A global economy needs global public goods – water, health, clean environments, peace, education and, critically, access to information. Instead the commercialization and…
Abstract
A global economy needs global public goods – water, health, clean environments, peace, education and, critically, access to information. Instead the commercialization and corporate exploitation of the Internet and other media are eroding our choices, civil liberties and access to vital information. Civic society organizations are being marginalized but there is a way to fight back. Sharing, bartering and cooperating are much better ways for exploiting Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law than going head‐to‐head in competition with money‐based corporate players.
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There still exists today, after millions of words from learned economists on the subject, much confusion concerning the definition, causes, and effects of “inflation.” Consider…
Abstract
There still exists today, after millions of words from learned economists on the subject, much confusion concerning the definition, causes, and effects of “inflation.” Consider, for example, the argument as to whether inflation or unemployment is the more serious social problem. Framing our economic debate in this manner presupposes the validity of the Phillips Curve model of the presumed trade‐off between these two scourges of mature industrial societies. The companion assumption is that they are both aberrations of some imaginary equilibrium state rather than structural features of industrial societies committed to economic growth.
This article traces global economic trends and sources of energy from the fossil fuel era of the Industrial Age to the Information and Solar Age. Keynesian economics as well as…
Abstract
This article traces global economic trends and sources of energy from the fossil fuel era of the Industrial Age to the Information and Solar Age. Keynesian economics as well as political, economic and military power, led to the industrialized countries’ petroleum addiction and the demonization of OPEC. The shift from the Old Economy to the New Economy will be accompanied by greater emphasis on energy efficiency and a shift towards renewable resources, “green” energy technologies and environmental protection and restoration. The globalization of economics, finance, markets and trade driven by technology and liberalization of capital flows have led to the dematerialization of OECD economies. This will necessitate recognition of, and investment in, people and social infrastructure with education and health care as key economic sectors and knowledge, intellectual, social and ecological capital as the key factors of production. Due to advances in the internet and e‐commerce and the increasing interchangeability of money with information there will be a continuing flight into pure information‐based electronic trading systems and the growth of a less costly and more efficient pure high‐tech barter system. The issues of unequal terms of trade, poverty and the need for development will continue. If OPEC is able to grasp the significance of the shift to the Solar Age, it has an opportunity to reassert its leadership role in development.
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Technological innovation is needed to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, recycling and redesigning industrial processes. More fundamental strategy levels need…
Abstract
Purpose
Technological innovation is needed to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, recycling and redesigning industrial processes. More fundamental strategy levels need re‐examining: policy models, assumptions, institutional inertia and cultural values fueling today's drive toward increasing unsustainability. This study seeks to examine this issue
Design/methodology/approach
Reviews the current scientific debate about the unwarranted predominance of economics in public and private decision making; whether economics is a science or a profession and the demands by mathematicians, physicists and other scientists that the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics be de‐linked from the original Nobel prizes.
Findings
Conventional economic models still drive such unsustainability: the malfunctioning “source codes” replicating traditional industrialism world‐wide. Scientific research on the human brain and ecosystems now refutes most of economics' core tenets. Multi‐disciplinary policies and appropriate metrics beyond money coefficients are needed for steering societies toward sustainability and quality of life.
Originality/value
Strengthens the case for strategies for global sustainability to address current economic models that are driving today's unsustainable forms of globalization.
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Today we are experiencing in the increasingly turbulent corporate environment, nothing less than a challenge to the Divine Right of Management. We see this phenomenon not only in…
Abstract
Today we are experiencing in the increasingly turbulent corporate environment, nothing less than a challenge to the Divine Right of Management. We see this phenomenon not only in the external challenges to large (bureaucratized) corporations and other institutions by consumers, environmentalists, civil rights and women's organizations, and those demanding greater corporate accountability, but also from within these institutions themselves.
Society is struggling to adapt to a new order of human needs and priorities, and a leading futurist questions whether traditional concepts of free enterprise, profit and private…
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Society is struggling to adapt to a new order of human needs and priorities, and a leading futurist questions whether traditional concepts of free enterprise, profit and private property can adequately cope with the complex pressures of dwindling resources, inflation, and unemployment.
One major development in the upsurge of accounting interest inenvironmental issues has been a quantum leap in the recognition of theextent of the crucial role that economics plays…
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One major development in the upsurge of accounting interest in environmental issues has been a quantum leap in the recognition of the extent of the crucial role that economics plays in constituting accounting thought and practice. “Conventional” economics and its contribution to the environmental debate and radical critiques of economics′ environmental failures have become familiar territory. However, a further, most important, development in accounting has largely gone unnoticed, the development of “New Economics”. This offers a paradigm shift from the mechanical and inorganic focus of early industrialism to the post‐industrial biological and information‐oriented channels, through which it is hoped that a “win‐win” solution will resolve the current conflict between society and the powers that be.
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Historically, the disintegration of a culture was gradual, over many generations. But the crises of industrial culture have emerged swiftly, during the past thirty years, due to…
Abstract
Historically, the disintegration of a culture was gradual, over many generations. But the crises of industrial culture have emerged swiftly, during the past thirty years, due to the accelerations of technological change and global interdependence, as we slid from the Soaring '60s through the Stagflation '70s into the Economizing '80s. Surface political and economic remedies, whether the latest nostalgia for Monetarism in the West or the latest 5‐year Plans for the socialist economies, cannot address the new malaise: growing resource‐depletion, unhappy workers, alienated tax payers, soaring inflation, balance‐of‐payments problems and general loss of domestic control of national economies due to the realities of global economic integration. The old political consensuses break down and new alignments have not yet emerged to channel the energies of the electorate, or even explain what has happened.