How can economics change/improve in the future? Should the change be radical or incremental? Is there evidence that suggests such a change is happening?

Laura V.O.

I recently participated in a panel put together by Boise State’s Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute as part of their Resource Nexus for Sustainability Grand Challenge. Together with 3 other economists (including the moderator), we met virtually to talk about the role of economics as a discipline for advancing the social goal of sustainability put in the context of the climate crisis. The name of the event was “Can economics help save the world?” (I’ll add the link to the video when it’s available.)

The discussion was pleasant, I think. Although to be honest, I can’t say I truly remember what went on. It was very dynamic and “real-time” in the sense that we tried addressing participant’s questions as they appeared in the chat–thus serving for a kind of authentically and beautifully chaotic episode of collective consciousness.

In preparation for the event, a few questions were distributed for panelists to organize their ideas around central topics chosen by the moderator. These questions were not easy and my answers to them kept evolving through the couple of weeks we had to prepare for the event.

So much of what I wanted to say may not have come across the way I wanted to or may not have been said simply by the very non-curated nature of live events. I want to post my evolving thoughts around these questions because the process of discovering those answers was truly edifying and spurred what felt like a moment of self-actualization. I’ll post them one at a time to keep things tractable, but I’ll add links to other reflections at the bottom of each commentary.

Without further ado, please join me in the discovery of some quite provocative questions put together for us by someone who genuinely was seeking to find new ideas and host a fun but illuminating discussion.

Q4: How can the discipline change/improve in the future?

  • Given the projections on future global and local environmental changes, do you think Economics has to change to better promote a transition to sustainability – or at minimum, help maintain stability?
  • If yes, should the change be radical or incremental?
  • Is there evidence that suggests such a change is happening?

We need radical change in the discipline but that alone won’t matter if not accompanied by radical change in the political economy of the world: the political management of the economy, and that won’t change without a strong and healthy democracy and without us first reflecting and reconsidering what is virtuous and what are the values we want to build our societies on.

We know we need radical transformation, and I think we can say that most people in society would be better off if we came up with a good transformation (it wouldn’t be pareto efficient, because the richest would be made worse off). So, in that sense yes, economics has to change. But also, the world economic system has to change.

I think economics as a discipline can have a radical change very fast (if we can afford to change our curriculums and the group of people that award Nobel Prizes). Now, can the world economic system change radically? That’s a more delicate question. Because we need to think about what is politically feasible. If you throw a lot of change to people, they’re not going to like it and it may backfire. Also, that transformation is going to require not just political support but GOOD GOVERNANCE. So, we need to really use the tools and systems in the governance sphere to make those changes.

I think we’re passed the point where civic disobedience will take us anywhere. I think we need to try to fix the system from inside, and we still have a tool that can help—and it’s a tool we should really start protecting carefully—it’s called democracy. I think the type of radical change we need involves democratizing the means of production so that it’s ultimately the people, and not the rich and not the oligarchs, who are making the production decisions and choosing the production technologies, and the objectives for producing things. I think if we the people had control over those decisions, we wouldn’t care about the interest of shareholders. I think we’d base this on can we provide enough for our families and our communities to have good lives now and in the future. Maybe 7 generations ahead. I think for most of us, the people, enough would be enough. But I think it all starts with voting for those who get it and perhaps more importantly, NOT VOTING FOR THOSE WHO DON’T GET IT.

  • Is there evidence that suggests such a change is happening?

Is there evidence that we are democratizing means of production? That we are voting for those who get it and that we are NOT VOTING for those who don’t get it?

I don’t really study these trends, I think that’s a question for political scientists and sociologists and anthropologists. But from the fringe, all I can say with confidence is that it’s hard to say because politics is a circus and it’s impossible for me to discern signal from noise.

I find hope in efforts and proposals like the Red Deal of the Red Nations, the People’s agreement of Cochabamaba, and Europe’s DiEM25 Green New Deal for Europe.

I don’t know if the rise in crypto is a sign that people want to democratize the means of production—not that crypto is a useful means of production…

I see hope in the appearance of collaborative partnerships in the agricultural resources management world between state and federal agencies, NGOs, landowners and Tribal Nations. I think that kind of community-based collaborative management configuration is the way forward. And it seems that at least in the realm of agricultural resources management it’s picking up. I’d like to see it in realms of energy, water management, urban design, zoning and housing decisions, etc.

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