OPINIONISTA: Economics — it’s all about living together well

The world’s economics is about to be jolted, back from Aristotle and through the Middle Ages – when “the science of the human being in society” was not about making money, but rather about working and living together well in accordance with the good. 

Economics is often about the distribution of scarce resources and determines how we locate, measure and create value. Economics bears better fruit when it takes into account the breadth of these resources, namely time, food, water, wealth, faith, love, hope, integrity, respect and kindness. 

It is about attractive visions of the future, relationship networks, ecological resources and ensuring that both the advancement of and advantage to one person need not be at the expense of the other. 

It is about confronting head-on questions that today can no longer be avoided – not as a disengaged lone warrior living in your own time but as a part of a millennial tradition enacting life within a much larger framework. 

It is much more than ethical, sustainable and just economics, but encompasses our view of humanity – the innermost being of the individual – which in turn determines how we structure our interdependent economic, social, ecological, cultural and political systems. 

It is about releasing both better humans and a more humane economy that consequently takes the whole of creation into account. It is life to the people. 

Economics must answer the deepest questions of all, namely, how did Adam Smith’s economics – the moral philosopher and father of modern economic theory – undergo two important shifts that would transform economics fundamentally to take on as its objective, the rational, autonomous, self-interested individual and the discipline to cease to ask questions about what is good but preferring to ask questions about what is useful – thus becoming a utilitarian science concerned mainly with the increase of utility which in practice meant wealth?

Thus, economics became narrowly focused on formalising and measuring utility – to maximise the satisfaction that individuals derive from consuming goods and services – aiming to imitate the new science of physics, whose predictive successes impressed everyone. 

The notion of economics is one of a more relational, social and public economy as opposed to only the individualistic paradigm – concerned with public, not individual happiness. 

What does ‘a better life for all’ really mean?

What it is to be truly human, what kind of society do we actually want to live in, what does “a better life for all” really mean to us, can as many other people as possible participate in the economy and how come the profit (critical as it is) motive is such a defining characteristic of today’s economic thinking? 

It is not just what other people do, and does not concern only corporations, banks, senior executives and start-ups.

A holistic and integral view of economics is that all of us can contribute to the household with our sweat equity, skills and talents. 

A healthy society needs a strong economy, and a strong economy needs a healthy society. It is both high-level and strategic on the one hand and pragmatic and practical on the other. 

Capitalism’s absolute belief in the market has become a religion.

The market – a place of genuine human encounter – is there for us, not us for the market, which is a totally independent higher being that decides and regulates but is no one other than ourselves, as a source of inspiration, strength and well-grounded hope, who describe, define and shape it.

There is an increasing conflation of the economy, culture and society so that the market economy suddenly becomes a market society where economic principles and values inordinately dominate all areas of life such as religion, politics, culture, environment, safety, peace, education, healthcare, history, philosophy and the arts. 

Systemic failure

Nature, environmental and climate crises are not due to humanity’s failings, but the failure of the economic system as a whole. The crises are rooted in the way our systems are structured and are in the process of both creating an uninhabitable world and destroying the future – where as much as half of humanity may not have a home in 50 years. Because of their centrality in generating and solving these crises, the crises must be integrated into society’s solid institutions giving real life. 

These crises are global crises of primarily social justice, relationships, social inequality and poverty. 

The lack of nation building, social cohesion and community life fosters instability and leaves a void within the human soul. 

Society has destroyed the social, cultural and spiritual capital that has been accumulated over generations, and as a consequence, young people are poorly equipped to deal with their inner life. 

All of us live within a geoeconomic and sociopolitical architecture that constrains the kinds of choices  – recycle more, use public transportation, take fewer flights, eat less meat, etc – we can realistically make, no matter how hard we individually try beyond giving up smoking. Therefore, a full appreciation of how differentiated responsibilities are is critical both to social justice and to understanding realistic solutions. 

Business that has colluded in the suppression of green innovation and continues to benefit from a system that limits the choices of customers has more responsibility than citizens who are not sovereign, rational and totally free agents. 

Extraction and burning more fossil fuels is inimical to a liveable future. This is the same way that the abolition of slavery was predicated on the appreciation that a civilised society is one in which there is no such collective system as a market for human beings and appealed not just to the individual slave owner’s conscience, morality and higher values to make them give up their individual slaves. 

Built-in values

Values need to be built into the system, which has been transformed so as to absolutely eliminate the commodification of human life. There is a problem, and it is not sustainable when your own employees can’t afford the goods and services that you provide. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer opines that “the ultimate responsible question is not how I extricate myself heroically from a situation but how a coming generation is to go on living”. 

Therefore, what is asked of us is to make sure that we set up our economy and society in such a way that it will still be suitable for future generations. 

Paradoxically, the most important lesson is that we have to see the environment not as competition but as a source of possible partners for cooperation and collaboration. 

Those who generously share ideas, approaches and reflections as well as paint a compelling, clear and attractive picture of the future can invite others to join them in embarking on a journey and will, therefore, find many partners.

Trust is the one success factor that we often overlook – where one’s word and a handshake count much more than a contract and save trouble, time and money. 

Trust is based on lived values. Business is, therefore, not just about profit maximisation, obsession with shareholders’ returns and creating value only in terms of money, but is also about a much broader stakeholder community, shared value and a community of values and of common resources. 

Community

This is about the graduation from a risk of being exploited by a few to one that has the potential to provide a better quality of life to a greater multitude of people; from an economic system that has been designed to protect us from risk and from each other to one where we trust more in human beings than contracts and laws – where the community has value and people can interact face to face despite the risks such interactions entail. 

It is ultimately about common purpose and greater good. It is now time to repurpose economics integrally and get back to its core – where all are celebrated and not just tolerated. It calls for a compelling vision, environmental and social justice and a new moral imagination focused on both the meaning and dignity of human life. 

We must rediscover the abundant power of economics as an aspect of political and moral philosophy and, therefore, a humanistic discipline “to order our life together in society”; to restore all our society’s virtues; to build inclusive economic growth and meaningful economic participation by all; to shape life and society for the common good and a greater purpose.

Business is especially well equipped to lead wisely; to identify completely with human nature itself where it does not take, but regularly gives, because sometimes generosity is needed more than a cost-benefit analysis; and to serve as a resource for the universe and a new humanism to renew our collective imagination about who we are as human beings, our language of value and our vision of the good for everyone.

We must look beyond ourselves and beyond our own house. Kings lead, establish order and regulate the chaos. DM