents.”
Please read it at
www.greattransition.org/publication/the-church-of-economism-and-its-discontents,
and consider commenting.

Is orthodox economics akin to a secular religion? Are we living in the
“Econocene”? Is there a way out? Norgaard, a founder of ecological
economics, argues yes, yes, and maybe. In so doing, he guides us further
into the terrain of alternative economics we’ve explored recently in our
discussions of GTI pieces by Herman Daly, Giorgos Kallis, Peter Barnes, and
John Bellamy Foster.

I wonder, though:
* Is economism still a monolithic ideology? Or are critical currents within
the economics mainstream increasingly questioning its reductionist
framework and false predictions?
* As a framing for our contemporary condition, is “the Econocene” a useful
corrective to the geologic emphasis of “the Anthropocene”? How do these
compare to GTI’s term, “The Planetary Phase of Civilization,” which aims to
convey the multi-dimensionality of the globalizing social-ecological system?

I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on these and other issues raised by
Norgaard’s stimulating essay.

Comments are welcome through NOVEMBER 30.

Looking forward,

Paul Raskin
GTI Director

NOTE ON GTI’S PUBLICATION CYCLE:
GTN discussions occur in ODD-NUMBERED months, and GTI publishes in
EVEN-NUMBERED months. Each discussion takes up a new essay or viewpoint
prior to its publication. After the discussion closes, GTI publishes the
piece, edited comments from the discussion, and a response from the author
(along with other new articles). You can review all GTN discussions at
www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-forum.

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Fwd: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion)

Michel Bauwens

Denis Postle

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