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Toward a Democratic and Political Understanding of Economics

Journal of Advances in Social Science and Humanities

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ISSN 2395-6542
 
Authentication Code dc
 
Title Statement Toward a Democratic and Political Understanding of Economics
 
Personal Name Söderbaum, Peter
School of Economics, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden
 
Summary, etc. Economics is understood by many as an established discipline. It is about “allocation of scarce resources” and the main actors are firms, consumer/households and the state. In the present essay, an alternative definition of economics in terms of multidimensional thinking and democracy is proposed and the main actors in the economy are “political economic persons” and “political economic organizations”. It is argued that the now dominant neoclassical theory is specific not only in scientific but also in ideological terms and that the same holds for any alternative paradigm. In relation to present challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, neoclassical theory and the related neoliberalism, being behind the present political economic system, has not been performing well enough. While not excluding action within the scope of mainstream theory, we therefore need to extend the research and educational agenda in economics to alternative paradigms and ideological orientations. A political economics view is proposed which claims to be compatible with democracy.
 
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Index Term - Genre/Form Peer-reviewed Article
 
Electronic Location and Access application/pdf
http://jassh.info/index.php/jassh/article/view/31
 
Data Source Entry Journal of Advances in Social Science and Humanities; Vol 2 No 02 (2016)
 
Language Note eng
 
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