The Fundamentals of Economic Value: Connecting the Dots Between Nature, Economy and Society

Humanity today faces daunting challenges which call for a radical shift in the way we organise society, interact with each other and with nature. The current unfolding geopolitical tensions, widening development gap mainly between high and low-income countries (with no “catching-up” in sight), the challenges of global warming and climate change, and the deepening financial fragility in the global economy are some of the immediate concerns. While the unfolding global economic and political shifts have been widely acknowledged and debated in the media and scholarly debates, there has been little attention given to the heart of the current global economy and society— the way we think about economic value. Given the current global challenges, it has been observed that the dominant macroeconomic framework is not only in disarray, but its tools are unable to get us out of the current crisis. There is no doubt that the large part of this crisis arises from the way we think about and approach economic value, and as such, efforts to address the current global polycrisis will have to tackle the heart of the problem — the concept of economic value. This book focuses on the way economic value is conceptualised and operationalised, arguing that the dominant theory of value is increasingly becoming inadequate to provide answers to the complex challenges humanity is facing today.