Boktips: "Full-Spectrum Economics"

[nytt namn]

Äntligen en bok som tar wilbers integral filosofi och applicerar den på ekonomi. Boken verkar lite dyr, men samtidigt väldigt intressant.

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Full-Spectrum Economics
Toward an Inclusive and Emancipatory Social Science
By Christian Arnsperger
Foreword by Ken Wilber

Economics is essential in today’s world, and yet mainstream economists are increasingly under criticism for not taking into account sufficiently many dimensions of real life, such as political and moral values, human development, spirituality, and people’s widely shared aspiration to live more liberated lives. This book offers a critical assessment of contemporary mainstream economics by showing that the discipline has become much too narrow and misses out on the full spectrum of human existence.

The book presents a careful, detailed analysis of the limitations of neoclassical economics and of its post- neoclassical successors: behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, and experimental economics. It offers a deconstruction rooted in the "Integral" philosophy developed over the past three decades by the contemporary American thinker Ken Wilber. Distinguishing between exterior and interior dimensions of human existence, it suggests that economics could be made into a more inclusive and more emancipatory science if it started to truly honor the genuinely interior aspects of individuals and communities. Instead of remaining stuck in the limitations of post-neoclassical theory, we should make the move toward a new paradigm that, in the name of science, promotes objectivity as well as subjectivity, and material causality as well as existential awareness.

The result is a highly expanded sense of relevance for economists, sociologists, and social scientists in general. Combining methodologies from systems science, brain science, ethno-methodology, and existentialism as well as from the great spiritual traditions of humanity, Christian Arnsperger delineates the requirements of a genuinely integral economics beyond today’s crippling reductionism.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Ken Wilber 1. Introduction: Why economics should go "full spectrum"
Part I: The broadness of knowledge
2. The structure of economic knowledge
3. An Integral approach: The four quadrants of reality
Part II: Neoclassical reductionism
4. Individualism, intrumentalism, and equilibrium
5. The political philosophy of macro-management
Part III: Post-neoclassical reductionism
6. Game theory and strategic interaction
7. Complexity economics and "out-of-equilibrium" systems
8. Behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, and the experimental approach
Part IV: Beyond reductionism: The quest for Full-Spectrum Economics
9. Mainstream economics: A full-spectrum critique
10. Full-Spectrum Economics: A first perspective
11. Paradigms, quadrants, and levels: The toolbox of Full-Spectrum Economics
12. Full-Spectrum Economics

Author Biography
Christian Arnsperger is currently a Senior Research Fellow with the Belgian National Science Foundation (F.R.S.-FNRS) and a professor at the Université catholique de Louvain. He is the author of Critical Political Economy, published by Routledge in 2008.

December 2009 | Hardback: 978-0-415-55547-0 £80.00 DICOUNT PRICE £64.00

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amazon uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-spectrum-E ... 802&sr=1-1

routledge:
http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/books ... 0415555470

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Wilber är i sitt förord lika hypande som vanligt :

"The results are superb and in many ways groundbreaking. What Arnsperger essentially does is apply the Integral framework (of quadrants and levels) to the field of economics, thus filling in those many areas that traditional economics has left out of the picture. Arnsperger is able to flesh out the beginnings of a truly comprehensive and Integral economics. All of the interior factors (of the "I" and "we"), overlooked or unseen by the previous models, are taken into account in this model, and thus a truly Integral Economic Model begins to emerge, covering all of the major dimensions of human being-in-the-world. This is a major accomplishment, sure to have an impact for decades to come."
Ken Wilber, from the foreword

[nytt namn]

En tidigare bok av samma författare, källa: http://www.uclouvain.be/144647.html

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Critical Political Economy
In this book (Routledge, Paperback 2009), Christian Arnsperger offers a detailed plea for methodological pluralism in economics.
Critical Political Economy Complexity, rationality, and the logic of post-orthodox pluralism

This book asks how a more liberating economics could be constructed and taught. It suggests that if economists today are serious about emancipation and empowerment, they will have to radically change their conception about what it means for a citizen to act rationally in a complex society.

Arnsperger emphasises that current economics neglects an important fact: Many of us ask not only ‘what’s in it for us’, within a given socio-economic context; we also care about the context itself. The author argues that if citizens keen on exercising their critical reason actually demanded economic theories that allowed them to do so, economics would have to become a constantly emerging, open-ended knowledge process. He claims that in a truly free economy, there would be no all-out war between ‘orthodox’ and ‘heterodox’ approaches, but an intricate and unpredictable ‘post-orthodox’ pluralism that would emerge from the citizens’ own complex interactions.

Offering an original and path-breaking combination of insights from Hayek, the theory of complexity, and the Frankfurt School of social criticism, Arnsperger discusses how such a free economy would generate its specific brand of economics, called ‘Critical Political Economy’

Series: Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy



ISBN: 978-0-415-56937-8
Binding: Paperback
Published by: Routledge
Publication Date: 15/11/2009
Pages: 352

[nytt namn]

En artikel av samma författare:

Källa: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue38/ArnspergerVaroufakis38.htm

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What Is Neoclassical Economics?

The three axioms responsible for its theoretical oeuvre, practical irrelevance and, thus, discursive power

Christian Arnsperger    (University of Louvain, Belgium)
Yanis Varoufakis    (University of Athens,Greece)

© Copyright: Christian Arnsperger and Yanis Varoufakis 2006





1. Introduction



           There is nothing more frustrating for critics of neoclassical economics than the argument that neoclassical economics is a figment of their imagination; that, simply, there is scientific economics and there is speculative hand-waiving (by those who have never really grasped the finer points of mainstream economic theory). In this sense, neoclassicism resembles racism: while ever present and dominant, no one claims to be guided by it. Critics must find a clear definition of neoclassicism if only in order to liberate neoclassical economists from the temptation to barricade themselves behind infantile arguments viz. the non-existence of their school of thought. Then, the good debate may begin.



           In this chapter, we offer a definition of neoclassical economics which turns on three crucial axioms and which, in conjunction with one another, as we shall claim, underpin all (and only) neoclassical theory.1  Later, we argue that these very axioms are simultaneously responsible for: (a) the difficulty mainstream economics faces when it comes to illuminating economic and social reality, and (b) the discursive success of neoclassical economics which gives it an effective (politically driven) stranglehold over alternative modes of economic reasoning.



           We think our definition of neoclassical economics is important because critics are often caught off-guard by sophisticated neoclassicists (see Dasgupta, 2002) who take advantage of gaps in existing definitions in order to turn criticisms on their head. In short, the critique of neoclassical economics is bound to be as effective as sophisticated is its definition of the opposition. For instance, criticism that neoclassical economics necessarily posits hyper-rational bargain-hunters, never able to resist an act which brings them the tiniest increase in expected net returns, is apt but not telling. There are plenty of neoclassical models featuring boundedly rational agents; even utterly irrational ones (e.g. evolutionary game theory; for a critical review in the spirit of this chapter, see Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis, 2004). Similarly with criticism focussed on ‘neoclassical features’ like market-clearing, selfish individualism or Pareto optimality. None of these cut ice because, though these features are usually present in neoclassical modelling, they are not necessary features of some neoclassical model.



           Thus, as long as critics’ slings and arrows are directed against features of neoclassical economics that the latter can shed strategically, like a threatened lizard ‘loses’ its tail, they shall miss their target. Nevertheless, we do believe that there are at least three features of neoclassical economics that cannot be so shed; and, therefore, if the critics concentrate on them they shall, at the very least, force neoclassicists to engage in a fruitful dialogue. The single most promising prize from such a development ought to be the clarification of the origin and nature of the greatest paradox in social science: that mainstream economics is as dominant as it is unappetising (even to some of its own practitioners).



           In this sense, our axiomatic definition of neoclassicism, rather than being an idle methodological exercise, aims at exposing the root-cause of mainstream economics’ failure to say much that is helpful about the contemporary economic world. And it throws useful light on the reasons why such failure, instead of weakening neoclassicism, has reinforced its hold over the imagination of both the elites and the public at large. However, this is a longer argument which we shall only touch upon here (see Arnsperger and Varoufakis, 2005, for more).



           Once upon a time, it could be argued that neoclassical economics is typified by a familiar melange of theoretical practices: positing an equilibrium in the labour market, the habitual recourse to Say’s Law, the assumption that the interest rate will adjust automatically so as to equalise investment and savings, the depiction of capitalist growth a la Robert Solow and company, the imposition of Cobb-Doublas or CES production and utility functions etc. Nowadays, any attempt to define neoclassicism by reference to these practices is music to the neoclassical ear: For there is an endless list of mainstream models which distance themselves from some, if not all, of the above. One of two conclusions appear in front of us: Either the mainstream has moved on from neoclassicism (as neoclassical economists claim) or the definition of neoclassicism needs to be re-thought and abstracted from a list of neoclassical practices like the one above. We choose and latter. So, the remainder of this chapter concentrates primarily on the three axioms which we think lie at the heart of neoclassical economic theory, old and new alike.



2. The first axiom of neoclassical economics: methodological individualism

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läs fortsättningen här: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue38/ArnspergerVaroufakis38.htm

[nytt namn]

haha, jag läste precis ut artikeln jag länkade till i inlägget ovanför. Tror det var det bästa jag läst på riktigt länge.

Språket var exeptionellt bra.

balans mellan "förenklande överpedadogik" och "glänsande fikonspråk",

samt balans mellan att inte "utmålande" - dvs göra en defensiv syndabock av sitt mål, samtidigt som hans kritik är orubblig - han låter inte sitt mål måla in sig i sitt egna hörn utan rycker undan fundamentet.





genom att han inte är överpedagogisk och samtidigt inte showar, så blir hans text både intressant för juniorerna, de gamla fikonen och de alternativa seniorerna.


genom att han inte är utmålande så svider det inte på fingrarna på fikonen, men att han inte är okritiskt så tråkar han inte seniorerna.




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han är helt enkelt påläst på det han pratar om, samtidigt som han har en stor distans till det.



Ser verkligen fram emot att få läsa boken.

[nytt namn]

vill egentligen inte spoila artikeln, men


6. Some thoughts on neoclassicism’s discursive power and its aversion to pluralism



           What does an intelligently dispassionate observer of neoclassical economics see? She sees an ever expanding technical literature, most of which she cannot comprehend. She sees an almost infinite series of mathematical models that explain diverse socio-economic phenomena as part of some equilibrium scenario which posits autonomous actors bringing on the phenomenon under study, often supra-intentionally, through choices that are rational given everyone’s beliefs (even when the actions are self-defeating). She sees a series of career paths that are made generously available to those who participate in this global research project. She sees economists the world over being taken seriously only to the extent that they speak this particular ‘language’. She sees the powers-that-be speak this very ‘language’. Finally, she sees enterprising academics in other social sciences adopting this ‘language’, in a transparent bid to share into neoclassicism’s discursive success. In short, the onlooker sees, correctly, power oozing out of the mainstream economists’ theoretical practices. There is only one thing she does not see: the three meta-axioms, none of which are visible to the naked eye.

[nytt namn]

Ekonomi får ett helt annat djup.

Hur människor fattar beslut och handlar (arbetar) för att nå större frihet.

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