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A batch of the best highlights from what Jophin's read, .
Economists are aware that reality is always more complicated; but they are also aware that to come up with a mathematical model, one always has to make the world into a bit of a cartoon. There’s nothing wrong with this. The problem comes when it enables some (often these same economists) to declare that anyone who ignores the dictates of the market shall surely be punished—or that since we live in a market system, everything (except government interference) is based on principles of justice: that our economic system is one vast network of reciprocal relations in which, in the end, the accounts balance and all debts are paid.
If economics is a method for optimizing various objective functions subject to constraints, then the focus of change would need to look again at those “objective functions.” Not profit, but biosphere health, should be the function solved for; and this would change many things. It means moving the inquiry from economics to political economy, but that would be the necessary step to get the economics right. __Why do we do things? What do we want? What would be fair? How can we best arrange our lives together on this planet? Our current economics has not yet answered any of these questions.__ But why should it? Do you ask your calculator what to do with your life? No. You have to figure that out for yourself.
The Ministry for the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson
What we are left with is the need to look for new ways to further democratize the processes of counterexpertise.
Citizens, Experts, and the Environment - The Politics of Local Knowledge
Frank Fischer
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