Professor Ove Jakobsen Centre for Ecological Economics and Ethics Bodø Graduate School of Business...
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- Slide 1
- Professor Ove Jakobsen Centre for Ecological Economics and
Ethics Bod Graduate School of Business Climate Bottom Meeting
Windows of Hope in Copenhagen Christiania 8. Dec. 2009 Circulation
economics - A new economic paradigm
- Slide 2
- Challenges Increasing awareness that our global natural,
cultural, and economical systems are endangered (eg. Climate,
finance and poverty crisis), are forcing us to realize that
decisions made on the basis of local, short-term economic criteria,
in the long run can produce disastrous results.
- Slide 3
- Problems to be Solved Sustainable scale of production and
consumption Fair distribution of resources and wealth Efficient
resource allocation
- Slide 4
- Slide 5
- Paradoxes To solve the financial crisis we recommend
initiatives to stimulate economic growth, while we know that a
continued growth in the economy worsen the environmental problems
To achieve attractive contracts we bribe the decision-makers even
if we know that it reduce the rationality of the market. To enhance
our own competitiveness, important information is held back even
though we know that it undermines the trust between the actors in
the market
- Slide 6
- The Need for Change We can't solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them Albert Einstein We
are the first generation to be confronted with the unpaid bills and
the last generation to get away with it ystein Dahle
- Slide 7
- Economics and Metaphysics Economists normally suffer from a
kind of metaphysical blindness, assuming that theirs is a science
of absolute and invariable truths, without any presuppositions.
Some go as far as to claim that economic laws are as free from
metaphysics or values as the law of gravitation Conventional
economics offers a very misleading view of how the world actually
operates, and needs to be replaced (Ormerod 1994)
- Slide 8
- The Mechanical Worldview The universe is understood as a
machine (clockwork), completely causal and deterministic All that
happen have a define cause and give rise to a define effect The
future of any part of the system could in principle be predicted
with absolute certainty if its state was known in detail There is
no capacity for creativity, spontaneity, self- movement, or novelty
in the mechanistic worldview
- Slide 9
- The actors in the market are isolated individuals (atomism),
related to each other only externally The market is a mechanism
based upon interplay between egocentric individuals seeking their
own ends The goal of science is to control, manipulate and exploit
nature Economics based on a mechanical worldview
- Slide 10
- The Organic Worldview The earth is a system comprised of
closely interacting and interdependent subsystems The earth and its
constituent systems are dissipative structures Since every system
is connected to and dependent of all others, everything evolves
together over timeIt is the essence of life that it exists for its
own sake, as an intrinsic reaping of value It is the essence of
life that it exists for its own sake, as an intrinsic reaping of
value Change is the rule rather than the exception
- Slide 11
- Circulation Economics based on an organic worldview Economy,
nature and culture are integrated parts within a living organism
The interplay between economy, nature and culture possess
properties like dynamism, evolution, integrity and change
Throughput of material and spiritual energy are affecting the
integrating structures and processes Economy has the ability,
through human action, to restructure and reform processes in
ecosystems and societies of which they are a part Theory and
practice in constructive interplay with the cultural and natural
environment
- Slide 12
- The moral Dimension Toward a New Economics Neo-classical
economics (NCE) presuppose that people seek to maximize utility,
New economics (NE) asserts in addition that people have morality as
a source of evaluation NCE treats the market as a separate
self-containing system, NE asserts that the economy is a subsystem
of society and culture NCE assumes that the market is basically
competitive, NE argues that cooperation between interrelated actors
are fundamental We are members of one-another (Baldwin 1902) Amitai
Etzioni (1988)
- Slide 13
- Interdependent Relationship Ecosphere Sociosphere Economy
- Slide 14
- The Value Triangle Economy Welfare Culture Quality of life
Nature Basis of existence
- Slide 15
- Economy, nature and culture It is one thing to argue that
companies have to make money to survive, but quite another to argue
the far stronger position that companies exist exclusively to make
profits for shareholders (Zadek 2001)
- Slide 16
- Life quality in the perspective of positive psychology The
pleasant life Positive emotions about the past, present and the
future The good life Using your signature strengths to obtain
abundant gratification in the main realms of ones life The
meaningful life Using your signature strengths and virtues in the
service of something much larger than your selves
- Slide 17
- Production Distribution Consumption Redistribution OutputInput
Nature Economy Energy Material Energy Material Culture Knowledge
Values Knowledge Values Circulation economics
- Slide 18
- Evidence of global limits Source and sink The global ecosystems
source and sink functions have large but limited capacity to
support the economic subsystem Imperative: Maintain the global
economy to a sustainable size The path to sustainability will be
through qualitative improvement rather than quantitative increases
in throughput.
- Slide 19
- The Communicative arena Communicative arena Customers Suppliers
Employees Bank/Assurance Competitors Owners Distributors
Re-distribution State/government NGOs Research Universities Art
Church Politics Local community Economy Culture/ Nature
- Slide 20
- Provides a remedy for the lack of coordinated planning and
action in the circular value chain. Open up for a dialog between
economic actors and spokesmen representing other sectors in the
society, including nature and culture Co-ordinate the interaction
between the actors on the market, and to integrate values from
economy, nature and culture The communicative arena
- Slide 21
- Epilogue A synthesis of the previous presentation leads to the
following conclusions; Economics can no longer be studied in terms
of competition between isolated actors Individual parts do not
exist neither in nature nor in culture, only integrated networks,
and these form and shape each other On the one side economic
activity depends on access to matter and energy from nature and
knowledge and values from culture (input) On the other side both
social and eco-systems are affected by the output from economic
activity
- Slide 22
- Changes to be made From competition to cooperation From atomism
to holism From value monism to value pluralism From linear to
circular value chains From welfare to quality of life