As per usual a spot on critique. But we are in the paradigm change phase of the Kuhnian cycle. That is why it’s puzzling that a study of paradigm changes and their signatures is not front and center as that is what is indicated and because even excellent critique generally only takes place within the mental restraints of the current paradigm/pattern.

Trying to reform the study of economics is an admirable and excellent “tilting at windmills” goal, but crafting new paradigm policies that immediately and temporally resolve the two biggest and most chronic problems of modern economies (scarcity of available to spend individual income and price and asset inflation), eliminating the single uneconomic structural barrier to moving forward toward ecological sanity (eliminating private finance and its “common sense” assertion that species and planetary survival is “too expensive”), and beginning a mass movement to get these paradigm changing policies and structural problems implemented seems like a more rational strategy for actual change. To paraphrase an old Buddhist saying: The longest journey begins by actually taking the first temporal universe step.

Correct. What is required is the elimination of private money creation and an evolution of profit making systems by basing it on the unimpeachable natural philosophical ethic of grace AKA as love in action/policy. Too simple for the erudite, too unscientific for the terminally scientifically orthodox and too bold for the hide bound conservative.

Define and do a thorough exegesis of the aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace until you cognite on its utterly integrative, intellectually inclusive and psychologically transformational nature….and you’ll not only have found the way out of the confusing non-survival legerdemain of economics, the money system and the ecological problem but the way home to your self.

KZ:  Today there is as much, if not more consensus among scientists about global climate change as there was 300 years ago about the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of motion. Polling shows that majorities of “ordinary” people in the USA, Europe, Asia, etc. accept the conclusions of this science. Yet around the world opposition to the science of climate change is well funded, unyielding, and denies the science at the highest levels of government and science. What explains this if science is, as many of us were taught in school just telling us the facts? The “school” explanation of science needs to be reconsidered. If scientific knowledge is like all knowledge, socially produced — and thus partial, fallible, contingent — science can no longer – in fact, never could – assert any sort of absolute grasp on “reality.” But the common culture of the modern era included the belief that by following the scientific method, scientists were able to arrive at objective facts that transcended their human origins. In his widely read, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” the physicist-turned philosopher Thomas Kuhn considerably weakened the Whig interpretation of science by showing how historical developments were governed by contingency and debate. The Social Studies of Science and Technology (SST) 30 years later points out the traditional view of science seems to be little more than a self-serving fiction. Observations of day-to-day research — what SST terms science in the making — appear not so much as a stepwise progression toward rational truth as a disorderly mass of stray observations, inconclusive results, and fledgling explanations. Far from merely discovering facts, scientists seem to be, as Latour and Woolgar wrote in “Laboratory Life,” “in the business of being convinced and convincing others.” During the process of arguing over uncertain data, scientists conspicuously announce they are, in some essential sense, always speaking for the facts; and yet, as soon as their propositions are turned into indisputable statements and peer-reviewed papers — what SST calls ready-made science — they claim that such facts had always “spoken for themselves.” That is, only once the scientific community accepts something as true are the all-too-human processes behind it effectively erased or, as SST says, black-boxed. Things involved in science – instruments, equations, test results, photographs, bacterial cultures, etc. – can acquire enormous power because of the complicated network of other items, known as actors (not just scientists, but non-scientists, as well as many nonhumans), that are mobilized around it. The more socially “networked” a fact is (the more people and things involved in its production), the more effectively it could refute its less plausible alternatives. For example, argues Latour, the medical revolution commonly attributed to the genius of Pasteur should instead be seen as a result of an association between not just doctors, nurses and hygienists but also worms, milk, sputum, parasites, cows and farms. Science is “social,” then, not merely because it is performed by people (this is a reductive misunderstanding of the word “social”); rather, science is social because it brings together a multitude of human and nonhuman entities and harnesses their collective power to act on and transform the world.

The idea that we can stand back and behold nature at a distance, as something discrete from our actions, is an illusion. Humans create their cultures. By so doing they create not just their ways of life, but the ways of life of nature. Climate scientists and others invented the term Anthropocene to recognize this interaction today. Humans have become tantamount to a geological force. In his book “Down to Earth” Bruno Latour writes, “Scientists have largely looked at the problem of climate-change denial through the lens of rational empiricism that has governed their profession for centuries; many limit their domain to science, thinking it inappropriate to weigh in on political questions or to speak in an emotional register to communicate urgency. Even though the evidence in support of global warming has long been overwhelming, some scientists continue to believe that the problem of denialism can be solved through ever more data and greater public education. Political scientists, meanwhile, have shown that so-called “irrational” individuals, especially those who are highly educated, in some cases actually hold onto their opinions more strongly when faced with facts that contradict them.” Instead of accusing Trump supporters and climate denialists of irrationality, Latour argues that it is untenable to talk about scientific facts as though their rightness alone will be persuasive. In this respect, “Down to Earth” extends the sociological and anthropological analysis that SST brings to bear on scientists to the minds of antiscientific voters, looking at the ways in which the reception of seemingly universal knowledge is shaped by the values and local circumstances of those to whom it is being communicated.

It has long been taken for granted that scientific facts and entities, like cells and quarks and prions, as well as for economists, economies, firms existed “out there” in the world before they were discovered by scientists. SST argues instead that scientific facts should be viewed as a product of scientific inquiry. Facts are “networked;” stand or fall not on the strength of their inherent veracity but on the strength of the institutions and practices that produce them and make them intelligible. If this network breaks down, the facts will go with them. This explains why climate change facts have trouble surviving and neoliberal economic facts do not.

Me:  Correct Ken, and that’s why the best way to get climate deniers and neo-classical economists “off the dime” is to offer them a better self interested third alternative to the dualistic anthropocene-no anthropocene “debate”. Wisdom has always been about the third integrative and greater alternative to dualing orthodoxies, and as paradigms are the quintessential integrative phenomenon of a singular concept that defines and creates an entire plauralism/pattern the primary emphasis and activity of economics and economic theory should be on discovering and most rationally implementing the policies, regulations and structural changes of the new paradigm.

The problem with Kuhn’s analysis is it studies the mere historical process of paradigm change and not the nature and signatures of historical paradigm changes themselves. My book concisely exams both the Kuhnian signatures of imminent need for a paradigm change, and even more importantly the inherent signatures and basic operations of past accomplished paradigm changes. It shows that our current monetary, economic and ecological situation fulfill all of the imminent signs of such need for change and that the new paradigm of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting fulfills all of the signatures of historically ACCOMPLISHED paradigm change. Irony is one of the accomplished signatures of paradigm changes and although one would think that increasing the ability to consume as Monetary Gifting would do, with policies, regulations and structural changes aligned with the concept behind even the concept of the new paradigm such could actually be the means of “cutting the Gordian knot” that keeps a thorough resolution of anthropocene climate change from becoming possible.

KZ:  Craig, scientific facts are a product of scientific inquiry. Facts are “networked;” stand or fall not on the strength of their inherent veracity or connection to “reality” but on the strength of the institutions and practices that produce them and make them intelligible and useful. In other words, the network that creates and supports them. If this network breaks down, as is happening with the current broad attacks on the scientific process (not the scientific method) the facts will go with it. Western societies are on the threshold of losing science and scientists. The technicians will likely keep their jobs, but their connections to science networks is tenuous, at best.

Me:  Ken,

Correct. And I’m just trying shine a light on the new paradigm that will re-integrate economics, make it more scientific, make it and the money system serve humanity instead of enslaving it and if properly understood and thoroughly implemented enable the financing of the huge projects necessary to resolve anthropocene climate change. That’s all.

Just as important as awareness of the new paradigm and the single policy that is its expression (the 50% Discount/Rebate Monetary Policy) is the understanding that the structural problem of non-economic and illegitimate economic private finance’s money creating capabilities and its resolution via a a publicly administered non-profit national banking, financial and monetary system. There will be no permanent paradigmatic change without this latter.

Of course the tax disincentives for economic vices, tax incentices for economic virtues and regulations for ecological sanity are an ultimate purpose and objective and cannot be emphasized enough as well, but the new paradigm concept, the 50% Discount/Rebate and the new publicly administered systems must come first….in order that the ecological goals can have an underlying infrastructure that will gird and establish them.

Money is a great tool, no need to get rid of it. What we need is a philo/etho/eco-dollar and integrated economics. Integration of truths, workabilities, applicabilities and highest ethical considerations is the very process of wisdom. Call it a Wisdomics and apply the policies aligned with such thinking.

Steven Moore is an ideologue. Ideologues are linear thinkers when what is required is integrative thinking. The process of wisdom is the integration of opposites, and a paradigm being a single concept that grasps and affects an entire pattern change makes it the quintessential integration of opposites.

Conceptual opposition is a primary signature of paradigm change and Debt/Burden and Monetary Gifting are opposites. Likewise power is the ethos/zeitgeist of the age and grace as in redeemed power is its opposite. Think about it.

Thanks be to grace which is the state of the entirety of the cosmos including everything that is considered not gracious, because without a concept of imperfection how could we accurately assess grace which is the perfection of the cosmos itself…..including imperfection in order to have complete knowledge?

…always a new awareness. It’s “Oh yeah, staying in one place and practicing animal husbandry and rising crops is a superior and more abundant way to survive than nomadic hunting and gathering!” It’s “Oh yeah, the sun is the center of the universe not the earth?” It’s “Oh yeah, machine production of information is far more productive and generally informative than handwritten production is.” And it’s also in the present case, “Oh yeah, Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting is a more humane, more equitably distributive and more fair and sane way to distribute money and make the economy and money systems function and serve us than the current paradigm of Debt Only.

…scarcity of actually available individual income NOT total money in the system. The system requires lots of money circulating in order to pay the costs of enterprise, but the solution to the economy’s balkiness is found in making individual income abundant without causing inflation. And that is precisely what the 50% discount/rebate policy does in spades.

The cosmos flows. It cannot be stopped….except for a moment, a conscious exquisitely powerful, enlightening and empowering moment.

Being actual you are inextricably embedded in the flow of the cosmos, and if you try to stop flowing with it the absolutely necessity of embracing its flow rapidly becomes apparent. Try to stop breathing. Even cheat and take a deep breath first. Soon you will realize that the flow of your breath inward and outward is the most important thing to you….in the entire cosmos.

Becoming conscious of your breath, your breathing in every moment as it flows and as the necessary and relaxing experience it is can help you to enjoy and place things in their proper perspective. It can also help you understand how consciously enforcing or unconsciously allowing non-flow is contrary to the deepest reality of the cosmos and has negative effects. The money system and how it affects the economy is an excellent example. It being everything, abundance is an aspect of the cosmos. Thus an abundance of money strategically produced and modulated and regulated toward rational purposes and goals will create flow and even effortless free flowingness which approaches the ideal state of the cosmos. Creating abundance in the money system and economy approaches this state of free flowingness and enables Man the freedom to choose to regulate that abundance in a way that recognizes the other realities on earth that being a closed system must be respected.

Radical uncertainty is obviously true, but so what? If you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve done your due diligence etc. you act. The thing to do in economics or any problematic situation in any other body of knowledge is not get obsessed with problems, but search for a relevant and new solution. Orthodoxy is a trap and obsessive iconoclasm is probably an even more devilish trap.

The actual operation of all new paradigms are basically very simple, but visualizing the new paradigm is almost impossible without first finding the new concept that defines it. After that is recognized the rest of policy formation is a straightforward rational process. Of course you have to wade through and endure all manner of being ignored, doubt, misunderstanding, non-comprehension, orthodox invalidation, heterodox timidity and mankind’s penchant for reforms and palliatives instead of the freedom of actual solutions. You have to live and advocate bravely and with as little ego reaction to the aforementioned mental shortcomings as possible.