Reconsidering economics in relation to sustainable development and democracy

Peter Söderbaum ()
Additional contact information
Peter Söderbaum: Mälardalen University (Sweden)

The Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2019, vol. 13, issue 1, 19-38

Abstract: The challenge of sustainable development can be approached from different angles. In this essay it is argued that one also needs to examine the present close to monopoly position of neoclassical economic theory at university departments of economics in many parts of the world. An open debate is needed about paradigms in economics as well as ideological orientations. An alternative to neoclassical theory is outlined where individuals and organizations are regarded as political actors, each guided by an ideological orientation or mission. Reference is made to the 17 UN sustainable development goals suggesting that impacts need to be seen in multidimensional terms and an alternative definition of economics as “multidimensional management of limited resources in a democratic society” is proposed. It is argued that economics need to move away from its technocracy-oriented tendencies to democracy-oriented approaches. This is exemplified by a move away from neoclassical Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to Positional Analysis as approach to decision-making and sustainability assessment.

Keywords: neoclassical economics; institutional economics; political economic person; political economic organization; ideological orientation; mission; multidimensional; matching process; technocracy; democracy; narrative; degrowth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://jpe.ro/pdf.php?id=8544 (application/pdf)
https://jpe.ro/?id=revista&p=494 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bus:jphile:v:13:y:2019:i:1:n:2

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Philosophical Economics is currently edited by Valentin Cojanu

More articles in The Journal of Philosophical Economics from Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valentin Cojanu ().