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New Economics

Introductory Paper for a Programme on the Wealth of Nations Revisited

Orio Giarini, Garry Jacobs, Bernard Lietaer, Ivo Šlaus

What theoretical framework will lead to a system that optimizes the generation of real wealth? How will its principles reflect the primacy of human choice and human welfare? How will it effectively and justly reconcile the rights of the individual with the overall welfare of the social collective and humanity as a whole? ... Read More

On the Need for New Economic Foundations

Robert Hoffman

The body of macroeconomic theory known as the neoclassical-Keynesian synthesis that has dominated the practice of economics since the middle of the twentieth century is to be rejected on the grounds that it fails to address the major economic challenges of our times, that the assumptions upon which it is based are simplistic & unverifiable, & that the results do not follow from the assumptions ... Read More

Book Review - Money and Sustainability: The Missing Link

Ivo Šlaus & Garry Jacobs

This report by WAAS Fellow Bernard Lietaer and his associates addresses important theoretical and practical issues regarding modern monetary systems... Read More

Crises and Opportunities

Ian Johnson & Garry Jacobs

Piecemeal fragmented strategies cannot address the pressing challenges facing humanity today. Economic theory has to be radically reinvented to squarely face the reality of rising unemployment, widening inequalities, growing ecological threats, frustrated social aspirations and unmet human needs. Monetary and fiscal policies are too crude ... Read More

The Power of Money

Garry Jacobs & Ivo Šlaus

Money is a remarkable human invention, a mental symbol, a social organization and a means for the application and transfer of social power for accomplishment. This article is the first in a series of articles exploring the origins, nature and functioning of money and its creative power by comparing money with two other pre-eminent social institutions – language and the Internet ... Read More

From Limits to Growth to Limitless Growth

Garry Jacobs & Ivo Šlaus

The Limits to Growth proved the inherent limitations of the existing industrial model of economic growth, not any inherent limits to growth itself ... Read More

Inclusive Growth: Why is it Important for Developing Asia?

Jesus Felipe

It is more rational to argue that developing countries cannot afford unemployment and underemployment, than to suppose that they cannot afford full employment ... Read More

Economic Crisis & the Science of Economics

Focusing on growth of the part without reference to its impact on the whole is a formula for social disease ... Read More

 

The Great Divorce: Finance and Economy

At the root of the current crisis are not subprime mortgages, credit rating agencies, financial institutions or central banks. It is the Great Divorce between finance and economy, which is a subset of the widening precipice between economy and human welfare ... Read More

Great Transformations

Given the remarkable progress of humanity over the past two centuries, the persistence of poverty might not be so alarming, were it not for the persistent poverty of new ideas and fresh thinking on how to eliminate the recurring crises, rectify the blatant injustices and replace unsustainable patterns with a new paradigm capable of addressing the deep flaws in the current paradigm ... Read More

Evolution of Wealth & Human Security: The Paradox of Value and Uncertainty

Orio Giarini

We have organized production to perfection, but left out the most crucial ingredient - humanity. We have raised the value of GDP phenomenally, but overlooked the value of human security. The process of society's past evolution offers hope and assurance that there is a better way and a better life for all humanity waiting to emerge. Human-centered economic theory and measures of wealth, welfare and human security can help us realize it now ... Read More

Rethinking Growth

Roberto Peccei

The world needs a paradigm shift in economics similar to the one physics experienced at the dawn of the last century, when quantum mechanics and the special and general theories of relativity were invented to address new phenomena not explainable by Newtonian mechanics or Maxwell's electrodynamics ... Read More

The World in 2052

Ian Johnson

Society is evolving. Understanding the present in the light of the past, we see only the problems resulting in gloom. Understanding the present in the light of the future compels us to evolve ... Read More

Boundless Frontiers of Untold Wealth

The only limits are limits to our vision and values. The future of humanity lies beyond those limits. ... Read More

Science and Economics: The Case of Uncertainty & Disequilibrium

Orio Giarini

Economic thinking is still very largely related to traditional Cartesian (and Newtonian) concepts of science. The notion of equilibrium is not really a concept or an explanation, but rather a tautology, which has been given the value or status of an axiom. Understanding this notion of equilibrium, where supply is equal to demand, is essential because it explains why economic theory has from the beginning always tended to be one-sided ... Read More

Policy for Full Employment

The current economic system undervalues and underutilizes the most precious of all resources -- human capital. Thus, an ultimate solution to the employment dilemma depends on the formulation of new economic theory ... Read More

The Great Divorce: Economics & Philosophy

The divorce of economic science from moral philosophy has led to a sense of bewilderment, helplessness and fatality regarding the functioning of our economic systems at precisely the moment when we have the collective knowledge and capability to eradicate poverty globally ... Read More

Updating Macro-economics

Orio Giarini

Adam Smith's analysis in the Wealth of Nations gave birth at the end of the eighteenth century to economics as we know it today. As a moral philosopher, he wanted to provide a better understanding of how to fight poverty. Read More

A Project on The Wealth of Nations Revisited

Ivo Šlaus and Garry Jacobs

"Leadership in thought that leads to action" is the phrase Harlan Cleveland, President of the Academy from 1991 to 2000, adopted to characterize the mission of the Academy. We — and the world — need it now, more than ever... Read More

Building a caring economy and society

Riane Eisler

Old economic approaches are not capable of meeting our economic, environmental, and social challenges. To effectively meet these challenges, we need a perspective that goes beyond the conventional capitalism vs. socialism debate ... Read More

Counter-Aging in the Post-Industrial Society

Orio Giarini

The lengthening of life cycle is a unique revolutionary phenomenon that will have a profound impact on contemporary and future societies. It will affect social, political and economic institutions to a far greater and deeper measure than is commonly perceived ... Read More

Money, Debt, People & Planet

Jakob von Uexkull

Why we are not moving faster in tackling the global crises? We are told it is too expensive and not (yet) profitable enough to do so. The current debt crisis offers an opportunity to replace discredited debt-based money created by private banks in their interest with government-created debt-free money benefitting all, which can be used to fund a global emergency programme ... Read More

Inclusive Growth: Why is it Important for Developing Asia?

Jesus Felipe

It is more rational to argue that developing countries cannot afford unemployment and underemployment, than to suppose that they cannot afford full employment ... Read More

Global prospects for full employment

Garry Jacobs and Ivo Slaus

A human-centered theory of economy and employment needs to be founded on the realization that human beings - not impersonal principles, market mechanisms, money or technology - are the driving force and central determinants of economic development ... Read More

Capital Needs Labour

Patrick M. Liedtke

The role of labour is crucial for the social cohesion and stability it provides. Threats to financial stability do not exclusively emanate out of capital markets. As the unrest in several Arab countries demonstrate yet again, without social stability there can be no financial stability ... Read More

Policy for Full Employment

The current economic system undervalues and underutilizes the most precious of all resources -- human capital. Thus, an ultimate solution to the employment dilemma depends on the formulation of new economic theory ... Read More

Human Rights and Employment

Winston P. Nagan

The right to employment is not a privilege, it is a right ... Read More

Theory and Strategies for Full Employment

Ashok Natarajan

In an age when time, money, energy and other natural resources are considered so precious, it is a crime to neglect the most precious and underutilized of all our resources - human beings ... Read More

Double Factor Ten

F.J. Radermacher

The paper discusses the need and chances for considerable growth for a balanced world with ten billion people. This can be achieved in the context of sustainable development, if the right global governance system is implemented: Eco-social instead market-radical ... Read More

The Perfect Storm: Economics, Finance and Socio-Ecology

Ian Johnson

Our world is headed into a Perfect Storm of an interconnected financial, ecological and social crisis. Almost all forward-looking assessments demonstrate that business as usual and incremental improvements will not be sufficient to take us to a future world blessed by equitable prosperity, safety, security and contentment ... Read More

Grossly Distorted Picture: GDP Still Misleading

Hazel Henderson

A new global poll across 12 countries reveals that more than two-thirds of people polled think that economic statistics like GDP are an inadequate way of measuring national progress ... Read More

Indicators of Economic Progress: The Power of Measurement and Human Welfare

Garry Jacobs and Ivo Šlaus

Social development is not a result or even a set of results, but an on-going process of progress by which humanity acquires increasing knowledge, skill and organizational capacity to achieve the goals it aspires for. An index of end results serves a limited purpose by telling us how fast and how far we are moving in the right direction and how close we are to achieving the goals we aspire toward. But a process-based index will go much further ... Read More

Money, Debt, People & Planet

Jakob von Uexkull

Why we are not moving faster in tackling the global crises? We are told it is too expensive and not (yet) profitable enough to do so. The current debt crisis offers an opportunity to replace discredited debt-based money created by private banks in their interest with government-created debt-free money benefitting all, which can be used to fund a global emergency programme ... Read More

The Power of Money

Garry Jacobs & Ivo Šlaus

Money is a remarkable human invention, a mental symbol, a social organization and a means for the application and transfer of social power for accomplishment. This article is the first in a series of articles exploring the origins, nature and functioning of money and its creative power by comparing money with two other pre-eminent social institutions – language and the Internet ... Read More

On the Need for New Economic Foundations

Robert Hoffman

The body of macroeconomic theory known as the neoclassical-Keynesian synthesis that has dominated the practice of economics since the middle of the twentieth century is to be rejected on the grounds that it fails to address the major economic challenges of our times, that the assumptions upon which it is based are simplistic & unverifiable, & that the results do not follow from the assumptions ... Read More

Double Factor Ten

F.J. Radermacher

The paper discusses the need and chances for considerable growth for a balanced world with ten billion people. This can be achieved in the context of sustainable development, if the right global governance system is implemented: Eco-social instead market-radical ... Read More

New and Appropriate Economics for the 21st Century

Michael Marien

“Economics” is an important construct, having to do with the production and distribution of wealth, human well-being and welfare. Despite disclaimers, it is inexorably tied to ideology and values—political ideas about the good society and how to promote it. Some economists describe their efforts as “scientific,” but this is merely a strategy to legitimate their work and their assumptions ... Read More

Book Review - Money and Sustainability: The Missing Link
Ivo Šlaus & Garry Jacobs

This report by WAAS Fellow Bernard Lietaer and his associates addresses important theoretical and practical issues regarding modern monetary systems... Read More

Getting Risks Right

Patrick M. Liedtke

Our global systems can be resilient if they are based not only on efficient markets that can cope with future crises, but on principles that also allow for the projection of civic will and preference onto the global level. Stability and resilience are laudable goals but they need to be achieved in all three dimensions, the financial, the economic and the social, in a participatory fashion ... Read More

Immediate Solution for the Greek Financial Crisis

The tremendously wasteful underutilization of precious human resources and productive capacity is Greece's most serious problem and also its greatest opportunity ... Read More

Economic Crisis & the Science of Economics

Focusing on growth of the part without reference to its impact on the whole is a formula for social disease ... Read More

The Great Divorce: Finance and Economy

At the root of the current crisis are not subprime mortgages, credit rating agencies, financial institutions or central banks. It is the Great Divorce between finance and economy, which is a subset of the widening precipice between economy and human welfare ... Read More

Great Transformations

Given the remarkable progress of humanity over the past two centuries, the persistence of poverty might not be so alarming, were it not for the persistent poverty of new ideas and fresh thinking on how to eliminate the recurring crises, rectify the blatant injustices and replace unsustainable patterns with a new paradigm capable of addressing the deep flaws in the current paradigm ... Read More

Real Economies and the Illusions of Abstraction

Hazel Henderson

First, we must recognize the crises we face are not black swans, fat tails or perfect storms, but symptoms of our limited perception, fragmentary reductionist mindsets, models ... Read More

Mediterranean - EU Community for a New Era of Mankind

And suddenly everything is different! With the Arab Spring we are entering into a new era while the European Union itself is facing huge challenges. This is the time to innovate! Read More

Capital Needs Labour

Patrick M. Liedtke

The role of labour is crucial for the social cohesion and stability it provides. Threats to financial stability do not exclusively emanate out of capital markets. As the unrest in several Arab countries demonstrate yet again, without social stability there can be no financial stability ... Read More

The Perfect Storm: Economics, Finance and Socio-Ecology

Ian Johnson

Our world is headed into a Perfect Storm of an interconnected financial, ecological and social crisis. Almost all forward-looking assessments demonstrate that business as usual and incremental improvements will not be sufficient to take us to a future world blessed by equitable prosperity, safety, security and contentment ... Read More

Transforming Finance Group's Call Recognizes Finance as a Global Commons

Hazel Henderson

If we are to avoid future systemic failures in the global financial system, we must re-think the underlying design flaws that precipitated the financial crises. We must move beyond Bretton Woods, where this financial commons was first defined within a set of global rules and institutions in 1945, as well as beyond recent attempts at reforms that have not addressed fundamental questions ... Read More

Counter-Aging in the Post-Industrial Society

Orio Giarini

The lengthening of life cycle is a unique revolutionary phenomenon that will have a profound impact on contemporary and future societies. It will affect social, political and economic institutions to a far greater and deeper measure than is commonly perceived ... Read More

The Demographic Revolution: Reconceptualizing Macroeconomics

Orio Giarini

It is important to reconsider the measurements which refer to the "Wealth of Nations" and from which the most appropriate references for better welfare policies are derived. In the present Service Economy, not all the "value added" measures indicate an increase in the level of wealth (the costs to cope with pollution for instance), whereas many developments in service functions and performances (in the case of many communication systems for instance) add to real wealth much more than the usual value added references indicate ... Read More