Corruption of Economics, Growth Fetishism and Maldevelopment

Abstract

Classical economists had their vision of a 'stationary state' - the ontological destination of economic growth and development vis-à-vis population exploration, finiteness of arable land and the exhaustibility of nonrenewable resources. Neoclassical Economics has taken the necessary process of abstraction and thus excludes leaving essential aspects of the world out of the analysis. The corruption of Economics was initiated by nineteenth century American railroad oligarchy. Technical progress seemed to offset any tendency towards diminishing returns. Frederick Soddy observed in 1920s that economics a pseudoscience requiring a paradigm shift and offered an alternative perspective, rooted in the laws of thermodynamics. Contrary to mainstream belief, economy used to draw energy from outside itself and thus incapable of generating infinite wealth. Vanguards of capitalist globalization also promote the pseudoeconomics to sustain the growth fetishism undermining its ecological limits. Fossil-fueled global warming or anthropogenic climate change leads to biophysical transformation on the global scale engendering localized stresses in the forms of ice melt, sea-level rise, barren land and deteriorating water sources. The most daunting task emerged to confront the hegemony of neoclassical economics according to which structural stability is achieved through continued consumption growth. Foucauldian wisdom reminds us if the values and political implications underlying the 'growth business as usual' do not ensure how to protect the society, we can refuse to accept their imperatives and develop alternative epistemology.